100 pages • 3 hours read
Akata Witch
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Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Skull”
An excerpt from Fast Facts for Free Agents states that understanding being a Leopard Person will always be difficult for a free agent, as they don’t have a Leopard spiritline, or ancestral connection to the Leopard traditions.
Sunny is offended by the Fast Facts… passage, noting its bias against free agents. She’s determined to learn juju, however, so she continues to read. In order to sneak out to meet Anatov, she buys a sheep’s head at the market, hoping it’s what she needs to do the simple juju “Etuk Nwan.” As she prepares dinner for her family, her brothers tell her Black Hat killed a kid in a community nearby. Later that night, Sunny takes the sheep skull and follows the book’s directions, using rainwater, tea, and palm oil in her spell. She becomes transparent, and she can move through a locked door, earning chittim she can’t pick up. She meets Chichi, Orlu and Sasha, and they travel to Anatov’s hut on a vehicle called a “funky train” (108). At Anatov’s hut, he welcomes Sunny to Leopard school, and he asks how she snuck out to meet them. She explains doing the Etuk Nwan, and he says it shouldn’t have worked with a regular sheep’s head, but that her own abilities enabled her to overcome that limitation. He says Fast Facts for Free Agents was written by a woman who thought free agents were ignorant and who thought Europe and America were more civilized than Africa, but that the book has knowledge to offer past its bias. Anatov says that people’s abilities come from what others might perceive as a weakness. For Sasha, it’s being a step ahead and getting impatient with authority figures; for Chichi, it’s knowing too much and having a smart mouth; for Orlu, it’s being dyslexic and being able to undo problems. For Sunny, having albinism will give her the ability to be invisible, connect to the spirit world, and to see the future. Anatov tells the children that they will face danger and might not live, which shocks Sunny. He gives them a lesson on camaraderie and tells them to figure out how to get to his friend Kehinde, an important juju scholar.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Night Runner Forest”
An excerpt from Fast Facts for Free Agents warns against involvement in scams involving blends of juju and internet technology that target both individuals and the Lamb economy.
Chichi explains that Kehinde is one of the eight people in Nigeria who has passed the last Leopard level. He lives in Night Runner Forest, which can only be entered at night. To enter the forest, Sasha draws a vévé, a magical drawing, and they encourage Sunny to say the words “Night Runner Forest come” in Igbo. The magic creates a path, and, following an enchanted firefly, they journey into the forest. The group is attacked by a swarm of bats. Sasha makes an ultrasonic sound that kills the bats, but Chichi notices the bats are a distraction from the real danger: a bush soul, which could turn them into zombies. Chichi slices the bush soul with her juju knife, which leaves her with a mirror injury on her own body. For their teamwork, the group earns 50 chittim, which they decide to have Sunny keep as treasurer. They arrive at Kehinde’s hut; he already knows who they are and offers them drinks. Sunny expresses anger that their lives were put in danger, and Kehinde notes that if she reads the news, young people’s lives aren’t worth much. Kehinde says Anatov thinks they might be useful, as a group, to the Leopard People, but that their destiny might be dangerous to them as individuals. He says he likes Sasha especially. Kehinde then wishes them goodbye, frustrating Sunny, but he shows them a shorter path back. Anatov is relieved to see them return, and Sunny realizes how much danger they were truly in. Chichi helps Sunny sneak back into her house using the skull spell again, and she earns more chittim. Out all night, Sunny now only has two hours before school starts.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Red Stew and Rice”
An excerpt from Fast Facts for Free Agents tells free agent girls that if they marry Leopard men, they will need to cook magical meals. A recipe for Tainted Pepper Soup follows, including dire warnings about what will happen if specific instructions aren’t followed.
The next day at school, Sunny can’t concentrate because she is so tired, and Jibaku and her friends bully her all day. Sunny almost fights back, but is prevented by a call from Orlu, who warns her she can’t use juju on Lambs for revenge or she would have to face the Library Council. Sunny complains about being tired, and Orlu says she will get used to it, and that she has to work on getting ahead in school in the three days until they meet Anatov again. Sunny takes Orlu’s advice and does her homework that evening, despite being exhausted. When she sees her mother that evening, she asks her what her maternal grandmother’s maiden name was, but her mother evades talking about her. That night, Sunny sleeps very well.
Chapters 6-8 Analysis
In this section, Sunny becomes more aware of the difficulties—and even dangers—involved in her new life as a Leopard Person. She struggles first with the practical details of leading a double life, figuring out how to sneak out for her lessons with Anatov. In Chapter 8, she also has to learn to cope with her physical exhaustion from her late-night activities, focusing on doing her schoolwork so she doesn’t get behind.
Sunny’s experiences in Night Runner Forest teach her that there are real dangers involved in her training as a Leopard Person, and that her teachers will not always prioritize her safety. When Anatov and Kehinde put the four children in danger to teach them about camaraderie, Sunny is angry that the adults haven’t taken what she considers their responsibility to watch over them seriously. Kehinde, however, points out that although they might come to harm individually, they still might be useful to Leopard People as a whole. Here Okorafor explores what the value of individuals should be in relation to the priority of the community, a question thematically important in the novel. Kehinde’s lesson also foreshadows that the children will soon be placed in even greater danger when they are tasked with confronting Black Hat Otokoto.
Sunny, Orlu, Chichi and Sasha begin to form a more cohesive group identity in these chapters and work as a team. When Anatov sends them to visit Kehinde, he tells them that the lesson is “camaraderie,” and they are asked to work together in order to defeat the bush soul in Night Runner Forest, earning 50 chittim. Because 50 cannot be split four ways, Orlu suggests they pool it. Although Sasha resists this at first, they ultimately agree, keeping the chittim as a group rather than as individuals. The four students are becoming a small community of their own, what will eventually be the Oha coven, developing Okorafor’s theme of how powerful it is to belong to communities.
In between the chapters, Okorafor continues to include excerpts from Fast Facts for Free Agents that provide background information about Leopard People and about free agents specifically. However, in Chapter 6, Anatov acknowledges to Sunny that the text has a bias: It was written by an author who had a condescending attitude toward free agents and who thought the best ideas came from Europe and America. Yet Anatov also sees the worth and power of some of the knowledge in the book—a thematically important idea—and encourages Sunny to read the text critically. This is, by extension, also an invitation for the reader to read the excerpts critically and ironically. The recipe for Tainted Pepper Soup includes a dire warning to free agent girls that “[a] free agent woman who cannot cook Tainted Pepper Soup for her Leopard husband is done for. Thankfully, this recipe is easy to follow, even for you” (136). Okorafor draws attention here to the fictional author’s gender bias as well as her insulting assumptions about the abilities of free agents.
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