Culture and Colonisation

For the past few days we have been greatly exercised as regards the significance of this Congress.

More particularly, we have wondered what is the common denominator of an assembly that can unit men as different as Africans of native African, and North Americans, as men from West Indies and from Madagascar.

To my way of thinking the answer is obvious and my briefly stated in the words: colonial situation.

I think it is very true that culture must be national. It is, however, self-evident that national cultures, however differentiated they my be, are grouped by affinities. Moreover, these great cultural relationships, these great cultural families, have a name: they are called civilisations. In other words, if it is an undoubted feet that there is a French national culture, an Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, ...etc national culture, it is no less evident that all these cultures, alongside genuine differences, show a certain number of striking similarities so that, though we can speak of national cultures peculiar to each of the countries mentioned above, we can equally well speak of a European civilisation.

In the same way we can speak of a large family of African cultures which collectively deserve the name of negro-African culture and which individually reveal the different cultures proper to each country of Africa. And we know that the hazards of history have caused the domain of this civilisation, the locus of this civilisation to exceed widely the boundaries of Africa. It is in this sense, therefore, that we may say that there are, if not centres, at least fringes of this negro-African civilisation in Brazil and in West Indies, in Haiti and the French Antilles and even in the United States…

This, I submit, is what legitimises our present meeting. All who have met here are united by a double solidarity; on the one hand, a horizontal solidarity that is a solidarity created for us by the colonial, semi-colonial or Para-colonial situation imposed upon us from without; and on the other, the vertical solidarity, a solidarity in time, due to the fact that we started from an original unity, the unity of African civilisation, which has become diversified into a whole series of cultures all of which, in varying degrees, owe something to that civilisation.

But, it may be said, there is another possibility, namely, the elaboration of a new civilisation, a civilisation that will owe something both to Europe and to the native civilisation. If we discard the two solutions represented, on the one hand, by the preservation of the native civilisation and, on the other, by the export overseas of the colonists’ civilisation, might it not be possible to conceive of a process that would elaborate a new civilisation owing full allegiance to neither of its component parts?

This is an illusion cherished by many Europeans who imagine they are witnessing in countries of British of French colonisation the birth of an Anglo- or Franco-African or Anglo- or Franco-Asiatic civilisation.

In support of it they rely on the notion that all civilisations live by borrowing, and infer that when two different civilisations have been brought into contact through colonisation, the native civilisation will borrow cultural elements from the colonists’ civilisation and from this marriage will spring a new civilisation, a mixed civilisation.

The error inherent in such a theory is that it reposes on the illusion that colonisation is a contact with civilisation like any other and that all borrowings are equally good.

The truth is quite otherwise and the borrowing is only valid when it is counter-balanced by an interior state of mind that calls for it and integrates it within the body which then assimilates it so that both become one- what was external becoming internal.

Colonisation is a different case. Here the(re is no borrowing arising out op need, no cultural elements being spontaneously integrated within the subject’s world. And Malinowski and his school are right to insist that the process of cultural contact must be regarded mainly as a continuous process of interaction between groups having different cultures.

What does this mean if not that the colonial situation, that sets the colonist and the colonised in opposition camps, is in the resort the determining element?

What is the result?

The result of this lack of integration by the dialectic of need is the existence in all colonial countries of what can only be termed a cultural mosaic. By this I mean that in all colonial countries the cultural features are juxtaposed but not harmonised.

“Culture is above all a unity of artistic style in all the vital manifestations of a people. To know many things and to have learnt much are neither an essential step towards culture nor a sign of culture and could indeed go hand in hand with the opposite of culture, namely, barbarism, which implies a lack of style or a chaotic mixture of all styles” (Nietschze).

No truer description could be given of the cultural situation common to all colonised countries. In every colonised country we note that the harmonious synthesis of the old native culture has been destroyed and has been replaced by a heterogeneous mixture of features taken from different cultures, jostling one another. It is barbarism through cultural anarchy.

But, it may be asked, once the original unity is broken, is it not possible that the colonised people can reconstitute it and integrate its new experiences, hence its new wealth, with the framework of a new unity, a unity that will not, of course, be the old unity, but a unity nevertheless?

Agreed, but it must be realized that such a solution is impossible under the colonial system because such a mingling, such a commingling, cannot be expected from a people unless that people retains the historic initiative, in other terms, unless that people is free. Which is incompatible with colonialism.

Thus the cultural position in colonial countries is tragic. Wherever colonisation occurs, native culture begins to wither. And among the ruins there springs up, not a culture, but a kind o sub-culture that, because it is condemned to remain marginal as regards to 3uropean culture and to be the province of a small group, an “elite,” living in artificial conditions and deprived of life-giving contact with the masses and with popular culture, is thus prevented from blossoming into a true culture.

The result is the creation of vast stretches of cultural wastelands or, what amounts to the same thing, of cultural perversion or cultural by-products.

This is the situation which we black men of culture must have the courage to face squarely.

The question then arises: in such a situation, what ought we do, what can we do?

Clearly our responsibilities are grave. What can we do? The problem is often summarised as a choice to be made. A choice between native tradition and European civilisation. Either to reject native civilisation as puerile, inadequate, outdated by history, or else, in order to preserve our native cultural heritage, to barricade ourselves against European civilisation and reject it.

In other terms, we are called upon to choose: “choose between fidelity and backwardness, or progress and renunciation.”

What is our reply?

Our reply is that things are not as simple as they seem and that the choice offered is not a valid one. Life (I say life and not abstract thought) does not recognise, does not accept these alternatives. Or rather if these alternatives are offered, life itself will transcend them.

We say that the question does not arise in native society alone, that in every society there is always a state of equilibrium between old and new, that is always precarious, that it is in a constant state of readjustment and that it has in practice to be rediscovered by every generation.

Our societies, our civilisations, our native cultures are not exempt from this law.

For our part, and as regards our particular societies, we believed that in the African culture yet to be born, or in the Para-African culture yet to be born, there will be many new elements, modern elements, lets us face it, borrowed from Europe. But we also believe that many traditional elements will persist in these cultures. We refuse to yield to the temptation of the tabula rasa. I refuse to believe that the future African culture can totally and brutally reject the former African culture.

I believe that the civilisation that has given negro sculpture to the world of art; that the civilisation that has given to the political and social world the original communal institutions such as village democracy, or fraternal age-groups, or family property, which is a negation of capitalism, or so many institutions bearing the imprint of the spirit of solidarity; that this civilisation, on another plane, has given to the moral world an original philosophy based on respect for life and integration within the cosmos; I refused to believe that this civilisation, imperfect though it my be, must be annihilated or denied as a pre-condition of the renaissance of the native peoples.

I believe that, on the external obstacles have been overcome, our particular cultures contain within them enough strength, enough vitality, enough regenerative powers to adapt themselves to the conditions of the modern world and that they will prove able to provide for all political, social, economic or cultural problems, valid and original solutions, that they will be valid because they are original.

In the culture that is yet to be born, there will be without any doubt both old and new. Which new elements? Which old? Here alone our ignorance begins. And in truth it is not for the individual to reply. Only the community can give the answer. We may, however, affirm here and now that it well be given and not verbally but by facts and by action.

And this is what enables us to define our role as black men of culture. Our role is not to prepare a priori the plan of future native culture, to predict which elements will be integrated and which rejected. Our role, an infinitely more humble one, is to proclaim the coming and prepare the way those who hold the answer -the people- our peoples, freed from their shackles, our peoples with their creative genius finally freed from all that impedes them and renders them sterile.

Today we are in a cultural chaos. Our part is to say: “free the demiurge that can alone can organise this chaos into a new synthesis, a synthesis that will deserve the name of culture, a synthesis that will be a reconciliation and an overstepping of both old and new.” We are here to ask nay to demand: “let the peoples speak! Let the black peoples take their place upon the great stage of history!”

                       Culture and Colonisation (by Aimé Césaire 1956)

Educated Africans get a meeting to discuss their problems, the little means the influence of Colonization on culture.

Interpretation of the Text:

1^st paragraph: "For the past ... colonial situation"
The attainders of the congress were: black, north Native Americans, West Indians, and men from Africa.

2^nd paragraph: "I think it is very true … European civilisation"
They tried to show the timpani that the African share a common civilization in spite of the diversity of those people (each one of them has his own culture) because they came from different countries, communities…)

3^rd paragraph: "in the some … United States"
this culture exceeded the boundaries by the slaves who were taken by force to live in America (the plantation so it spread through slavery).

4^th paragraph: "This, I submit … that civilisation"
Horizontal solidarity: draw its suits in colonial circumstance.
Vertical solidarity: it is the African origin, roots; it is based on unity, people who were attending discovered that there us a kind of double solidarity

5^th paragraph: "But, it may be … with colonialism"
The elaboration of a new civilization (culture) is the African culture and the European one; different men bring a new civilization.
How do the Europeans explain this civilization? They said that the Blacks' new civilization utrose because the Africans liked their culture and they had adopted in fact civilization imposed on the blacks by the missionaries and colonizers.
Aimé Césaire was from French colony, he says that there is no way for the colonized people (blacks). It is a kind of pressure (it was imposed on them).

6^th paragraph: "In support of … becoming internal"
After the 20^th century, it is decided to change the life of the Africans by the Europeans: education through agriculture.

7^th paragraph: "Colonization is … different cultures"
The culture contact is a continuous process and an exchange.

8^th paragraph: "What does this mean … determining element?"
Aimé is determining the first agent of this pressure à are due to one factor which was the colonial situation.
What is the result? Features from different cultures added to a culture and from another.

9^th paragraph: “Culture is above … of all styles”
Aimé still agreeing that there is no borrowing

Aimé Césaire: The new culture is not the original one, Africans can not establish their culture under the colonial system "Elite" à group of Africans who had a chance to access and education and while getting illiteracy, they adopted all the features of the important culture and the western tradition and habits (cloths).

In the last paragraph, Aimé says that the Africans were against the elders because they were hated by the masses.

Their education allowed them to adopt western habits, this adoption contradicted with the motive tradition. The educated men saw that the elder were used by the colonization, when they realized from their own town à feel marginalize a population to be more aware.

Aimé Césaire:

Aimé Césaire is putting Questions to know the reaction of Africans. There is confusion whether to accept or reject European culture. There is no equivalence between the European and African culture. There is no harmony.

Anarchy Culture: since everything was imposed there was no inferiority and no superiority when the Europeans come to Africa, they come until the idea which says that they are the supreme and they were the more developed.

At result there was a kind of awareness and awakening from the part of the Africans writers. This awareness began to take better when Africans discovered their inferiority.

They were outside from their hand and there was no reaction. But the reaction was when illiteracy began to spread. They work up after World War I.

How far colonialism affected the African own civilisation, and haw is the impact of this colonialism on the local civilisation and culture?

The African educated people found themselves in a terrible confusion whether to adopt colonial civilisation or the preserve their own civilisation.

It was left to the educated Africans to help their illiterate counterpart by raising their awareness by "anarchy", Aimé Césaire meant "no harmony", "no equality".

The waking up of the Africans writers gave another theme of the African literature. The rise of consciousness came to birth when the African realised that their society was undermined by the Europeans; i.e. they discovered their inferiority by the European.

Negritude Movement:

Negritude is a French term come to birth from the French African community as a reaction against the policy of assimilation. It came to defend the black's dignity, the black's personality as blacks, because they were black, and not white.

This movement protested against the African inferiority, it didn't claim equality between blacks and whites, but it dealt with the idea of "respect the black race".

Chinua Achebe
Things fall apart

 

Achebe is one of the founders of moderns African Literature; many critics have come to consider him as the fines"

Achebe is one of the founders of moderns African Literature; many critics have come to consider him as the finest of the Nigerian Novelist. His achievement has not been limited to his continent. He is considered by many to be one of the best novelists now writing in the English language. European notion that "at " a purpose.

Achebe's feeling for the novel as well as the technical aspects of his work as "Bruce King" commences in "Introduction to Nigerian Literature": Achebe was the first Nigerian writer to successfully transmutes the conventions if the novel, in European art form into African literature".

Achebe is famous for his novels describing the effects of western customs and values of traditional African society.

Achebe's satire and his uses of spoken language have made him one of the most highly estimated African writers in England.

Achebe's first novel was "things fall apart" appeared in 1958, it has been translated into some fifty languages. It was followed two years later by "no longer at ease" and "Arrow of God" in 1964 and "A Man of the People" in 1966. he has also written collections of short stories, poetry, and several books for juvenile reader.

"Things Fall Apart" is Achebe's first novel, and the famous among his writings.

Chinua criticized corruption and high level of the political side.

The difference between Achebe and the other writers is that Achebe does not imitate the other's writings. His rejection of imitation of European writers is because he wants to give a print to African Literature, and those African writers who imitated European writers, wanted to be equal with the Europeans. The novel is an European art form, taken by Africans. Yet, Achebe's novel us characterised by the local tradition context.

Chinua Achebe began writing before independence, and more exactly, in the late years of independence. he wrote in the English language to convey the message of the effects of the European tradition on the African one, in order to be read all over the world.

Those who come from different countries share the common denominator which is Colonial situation that they should discuss in the congress, self-help education was brought in USA then it advocated to African. The hunter is bookew Washington.

v     What was to be the nature of the Nigerian nation after colonialism?

v     What kind of persons has Colonial culture created?

v     How was the history and destiny of this new community to be charted?

ü      The Africans were convincing by their inferiority.

1.      Aimé Césaire tried to show the European which made the European civilization. Africans themselves have different cultures which make an African civilization. In spite of their different cultures, they share the same affinities.

2.      The African countries share the same features Cultures, which spread through slavery when Africans were taken by force to leave their countries, and to set up in Europe, this is how Culture exceeds the boundaries of Africa.

3.      Members of the meeting were nearby a double solidarity.
Horizontal solidarity: show how it suits in colonial circumstance.
Vertical solidarity: it is the African origin, roots; it is based on unity.

4.      Another type of culture: elaboration of a new civilization rose because Africans liked the European civilization they borrowed it.

THINGS FALL APART
by Chinua Achebe

HAPTER ONE

Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat. Amalinze was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten, from Umuofia to Mbaino. He was called the Cat because his back would never touch the earth. It was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old men agreed was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights.

The drums beat and the flutes sang and the spectators held their breath. Amalinze was a wily craftsman, but Okonkwo was as slippery as a fish in water. Every nerve and every muscle stood out on their arms, on their backs and their thighs, and one almost heard them stretching to breaking point. In the end Okonkwo threw the Cat.

That was many years ago, twenty years or more, and during this time Okonkwo's fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan. He was tall and huge, and his bushy eyebrows and wide nose gave him a very severe look. He breathed heavily, and it was said that, when he slept, his wives and children in their houses could hear him breathe. When he walked, his heels hardly touched the ground and he seemed to walk on springs, as if he was going to pounce on somebody. And he did pounce on people quite often. He had a slight stammer and whenever he was angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists. He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had had no patience with his father.

Unoka, for that was his father's name, had died ten years ago. In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow. If any money came his way, and it seldom did, he immediately bought gourds of palm-wine, called round his neighbors and made merry. He always said that whenever he saw a dead man's mouth he saw the folly of not eating what one had in one's lifetime. Unoka was, of course, a debtor, and he owed every neighbor some money, from a few cowries to quite substantial amounts.

He was tall but very thin and had a slight stoop. He wore a haggard and mournful look except when he was drinking or playing on his flute. He was very good on his flute, and his happiest moments were the two or three moons after the harvest when the village musicians brought down their instruments, hung above the fireplace. Unoka would play with them, his face beaming with blessedness and peace. Sometimes another village would ask Unoka's band and their dancing egwugwu to come and stay with them and teach them their tunes. They would go to such hosts for as long as three or four markets, making music and feasting. Unoka loved the good hire and the good fellowship, and he loved this season of the year, when the rains had stopped and the sun rose every morning with dazzling beauty. And it was not too hot either, because the cold and dry harmattan wind was blowing down from the north. Some years the harmattan was very severe and a dense haze hung on the atmosphere. Old men and children would then sit round log fires, warming their bodies. Unoka loved it all, and he loved the first kites that returned with the dry season, and the children who sang songs of welcome to them. He would remember his own childhood, how he had often wandered around looking for a kite sailing leisurely against the blue sky. As soon as he found one he would sing with his whole being, welcoming it back from its long, long journey, and asking it if it had brought home any lengths of cloth.

That was years ago, when he was young. Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back. But Unoka was such a man that he always succeeded in borrowing more, and piling up his debts.

One day a neighbor called Okoye came in to see him. He was reclining on a mud bed in his hut playing on the flute. He immediately rose and shook hands with Okoye, who then unrolled the goatskin which he carried under his arm, and sat down. Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk.

"I have kola," he announced when he sat down, and passed the disc over to his guest.

"Thank you. He who brings kola brings life. But I think you ought to break it," replied Okoye, passing back the disc.

"No, it is for you, I think," and they argued like this for a few moments before Unoka accepted the honor of breaking the kola. Okoye, meanwhile, took the lump of chalk, drew some lines on the floor, and then painted his big toe. As he broke the kola, Unoka prayed to their ancestors for life and health, and for protection against their enemies. When they had eaten they talked about many things: about the heavy rains which were drowning the yams, about the next ancestral feast and about the impending war with the village of Mbaino. Unoka was never happy when it came to wars. He was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood. And so he changed the subject and talked about music, and his face beamed. He could hear in his mind's ear the blood-stirring and intricate rhythms of the ekwe and the udu and the ogene, and he could hear his own flute weaving in and out of them, decorating them with a colorful and plaintive tune. The total effect was gay and brisk, but if one picked out the flute as it went up and down and then broke up into short snatches, one saw that there was sorrow and grief there.

Okoye was also a musician. He played on the ogene. But he was not a failure like Unoka. He had a large barn full of yams and he had three wives. And now he was going to take the Idemili title, the third highest in the land. It was a very expensive ceremony and he was gathering all his resources together. That was in fact the reason why he had come to see Unoka. He cleared his throat and began:

"Thank you for the kola. You may have heard of the title I intend to take shortly."

Having spoken plainly so far, Okoye said the next half a dozen sentences in proverbs. Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten. Okoye was a great talker and lie spoke for a long time, skirting round the subject and then hitting it finally. In short, he was asking Unoka to return the two hundred cowries he had borrowed from him more than two years before. As soon as Unoka understood what his friend was driving at, he burst out laughing. He laughed loud and long and his voice rang out clear as the ogene, and tears stood in his eyes. His visitor was amazed, and sat speechless. At the end, Unoka was able to give an answer between fresh outbursts of mirth.

"Look at that wall," he said, pointing at the far wall of his hut, which was rubbed with red earth so that it shone. "Look at those lines of chalk,-" and Okoye saw groups of short perpendicular lines drawn in chalk. There were five groups, and the smallest group had ten lines. Unoka had a sense of the dramatic and so he allowed a pause, in which he took a pinch of snuff and sneezed noisily, and then he continued: "Each group there represents a debt to someone, and each stroke is one hundred cowries. You see, I owe that man a thousand cowries. But he has not come to wake me up in the morning for it. I shall pay you, but not today. Our elders say that the sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them. I shall pay my big debts first." And he took another pinch of snuff, as if that was paying the big debts first. Okoye rolled his goatskin and departed.

When Unoka died he had taken no title at all and he was heavily in debt. Any wonder then that his son Okonkwo was ashamed of him? Fortunately, among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father. Okonkwo was clearly cut out for great things. He was still young but he had won fame as the greatest wrestler in the nine villages. He was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams, and had just married his third wife. To crown it all he had taken two titles and had shown incredible prowess in two inter-tribal wars. And so although Okonkwo was still young, he was already one of the greatest men of his time. Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders. And that was how he came to look after the doomed lad who was sacrificed to the village of Umuofia by their neighbors to avoid war and bloodshed. The ill-fated lad was called Ikemefuna.

CHAPTER TWO

Okonkwo had just blown out the palm-oil lamp and stretched himself on his bamboo bed when he heard the ogene of the town crier piercing the still night air. Gome, gome, gome, gome, boomed the hollow metal. Then the crier gave his message, and at the end of it beat his instrument again. And this was the message. Every man of Umuofia was asked to gather at the market place tomorrow morning. Okonkwo wondered what was amiss, for he knew certainly that something was amiss. He had discerned a clear overtone of tragedy in the crier's voice, and even now he could still hear it as it grew dimmer and dimmer in the distance.

The night was very quiet. It was always quiet except on moonlight nights. Darkness held a vague terror for these people, even the bravest among them. Children were warned not to whistle at night for fear of evil spirits. Dangerous animals became even more sinister and uncanny in the dark. A snake was never called by its name at night, because it would hear. It was called a string. And so on this particular night as the crier's voice was gradually swallowed up in the distance, silence returned to the world, a vibrant silence made more intense by the universal trill of a million million forest insects.

On a moonlight night it would be different. The happy voices of children playing in open fields would then be heard. And perhaps those not so young would be playing in pairs in less open places, and old men and women would remember their youth. As the Ibo say: "When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk."

But this particular night was dark and silent. And in all the nine villages of Umuofia a town crier with his ogene asked every man to be present tomorrow morning. Okonkwo on his bamboo bed tried to figure out the nature of the emergency—war with a neighboring clan? That seemed the most likely reason, and he was not afraid of war. He was a man of action, a man of war. Unlike his father he could stand the look of blood. In Umuofia's latest war he was the first to bring home a human head. That was his fifth head/ and he was not an old man yet. On great occasions such as the funeral of a village celebrity he drank his palm-wine from his first human head.

In the morning the market place was full. There must have been about ten thousand men there, all talking in low voices. At last Ogbuefi Ezeugo stood up in the midst of them and bellowed four times, "Umuofia kwenu," and on each occasion he faced a different direction and seemed to push the air with a clenched fist. And ten thousand men answered "Yaa!" each time. Then there was perfect silence. Ogbuefi Ezeugo was a powerful orator and was always chosen to speak on such occasions. He moved his hand over his white head and stroked his white beard. He then adjusted his cloth, which was passed under his right arm-pit and tied above his left shoulder.

"Umuofia kwenu," he bellowed a fifth time, and the crowd yelled in answer. And then suddenly like one possessed he shot out his left hand and pointed in the direction of Mbaino, and said through gleaming white teeth firmly clenched: "Those sons of wild animals have dared to murder a daughter of Umuofia." He threw his head down and gnashed his teeth, and allowed a murmur of suppressed anger to sweep the crowd. When he began again, the anger on his face was gone and in its place a sort of smile hovered, more terrible and more sinister than the anger. And in a clear unemotional voice lie told Umuofia how their daughter had gone to market at Mbaino and had been killed. That woman, said Ezeugo, was the wife of Ogbuefi Udo, and he pointed to a man who sat near him with a bowed head. The crowd then shouted with anger and thirst for blood.

Many others spoke, and at the end it was decided to follow the normal course of action. An ultimatum was immediately dispatched to Mbaino asking them to choose between war on the one hand, and on the other the offer of a young man and a virgin as compensation.

Umuofia was feared by all its neighbors. It was powerful in war and in magic, and its priests and medicine-men were feared in all the surrounding country. Its most potent war-medicine was as old as the clan itself. Nobody knew how old. But on one point there was general agreement—the active principle in that medicine had been an old woman with one leg. In fact, the medicine itself was called agadi-nwayi, or old woman. It had its shrine in the centre of Umuofia, in a cleared spot. And if anybody was so foolhardy as to pass by the shrine after dusk he was sure to see the old woman hopping about.

And so the neighboring clans who naturally knew of these things feared Umuofia, and would not go to war against it without first trying a peaceful settlement. And in fairness to Umuofia it should be recorded that it never went to war unless its case was clear and just and was accepted as such by its Oracle—the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves. And there were indeed occasions when the Oracle had forbidden Umuofia to wage a war. If the clan had disobeyed the Oracle they would surely have been beaten, because their dreaded agadi-nwayi would never fight what the Ibo call a fight of blame.

But the war that now threatened was a just war. Even the enemy clan knew that. And so when Okonkwo of Umuofia arrived at Mbaino as the proud and imperious emissary of war, he was treated with great honor and respect, and two days later he returned home with a lad of fifteen and a young virgin. The lad's name was Ikemefuna, whose sad story is still told in Umuofia unto this day.

The elders, or ndichie, met to hear a report of Okonkwo's mission. At the end they decided, as everybody knew they would, that the girl should go to Ogbuefi Udo to replace his murdered wife. As for the boy, he belonged to the clan as a whole, and there was no hurry to decide his fate. Okonkwo was, therefore, asked on behalf of the clan to look after him in the interim. And so for three years Ikemefuna lived in Okonkwo's household.

Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father. Even as a little boy he had resented his lather's failure and weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him that his father was agbala. That was how Okonkwo first came to know that agbala was not only another name for a woman, it could also mean a man who had taken no title. And so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion—to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness.

During the planting season Okonkwo worked daily on his farms from cock-crow until the chickens went to roost. He was a very strong man and rarely felt fatigue. But his wives and young children were not as strong, and so they suffered. But they dared not complain openly. Okonkwo's first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. At any rate, that was how it looked to his father, and he sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating. And so Nwoye was developing into a sad-faced youth.

Okonkwo's prosperity was visible in his household. He had a large compound enclosed by a thick wall of red earth. His own hut, or obi, stood immediately behind the only gate in the red walls. Each of his three wives had her own hut, which together formed a half moon behind the obi. The barn was built against one end of the red walls, and long stacks of yam stood out prosperously in it. At the opposite end of the compound was a shed for the goats, and each wife built a small attachment to her hut for the hens. Near the barn was a small house, the "medicine house" or shrine where Okonkwo kept the wooden symbols of his personal god and of his ancestral spirits. He worshipped them with sacrifices of kola nut, food and palm-wine, and offered prayers to them on behalf of himself, his three wives and eight children.

So when the daughter of Umuofia was killed in Mbaino, Ikemefuna came into Okonkwo's household. When Okonkwo brought him home that day he called his most senior wife and handed him over to her.

"He belongs to the clan," he told her. "So look after him."

"Is he staying long with us?" she asked.

"Do what you are told, woman," Okonkwo thundered, and stammered. "When did you become one of the ndichie of Umuofia?"

And so Nwoye's mother took Ikemefuna to her hut and asked no more questions.

As for the boy himself, he was terribly afraid. He could not understand what was happening to him or what he had done. How could he know that his father had taken a hAs for the boy himself, he was terribly afraid. He could not understand what was happening to him or what he had done. How could he know that his father had taken a hand in killing a daughter of Umuofia? All he knew was that a few men had arrived at their house, conversing with his father in low tones, and at the end he had been taken out and handed over to a stranger. His mother had wept bitterly, but he had been too surprised to weep. And so the stranger had brought him, and a girl, a long, long way from home, through lonely forest paths. He did not know who the girl was, and he never saw her again.