Secret Life of Bees -- Term Paper

Members of these groups interact with members of the Giro groups. The images that link these "spirit groups" (Shapiro, p. 832) are "maintained and codified through the agency of the symbols of blood, oil, honey and water." The rituals go well beyond "what Catholicism teaches" and indeed through these cultural activities the participants are rejecting Catholicism (which Lily certainly was doing in Kidd's novel) and saying that slaves have as much power as the Catholic saints.

In the Giro group that Shapiro (who is an anthropologist and who conducted field work in Brazil) attended, dende oil along with "water and honey" was placed "behind the door" during spirit sessions "to remove irradiations from the street and the crossroads so that bad things would not happen" (Shapiro, p. 835). The author (pp. 836-837) met Helena, a Giro spirit leader, and learned that honey is "specifically associated with the caboclo spirits of indigenous Amerindians who are characteristically either young and handsome, brave and obstreperous, hunters or cowboys, or wild and savage." These spirits that are connected with honey are the epitome of freedom "of action and will" and they are healers -- the "antithesis of slave spirits." When honey is on a plate on the white tablecloth it is used "to sweeten a person's feelings or path." And so honey in the Giro spirit dynamic has absolutely no "symbolic connection with Africa or slavery." And because it is light amber in color (neither dark like blood and dende nor light like water) it "transforms color from something that stains a person as poor" (like being Afro-Brazilian) and immoral to a sign of incorporation of positive attitudes" (Shapiro, p. 837). A positive attitude is certainly a part of Lily's life and times, and honey blends in ideally with this concept.Zuckerman, Phil. "The Sociology of Religion of W.E.B. Du Bois." Sociology of Religion, 63.2

(2002): 239-253.

Zuckerman mentions in this article that W.E.B. Du Bois is a revered scholar -- an intellectual giant -- on issues of race, politics and history, but not that much is known about his sociological research. The Zuckerman article delves into Du Bois's insistence that research not be "armchair" but rather real research should be gained through "first hand" sociological study (Zuckerman, p. 242). Du Bois conducted "thousands of interviews" and "participant observations" with churchgoers in Philadelphia; he actually spent a year with an African-American congregation. His work led him to a determination that among the "white Christian denominations" the Baptists and Methodists were "most open to and successful in spreading the gospel to the enslaved Africans" (Zuckerman, p 243).

Du Bois explained that the "Negro priest" who was brought from Africa with other slaves "became an important figure on the plantation and found his function as the interpreter of the supernatural, the comforter of the sorrowing, and the one who expressed…the longing and disappointment and resentment of a stolen people" (Zuckerman, p. 243). This was not a traditional Christian church by any means, Du Bois wrote, but rather a "mere adaptation of those heathen rites which we designate…'Voodoism'" (Zuckerman, p. 244).

The noted writer and historian also criticized the white Christian churches, which links his narrative with the struggle of black citizens in Kidd's novel, who were not helped by white religious groups when the Civil Rights battles were raging on the streets of South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama….....