Home » Rwanda » Scholastique Mukasonga » Sister Deborah (Sister Deborah)
Scholastique Mukasonga: Sister Deborah (Sister Deborah)
The novel opens with a very apposite quote from the Black Lives Matter Movement: I met God. She’s Black.
We start in Rwanda with the narrator,Ikirezi, telling us that, as a child, she was often ill. Her mother never took her to the clinic, not least because it was a long and difficult journey, but preferred her own remedies which she had learned from her mother. The illnesses were not just caused by the frailty of her body but also because of malicious spirits or even a jealous neighbour. But when things got worse, there was clearly only one recourse: Sister Deborah. This was during the time Rwanda was a Belgian colony . The main religious mission was a Catholic one. The priests were white and believed in the traditional white Jesus and God. The local chief was Ragagara who did not like the Catholics or Belgians who wanted to poison his cattle by giving them injections. They also sent his weak son Musoni to their school. He was not very bright but did learn to read and write French. So when a Black Protestant mission arrived Ragagara let them use the old Lutheran building. They were all black and came from a strange land called America. On the one hand was Sister Deborah who, with her wand, her total immersion baptisms and her basic knowledge of Kinyarwanda was the focus of the mission, She was aided by others, particularly Reverend Marcus and a Muhima (a Ugandan tribe).
Ikirezi’s father strongly objected to his daughter being taken to Sister Deborah, not least because it was accepted that priests and preachers were white. They’re sorcerers from a country called America, a country that might not even exist because it’s the land of the dead, the land of the damned. However his wife insisted.
When the Americans arrived there was naturally a lot of suspicion but soon they attracted a following of mainly (though not entirely) women. The local shop owner, Nabushambara, who was very influential soon gave her support and many followed. In particular the women liked what Sister Deborah had to say. The white padri had said that the (white male) Saviour would come one day and save them. Meanwhile they should be dutiful, do as their husbands told them and work hard in the fields. Deborah offered a much better deal. The Saviour – Mother Africa – was black and female and was due at any time. Accordingly, the women no longer needed to work in the fields, obey their husbands or even have sex with their husbands. The women, of course welcomed this. The men said she was a witch.
Ikirezi’s mother took Ikirezi to see Deborah and Deborah seemed to heal her. Meanwhile Ragagara is not happy with the way things are going and he and his favourite wife kill themselves. Musoni, his successor, does not dare impose the traditional year of mourning. His first move is to check out Deborah. He goes in disguise as a blind beggar. Deborah is not fooled. He returns dressed more appropriately and proposes. He is surprised to be turned down.
The women are now in open revolt, destroying the coffee plants. Women, bury your hoes; shepherds, separate the bull from your cows; blacksmiths, lay down your hammers and bellows; potters, stop moulding the clay. Tear out the evil plants that have been forced upon us, no more coffee plants on our hillsides. While Deborah says soon a Celestial Woman would come on a cloud, and would scatter over all of Rwanda a marvellous seed that would yield abundant harvests without the need for farming, thereby ending the servitude in which women were mired.
The Belgian authorities are not amused. They call on Musoni to do something but he has disappeared. They are reluctant to ask for help from the capital as it would be embarrassing to say that they cannot control a bunch of women. A shundred askaris are sent to the mission building. Lieutenant de Kaiser sees Deborah in a trance but when he approaches her she hits him between the legs with her wand. He pulls out his revolver and fires. She falls.
In the confusion that follows her body disappears but the others are rounded up and deported. The Belgians are eager to hush the whole affair up and it is all buried in official files.
End of story? By no means. The authorities may have forgotten but the women have not. Ikirezi goes to the women, who meet in the hills, and learns the story. She is very bright and, thanks to Deborah, cured of her ailments. She does well at school and wins a scholarship to the United States where she attends Howard University, the university for blacks in Washington DC. But she has not forgotten how Sister Deborah cured her and manages to track her down though she is now Mama Nganga, a healer in Nairobi. Ikirezi learns her entire back story, what happened at the mission from her perspective rather than the perspective we had read about earlier in the book. We learn about other Messianic black religious leaders such as Tomo Nyirenda. We also learn about the role of Rwanda and why and how they ended up there and what becomes of Mama Nganga/Sister Deborah and, as it turns out what happens to Ikirezi.
I am not religious so was expecting something that might not be of too much interest. I was wrong. This is a brilliant novel and Mukasonga tells a first-class story whether you think God is a white male or black female or none of the above.
Publishing history
First published in 2022 by Gallimard
First published in English in2024 by Archipelago Books
Translated by Mark Polizzotti