The silence was broken by the village crier beating his sonorous ogene. He called every man in Umuofia, from the Akakanma age group upwards, to a meeting in the marketplace after the morning meal. He went from one end of the village to the other and walked all its breadth. He did not leave out any of the main footpaths.
Okonkwo’s compound was like a deserted homestead. It was as if cold water had been poured on it. His family was all there, but everyone spoke in whispers. His daughter Ezinma had broken her twenty-eight day visit to the family of her future husband, and returned home when she heard that her father had been imprisoned, and was going to be hanged. As soon as she got home she went to Obierika to ask what the men of Umuofia were going to do about it. But Obierika had not been home since morning. His wives thought he had gone to a secret meeting. Ezinma was satisfied that something was being done.
On the morning after the village crier’s appeal the men of Umuofia met in the marketplace and decided to collect without delay two hundred and fifty bags of cowries to appease the white man. They did not know that fifty bags would go to the court messengers, who had increased the fine for that purpose.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Okonkwo and his fellow prisoners were set free as soon as the fine was paid. The District Commissioner spoke to them again about the great queen, and about peace and good government. But the men did not listen. They just sat and looked at him and at his interpreter. In the end they were given back their bags and sheathed machetes and told to go home. They rose and left the courthouse. They neither spoke to anyone nor among themselves.
The courthouse, like the church, was built a little way outside the village. The footpath that linked them was a very busy one because it also led to the stream, beyond the court. It was open and sandy. Footpaths were open and sandy in the dry season. But when the rains came the bush grew thick on either side and closed in on the path. It was now dry season.
As they made their way to the village the six men met women and children going to the stream with their waterpots. But the men wore such heavy and fearsome looks that the women and children did not say “nno” or “welcome” to them, but edged out of the way to let them pass. In the village little groups of men joined them until they became a sizable company. They walked silently. As each of the six men got to his compound, he turned in, taking some of the crowd with him. The village was astir in a silent, suppressed way.
Ezinma had prepared some food for her father as soon as news spread that the six men would be released. She took it to him in his obi. He ate absent-mindedly. He had no appetite; he only ate to please her. His male relations and friends had gathered in his obi, and Obierika was urging him to eat. Nobody else spoke, but they noticed the long stripes on Okonkwo’s back where the warder’s whip had cut into his flesh.
The village crier was abroad again in the night. He beat his iron gong and announced that another meeting would be held in the morning. Everyone knew that Umuofia was at last going to speak its mind about the things that were happening.
Okonkwo slept very little that night. The bitterness in his heart was now mixed with a kind of childlike excitement. Before he had gone to bed he had brought down his war dress, which he had not touched since his return from exile. He had shaken out his smoked raffia skirt and examined his tall feather head-gear and his shield. They were all satisfactory, he had thought.
As he lay on his bamboo bed he thought about the treatment he had received in the white man’s court, and he swore vengeance. If Umuofia decided on war, all would be well. But if they chose to be cowards he would go out and avenge himself. He thought about wars in the past. The noblest, he thought, was the war against Isike. In those days Okudo was still alive. Okudo sang a war song in a way that no other man could. He was not a fighter, but his voice turned every man into a lion.
“Worthy men are no more,” Okonkwo sighed as he remembered those days. “Isike will never forget how we slaughtered them in that war. We killed twelve of their men and they killed only two of ours. Before the end of the fourth market week they were suing for peace. Those were days when men were men.”
As he thought of these things he heard the sound of the iron gong in the distance. He listened carefully, and could just hear the crier’s voice. But it was very faint. He turned on his bed and his back hurt him. He ground his teeth. The crier was drawing nearer and nearer until he passed by Okonkwo’s compound.
“The greatest obstacle in Umuofia,” Okonkwo thought bitterly, “is that coward, Egonwanne. His sweet tongue can change fire into cold ash. When he speaks he moves our men to impotence. If they had ignored his womanish wisdom five years ago, we would not have come to this.” He ground his teeth. “Tomorrow he will tell them that our fathers never fought a ‘war of blame.’ If they listen to him I shall leave them and plan my own revenge.”
The crier’s voice had once more become faint, and the distance had taken the harsh edge off his iron gong. Okonkwo turned from one side to the other and derived a kind of pleasure from the pain his back gave him. “Let Egonwanne talk about a war of blame tomorrow and I shall show him my back and head.” He ground his teeth.
The marketplace began to fill as soon as the sun rose. Obierika was waiting in his obi when Okonkwo came along and called him. He hung his goatskin bag and his sheathed machete on his shoulder and went out to join him. Obierika’s hut was close to the road and he saw every man who passed to the marketplace. He had exchanged greetings with many who had already passed that morning.
When Okonkwo and Obierika got to the meeting place there were already so many people that if one threw up a grain of sand it would not find its way to the earth again. And many more people were coming from every quarter of the nine villages. It warmed Okonkwo’s heart to see such strength of numbers. But he was looking for one man in particular, the man whose tongue he dreaded and despised so much.
“Can you see him?” he asked Obierika.
“Who?”
“Egonwanne,” he said, his eyes roving from one corner of the huge marketplace to the other. Most of the men sat on wooden stools they had brought with them.
“No,” said Obierika, casting his eyes over the crowd. “Yes, there he is, under the silk-cotton tree. Are you afraid he would convince us not to fight?”
“Afraid? I do not care what he does to you. I despise him and those who listen to him. I shall fight alone if I choose.”
They spoke at the top of their voices because everybody was talking, and it was like the sound of a great market.
“I shall wait till he has spoken,” Okonkwo thought. “Then I shall speak.”
“But how do you know he will speak against war?” Obierika asked after a while.
“Because I know he is a coward,” said Okonkwo. Obierika did not hear the rest of what he said because at that moment somebody touched his shoulder from behind and he turned round to shake hands and exchange greetings with five or six friends. Okonkwo did not turn round even though he knew the voices. He was in no mood to exchange greetings. But one of the men touched him and asked about the people of his compound.
“They are well,” he replied without interest.
The first man to speak to Umuofia that morning was Okika, one of the six who had been imprisoned. Okika was a great man and an orator. But he did not have the booming voice which a first speaker must use to establish silence in the assembly of the clan. Onyeka had such a voice; and so he was asked to salute Umuofia before Okika began to speak.
“Umuofia kwenu!” he bellowed, raising his left arm and pushing the air with his open hand.
“Yaa!” roared Umuofia.
“Umuofia kwenu!” he bellowed again, and again and again, facing a new direction each time. And the crowd answered, “Yaa!”
There was immediate silence as though cold water had been poured on a roaring flame.
Okika sprang to his feet and also saluted his clansmen four times. Then he began to speak:
“You all know why we are here, w
hen we ought to be building our barns or mending our huts, when we should be putting our compounds in order. My father used to say to me: ‘Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.” When I saw you all pouring into this meeting from all the quarters of our clan so early in the morning, I knew that something was after our life.” He paused for a brief moment and then began again:
“All our gods are weeping. Idemili is weeping, Ogwugwu is weeping, Agbala is weeping, and all the others. Our dead fathers are weeping because of the shameful sacrilege they are suffering and the abomination we have all seen with our eyes.” He stopped again to steady his trembling voice.
“This is a great gathering. No clan can boast of greater numbers or greater valor. But are we all here? I ask you: Are all the sons of Umuofia with us here?” A deep murmur swept through the crowd.
“They are not,” he said. “They have broken the clan and gone their several ways. We who are here this morning have remained true to our fathers, but our brothers have deserted us and joined a stranger to soil their fatherland. If we fight the stranger we shall hit our brothers and perhaps shed the blood of a clansman. But we must do it. Our fathers never dreamed of such a thing, they never killed their brothers. But a white man never came to them. So we must do what our fathers would never have done. Eneke the bird was asked why he was always on the wing and he replied: ‘Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig.’ We must root out this evil. And if our brothers take the side of evil we must root them out too. And we must do it now. We must bale this water now that it is only ankle-deep….”
At this point there was a sudden stir in the crowd and every eye was turned in one direction. There was a sharp bend in the road that led from the marketplace to the white man’s court, and to the stream beyond it. And so no one had seen the approach of the five court messengers until they had come round the bend, a few paces from the edge of the crowd. Okonkwo was sitting at the edge.
He sprang to his feet as soon as he saw who it was. He confronted the head messenger, trembling with hate, unable to utter a word. The man was fearless and stood his ground, his four men lined up behind him.
In that brief moment the world seemed to stand still, waiting. There was utter silence. The men of Umuofia were merged into the mute backcloth of trees and giant creepers, waiting.
The spell was broken by the head messenger. “Let me pass!” he ordered.
“What do you want here?”
“The white man whose power you know too well has ordered this meeting to stop.”
In a flash Okonkwo drew his machete. The messenger crouched to avoid the blow. It was useless. Okonkwo’s machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body.
The waiting backcloth jumped into tumultuous life and the meeting was stopped. Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in that tumult. He heard voices asking: “Why did he do it?”
He wiped his machete on the sand and went away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
When the district commissioner arrived at Okonkwo’s compound at the head of an armed band of soldiers and court messengers he found a small crowd of men sitting wearily in the obi. He commanded them to come outside, and they obeyed without a murmur.
“Which among you is called Okonkwo?” he asked through his interpreter.
“He is not here,” replied Obierika.
“Where is he?”
“He is not here!”
The Commissioner became angry and red in the face. He warned the men that unless they produced Okonkwo forthwith he would lock them all up. The men murmured among themselves, and Obierika spoke again.
“We can take you where he is, and perhaps your men will help us.”
The Commissioner did not understand what Obierika meant when he said, “Perhaps your men will help us.” One of the most infuriating habits of these people was their love of superfluous words, he thought.
Obierika with five or six others led the way. The Commissioner and his men followed their firearms held at the ready. He had warned Obierika that if he and his men played any monkey tricks they would be shot. And so they went.
There was a small bush behind Okonkwo’s compound. The only opening into this bush from the compound was a little round hole in the red-earth wall through which fowls went in and out in their endless search for food. The hole would not let a man through. It was to this bush that Obierika led the Commissioner and his men. They skirted round the compound, keeping close to the wall. The only sound they made was with their feet as they crushed dry leaves.
Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling, and they stopped dead.
“Perhaps your men can help us bring him down and bury him,” said Obierika. “We have sent for strangers from another village to do it for us, but they may be a long time coming.”
The District Commissioner changed instantaneously. The resolute administrator in him gave way to the student of primitive customs.
“Why can’t you take him down yourselves?” he asked.
“It is against our custom,” said one of the men. “It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask your people to bring him down, because you are strangers.”
“Will you bury him like any other man?” asked the Commissioner.
“We cannot bury him. Only strangers can. We shall pay your men to do it. When he has been buried we will then do our duty by him. We shall make sacrifices to cleanse the desecrated land.”
Obierika, who had been gazing steadily at his friend’s dangling body, turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: “That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog….” He could not say any more. His voice trembled and choked his words.
“Shut up!” shouted one of the messengers, quite unnecessarily.
“Take down the body,” the Commissioner ordered his chief messenger, “and bring it and all these people to the court.”
“Yes, sah,” the messenger said, saluting.
The Commissioner went away, taking three or four of the soldiers with him. In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learned a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner must never attend to such undignified details as cutting a hanged man from the tree. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. As he walked back to the court he thought about that book. Every day brought him some new material. The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
A GLOSSARY OF IBO WORDS AND PHRASES
agadi-nwayi: old woman.
agbala: woman; also used of a man who has taken no title.
chi: personal god.
efulefu: worthless man.
egwugwu: a masquerader who impersonates one of the ancestral spirits of the village.
ekwe: a musical instrument; a type of drum made from wood.
eneke-nti-oba: a kind of bird.
eze-agadi-nwayi: the teeth of an old woman.
iba: fever.
ilo: the village green, where assemblies for sports, discussions, etc., take place.
inyanga: showing off, bragging.
isa-ifi: a cer
emony. If a wife had been separated from her husband for some time and were then to be re-united with him, this ceremony would be held to ascertain that she had not been unfaithful to him during the time of their separation.
iyi-uwa: a special kind of stone which forms the link between an ogbanje and the spirit world. Only if the iyi-uwa were discovered and destroyed would the child not die.
jigida: a string of waist beads.
kotma: court messenger. The word is not of Ibo origin but is a corruption of “court messenger.”
kwenu: a shout of approval and greeting.
ndichie: elders.
nna ayi: our father.
nno: welcome.
nso-ani: a religious offence of a kind abhorred by everyone, literally earth’s taboo.
nza: a very small bird.
obi: the large living quarters of the head of the family.
obodo dike: the land of the brave.
ocbu: murder or manslaughter.
ogbanje: a changeling; a child who repeatedly dies and returns to its mother to be reborn. It is almost impossible to bring up an ogbanje child without it dying, unless its iyi-uwa is first found and destroyed.
ogene: a musical instrument; a kind of gong.
oji odu achu-ijiji-o: (cow i.e., the one that uses its tail to drive flies away).
osu: outcast. Having been dedicated to a god, the osu was taboo and was not allowed to mix with the freeborn in any way.
Oye: the name of one of the four market days.
ozo: the name of one of the titles or ranks.
tufia: a curse or oath.
udu: a musical instrument; a type of drum made from pottery.