Introduction
The Mentoh is a figure that is represented as an other-worldly being that has a vast knowledge of everything about the world. The Mentoh is often depicted in Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco as a guide for the enslaved peoples and formerly enslaved people to take over the city. The Mentoh represents power and freedom, as the person who holds this title is able to play around with the inter-dimensional world.
African Religion
Creole religions such as Voodoo, Santería, and Espiritismo are all theologies that have developed as a consequence of the diasporic African populations in the Caribbean. Many of these beliefs stem from the 18th century and earlier, their strength and popularity growing as many enslaved peoples “found in their belief the liberating forces which proved victorious against oppression in the wars against slavery or during the struggles for independence” (Pradel 145).
The Mentoh is associated with Voodoo, in which the entity could be at two places at once without the material form ever changing: “And when Grandmama asked around, no one had ever seen him leave his post or sabotage his cutting. The overseer who accounted for the number of enslaved people at work never fell upon his missing backside. Yet the fellow stayed with her in the depths of the ravine where the clothes got washed. And how he could do such a thing was a real nice mystery” (Chamoiseau 39).
Those who practice Voodoo believe that conception is not biological, rather it is a religious phenomenon. The Grobon-nanj is the concept that depicts a person to be able to preside over the “spiritual life and the organic life,” which leads some believers to claim that a person has two souls (Pierre 29). Like the Mentohs, people who practice Voodoo can detach their spirits from their physical bodies to wander at night, who risk death in the case that they may be captured by evil spirits, unable to return to their physical state. This idea is like astral projection, in which one encounters an out-of-body experience, able to travel on astral planes and able to travel to faraway locations.
Considering Esternome’s father, Pol, and the other Mentohs delineated throughout Texaco, the men portrayed to be of high power all appear to be old, having looked like they have lived through many lifetimes. They appear as though they possess much knowledge, separate from ordinary citizens in Martinique.
Power
Like how other Caribbean religions work, the Mentoh acts as a link to power for the disempowered. They are old black men who have never been enslaved, free from punishment, they have “never suffered from the whip or the dungeon; by the time of the chains and the rod they were entirely forgotten; they never suffered anyone’s envy. And that (if anything) was the mark of a Mentoh” (Chamoiseau 51). Newly freed people seek the Mentoh on advice for what to do when they feel lost. In Esternome’s case, he met his Mentoh who told him to go to Saint-Pierre and started his journey.
On page 94, four Mentohs come, and silence engulfs the area. Their presence, when known, are able to put people into a stupor: “There was total silence. And they, reflecting shadows or moonlight, seemed to go their way without disturbing the wind. Their presence filled the universe” (Chamoiseau 95). Like entities of higher order, they stun everybody with their feasible power emanating from their presence. “…with the men of strength (History calls them necromancers, conjurers, sorcerers) sometimes Strength itself would show, and its name was The Mentoh” (Chamoiseau 51). They appear to be otherworldly. When the four Mentohs disappeared, “…the four messengers had reminded, in every corner of that misery, that freedom is to be taken and not to be offered—not ever to be given” (Chamoiseau 97). They drive the people to not be complacent and to fight for what they want. Like other creole religions, the Mentoh figure acts as a guide for the oppressed.
Works Cited
Chamoiseau, Patrick. Texaco. Trans. Rose-Myriam Réjouis & Val Vinokurov. NY: Vintage, 1997.
Pierre, Roland. “Caribbean Religion: The Voodoo Case.” Sociological Analysis, vol. 38, no. 1, 1977, p. 25, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3709834?seq=1. Accessed 25 Apr. 2022.
Pradel, Lucie. African Sacredness and Caribbean Cultural Forms, vol. 44, no. 1/2, 1998, pp. 145–152., https://www.jstor.org/stable/40654027. Accessed 10 Apr. 2022.
Editorial Collective
Dominique Obispo, Mickenzie Bass, Hope Chulka
