Yordan Arroyo Carvajal (in English)

Introduction

Nancy Banard (b. 1974) is a writer of African descent whose poetic work engages a dialogue between her profession as a psychoanalyst and her interest in ethnic reclamations, among them, the Yoruba religion. From this perspective, her texts reveal her interest in several universal myths, such as the case of her dramatic monologue “Medea: get up and walk” (2022), to which, in this essay we aim to apply the concept of kataphigé, proposed by Arroyo (2024) and originally formulated in Plato’s Phaedo (99e). Through this verb katapheígo, we can observe an internal struggle that seeks refuge through the logic of those who fight against their shadows. In Arroyo’s analysis, Medea, the poetic voice in Mía Gallegos’s poem “La voz que conduce el coche” (1983), functions as an alter ego that represents personal growth or spiritual transcendence, similar to what happens in the dramatic monologues of Nancy Banard (2022) and “Medea” (2002 / 2005) by Claribel Alegría. In this regard, Claudia Botero attests to this statement in the first pages of El tigre y el Pavo Real (a collection of poems written by two authors and from which the text I analyze here is extracted): 

poetry serves to speak peacefully of the war that exists in our subconscious and to give light and presence to the mother of all darkness that inhabits us […] This war has been forged for millennia, so we must be warriors to confront it […] Both the darkness and light must coexist inside of us. Both Eros and Thanatos or Ying and Yang in perfect conjugation and harmony. (p. 6)

It is precisely this internal struggle against the shadows that is visible in Banard’s dramatic monologue, in which she uses the disguise of the Princess of the Colchis in a quite unique rewriting of the traditionally known versions of Medea in Hispanic literature²:

Medea: get up and walk

What would become of a sorceress
without the alchemy of resurrection 
-Nana kept telling me, 
while forming a circle 
of black pepper with the broom. 

She spread the ashes of eggshells,
and sang:
Blood moon
distills the crows,
soaked in mud
the feet of the corpse.

Old bodies 
with new robes, 
awaken the bones
from the bottom of the sea.

Nana was spitting alcohol that stoked 
the fire of the circle,

as she repeated:
“Under the unholy land of Nod,
a woman is always marginal
until she ceases to be,
a woman is always stateless
until she ceases to be.”
No Black woman of mine killed her daughter!
She roared.

I collapsed to my knees, 
so that she would know that I was not hiding 
a single truth.

Euripides lies, — I shouted —, 
Cain’s tongue,
Abraham’s dagger.

Nana,
three lifetimes ago I cut off the hands 
of a man who took me by force 
while I plucked a chicken.
I spit in the face of he who wanted to 
tie my body to a mast at dawn. 

It is true,
I abandoned my father 
after he abandoned me
during the closed pain of the hours.
I killed my brother 
after he sold me three times 
for the golden fleece, 
in a brief sunset.

But my daughters,
I have filled their hair with basil,
of coconut oil and honey.
Pure ginger kisses
tobacco prayers.
Coffee, coconut
and all of Jezebel’s stories.

It was Jason, my God!
He took my life.

Nana looked at Oya’s buffaloes in my pupils,
three times he slammed his staff against the wall.

She bellowed in her tongue the names 
Oshún 
Yemanyá
Erzulie Dantor
Babba Yaga
Lilith
Kali
And finally San José.

No Black woman of mine killed her daughter! 
She roared

Light and Sun,
that slept between
the pepper circle on fire
and the dark silken swamp,
they took a big deep breath,
they spit fish out of their eyes, nose and mouth.

Talitha Cumi!
Nana Buruku
She howled.

The three of us left in a carriage
with an inscription that read… 

“Medea:
Never trust again,
in the Father
nor in his Son 
nor in the Holy Spirit, Jason.” 
Amen.

In: El tigre y el pavorreal, 2022, pp. 14-16.

The reconstruction of archetypes through Yoruba religion.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of Nancy Banard’s poem “Medea: Get up and walk” (2022) is the reconstruction of certain archetypes within the narrative frameworks around the myth of Medea that were considered canonical prior to the 20th century, and whose uses, many of which can be found in Hispanic American poetry, are particularly hybrid or mestizo (formation of diasporas). Since approximately 1960 (Miranda, 2014), contemporary works establish relations or dialogisms between Greek, pre-Hispanic, African, and Christian cultures in different contexts. Also, as argued by Arroyo (2024), from the 1980s onwards, the incorporation of elements of mass culture linked to this myth increases: the “VII” tarot card (esotericism), real-life scenarios (Medea syndrome) or allusions to it in films, such as Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier’s magnificent creation in 1988 and its appearance in the poem “Medea, the adaptation of Lars von Trier” (2015) by the Argentine poet Tania Ganitsky.  

Regarding the influence of Christianity, starting from the title of the poem there is a direct reference to the Gospel (22-23):

But Jesus, knowing their thoughts well, answered them, saying, What are you thinking in your hearts? Is it easier to say: “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up and walk”? And well! May you know that the Son of Man has authority on Earth to forgive sins – he said to the paralyzed person: I say to you: get up, take your stretcher and go home (emphasis added).  

This reference, rather than responding to the Judeo-Christian context as commonplace, is reformulated within the paradigms of the Yoruba religion, a space in which Banard seems to manage finding refuge, or καταφυγή. For this reason, it is necessary for an active reader to have previous knowledge about the Awó religion (referring to the unknown and mysterious world), which, although it resists and persists today, is one of the most attacked belief systems by Christianity and Islam³.

The ideas explained above help us understand v. 1 of Banard’s poem, in which we can identify one of the main archetypes of Medea, that of sorcery, which is reinforced previously by Pindar in Pythias (IV)⁴. From the first stanza of this Costa Rican text, through the rhetorical device of the question, the negative connotations around magic aim to be reverted to African cosmovisions: “What would become of a sorceress⁵ / without the alchemy of resurrection (2022, vv. 1-2). This question is articulated by Nana, a goddess of the Yoruba religion⁶ who is typically known as the great mother or grandmother. Therefore, in line with the contributions of Lleonart, Thompson, Bárcenas and Llorente (2014) -although they do not mention her explicitly-, she can be considered a kind of Orisha: an expression of Olodumare and a good force of nature that is part of the Yoruba pantheon. In fact, each person has their own Orisha that is in charge of marking their identity. Nana represents the most important mechanism of καταφυγή in Banard’s poem, because she serves as a motif to expel her version of Medea (the author’s beneficent alter ego) from the shadows. 

According to Fernandez (2008), the elders are the bridge of communication between orun (the world of spirits and divinities) and society. In addition, magic is very important in African religions, for without it there would be no communication between humans and nature: an expression of Olodumare. In turn, it allows the development of the Iwa Pelé, which is achieved by:

practicing patience, composure, wisdom, peace and truth, chastity, hospitality, kindness, lack of selfishness and evil, righteousness, honesty, protection of women and respect for elders, and integrity, in order to achieve both internal balance and balance with the universe, and fulfill the destiny on Earth agreed to by Olodumare before reincarnation. (Fernández, 2008, p. 98)

Note that the anthropological tradition in writer and psychoanalyst Nancy Banard’s poetry refers the reader to African religions, known as religions of lineage. For example, in the Yoruba religion there is a belief in reincarnation into some other relative considered to be good. The person never dies, because in addition to being part of the family, the ancestor reappears deified, offering advice, taking the shape of any living matter (without believing in animism: inanimate objects can also be inhabited by spirits. What the object represents is worshiped, not the object itself), and therefore, the reincarnated should be worshiped because they were grateful beings with Olodumare, they worked their “moral” or “humanist” character of good coexistence, regeneration of energies, balance, harmony with the environment and quality of life, becoming and reappearing in some exemplary being or in several exemplary beings of the family.⁷

Moreover, in this context, the words “alchemy” and “resurrection” in v. 2 refer to a transformation that is part of a ritual and also to the Yoruba religion, which, according to Fernández (2008), holds the belief that everything has life⁸, even the dead. Furthermore, it was vital to worship the ancestors since death is not the end of life, but the separation between orun and ayé (the spiritual world and the material world). The idea that he who survives in memory does not die is one of the main features of the καταφυγή in this poem and has parallels with literary works within the mystical tradition. Thus, worship is indispensable. Alchemy refers to the metamorphosis from the material to the spiritual (the essence of life). 

In this regard, for the babalawo (a priest, father of mystery) Ifá Aremú, interviewed by Fernández (2008), in his grandmother’s rituals (Ifá), he saw a source of primitive knowledge, of thought, of philosophy, something that was (according to scholars) even more complex and profound than that of many other cultures, which has been connected with Egyptian knowledge traditions. For this very reason, for him to move away from this world was to contaminate himself with civilization, where true darkness is found.⁹

It is quite clear that Nana’s protagonism works to protect this Hispanic version of Medea and as such, reaffirms that sorcery has sacred semantics, especially in African religions of lineage. Even the poetic voice says that Nana “formed a circle of black pepper with the broom” (vv. 4-5). Pijoan (2004) argues that pepper is a very important condiment in food as well as part of the rituals in the Yoruba religion. Likewise, the use of the broom refers to the traditional imaginary of the witch, although not based in an evil and western archetype but rather as a kind of priestess or sacred counselor.  

On the other hand, if there are still doubts that the first stanza presents the preparation of a ceremony of worship or ritual for the dead, which is very typical in traditional African religions (Fernández, 2008, p. 86), the second stanza proves it, since the poetic voice expresses how the goddess Nana continued to use food, eggshells this time, and sings: “Moon of blood / distills the crows, / soaked in mud / the feet of the corpse” (vv. 8-11). And in the following verses she asks to awaken “the bones / from the bottom of the sea” (vv. 14-15). 

In this case, within the same religious aesthetic (the African diaspora), Fernández (2008) suggests that song is vital because music in the Yoruba religion is the primitive language that manages to communicate with the living and the dead (use of symbolic language: “crows,” “corpse,” “bones from the bottom of the sea”). In other words, it is the ceremonial pathway to acquire ancestral knowledge¹⁰ through cyclical rituals. It is for this reason that the word “circle” appears three times in the poem, specifically in v. 4, v.17 and v. 69. In addition to the symbolism of the number three, a perfect number according to Gauding (2009) in that it represents the communication between heaven, earth and the underworld. For Lurker (1973 / 1998), the number three projects the three lunar phases that happen a process is fulfilled. Thus, the song delves into the most primitive part of being and clings to the primitive nature to achieve that essential point of contact between the material and the spiritual in order to free itself from the shadows. 

However, according to Fernández (2008), this religious ontology has caused many churches in the United States, fraught with total ignorance and excessive prejudice, to consider the Yoruba religion a Satanic religion. This idea has formed part of the logic that has annihilated many Africans, among them, the more than ten million slaves and their descendants¹¹, who were brought to the so-called “New World” to suffer strong and violent campaigns of racism¹². And despite this philosophical, religious, epistemic, linguistic and cultural extermination, African religions have syncretized with Western religions, like Greek mythology itself with other mythologies and cultures. Likewise, this religious syncretism that has given way to santería is not only noticeable in the poem analyzed here, but also in the spiritual, mythological, anthropological and psychic maneuvering in much of Banard’s poetry. 

This is evident in the fifth stanza, where the reader is referred to the land of Nod, which appears for the first time in “Genesis” chapter 4, verse 16 of the Bible: “Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” According to this passage, he was located to the east of Eden, which was thought to have been Cain’s refuge after Yahvé (God in the Christian religion) was angry and punished him with exile for Abel’s murder (Cain’s brother in the Judeo-Christian genealogy). 

Moreover, the mention of this land in Banard’s poem is necessary because the biblical passage reminds us that human beings are condemned to a life of exile and foreignness¹³. In this regard, the condition of marginality is one of the archetypes used by various authors thinking through the myth of Medea (starting with Euripides’ version she already appears as a foreigner and stateless person). Such is also the case of Medea Stimmen (1996) by Christa Wolf. This text also incorporates the theme of racism in Germany¹⁴ and, from this point of view, Nod represents the land of the one who is condemned to live, perhaps eternally, as an Other. And here the use of the adverb “perhaps” is necessary, because as Banard’s poem puts it, “In the unholy land of Nod, / a woman is always marginal / until she ceases to be, / a woman is always stateless / until she ceases to be.” (vv. 19-23). 

In the aforementioned verses, the poetic voice has an eagerness to denounce those grotesque spaces where women are called marginal and stateless (Medea, in the Greek tradition, outside of Colchis). Undoubtedly, they question these places and invite us to depopulate them. Which is why, in the following verse, in reference to one of the most frequent archetypes, that of the filicidal woman, the identity of the Black woman as a subject free of “guilt” is vindicated, and thus breaks with the commonly known and perhaps more accepted imaginary prior to the 20th century: “No Black woman of mine killed her daughter!” “Euripides lies -I shouted-,” (v. 29). Moreover, as can be seen, in order to bring the poem closer to reality (the anthropological field), and with the intention of denunciation, she refers directly to the author of Greek tragedies, who is, according to Pausanias (II, 3 6-8), responsible for framing the figure of Medea as a murderous character¹⁵.

But what’s more, immediately after v. 23, Euripides’ comparison of Medea with a lioness is directly invoked (Med., v. 187; v. 1342; v. 1407, ed. 1995), since the poetic voice rejects her characterization as a murderer by roaring and therefore instantiates, as in v. 29, a dialogue. This allows the rhetorical devices to be even more diverse and the poem acquires a stronger, closer and more realistic sense of confrontation. In the same tune of unfolding archetypes, v. 26 refers to a very typical act within the Judeo-Christian religion: kneeling to beg for forgiveness. And again, in reference to the Judeo-Christian world, in vv. 30-31, Cain and Abraham (the murderer and the victim) appear again. These aspects of the text solidify the intentions of situating the archetype of Medea as a murderer, making it clear that it seems she has been judged because she is a female figure that derives from a Greek mythological tradition rather than a Judeo-Christian one.  

At the end of the biblical myth, Abraham ends up sacrificing a lamb, which he was tasked to do by Yahvé himself. His obedience resulted in his God’s happiness. Nevertheless, Banard’s verses are meant to invite the public reader to question certain things, similar to what happens in Chantal Maillard’s lengthy poem Medea (2020), whose philosophical purpose, according to her own interpretation, is to rethink the concept of “guilt.” In the case of Banard’s poem, her intention to denounce certain Judeo-Christian traditions, rife with murder, is notable. But the fact that those responsible are men, as is the case with Abraham, has allowed her, unlike Medea, to escape censorship and prejudice and include the angels, who free her from the label of “murderer,” to consider him, according to Royston (1951), within a list of exemplary men of faith who are loyal to God.  

At this point in the poem, from v. 32 to v. 37, Banard changes her style and replaces it with writing from the self (taking off one mask to put on another), presumably to feel closer to Nana, her protector, and to tell her how much she has had to suffer. The poetic voice, immersed in an interesting aesthetic proposal, makes a series of confessions, among them, having freed herself from a rapist. In this regard, breaking away from the common archetype typical in the work of Hispanic-Roman author, Seneca, of Medea as mad and vengeful, for this Medea the only way to defend herself was to cut off his hands, since they were the main weapon the rapist used to attack her body. She had to protect herself. Moreover, the hands make us think of writing as a vehicle for words, now in the voice of Medea (an alter ego) and from the perspective of a woman (Nancy Banard, no longer Euripides). 

On the other hand, the female self confesses to having spat in the face of a man who tried to tie her to a mast. This signals a notable intertextual link with canto XII of Homer’s Odyssey, where Odysseus, in one of the possible readings (the one Banard is most probably applying here through a process of interculturality), is tied to a mast in order not to be overcome by his impulsiveness, his desire to go after some supposedly seductive siren. The reference to the most celebrated Greek epic seems intentional in order to provoke an intercultural effect, since, according to Luna (2020), Yemayá is the African siren. She is considered the goddess of the ocean that gives life to all things (an idea primarily known as an attribute of the Thales of Miletus: everything derives from water), the highest Orisha (Saldivar, 2010 and Fernández Muñiz, 1993)¹⁶. She is a divinity full of love and protection, but when she gets angry she becomes a fierce and violent being, like a sea storm. We also know that there are several variants based on the type of worship. 

Based on the above data, in Banard’s poem we can appreciate a variant that differs from that of the Greek tradition. This African siren, Yemaya, is not necessarily fierce or malignant, except when angered. She is conditioned, as is Medea, for in Euripides she acts on impulse after Jason’s infidelity. However, by creating an intertextual dialogue between the image of Odysseus tied to a mast and a Medea, who did not want to be tied to a mast, the poem constructs an image of a woman empowered by her body and her desires who will not allow any man to chain her. From a stoic perspective, she has enough freedom to choose when to allow herself to be carried away or not by her impulsive desires. She even presents more mastery of her being than Odysseus. The unpacking of archetypes from Greek and Christian traditions serve as the driving force of καταφυγή, as it unveils a logic of sisterhood around what is not right for her and other women. 

It is not a coincidence that, from v. 38 to v. 45, this Yoruba Medea continues to make confessions to the goddess Nana, who is her ancestral spirit, her grandmother and, with respect to the archetype of the treacherous woman, she who abandons her father and her homeland. She says: “It is true, / I abandoned my father / after he abandoned me / during the closed pain of the hours (vv. 38-41). As we can see, the story reproduced by the most established Greek tradition is rewritten through Euripides, where we already see the abandonment of her father Aeetes and therefore the flight from her homeland, Colchis (Eur., Med., v. 166-167, ed. 1995). This Yoruba Medea no longer leaves behind a man (Jason) because her father left her an orphan¹⁷. She only wants to rebuild her life, which also implies the rupture of the traditional Judeo-Christian concept of the family (father-mother-children). 

And now, in relation to the archetype of the woman assassin, but in this case not the filicidal, but the fratricidal¹⁸ (Eur., Med., vv. 166-167), the lyric voice says: “I killed my brother / after he sold me three times / for the golden fleece, / in a brief sunset” (vv. 42-45). Again, like in the verses previously analyzed, this Yoruba Medea reverses the mythical story as it is typically told and presents her brother as a traitor who put her life at risk. Likewise, in the same verses the myth of the golden fleece appears, but through a mythical setting, as Lévi-Strauss (1996) might call it; that is, without a dialogic function and lacking any merit for analysis. 

Although it is true that at the beginning of the poem reference is made to certain foods, the poetic voice uses this device again from a religious point of view, but now through the use of the first person “I” and to present them as spiritual objects used to protect her daughters not her sons, as the Greek tradition goes¹⁹: “But to my daughters, / I have filled their hair with basil, / with coconut oil and honey. / Pure ginger kisses / tobacco prayers / Coffee, coconut / and all of Jezebel’s stories” (vv. 46-52).  

From the ontology of the Yoruba religion under which this poem is inscribed, there is a marked connection between the poetic voice and nature. This allows us to notice a high degree of Asé (spirit of all that is expressed in nature) that helps the poetic voice keep her daughters protected, because she loves them as much as she loves all that is feminine. Similarly, there is another reference to a biblical character — Jezebel — within the same aesthetic of mythical reversions of femme fatale or evil woman. But she is not only a female biblical character, she hides many syncretisms in her relation to the realms of Phoenician religion and Mesopotamian religion more broadly²⁰.

According to Noël (2003), Jezebel can be the “divinity of the Canaanites, the Babylonians, the Sidonians and the Israelites” (p. 201), she can also appear as Ball-Berith for the Carthaginians and Phoenicians, Baal Feor, Baalfegor, Beelfefor or Belfegor for the Moabites, Baal-Semen for the Phoenicians, Baal-Tsephon for the Egyptians (she was one of the few Egyptian statues that were not destroyed which increased her worship and power), Baal-Tis for the Phoenicians (goddess that is usually called sister of Astarte). In short, almost all of these cultures referred to her as the greatest divinity and linked her with the sun; she was a star of light.

This makes Jezebel’s religious significance clear as a universal feminine figure. She was the priestess of one of the most important divinities in many cultures, her name and identity were associated with aristocracy, in modern terms. Therefore, here, the most important thing to mention is that in the Judeo-Christian tradition this woman is associated with another of the traditional and historical archetypes of evil and sin, since in I Kings: 21-25 she is blamed for being responsible for leading Ahab into sin. Also in the Bible, a text full of passages of violence and misogyny, something quite normal yet not very evident for the time period, the following passages are mentioned in unfavorable ways: 3 Kings 16: 31; 4 Kings 9: 22; 3 Kings 18: 19; 3 Kings 18: 4, 13; 3 Kings 21: 7, 13; Revelation 2: 26 and in the most violent of all, 3 Kings 21-23. 

However, despite the unscrupulous denigration against this Mesopotamian mythological figure, tainted over the years by means of a “sacred” text that places her as “impious,” a “witch” [in its pejorative sense and from a more modern conception], “murderess,” “wrathful,” a “prostitute [from a modern conception],” “dog’s meat,” Banard’s poem breaks these grotesque imaginaries and presents her as a beneficent woman and protector of her daughters. 

Banard seems to know the “primitive” tradition of this priestess. In her dramatic monologue, the full weight of the imaginary of “guilt” is firmly thrown on Jason, (the use of exclamation marks heightens this intent of the message), and this Medea denounces, “It was Jason, my mother! / He took my life from me.” (vv. 53-54). After the poetic voice confesses the truths to her ancestor (Nana), she acquires more strength and power because she manages to unravel many imaginaries to which she was trapped. And precisely, this acquisitive force allows the poetic voice to switch from the personal pronoun “I” and return to a narrative tone that is more frequent in dramatic monologues. This allows her to give a more leading role to both her mother Nana and the gods of the Yoruba religion: “Nana looked at the buffaloes of Oya in my pupils, / she crashed her staff three times against the wall” (vv. 55-56). 

In the above verses we find one of the climaxes of the poem, a mother upset by the harm done to her daughter through lies. And it should be said that, also through the gaze of the Yoruba religion, this daughter is not just any victim, she is a woman who represents a very high degree of Iwá Pelé and Asé, which is why Nana saw in the pupils of her child the buffaloes of Oya. The girl must awaken her inner fury and be reborn, and fly away as a symbol of transformation.

In this regard, according to Fernández (2008), based on Johnson (1921 / 2006, pp. 26-37), Oya²¹ is one of the most adored Orishas in the Yoruba religion. She was one of the most unknown and little understood by Christianity. Among her characteristics is occasional anger, but when she isn’t, she rests in one of the rivers of Africa, which is why “Oyas” was one of the names the Yoruba use to refer to themselves. Since it is a religion of lineages, they are closer to the familiar spirits, who exist in nature. On the other hand, according to notes by Fernández (2008), Oyá is usually representative of fury, hence her linkage with the strong winds, similarly to the anger that dominated Medea, which was Euripides’ reason for calling her a lioness. Both she and her child live inside the poetic voice. 

However, in her first collection, Canción negra para niñas de cuna (2019)²², Banard doesn’t only call on African myths. She uses mythical structures from universal planes and with deep psychological grounding, that is, as heterogeneous and anthropological discourses, and which, in turn, represent the syncretisms African culture has gone through upon contact with the West. This is more emphatic and notorious in the following verses: “He bellowed in his tongue the names / Oshún / Yemanyá / Erzulie Dantor / Babba Yaga / Lilith / Kali / And lastly Saint Joseph” (Banard, 2022, vv. 57-63). 

To get into the details, the first two references of the quotation, according to Fernández (2008), based on González-Wipler (1989, p. 268), are part of the Orishas that were limited in the Americas within the realm of santería, as a reference to the seven African provinces: “Changó, Yemayá, Obatalá, Elegguá, Orula, Ochún and Oggún” (p. 96). More precisely, for Fernández (2008), Ochún is a polysemic Orisha that symbolizes the mulatto (a relevant piece of Banard’s poem, along with the protective character and ethnic vindication (African diaspora)) and is associated, among others, with fluids and liquid²³, beauty, love, pleasures and sexual desire, particularly of women²⁴; therefore, some versions introduce her as the sister of Yemayá (Castellanos and Castellanos, 1992).  

Along similar lines, with respect to the feminine world, according to data offered by Dayan (1994), Erzulie Dantor is a great divinity of love in Haitian voodoo and is very important for femininities. She is usually represented with a child in her arms and sometimes as an avenging and fearsome Black woman, since she is associated with both love and pain. In addition, several of her visual representations depict analogies with the Virgin Mary, which may have caught Banard’s attention due to her intercultural interests. 

According to Johns (2004), we can speak of Baba Yaga as a female figure who has undergone different morphological variations (as a mother, a woman who helps young people or as a witch who eats humans (a cannibal)), depending on the context and “leiv motiv” of the writer. However, it is interesting to propose an analogy with the goddess Babia, who according to Noël (2003) was revered in Syria, but mainly in Damascus. She was mainly considered the goddess of children, with those who, in the beneficent sense, were “destined for the priesthood” (p. 202). 

But, to get deeper into the possible relationship, and to discuss its dark counterpart, which gives Baba Yaga a certain ambiguity, it is necessary to say that the English “called children of tender age Babies and Italians called them bambini” (Noël, 2003, p. 202). Similarly, in León, Spain, the region of Babia is used to express being distracted (“estar en babia”), like small children tend to be. In addition, there is also a connection with “language or bable, similar to babbling: bla – ble… from the baby” (Noël, 2003, p. 202), which refers increasingly to children’s talk, reminds us of this goddess inhumanely sacrificing those infants, who through their “tantrums” or “screams” did not let their mothers live a peaceful life.

Undoubtedly, since Baba Yaga is a figure who is both helpful and a hindrance, Banard calls on her to reinforce not only the interculturality through different religious practices or affiliations and beliefs in folklore, but also to make visible, through a mythopoetic exercise, how many of the female figures in her list still carry a pejorative imaginary, such as Lilith, but now in Judeo-Christianity. 

For Noël (2003), Lilith derives from Rabbinic mythology and, according to modern Jewish legend, is Adam’s first wife; that is, before Eve. However, in this tradition, she is the unfaithful one since she abandoned him, and almost as if she were a witch, then flew away. For this reason, “she is considered a nocturnal specter, enemy of childbirth and newborns” (p. 804). Even the denigration of her name reached such limits that many modern Jews have even placed notes on their wives’ beds, and on them they wrote “the names of Adam and Eve with these words: ‘Lilith, get out of here’” (p. 804). 

Let’s go deeper into the subject. To get closer to the biblical source, for example, it is necessary to quote the passage from Isaiah 34: 14, which says: “(There) the jackals / and the wild beasts of the desert shall meet / and the satyr shall call to his fellow / Lilith will settle there / and she shall find a resting place.” Albeit indirectly, this is the only biblical passage where reference is made to Lilith’s evil and monstrous character, who is possibly being sent to one of the places associated, later, within the Christian imaginary: hell²⁵. Lilith is perhaps the first mythical figure to carry the image of the woman-demon. 

Later in Banard’s poem, she makes reference to Kali, who according to Shinoda (2001), was a goddess of Hindu mythology. She is part of the list of terrible divinities to whom gods and men only resorted when they could not defeat evil. She resembles the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet although in statues, she is usually represented as a peaceful being, contrary to Kali, who was essentially created to defeat demons. She has a “terrifying inhuman face and a woman’s body with innumerable arms” (Shinoda, 2001, p. 143), and uses one of her two right hands to scare away fear and the other to bless her faithful followers. Her body is full of ornaments and she dances on the white body of the god Shiva. In addition, her skin is black, she has very white teeth, a long tongue, blood dripping from her mouth, she has three eyes (one in the center of her face), four arms, always carries a knife in one of her two left hands, “and the severed and bloody head of a giant in the other” (Shinoda, 2001, p. 151), and is representative of transformative anger, a balance between wisdom and rage. 

Her worshippers typically know her as Kali-Ma or Ma-Kali, sacred mother, fierce protector and wife of Shiva. As mentioned above, Kali has all the traits of a woman-monster. For this reason, according to the mythical framework proposed by Harding (1993), she was born of the terrible anger of the beautiful goddess Durga. Since then, she was often seen riding a lion and carrying a sword. She was an almost invincible being. 

Kali defeated the strongest and most feared beings, who allegorically represent the inner demons of the human being. She is characterized as someone who has lost her mind, which is known, in Jungian terms, as the Kali complex; however, she regains her sanity when she receives help from Shiva. He reminds her that she is not only a being full of rage, but is someone very important to Durga, who keeps her inside, absorbs her when she is not useful to him and makes her reappear when he needs her most. The girl who lives inside the poetic voice in Banard’s poem and who in one way or another will have to come out experiences something similar because she represents many meanings, among them childhood traumas that must be released through, in this case, the myth as καταφυγή, which is a matter linked to this author’s love of archetypal feminine figures and their split personalities.

Undoubtedly, Kali is the inner warrior woman and some do not necessarily look at her as a terrible being, given that she can balance wisdom and anger, and therefore see in her a figure full of kindness and love. Such characteristics lead her to fight to the death to get ahead and not be dominated by those who try to steal her peace. However, she always appears in difficult moments and where strength and character are most needed. 

The last archetypal reference is to St. Joseph, who, according to Mancuello and Medina (2020), appears for the first time in Matthew 1:18-25; 2:13-15 and 2:19-23 when the Judeo-Christian God appears before him and he behaves as an exemplary and extremely obedient person, an archetype of excellence and respect. He is a biblical character that makes frequent appearances in Banard’s poetry (as a motif of reversion). For Herran (1982), he has been an almost forgotten figure, and given the delay in his becoming of interest, he was also less referenced in the artistic, theological and academic world. It seems to have been forgotten for a long time that he is known as the holiest of saints, second only to the Virgin Mary, his wife. He had a strong relationship with God, which is why St. Teresa of Avila considered him a Father and Lord who is foundational in the worship of the Holy Family (Mother [Mary]-Father [Joseph]-Son [Jesus Christ]). At the same time, he represents the channel through which the father of Jesus encounters the Holy Spirit through the mediation of Mary.

In light of the above, the question arises: why does Banard, after referring to six sacred women figures of different religions (or possible origins), refer to a male figure of the Judeo-Christian tradition? Well, this is most probably due to the task that St. Joseph fulfills as a communicative bridge between orun and ayé (mother [wife-material] Jesus [his son and also Yhavé’s, interception of the holy-spiritual spirit]). That said, leaving him for last could be a strategy to condemn this religion, a point that is ironically reinforced in the closing of his poem.

From this point of view, the seven archetypes as tools to invert discourses -mentioned by the author, who has an exquisite mastery of mythical categories and Yoruba religion-, allow us to question and unravel certain imaginaries that have been built up in a violent and pejorative way about woman figures, among them, one of the most considerable, and based in the Judeo-Christian religion (imposed on African cultures), is that of Lilith, who was censured for wanting to be free and for being an intelligent woman with rhetorical skills. 

The seven archetypal references in this poem are part of the inner identities of the poetic voice, who sees in figures like Medea scattered pieces of the puzzle of her alter ego. She struggles to reach the expansiveness of the Iwá Pelé, the encounter with that inner voice, the warrior and protective spirit of a Nana who roars: “No Black woman of mine killed her daughter! / She roared” (vv. 65-6, emphasis added). This verse refers again to one of the key archetypes of Medea as a ferocious animal, in Euripedes’ words (Med., v. 1342; v. 1407, ed. 1995), and ultimately leads to her becoming the archetype of the filicidal woman. Likewise, in saying “Black woman of mine” an ethnic reclamation of Black women dialectically emerges, which is part of an ethical interest that has culminated in the 21st century, as is the case with the publication of the book Black Medea. Adaptations in Modern Plays by Kevin Wetmore (2013), and the release of the short film Fluch der Medea (2014), where a black Medea appears for the first time in the history of cinema.

At the same time, this conscious-unconscious discursivity or rational-irrational world under which this poem is inscribed through a process of καταφυγή, is observed in the following passage, “Light and Sun, / who slept between / the circle of burning pepper / and the dark silken swamp, / took a deep breath of air, / spat fish out of their eyes, nose and mouth” (vv. 67-72). The first verse alludes to the inner strength that, through spiritual struggle, manages to see the light after being asleep for a long time. This refers to a girl, who is about to escape from her cave or prison, words used here as metonyms.

There is surely the presence of a ritual that refers to a cyclical transformation, and for that reason, Light and Sun, who have been made divine, spit fish, because these are symbols of life and spiritual encounter. In addition, since they come from the sea, we can logically link them with Yemayá. This brings the poetic voice closer to the inner and spiritual world of that ancestor who inhabits it as an internal animal, which is why it howls: “Talitha Cumi! / Nana Buruku / -Aulló” (v. 73-75, emphasis added). Moreover, it does so through a process of cultural hybridization, on the one hand, referring to an expression in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 5, verse 41 of the Bible, at the precise moment when Yahvé tells Jairus’s daughter, a girl who is already dead, to get up, and thus brings her back to life²⁶. It can also be said that beyond the biblical discourse, this expression has become an icon against human trafficking, an experience suffered by Africans in a very violent way during the Spanish conquest²⁷. And on the other hand, she says her grandmother’s full name in Yoruba. 

Finally, while resurrecting the sleeping girl, who was a warrior protected by the voice of eight sacred figures (seven female and one male), the passage referring to the Medea’s flight on a carriage with wings appears (Eur., Med.., vv. 1378 ff.), although it is a unique variant: this Yoruba Medea leaves without a corpse or the intention of throwing the bodies against Jason, because the aesthetics of this poem is part of a movement whose spiritual purpose is to condemn the Judeo-Christian religion, which was violently imposed on the Africans, practically forcing them to bury their beliefs. Therefore, this new Medea cries out, ironically, for the death of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Jason), and then closes with an amen, a canonical clause in Christian prayers.

Conclusions 

In broad terms, Nancy Banard presents us with a long poem in the style of a dramatic monologue that responds to the most recent aesthetics of the African Diaspora and incorporates a spiritual paradigm, an unraveling of mythical themes, interculturality between Christianity and African religions (mainly Yoruba), the combination of poetic styles (the narrative and a more intimate one based on the use of the personal pronoun “I”), rhetorical and pragmatic resources that increase the discursive loads when necessary, an exquisite handling of myths, which is unsurprising from an author who has read, among others, Euripides’ Medea (in translation)²⁸, been trained as a psychoanalyst, and draws from her experiences as an Afro-Costa Rican woman. 

Another remarkable point in the poem studied here and in several of this author’s poems is the concern for finding an archetypal woman who sleeps inside the psyche. This Yoruba Medea is a kind of spirit that, with struggle and concentration, can awaken as if a birth were taking place, or an ancestral cleansing of the traumas that inhabit the interior of the poetic self. On the other hand, the constant references to sacred figures, to the search for the fullness of the poetic voice through contact with Nanita, archetype of the ancestral voice, who is kept alive in the dialogue and in the memory, and through the reference to the resurrection of the inner girl, who was dead and therefore, when reborn, opens a portal to a spiritual journey, are remarkable. It also highlights the use of transcendence, the mechané, which recurrent in the end of Euripides’ works and, in addition, has provoked more work on the subject, like for example, the poem “The woman who drives the car” (1983) by Mía Gallegos, within the Costa Rican mystical tradition. 

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