47 pages • 1 hour read
Amos TutuolaMy Life in the Bush of Ghosts
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1954A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 9-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “On My Way to the 9th Town of Ghosts”
On his way to his next location, the narrator stops to sleep in a tree, but he wakes up to a ghost knocking on the tree. The ghost appears to be as “corpulent as a pregnant woman” almost ready to give birth (52), and he has an eye in the middle of his forehead as well as legs twisted like a rope with feet pointing “sharply” left or right. The boy refuses to get out of the tree until the ghost shows him a group of ghosts surrounding the tree. They shake the tree until the boy falls out, and they carry him to “the 9th town of ghosts” (54). When the ghosts breathe, he hears different animal sounds, like pigs, frogs, and dogs. When they arrive at their town, they place the narrator in a dark, doorless room underground filled with snakes, as many ghost towns are.
The room transforms into a pitcher, and the boy changes form to fit inside the pitcher. His neck grows longer and wider, as does his head. The ghosts beat the boy’s head with a stick, and he begins to feel hungry. He sees the same kinds of food his mother would make him in front of him, but he is unable to move his head and neck to get this food. After attempting to reach the food, his mouth turns into a beak before he can eat. He cries, but his cries sound like those of a small bird. The next morning, the ghosts feed sheep, goat, and fowl meat to the boy, who is still in the pitcher. The ghosts pour the blood of these animals on his head and continue to beat him with the stick. However, they also worship him by feeding him meat. The boy spends the next few months in this pitcher in the center of several intersecting roads, and ghosts from other towns come to worship him as if he is a god.
Chapter 10 Summary: “River-Ghosts. Gala-Day Under the River”
One night, a ghost places the boy into a bag and takes him to the town of the “river-ghosts.” The ghost places the narrator before the chief ancestor and his town’s gods. The chief sacrifices a ram, pours the ram’s blood over the narrator’s head, and has the boy eat the meat. The river-ghosts are glad the boy eats because their other gods do not. The narrator says that these ghosts “hate the heavenly God most and love earthly gods most” (61). If any of the ghosts ask their chief ancestor for a request, the chief ancestor looks to the boy for permission. However, if the boy doesn’t give his permission, the chief ancestor claims that he doesn’t need permission in the first place. The boy drinks animal blood instead of water, attracting many flies that cover his entire body.
Eventually, the ghosts clean the boy up for a celebration. As the celebration goes on, the narrator smokes tobacco that can only be found in the bush of ghosts, and he becomes intoxicated. Then, he gains the attention of all the ghosts by singing “earthly songs” from his home. The chief ancestor wants to present the boy to the “King of the Bush of Ghosts,” but the king lives in the 20th town of ghosts, which is far away from the river-ghosts’ town. The boy sits on top of a coconut tree, and the chief ancestor grows wings in place of his arms. He flies the boy and the coconut tree to the king.
Chapter 11 Summary: “In the 20th Town of Ghosts”
They reach the 20th town of ghosts in two hours, where H.M. (His Majesty) the King of the Bush of Ghosts lives, and the narrator immediately begins to sing and dance for the ghosts. They place the narrator inside a doorless house so other ghosts cannot steal him as they await “Gala-Day,” which is a celebration of the gods. They feed the narrator sheep, and, later that night, a ghost splits the house in two pieces and eats the boy’s sheep. This ghost, who is not from the 20th town, places the boy on his head and takes him to the gate of the town. However, the gatekeeper challenges the ghost, and the ghosts begin to fight each other. They both use their juju. The gatekeeper uses his juju to switch between day and night whenever he wants, but he eventually runs out. The other ghost uses his juju to become more powerful, and he beats the gatekeeper to the ground, which causes him to accidentally kick the pitcher that holds the boy. The pitcher breaks, and the boy returns to his natural form. He runs into the bush covered in rotten blood, and his clothes, which his mother wove, are torn into rags.
The boy stops running once the sun rises and rests. He finds animal skin from a dead animal, and he takes it with him to eventually wear. He discovers a pond, but he realizes that there are signs of ghosts nearby, including soap sitting at the edge of the pond. Mindful of this, the boy cautiously cleans himself, but he begins to feel incredibly cold. He lays under the sun until he is dry and wears the animal skin. The narrator finds a hole in a tree to sleep in, but he does not know that the hole belongs to an armless ghost, whose town has cast him out. When the ghost discovers the boy in his tree, he wakes him up and accuses him of stealing. The ghost calls for help, and the boy attempts to run away. However, over 1,000 ghosts attempt to stop him from escaping. He continues to run away and hears a voice telling him not to “smash” them.
The boy runs into the “talking-land” to escape the herd of ghosts chasing him. However, this takes him to another bush, “which was more dreadful than the ‘talking-land’” (74). When he enters the new bush, alarms begin to sound, and the ghosts chasing him get closer. However, the narrator runs into a young “ghostess,” who he deems to be the ugliest “creature” he has ever seen, so ugly that she cannot live in any ghost towns. He chases her to try to look at her more closely, and she laughs as she runs away. The alarms continue to sound and draw the other ghosts closer to him. He rests for a moment and realizes that his desire to see her ugliness outweighs his fear of the ghosts trying to kill him. However, the other ghosts catch up to him, and he must run out of this bush and away from the ghostess to get away from them.
Chapter 12 Summary: “In the Spider’s Web Bush”
The narrator runs into a bush filled with spider webs that the ghosts chasing him are not allowed to enter. The narrator becomes wrapped up like “a chrysalis” and dangles in the air. The ghosts that live in this bush only eat spiders. When one of these ghosts finds the boy, he believes him to be his dead father, so he takes the boy to his home for a burial. A carpenter ghost makes a coffin for the boy, who the entire town believes to be the ghost’s dead father. The narrator questions if there is anyone who can save him, and he decides to pray to God to be saved.
A resurrectionist ghost saves the boy in the middle of the night, and he takes the boy into the bush, intending to eat spiders and the narrator. The ghost worries that another ghost will discover that he stole the boy, and he runs to a secluded area in the bush. He attempts to cook the boy over a fire, but he is unable to get sufficient flames to successfully cook the narrator. Then, two ghosts discover the narrator and the ghost who stole him. The resurrectionist is angry that he will have to share the boy, but he sends the other two ghosts to get more wood to build a bigger fire. However, the ghosts argue, and they all leave to get more firewood. The boy escapes and finds shelter in the pouch of a big animal. The animal wakes up without the boy knowing and takes him to the 13th town of ghosts as he sleeps.
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Short Ghosts and Their Flash-Eyed Mother”
When the animal arrives at the 13th town of ghosts, the short ghosts who live there shoot the animal. As they skin the animal, they scrape the narrator’s foot, and he wakes up. One of the ghosts pulls the narrator out of the pouch, and they take him to their “flash-eyed mother” (86). The mother stays in the center of their town, which is six miles in circumference and is well-kept. The heads of dead animals lay around the woman, and she appears to have millions of baby heads with hands on her body. Her eyes shoot flashes of fire when they are opened, and she whips any of the ghosts who offend her. She burns the narrator with her eyes, and he cries out, which causes her to realize that he is an earthly person.
The flash-eyed mother gives the narrator a chance to live among them, and they give him a gun to hunt animals. He learns that all the animals they kill are given to her, and she and the heads on her body eat all the meat, and the short ghosts eat the bones. The woman is covered with urine and waste from the heads on her body, and she does not bathe. The ghosts and the narrator rebel against the mother because they are starving, and they decide to stop hunting. She threatens to burn them to death if they do not bring her any food. They kill a “ghosts’ animal” that is as big as an elephant and as fatty as a pig so that there is enough meat for the short ghosts after the flash-eyed mother is satisfied with her meal. The mother has an alarm that she sounds to wake up the ghosts daily, which serves as their cue to line up in front of her to receive rations before they go hunting. The heads on the mother’s body are always making noises and telling the mother to keep her eyes away from them.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Barbing Day in the Town of Short Ghosts”
The narrator learns that the short ghosts as well as the heads on the mother receive a haircut “once in a century” when the “‘Secret Society of Ghosts’ festival is near” (94). Their hair is dirty and thick like weeds. The barber is a “fire creature” who uses “clippers of fire” to cut their hair (94). The narrator, who was initially excited to receive a haircut, fears he will be in pain, and he questions how the ghosts do not feel the fire on their heads during their haircuts. He also sees many insects, such as beetles and bees, living inside their hair. When half of the ghosts receive their haircuts, the mother sends them out to hunt, and the narrator sneaks off with them. He also learns that the mother sells the “flash fire of her eyes” to other ghosts from various towns for a high price (95).
Chapter 15 Summary: “I Become an Aggressor for Ghosts”
After the narrator spends three years with the short ghosts, the flash-eyed mother receives a warrant for the narrator from the town he previously escaped. She decides to go to war against this town, and she asks the soldiers from “Wraith-Island,” as well as other creatures like the “Invisible and Invincible Pawn” (96), who is the flash-eyed mother’s child. The narrator, who has now been inside the bush of ghosts for 18 years, sees the mother stand up for the first time, and more heads are revealed on her body. The ghosts go to war for three full days and nights. Many on both sides lose their heads, including the narrator, and, after the war ends, the “‘Invisible and Invincible Pawn’” starts placing heads on ghosts. The narrator receives a head that is not his own, and this head starts to reveal lies about the narrator to the flash-eyed mother, including the narrator’s desire to run away. The mother and the short ghosts begin to resent the narrator for causing the war. He receives his true head back from “‘the faithful mother’ […] of the ‘white tree’” (99), who remains faithful to all creatures and not just the ghosts. The narrator starts to explore more of the land during his hunting trips, with the intention to eventually escape this town.
Chapters 9-15 Analysis
Throughout this section, the narrator’s physical form shifts, which allows him to experience more of the magical and spiritual elements of the bush of ghosts. For example, when the ghosts believe him to be a god, they place him at a crossroads and perform animal sacrifices for his benefit:
Having reached there the first thing they did was that the whole of them surrounded me, then all were singing, beating drums, clapping hands, ringing bells and dancing round me for a few minutes before they killed all the domestical animals which they brought before me and poured the blood of these animals on to my head which ran to the long neck and then into the pitcher in which the rest of my body was (57).
This passage illustrates not only the narrator’s confinement but also the traditional belief systems of the ghosts, which share similarities with human beliefs. Animal sacrifices play an important role in Yoruba culture and belief systems as well as in other traditional African belief systems and cultures. This alignment of practice illustrates the Connection Between the Physical and Spiritual. The narrative demonstrates how rituals connect practitioners to their spiritual beliefs while also illustrating how these practices emerge from the cultural folklore and mythology passed down throughout generations. The passage also narratively illustrates the confinement of the narrator within the spiritual world as he attempts to find his way back home. As a human, the narrator does not have the same power and magic as the ghosts, so he is at the ghosts’ mercy when they capture him. The contortion of his body keeps him trapped within the pitcher, and he must attempt to not only reconcile with his confinement but also continue to develop his sense of self as his body physically changes.
During this section, the narrator also learns about H.M. the King of the Bush of Ghosts, who presides over all the ghost towns, increasing narrative tension while further aligning the ghost world’s political structures with the human world. The narrator never physically encounters the king, who resides at “the capital for all the towns” (64), but the king does maintain a presence throughout the rest of the text. The insertion of the king provides even more complexity to the bush of ghosts as its political and social structures increasingly mirror those of the human world. Despite the magical and fantastical elements of the bush, the addition of these structures create familiarity, drawing connections between Yoruba folklore and the political reality of African countries during colonialization. The threat of an overarching king who is never physically seen creates mystery and fear within the narrator. Tutuola creates suspense through the king and draws parallels between this world and the human world.
The narrator’s continual engagement with the social structures of the different towns in which he visits also reflects the narrative’s ambiguous though linear depiction of time. For example, in the 13th town of ghosts with the short ghosts and the flash-eyed mother, the narrator assimilates into their community by becoming a hunter for the flash-eyed mother. However, he quickly learns of the social class order in which the hunters serve the flash-eyed mother, and he views the hunters as “soldiers” who appear before “an officer” (93). This military metaphor creates a clear distinction in the hierarchy of this town. Furthermore, this moment foreshadows the eventual war that will break out between the ghosts because of the narrator’s escape from the 20th town of ghosts. Living with the short ghosts and the flash-eyed mother, the narrator develops hunting skills that will ultimately allow him to better survive skills in the bush. The narrator’s experience in the 13th town also serves to illustrate the passage of time. Having lived with the short ghosts for three years, the narrator’s ability to coexist with the ghosts allows him to spend expanded periods of time with them before he decides to resume his journey back home, aligning with the theme of The Bildungsroman Journey in Non-European Literature. Apart from these few clear indications of how much time has passed for the narrator, the narrative rarely explicitly illustrates the passage of time, increasing narrative suspense. Because the narrator only recounts certain events of his time in the bush, the passage of time does not always appear straightforward, even though the narrative is linear.
