55 pages • 1 hour read
Natasha BowenSkin of the Sea
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
Simi isn’t sure if her vision means trouble in Kola’s village, but she decides not to mention it until she understands its meaning. A few yumbo hunters return to the glade and report that Esu is nearby. Knowing the truth about Kola’s siblings makes Simi sure Esu’s presence isn’t a coincidence. Furnished with supplies from the yumboes, including a small bag of ground abada horn, she and Kola strike out for his village with Issa, a yumbo child, as a guide. They come to a river, where Simi enters the water to rejuvenate herself while Issa and Kola cross a bridge, which gives out under Kola’s weight.
As Kola swims to shore, Simi smells rot, and then Kola is dragged beneath the water by a Ninki Nanka (devil-dragon). Drawing her dagger, Simi dives after Kola, slicing at the monster until it releases him. The monster disarms her and lunges, and only then does Simi remember to try commanding it as she would sharks near ships. The creature obeys, and Simi asks why it attacked. It tells her it is hungry because the land has changed. Everything will slowly turn to rot, and “soon you will die with it” (132).
On land, Issa confesses he knew the Ninki Nanka lived in the river but thought the creature would be far away this time of year. Simi reprimands Issa for bringing them this way, and Kola tries to calm her, telling Issa it wasn’t his fault. Simi knows she’s angry because she’s afraid, but she doesn’t apologize for her outburst, thinking that she wouldn’t “feel bad about trying to keep them all safe” (135).
Chapter 14 Summary
Kola is injured from the encounter with the Ninki Nanka, and Simi applies the abada horn powder to the wounds, distracting him from the sting by asking about his home. Kola tells her about his family, how he’s the son of the village leader and how he loves his younger siblings more than anything in the world. In turn, he asks about Simi’s home, but she doesn’t remember much, which makes her sad because the lack of memory is “always a reminder of a life I lost” (140). Curled up against Simi, Kola falls asleep, and Simi realizes she’s developing feelings for him, despite Yemoja’s warning not to.
A few hours later, Kola’s wounds are mostly healed. The three travel through the night and reach Kola’s village as the sun rises over a land partially blackened and dead-looking. Two guards, Bem and Yinka, stand outside the gate of Kola’s village. They are overjoyed at Kola’s return, but Yinka is wary of Simi. At Kola’s home, his parents wear the white of mourning because Kola’s siblings were taken the night before.
Chapter 15 Summary
Esu took Kola’s siblings, and when Kola asks Bem and Yinka why they didn’t protect the twins, they answer that they’ve been searching for Kola since he left. Kola explains his mission, and Yinka and Bem insist on accompanying them to the babalawo after they’ve eaten. The smell of the food makes Simi remember her mother teaching her to cook, and she is sad that she will never have love or a family like Kola’s again. After the meal, Kola’s mother sees them off. She asks Kola why he doesn’t wear white, to which he responds, “I’m not going to mourn Taiwo and Kehinde. I’m going to bring them home” (165).
Chapter 16 Summary
The group, including Issa, take rafts downriver to the beach where the babalawo lives. Simi enters his hut alone and is relieved to see artwork depicting the Mami Wata, meaning he is the babalawo Yemoja spoke of. Simi explains what happened and that she needs the rings to summon Olodumare, but the babalawo no longer has them. Simi begins to sob, and Kola enters the hut, pulling her into an embrace. She burrows into his arms, hating herself for doing so because she feels she “might still have saved him even if I had known the consequences” (173).
The babalawo bound the rings to Kola’s siblings when they were confirmed to be the Ibeji a week ago, meaning the twins cannot be forcibly separated from the rings by human or orisa. If Simi finds the twins, she can still use the rings to summon Olodumare. If Esu persuades the twins to give him the rings, his powers would be made greater than Olodumare’s, and he “could bring chaos to the whole world and no one would be able to stop him” (176). In addition, the twins’ powers are vitally important, and if they are not safely brought home, the rot Simi saw will overtake the land, causing famine and death.
Chapter 17 Summary
The walls of the babalawo’s hut are a map of the world, and Yinka weaves the route to Esu’s island into Simi’s hair. Kola and the babalawo leave to gather supplies, and Simi asks Yinka about her relationship with Kola. While their parents once thought they would marry, neither Yinka nor Kola want to be wed now, and Yinka wants only the best for him. After another meal, the group heads back to the rafts, Simi struggling to keep up with pain shooting through her legs because she’s been in human form for so long. Lulled by the sound of the river, she remembers spending an afternoon at the river with her mother, praying to Yemoja and pretending to be a Mami Wata. Her mother tells the story of how Simi was born in the river with Yemoja’s help, and the memory reminds Simi of her own strength and “decision to have the fortitude to make things right” (188).
Chapters 13-17 Analysis
The Ninki Nanka is another creature straight from West African and Yoruba myths. Bowen keeps to the myth, describing the Ninki Nanka as a dangerous dragonlike creature that inhabits the water. Bowen’s Ninki Nanka seems motivated by its appetite and sees Kola as an easy meal. The creature has felt a shift in the land, foreshadowing the discovery that Esu took Taiwo and Kehinde. Simi forgetting her ability to communicate with creatures of the water shows how being in human form is changing her. As a Mami Wata, she forgets her human life to become one with the sea and its creatures. Unlike the memories that the sea takes, Simi’s forgetfulness here seems to be prompted by her own lapse in thought rather than the supernatural force of the water. She wants to be human and have a chance at love and a family, which pushes thoughts of her Mami Wata nature to the back of her mind.
Kola’s family dynamics represent the importance placed on family and community within Yoruba culture. Kola, Bem, and Yinka have been friends their entire lives, and Kola’s parents have never tried to dissuade Kola from spending time with them because of any difference in status. Bem and Yinka are welcome at Kola’s home and table as if they are related by blood, even though they are not and were not actually born in Kola’s village. Kola’s parents wear white in mourning of Taiwo and Kehinde even though the twins are not dead, which shows the belief that being taken meant someone would never be seen again. Though black is often worn to funerals in modern-day America, white has been used as a mourning color across cultures throughout history.
Simi grapples with her choices in these chapters. She questions Yemoja’s wisdom for her to remain in human form, as the longer Simi does so, the more conflicted she feels. The pain in her feet is both a reminder of how she is different and a call to the Little Mermaid, who felt pain in her feet when she was changed into a human. Returning to Mami Wata form feels right, but it takes away things Simi wants to experience. At the babalawo’s hut, Simi is distressed by the disappearance of the rings because she feels her choice to rescue Kola has led to the trouble now facing the land, and her distress is compounded because she does not feel guilty for saving him. Her emotions here show how even choices that seem right can have negative consequences and highlight the book’s theme Decisions Cannot Be Reversed.
The confirmation that Esu took the twins jumpstarts the conflict for the rest of the book. Simi and her companions must rescue the twins, both to save the land and so Simi can contact Olodumare. While the rings cannot be taken from the twins, Esu is the trickster orisa, which brings an extra layer of urgency to the story because he could trick the twins into giving him the rings. The rings would amplify Esu’s power, making him stronger than Olodumare and virtually unstoppable. The babalawo stresses the threat Esu poses, which questions why Olodumare doesn’t act if the situation is so dire. It may be that Olodumare is unaware of what’s happening because Esu has kept it a secret, and Esu’s ability to keep information from Olodumare shows the danger of putting our trust in the wrong person.
In Chapter 17, Yinka weaves a map into Simi’s hair, representing the layered history and tradition of hair among African people. Patterns in hairstyles were and still are used to signify a person’s community, religion, and other characteristics. During the slave trade, during which Skin of the Sea is set, and the later transatlantic slave trade, enslaved people were often forced to shave their heads to separate them from their heritage under the excuse of hygiene. However, some enslaved people still grew hair, and the map Yinka braids into Simi’s hair symbolizes the braided maps enslaved people used to escape plantations. Women would weave escape routes into their hair to tell others about the routes and hide rice amid the braids so they would not go hungry as they traveled.
