55 pages • 1 hour read
Natasha BowenSkin of the Sea
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A 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 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Remembering Yemoja’s disappointment at Simi questioning her, Simi hesitates to summon Yemoja but agrees. They cannot do so until the following day, and as Kola smashes his manacles against a rock to remove them, Simi thinks about what to tell the orisa. Yemoja made Simi promise only to help souls to Olodumare, but Kola makes her feel like “[she has] a chance to do more” (38). That night, Simi dreams of her time trapped aboard an òyìnbó ship. Kola wakes her, having heard her screams. He asks what her nightmares are about, to which she replies, “You were on a ship [...]. You know” (41).
Chapter 6 Summary
Simi stays awake all night to banish the memories of the ship. When Kola wakes, she tends to his wounds again, and he thanks her, apologizing for how he treated her the day before. She instructs him on how to summon Yemoja, and the goddess arrives in a violent wave. Simi explains the situation, arguing that saving a life felt like the right thing to do. Yemoja summons another massive wave but then lets it go and slumps on the sand, telling Simi, “What you have done will mean our deaths” (48).
Chapter 7 Summary
Yemoja explains the history of Olodumare and the edict the Mami Wata must follow. Olodumare initially created all people equal, but at their requests for differences, Olodumare gave them different languages and lands. The result was war and chaos, and people still “fight over the very differences they once begged Olodumare to give them” (50). Olodumare decreed that all people must be responsible for their own destinies and forbade the other gods from interfering in people’s lives or deaths. He viewed Yemoja’s creation of the other Mami Wata as a gray area, and she removes the veil she wears over her face to reveal deep scars and grooves in her flesh that were put there by Esu, Olodumare’s messenger, as punishment.
Yemoja took the punishment willingly because it let the Mami Wata collect souls, but that is all they are permitted to do. Saving Kola’s life has broken the decree. Esu carried the news of the Mami Wata to Olodumare because Esu was jealous that Yemoja created something that Esu could not, and Yemoja is sure Esu will act on this transgression, “especially if it means the end of Mami Wata” (53).
The only way to keep Esu from exacting further punishment is for Simi to ask Olodumare for forgiveness by finding the babalawo (high priest) loyal to Yemoja and using the rings he possesses to summon a direct audience with the creator. The babalawo sounds like the one near Kola’s village, and Kola offers to bring Simi to him if she helps him get home. Yemoja gives Simi a gold dagger as protection and warns her not to develop feelings for Kola. Acting on love for a human will strip her of her Mami Wata form, leaving her as “nothing but foam upon the sea” (61).
Chapter 8 Summary
After Yemoja teaches Simi the prayer to summon Olodumare, Simi and Kola set out in a small boat Yemoja has kept hidden on her island. Kola explains he is so desperate to get home because his brother and sister need him, but Simi can tell he’s hiding something. Simi inspects the dagger Yemoja gave her, and Kola asks if she knows how to use it. Simi demonstrates she does, which makes her remember her father, who taught her to use the blade. Kola’s panicked shout pulls her from the memories, and she opens her eyes to see “a ship that looks just like the one Kola was thrown from” approaching (68).
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
More of Simi’s memories emerge in these chapters as she spends more time in human form. She recalls the details of how she was taken from her home, which leave her feeling both angry and grateful for the second chance Yemoja gave her. Recalling her father shows just how much the sea takes from her. The fact she remembered him because of a weapon Yemoja gave her symbolizes the control Yemoja has over the water. The water may purify and erase, but it may also give back when prompted to. Simi’s memories of her time on a slave ship give Simi nightmares, and her simple answer to Kola’s question shows how little is needed to convey the emotion and understanding of a shared experience. Indirectly, this also implies that much is needed to make people understand experiences for which they have no frame of reference. Simi staying awake after her nightmare shows that the memories still hold her and that the sea does not truly take anything away. While she’s in the water, Simi forgets, but once she is away from the water’s power, she can remember, which means the memories are still there even when she can’t recall them.
Olodumare’s decree coupled with Simi’s actions question the validity of decisions. Both Olodumare and Simi made the choices they thought best—Olodumare forbidding orisas from interfering in human affairs and Simi rescuing Kola while he was still alive. Only the difference in the power they hold makes one decision stronger than the other. Olodumare is the supreme creator whose word is law among the orisa. As a creation of the orisa, Simi is bound to follow both Olodumare and Yemoja, but despite this binding, she is still free to make her own choices. Olodumare’s decree shows the equal weight given to freedom and responsibility. People and orisas are free to choose their own paths, but they must then take responsibility for those paths and answer to any societal or faith-based rules those decisions counter. There are consequences to every decision, and those consequences require us to make further decisions.
Esu, the trickster orisa and main antagonist of the story, is introduced in these chapters. Esu is also the main messenger of Olodumare, responsible for carrying messages from humans and orisas to the creator and delivering Olodumare’s words to all. It is later revealed that Esu has not been doing these things correctly for some time, and the first example of this is the scars on Yemoja’s face. Olodumare ordered Esu to make Yemoja aware that she had gone against Olodumare’s decree, and out of jealousy that Yemoja could do something Esu could not, Esu maimed Yemoja. Olodumare never ordered Esu to do this, which shows the importance of being specific. If Olodumare had given clearer instructions to Esu, Esu would have been bound by Olodumare’s exact commands. Instead, Olodumare’s instructions left room for Esu to interpret and act upon them as he saw fit, allowing Esu to find loopholes that let him stay in Olodumare’s good graces while showing others in negative lights.
Yemoja goes against Olodumare’s decree by creating the Mami Wata, as doing so interfered with the deaths of seven humans. We learn that Olodumare was displeased by this, but we never learn why it was allowed. It may be that Olodumare agreed with the Mami Wata’s purpose and thus allowed Yemoja to continue her work with only a warning. It may also be that Olodumare’s power over their creations is not as absolute as it appears. It is also possible that Olodumare’s power allows them to see the imbalance created by the slave trade. Olodumare decreed that no orisa should interfere in the life or death of a human, but this was before the lives of their people were disrupted in such a violent way. Olodumare wants the souls of their people to find them in death, and it is possible souls could not do so without the Mami Wata. If this is true, the Mami Wata are not interfering so much as restoring rightness and balance where possible, which does not strictly go against Olodumare’s decree.
In Chapter 7, Yemoja describes how the people begged Olodumare for differences and then fought over those differences. This part of the creation myth is common across cultures and represents the power of difference to divide. Rather than celebrate what made them different and share their cultures, humans chose to see what others had and covet those things instead of being thankful for their own possessions. This type of division persists in modern day. People across the world fear differences, and many express that fear in the form of hatred and prejudice. The institutions of racism, sexism, and other division-based structures are rooted in the deep-seated belief that differences are bad. Given that so many creation myths feature a version of a supreme power giving differences only for people to fight, it is likely that such stories were incorporated into the myths as a way to explain and possibly push off responsibility for hatred onto an all-powerful being.
