Chapters 11-20 Summary

The villagers of Juffure are preparing for their annual harvest festival celebration. The women are especially busy, as they have to harvest the rice, help the men to pick cotton, and sew new clothes for their families. The men are also kept busy repairing the village fence and the huts, and building new huts for newly wed couples. At this time, the children are left to play unattended, since even the old grandmothers are occupied in making hairpieces for the unmarried girls of the village to wear at the harvest festival. When the first day of the weeklong harvest festival arrives, Kunta and his friends rush to watch the costumed adults dancing wildly to the festival drumbeat. Caught up in the beat, Kunta finds himself joining in. After a whole day's dancing, the highlight of the second day of festivities is...