Death and the King's Horseman Race Quotes

In Joseph's view, the power of certain religious ceremonies and objects is race-dependent; the costumes of the egungun can't do anything bad to the Pilkingses because they are white.

One of the market women gives Amusa a hard time for coming to break up preparations for Elesin's suicide ritual. Apparently, because he's now working for the "white man" (and perhaps, too, because he's converted to Islam), he is perceived as a "eunuch" who has betrayed their community.

This is yet another joke from one of the market women about the white men turning Amusa (and other indigenous folks) into eunuchs. A eunuch, for the record, is a man who's been castrated. So the joke, then, is that by working for white people, Amusa has lost his masculinity.