The Bite of the Mango

Palm oil is a dark orange oil extracted from palm trees that is widely used as a cooking oil in Sierra Leone. For Mariatu, it is also symbolic of blood and death. This belief is based on a lesson from her grandmother that, “[w]henever you dream of palm oil […] blood will spill by the end of the day” (25). Mariatu reports that every time she dreamed of palm oil as a child, she would hurt herself the next day. When Mariatu moves to Manarma, she has her “worst dream ever about palm oil” (25) and takes it as a premonition that her blood will be spilt and, sure enough, the following day, she has her hands cut off by the rebels.

However, before the rebels take her hands, palm oil appears again. First, when she is sent back to the village, Mariatu carries a jug of palm oil on her head and it is still there at the moment she is captured. The palm oil here becomes a symbol of the inevitability of her capture and mutilation; she carries it as though carrying her own curse or bad luck with her, as she takes the walk that will lead her into danger.