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The Song of Yoruba Tradition in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is a play rooted in what Wilson

demarcates as a “blood memory” of the African religion, Yoruba (Wilson 87). The

implementation of Yoruba culture allows for an individual and collective rebirth and fulfilment

of a sense of purpose. Wilson’s dramaturgical use of the Yoruba culture is represented through

the characters of Bynum and Herald Loomis as both men experience a spiritual rebirth and a

reconnection to the forgotten African gods. However, the Yoruba concepts depicted in the play

occur through movement as the history of the religion, noted by Sandra L. Richards, is rooted in

“expansion of individuals, lineages and races beyond their original cradle [as] the Yoruba have

always conceived their history as diaspora” (Richards 96). This movement can be categorized by

travel, dance, or, even, the lack of movement as evinced by the stagnation of oppressive thought.

Ultimately, the experiences of Herald Loomis and Bynum reverberate the African American

experience as they must confront histories and hardships in order to allow for their song, a new

narrative based on Yoruba culture, to be heard.

Themes of movement and deities in relation to the Yoruba religion are first explored

through the character of Bynum. The beginning of the play finds him describing a transformative

encounter with a “shining man” while travelling the roads of Johnstown (Wilson 8). Bynum’s

story suggests a supernatural experience as he recalls:

He shine like new money…He’s…a man I seen on the road… told me to come along the

road a little ways with him, that he had something he wanted to show me….Since he said

he ain’t knew nothing about the road, I asked him about this. He say he had a voice inside

him telling him which way to go and if I come and go along with him he was gonna show

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me the Secret of Life. I followed him….A fellow that gonna show you the Secret of Life

ain’t to be taken lightly. We get near this bend of the road…” (Wilson 8-9).

Here, travelling is reminiscent to the larger theme of migrancy, a central feature of diaspora.

Diasporic memory manifests through the mystical image of the shining man. The imagery

drafted in this description begins to allude to a supernatural realm as this man has no sense of

location but is guided by a clairvoyant “voice inside him telling him which way to go.” The

mythical continues to be expounded as the description of a “bend of the road” is symbolic of a

crossroads, a place conducive to supernatural events occur and spirit hauntings. This unknown

being beckons Bynum to follow him as he has divine knowledge of the “Secret of Life,”

knowledge that Bynum suggests “ain’t to be taken lightly” since he is aware of forces outside the

parameters of earthly understanding. As Bynum continues to narrate his experience the identity

of the “shining man” becomes clearer:

We got near the bend in the road and he told me to hold out my hands. Then he rubbed

them together with his and I looked down and see they got blood on them. Told me to

take and rub it all over me…say that was a way of cleaning myself. Then we went around

the bend…Got around the bend and it seem like all of a sudden we ain’t in the same

place. Turn around that bend and everything look like it was twice as big as it was. I

turned around to look at this fellow and he had this light coming out from him…He

shined until all the light seemed like it seeped out of him and then he was gone and I was

by myself in this strange place where everything was bigger than life (Wilson 9).

The blood cleansing portrayed in this scene is reminiscent to spiritual rituals found in the Yoruba

religion. This provides insight into the identity of this “shining man” as the descriptions afforded

share a semblance to the god Ogun. Sandra L. Richards provides insight into the Yoruba god in

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Yoruba Gods on the American Stage noting: “Ogun is…‘lord of the road’…he opens the way to

the heart…thus representing the knowledge-seeking instinct, an attribute which sets him apart as

the only deity who ‘sought the way’ and harnessed the power of science to hack a passage

through primordial chaos for the gods’ reunion with man” (Richards 95). As “lord of the road”

Ogun appears to Bynum during his travels on the roads of Johnstown. The god also takes him to

a crossroads which correlates to sites where spirits, like the Orishas, appear. Ogun’s quest for the

gods’ “reunion with man” is evinced as the scene finds the god on earth interacting with Bynum

and affording him distinct insight into the divine. The image conjured upon Bynum joining the

god around the bend evidences an alternate realm where the appearance of surroundings double

in size. This depiction also corresponds to the magnitude of Ogun’s deific presence. The man’s

blindingly bright countenance is further suggestive of Ogun. Harry Elam in The Past as Present

explains that “in Yoruban as well as in Wilson’s dramaturgy faith in Ogun is manifest of the

exaltation of metal and metallurgy. With the advent of industrialization Ogun became the god of

roads, automobiles, and all metal by-products” (Elam 172). Under this context, the luster Bynum

beholds is the reflection of the iron of Ogun. The appearance of Ogun demarcates an initiating

point for the dramaturgical usage of the diasporic memory of the Yoruba belief system. Wilson

uses the meeting between Ogun and Bynum as expressive of new migrants need to reconnect to

the forgotten African religion.

The appearance of Ogun is soon replaced by another figure who guides Bynum toward a

path of spiritual rebirth. As the light from the god dissipates, Bynum sees a misshapen image of

his father:

I looked over and seen my daddy standing there. He had a great big old mouth and his

hands were as big as hams…My daddy called me to him. Said he had been thinking about

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me in the world carrying other people’s songs and not having one of my own. Told me he

was gonna show me how to find my song…Then he showed me something I ain’t got

words to tell you…I stayed at that place awhile and my daddy taught me the meaning of

this thing I had seen and showed me how to find my song. I asked him about the shiny

man and he told me he was the One Who Goes Before and Shows the Way (Wilson 10).

As the “One Who Goes Before and Shows the Way,” Ogun leads Bynum towards the process of

rebirth characterized by Bynum’s father. The severe enlargement of Bynum’s father’s hands and

mouth are symbolic of the overwhelming weight behind his father’s spiritual leading, something

Bynum “ain’t got the words to tell.” As Sandra L. Richards explains, “Wilson seeks to

dramatize that which lacks the fixity of words in such a persuasively affective manner that we

the spectators-witnesses gain an understanding of the operation of ori inu, or individual destiny

of the world” (Richards 95). The individual destiny of the world depicted in this scene is

characterized by Bynum’s rebirth; the claiming of his individual song and the forgoing of “other

people’s songs.” Bynum goes on to detail the nature of his song and knowledge of successful

completion of his destiny:

[Daddy] said there was lots of shiny men and if I ever saw one again before I died then I

would know that my song had been accepted and worked its full power in the world and I

could lay down and die a happy man. A man who done left his mark on life….I had the

Binding Song. I chose that song because that’s what I seen most when I was

travelling…people walking away and leaving each other. So I takes the power of my

song and binds them together…That’s why they call me Bynum (Wilson 10).

Bynum’s reason for picking his song speaks to the effects of migration as “people walking away

and leaving each other” is paralleled by the image of people abandoning their origin of locus.

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This is telling of the play itself as it is set during The Great Migration and depicts scenes of The

Middle Passage. Bynum’s ability to bind people together may also be linked to a binding of

people to an African lineage. Bynum becomes most characteristic of the Yoruba religion as he

takes on the role of conjurer, or babalawo, as evident by his participation of blood-letting rituals

and his counsel of others using Yoruba practices. These acts serve to bring awareness to African

Americans concerning the lost religion of Yoruba. The wisdom Bynum’s father grants him

provides knowledge of fulfillment of his “ori ino,” or his will’s greater purpose, as this will be

revealed by the sighting of another shining man. This foreshadows Bynum’s role as mediator to

Herald Loomis as the play progresses. Parallels to Loomis are also drafted as Loomis will soon

express the “mark on his life” Joe Turner left. The symbolic rebirth depicted speaks directly to a

sense of reclaiming one’s African heritage. This will be further affirmed by the relationship

between Bynum and Herald Loomis foreshadowed.

The individual rebirth represented by Bynum in the beginning of the play sets in motion a

more collective rebirth. This shift from individual to collective is characterized by the

transformation Herald Loomis must experience as the play progresses. Herald Loomis’

introduction finds him being described as off-putting. Seth Holly, owner of the boarding house,

continuously states, “Something ain’t setting right about that fellow…He’s one of them man

looking niggers looked like he done kill someone over a quarter” (Wilson 40). Seth’s reaction

“something ain’t…right” is accurate of Loomis as he has lost his sense of self, his “song.”

Loomis experiences this sense of loss upon being captured by Joe Turner. Loomis describes his

experience under Joe Turner:

Joe Turner catched me when my little girl was just born….Kept me seven years…He’d

keep everyone seven years…My wife Martha gone from me after Joe Turner catched

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me… She taken my little girl and left her with her mama and took off North. We been

looking for her ever since…I just wanna see her face so I can get me a starting place in

the world…I been wandering a long time in somebody else’s world (Wilson 72).

Loomis evinces a loss of self as he expresses a need to “get…a starting place in the world.” Joe

Turner has not only taken seven years and his family life but he has also taken his “world,” his

identity, leaving him left torn apart from the man he once was. Loomis also echoes back

Bynum’s father’s lament. Bynum’s father was upset that Bynum was “carrying other people’s

songs” and not having his own. Like Bynum’s father, Loomis is troubled by “wandering a long

time in somebody else’s world.” Loomis’ experience here along with the transformations he

must go through parallels that of the god Ogun. As Richards affirms,

“Like Ogun, Loomis must wrestle to stand in the face of his vision. He retraces the

trajectory of tragedy established by the god…Ogun experienced the process of literally

being torn asunder in cosmic winds, of rescuing himself from the precarious edge of total

dissolution by harnessing the untouched part of himself, his will…Loomis must impose

his will to avert psychic fragmentation…” (Richards 95).

Ogun and Loomis have been “torn asunder” by the weight of antagonistic forces. Like Ogun,

Loomis must “rescue himself” from the effects of being kept seven years under Joe Turner’s rule

by “harnessing…his will” to evade total eradication of his “song,” his sense of self. As Ogun’s

trials suggest, Loomis must rely on his strength to overcome the void caused by Joe Turner. He

must rely on his will for a survival which will allow him to escape a transitional period of being

lost in order to reach an individual world of new potential.

The idea of “blood memory,” proposed by Wilson, manifests itself as Loomis, upon

hearing the juba, is forced into remembering ancestral ties to African experiences (Wilson 87).

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Performed by the members of the boarding house, the juba has its roots in traditional African

dances. Wilson’s stage directions describe the juba as “reminiscent of the Ring Shouts of African

slaves. It is a call and response dance…It should be as African as possible with performers

working themselves into a near frenzy. The words can be improvised” (Wilson 52). Loomis

walks in on the juba and quickly finds himself expressing rage and demanding for the juba to be

stopped. The sound and dance of traditional African sounds prompts Loomis into a spiritual

possession where “he begins to speak in tongues.” (Wilson 52). During this episode, Bynum

initiates his role as mediator or babalawo to Loomis and begins to guide him through his

possession. Much like the call and response form of the juba, Loomis and Bynum participate in a

spontaneous call and response dialogue:

Loomis: Loomis done seen some things he ain’t got no words to tell you.

(Loomis starts to walk out the front door and is thrown back and collapses, terror-

stricken by his vision. Bynum crawls to him.)

Bynum: What you done seen, Herald Loomis?

Loomis: I done seen bones rise up out the water. Rise up and walk across the water.

Bones walking on top of the water.

Bynum: Tell me about them bones, Herald Loomis. Tell me what you seen.

Loomis: I come to this place…to this water that was bigger than the whole world. And I

looked out…and I seen these bones rise up out the water. Rise up and begin to walk on

top of it.

Bynum: Wasn’t nothing but bones and they walking on top of the water…

Loomis: They got flesh on them! Just like you and me!

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Bynum: Everywhere you look the waves is washing them up on the land right on top of

one another.

Loomis: The black just like you and me… (Wilson 53-54).

The instigation brought forth by sounds and movement of traditional African Ring Shouts caused

Loomis to be propelled into a “blood memory” where the “vision” he experiences takes on the

symbolic form of The Middle Passage. In this scene the past and present merge as those who did

not make the perilous voyage take on the image of mere bones while those who did are, as

Loomis describes, “black just like you and me.” The ones who survived take on the likeness of

the men and thus are representative of those who continue to live in the New World. Loomis

echoes the line Bynum stated when approached by Ogun: “done seen some things [I] ain’t got no

words to tell you.” This along with the description of the ocean being “bigger than the whole

world” draws a parallel to Bynum’s own encounter with the supernatural realm. Bynum’s

assistance to Loomis is of no coincidence. He forges a bond between Loomis purposely as he

recognizes him to be “the shiny” man he must encounter in order to see the fulfillment of his

“Binding Song.” This is reaffirmed in the following act as Bynum begins to sing: “Soon my

work will be done. I’m going to see the king” as this speaks to the impending success of his

song. (Wilson 58). As the conversation between the men in this act, Loomis, feels the “wind’s

blowing breath into [his] body,” and attempts to stand up and rise but his “legs won’t stand up”

(Wilson 55). Loomis desperation to stand is symbolic of his earlier desire to flesh out a “place in

the world.” He wants to rise up and experience a sense of resurrection alongside the “bones” and

“flesh” but is simply not ready yet. Like Ogun, Loomis is still caught amidst the transitional,

chthonic realm. His sense of will has yet to be imposed in order to reach a sense of salvation, or,

rebirth.

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Confident in his prediction of Loomis being the “shining man,” Bynum reveals his role as

babalawo, or, conjurer, to Herald Loomis. Bynum intentionally sings a song alluding to Loomis’

experience with Joe Turner as he awaits for the man to walk in. Bynum sings: “They tell me Joe

Turner’s come and gone/Ohhh Lordy/ They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone/Ohhh Lordy/

Got my man and gone” (Wilson 69). Loomis walks in and hears Bynum singing. He responds

with “I don’t like you singing that song, mister!” (Wilson 69). Bynum’s intention are to rouse

Loomis’ remembrance of his seven year sentence under Joe Turner. He knows that Loomis must

confront what threatens to eradicate him in order to find his identity and become the “shining

man.” Bynum pushes Loomis further by suggesting the loss of Loomis’ self, his song:

Now, I can look at you, Mr. Loomis, and see you a man who done forgot his song… I

used to travel up and down this road and that…Searching. Just like you, Mr. Loomis. I

didn’t know what I was searching for... only thing I knew was something was keeping me

dissatisfied. Then one day my daddy gave me a song. That song was hard to carry…. It

had come from deep inside of me. I looked long back in memory and gathered up pieces

and snatchers of things to make that song…See, Mr. Loomis, when a man forgets his

song he goes off in search of it… till he find out he’s got it with him all the time. That’s

why I can tell you one of Joe Turner’s niggers… (Wilson 71)

Here, Bynum relates his own experiences to Bynum as a means to trigger a realization within

Loomis which speaks to the retention of a sense of self despite his imprisonment. The song, as

Bynum describes, must come “from deep inside” and through the gathering of “memory.”

Loomis must confront the “blood memory” of his former injustices and gather them into a form

he can overcome and sing about as that experience is one merged with his identity. Bynum

understands the difficulty Loomis must face as he relates that his own song “was hard to carry.”

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This conveyance along with Bynum’s singing of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” prompts

Loomis to remember and talk about his experience on Joe Turner’s plantation out loud. The end

of this conversation finds Loomis telling Bynum: “I know who you are. You one of them bones

people.” Loomis has realized that Bynum is the embodiment of the Africa represented in his

earlier vision. He is aware that Bynum still retains a link to the ancestral past through his practice

of the Yoruba religion as the clairvoyant babalawo.

The end of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone finds Herald Loomis facing Ogun’s similar

mental and physical degradation as he finally finds Martha. However, the overwhelming force of

seeing his past through Martha threatens to destroy him as he experiences a sense of delusion.

This finds him blaming Bynum for his extended time on the road searching for Martha as he

believes Bynum bound him: “It was you! You bound me to that road…Everywhere I go people

wanna bind me up” (Wilson 91). However, Bynum reassures Loomis that he only bound “the

little girl to her mother.”(Wilson 91). In regards to being bound, Bynum adds: “You bound onto

your song. All you got to do is stand up and sing it…it’s right there kicking at your throat. All

you got to do is sing it. Then you be free.” (Wilson 91). The finality of the play comes from

Loomis enacting a ritual rooted in the Yoruba religion, blood-cleansing. The stage directions

note, “Loomis slashes himself across the chest. He rubs the blood over his face and comes to a

realization” (Wilson 93). The realization Loomis experiences is a rebirth of his lost identity.

Through the act of will, the sacrificial slashing of his chest with Ogun’s tool forged of iron,

Loomis transcends the chthonic realm where he was lost. This is reinforced by Loomis’

exclamation: “I’m standing! I’m standing. My legs stood up! I’m standing now.” Loomis, as the

stage directions note, has “found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected,

cleansed and given breath…he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his

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spirit into terrifying contractions” (Wilson 93-94). Loomis has not only escaped entrapment at

the hands of Joe Turner but has also escaped the entrapment his own mental and physical

limitations that saw him as “Joe Turner’s nigger.” That previous mentality kept his song

“bound.” The individual sense of actualization also gives way to a collective as Bynum’s song

has been fulfilled. Loomis becomes the “shining man” as Bynum exclaims “Herald Loomis, you

shining! You shining like new money!” (Wilson 94). Both Loomis and Bynum experience a

transformative experience which finds self-actualization, whether characterized through

resurrection or fulfillment, as one forged on the rituals and gods found in the Yoruba religion.

The epilogue of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone engages in a broader discussion in regards

to the movement of bodies and the relation to African traditions such as Yoruba. The play opens

with a description of Pittsburgh, a city who experienced an influx of migrants during The Great

Migration. Pittsburgh is categorized by “the fires of the steel mill [which] rage with a combined

sense of industry and progress. The city flexes its muscles” (Wilson Epilogue). This is the city

Ogun as it is rooted in steel and progress associated with the deity. Pittsburgh’s new arrivals

during The Great Migration are “from the deep and the near South [they are] the sons and

daughters of newly freed African slaves…Isolated, cut off from memory, having forgotten of

gods and only guessing at their faces, they arrive…with a song worth singing” (Wilson

Epilogue). Wilson describes these “sons and daughters” of freed slaves have “forgotten of gods,”

specifically those of the Yoruba religion. However, as Elam notes, “the African descendants that

Wilson describes are descendants of Ogun, and it is his powerful presence that they must

rediscover” (Elam 173). Much like the characters of Bynum and Herald Loomis, these new

migrants must remember their “blood memory.” This memory being the forgotten gods left

behind during the diaspora. Wilson’s intent with Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is a marriage

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between the new children of The Great Migration and ancestral cultures. As Amanda Rudolph

notes, “[Wilson] used the ideas of African mysticism to provoke the African American audience

to reconnect with spirituality from slavery and Africa. And from there, a new religion with old

roots may begin” (Rudolph 575). Ultimately, these sons and daughters must “bludgeon” and

“shape” the “malleable parts of themselves” to a new identity merging the old and new into a

song that is both “a wail and a whelp of joy” (Wilson Epilogue).

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Works Cited:

Elam J. Harry. “Ogun in Pittsburgh: Resurrecting the Spirit.” Past as Present in the Drama of

August Wilson. University of Michigan Press, 2004. Sakai. Web. 21 April 2014.

Richards L. Sandra. “Yoruba Gods on the American Stage: August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come

and Gone" Research in African Literatures, Vol. 30, No. 4, Drama and Performance

(Winter, 1999), pp. 92-105. JSTOR. Web. 21 April 2014.

Rudolph M. Sandra. “Images of African Traditional Religions and Christianity in "Joe Turner's

Come and Gone" and "The Piano Lesson" Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 33, No. 5 (May, 2003),

pp. 562-577. JSTOR. Web. 21 April 2014.

Wilson, August. Joe Turner's Come and Gone: A Play in Two Acts. New York: New American

Library, 1988. Print.