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1982 novel by Ntozake Shange From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo is a 1982 novel written by Ntozake Shange and first published by St. Martin's Press. The novel, which took eight years to complete,[2] is a story of three Black sisters, whose names give the book its title, and their mother. The family is based in Charleston, South Carolina, and their trade is to spin, weave, and dye cloth; unsurprisingly, this tactile creativity informs the lives of the main characters as well as the style of the writing. Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo integrates the whole of an earlier work by Shange called simply Sassafrass, published in 1977 by Shameless Hussy Press.[3] As is common in Shange's work, the narrative is peppered with interludes that come in the form of letters, recipes, dream stories and journal entries, which provide a more intimate approach to each woman's journey toward self-realization and fulfillment. The book deals with several major themes, including Gullah/Geechee culture, women in the arts, the Black Arts Movement, and spirituality, among many others.
![Thumb](#/media/File:"Sassafrass,_Cypress_&_Indigo"_—_Ntozake_Shange,_first_edition_book_cover.jpg) Book dedication: "Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo is dedicated to all women in struggle."[1] | |
| Author | Ntozake Shange |
|---|---|
| Genre | Novel |
| Published | 1982 |
| Publication place | USA |
| Pages | 224 pp (1982 hardcover) 207 pp (2010 paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-312-69971-9 (1982 hardcover) 978-0-312-54124-8 (2010 paperback) |
| PS3569.H3324 S2 1982 | |
| Preceded by | For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf |
| Followed by | Betsey Brown |
The story starts with Indigo, the youngest daughter of the family, sitting among her beloved hand-made dolls, which each have names and personalities that emerge over the course of the novel. Before the reader learns much about the other sisters or mother, Indigo begins menstruating, is gifted an old fiddle by Uncle John, and consequently initiated into a cult-like group of pre-adolescent boys called the Jr. Geechee Captains. Indigo's first section is full of informal mappings, remedies, and tales such as "Moon Journeys: cartography by Indigo"[1] and "To Rid Oneself of the Scent of Evil: by Indigo".[1] Soon, some of those cartographies are replaced by recipes as the family prepares for and celebrates Christmas, with the ever-present spirit of Daddy, the girls' father, wafting through their annual traditions. Sassafrass and Cypress are back from school in New England and New York City, respectively, and the reader won't see the four women together again until the very last pages of the book.
The reader next meets Sassafrass in Los Angeles, where she lives with Mitch, a struggling and self-destructive jazz saxophonist. Sassafrass is working to find her creative niche, still weaving and cooking, but pining to get to an artists' colony in New Orleans. She eventually leaves Mitch in LA, moving to San Francisco to live with her younger sister Cypress. Sassafrass exists on the periphery of Cypress' bright and full world for some time, planning to dance and write in hopes of regaining herself outside of Mitch's abuse. After a while, Sassafrass returns to LA and Cypress decides to pursue a professional dance career, which eventually lands her back in New York City.
There, the middle sister finds community among feminist and/or lesbian dance collectives, along with a new way of expressing through her body. Idrina, along with Ixchell, Laura, Celine and others, become important characters in Cypress' image of herself, and after breaking off an intense romantic relationship with Idrina, the dancer found herself unmoving and frequenting late-night dive bars. Coincidentally, in one of those bars Cypress found Leroy McCullough, an old musician friend from San Francisco. After a fateful night together, Cypress and Leroy seemingly reinvigorate each other's creativity, living and loving together until Leroy leaves for a summer European tour. During Leroy's absence, Cypress revisits Idrina and recounts an arguably post-apocalyptic dream where women are punished for childbirth and men are locked away.
During that same summer, Cypress joins a dance company that raises money to support the Civil Rights Movement and Leroy asks to marry her before she starts on her first tour with the group. The reader is then taken back into Sassafrass’ world, where she has been living in The New World Found Collective with Mitch for over a year. There, Sassafrass is undergoing the process of initiation into santería as Mitch slips further into a downward spiral. To shake the bad spirit of her man, Sassafrass performs a sort of exorcist as the deity Oshun came into her body and she decides to return home to the South, without Mitch.
Finally, the reader re-enters Indigo’s spheres, where she has been studying violin and midwifery in her Charleston town. Sassafrass has come home and is in labor, with Indigo delivering the baby and Cypress and Mama close at hand, coaxing "a free child"[1] into their world.
Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo is set in Charleston, South Carolina, with major influences from the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The Sea Islands, comprising over 100 land masses along the southeastern coast of the United States are home to Gullah culture, sometimes also referred to as Geechee culture. The Gullah represent a unique community of African-descendant Americans; since slaves of various African ethnic groups were brought to the region, they remained relatively isolated from the rest of the contiguous 50 states and developed a distinct culture that included a creolized language and distinguishable africanisms.[4] The slaves brought to the Sea Islands, who were primarily from western Africa, particularly Sierra Leone, cultivated rice, indigo, and cotton on the islands as early as the 17th century.[5] Since then, a culture based on agriculture and featuring several direct links to an African heritage has developed and sustained these communities; their language, use of African names, rice-based cuisine, and reliance on African folktales and craftwork all connect them to the African continent in a way unlike any other region in the United States.[4]
Notably, Gullah communities privileges what is often deemed "women's work" by Western standards — weaving, cooking, and storytelling are all key elements of Gullah life and this female-centered culture greatly inform Shange's feminist writing in the novel.[6] Gullah culture also emphasizes the potential for symbiosis between human life and the natural world, contributing to the important Gullah value of self-sufficiency.[6] The oral and physical knowledge passed down from generation to generation include recipes, remedies, and tales of various natural or supernatural events that both link Gullah culture to Africa and distinguish its isolation within American culture.[6] Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo borrows from these traditions and reflects an emphasis on the role of women in a society’s functioning, particularly through the sharing of recipes and ways of taking care of oneself and others.[7]
Gullah culture paired with influences from the Black Arts Movement create the cultural context for the novel (Artistic Expression). Shange employs Gullah culture as a point of departure for understanding these women’s lives in the late 20th century and historicizes their experiences as artists against the backdrop of the Black Arts Movement, which "asserted blackness as a countercultural force in opposition to the Eurocentric ideology of white supremacy",[8] but often excluded women from its mainstream.[8] In addition, Shange’s reliance on music, particularly jazz, also reflects a harkening back to the Black Arts Movement, where distinctly "black" forms such as jazz were celebrated.[9] While these influences inform the content of the novel, they are also reflected in Shange’s prose and structural choices, demanding a new kind of reading from her audiences[10]
In The Boston Phoenix, Carolyn Clay wrote that "Shange has filled this fragmented, magical book with (as one of her own colored girls might put it) 'alla her stuff': poetry and pain, music and dancing, life in the fast lane that runs between California and New York, mystical powers passed down from the Geechees, letters from home, recipes permeated with the flavor of the South. And does she know how to strut her stuff. This is a showy novel, yet one without affectation."[11]
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