When Matthew and Sara return home for lunch in Part III of Dark Princess, a “brown maid in a white apron smilingly let them into the apartment” and welcomed them with “some fine sweet potatoes” (Du Bois 113).
When reading about the history of this root vegetable, I was surprised to discover that Polynesians and people inhabiting the Andean region of South America traded food and animal products long before the arrival of European colonizers in the 1500s. Upon analyzing the DNA of “1,245 sweet potato varieties from Asia and the Americas,” scientists unearthed that sweet potatoes were traded between Peru/Ecuador and Polynesia in A.D. 1000 – A.D. 1100 (Doucleff). According to archeologist Pat Hirch, the Polynesians had successfully developed the technology to sail to South America. They “had sophisticated, double-hulled canoes…which could carry 80 or more people and be out to sea for months.” As further proof, the Polynesian word for sweet potato, “kuumala,” closely resembles the name for “vegetable” in Quechua (the language predominantly spoken by Andean people).
Moreover, according to the Omar Niode Foundation, the sweet potato is a crucial component of Papuan culture. In addition to its role as an essential food crop, sweet potatoes symbolize peace. Apparently, when a tribe cultivates sweet potatoes during intertribal wars, they attempt to demonstrate peace to the other tribes. In connection to Dark Princess, I wonder if W.E.B. Du Bois deliberately mentions this vegetable to highlight the Japanese man’s attempt to make peace with Matthew. As demonstrated by the Japanese man’s newfound willingness to note “the increased political power” of “Matthew’s people,” the Japanese man had learned to accept Matthew as equal to himself and the other characters who are a part of the “darker world” (Du Bois 110).
Works Cited:
Doucleff, Michaeleen. How The Sweet Potato Crossed The Pacific Way Before The Europeans Did. 23 Jan. 2013, www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/01/22/169980441/how-the-sweet-potato-crossed-the-pacific-before-columbus.
Du Bois, W.E.B. Dark Princess. Oxford University Press, 2014.
“Historical Background: Colonization of Pacific Islands.” Geriatrics, 18 Mar. 2014, geriatrics.stanford.edu/ethnomed/hawaiian_pacific_islander/fund/historical_background/pi_colonization.html.
“Sweet Potato: the Backbone of Life.” Omar Niode Foundation, www.omarniode.org/blogreads-115.php.
Excellent excellent work, Sakura. With Chef Lucas Sin we will be cooking Sweet Potato Pie using some Chinese indigenous techniques. This is fabulous.
Thank you! Looking forward to his guest lecture!