Ntuism: how Toni Morrison reconnects us to ancestral Africa in beloved, 2005

This study examines Toni Morrison's use of specific Africanisms in Beloved. The term Ntu indicates a particular ethos that can be categorized and applied to a reading of this diasporic novel. Morrison uses Ntuism to invoke the names of those Africans lost as a result of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. This study initiated from two epigraphs at the novel's beginning: 'sixty million and more� and a biblical quote, 'I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.� The epigraphs led to the work of historian Jahnheiz Jahn, who studied, Kagame, Ogotomm�li and Tempels in the early 1960s. All four historians expounded and systematized the philosophy of the Bantu, the Ruandese, and the Dogon. While their work is not exhaustive, it is comprehensive in that it considers cultures from different areas of Africa and focuses on outstanding commonalities. From those commonalities comes the term Ntu, which is used herein to indicate significant African cosmological tropes. This study applies Ntu as a theoretical tool supporting my assertion that Beloved should be read as an Africanist novel in order to fully appreciate its depth, complexity and weight within the Anerican literary canon