than darkness." replied Odukwe. it was true. But he had recently fallen ill. of all people.

but the fattest of all was tethered to a peg near the wall of the compound and was as big as a small cow
but the fattest of all was tethered to a peg near the wall of the compound and was as big as a small cow. So I have brought the matter to the fathers of the clan. It was there that her third child was born and circumcised on the eighth day. Ekwefi had been returning from the stream with her mother on a dark night like this when they saw its glow as it flew in their direction. No. and his happiest moments were the two or three moons after the harvest when the village musicians brought down their instruments.Unoka. Before the day was over he was dead. Twenty.""What did the white man say before they killed him?" asked Uchendu. There was no question of killing a missionary here. as if that was paying the big debts first. No woman ever asked questions about the most powerful and the most secret cult in the clan." She stood up and pulled out the fan which was fastened into one of the rafters. It was as if a spell had been cast." said Okonkwo. if one finger brought oil it soiled the others.""You do not understand. therefore. "is it true that when people are grown up. The people of the sky thought it must be their custom to leave all the food for their king.

There was a drinking horn in it. These moods descended on her suddenly and for no apparent reason. Ezinma turned left as if she was going to the stream. She could hear the priestess' voice. and at his death there were only three men in the whole clan who were older. even into people's beds. boomed the hollow metal. Ezinma rushed out of the hut. He even remembered how he had laughed when Ikemefuna told him that the proper name for a corn cob with only a few scattered grains was eze-agadi-nwayi. "She has iba. Everyone looked in the direction of the egwugwu house.Many others spoke. Her heart jumped painfully within her.""There is no story that is not true. And before the cock crowed Okonkwo and his family were fleeing to his motherland.""That is so. long ago. Almost immediately the women came in with a big bowl of foo-foo.""But someone had to do it. or playground.Okonkwo returned from the bush carrying on his left shoulder a large bundle of grasses and leaves.

but they were really talking at the top of their voices. who was laid on a mat."Ezinma is dying. where titled men climb trees and pound foo-foo for their wives. and you can teach us the things of the new faith."You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. As soon as he heard of the great feast in the sky his throat began to itch at the very thought."Don't be afraid." she began.' Everybody laughed heartily except Okonkwo. Now and then a cold shiver descended on his head and spread down his body. as the Ibo people say. They were merely cleansing the land which Okonkwo had polluted with the blood of a clansman."After kola nuts had been presented and eaten. "before I kill you!" He seized a heavy stick that lay on the dwarf wall and hit him two or three savage blows. His two younger brothers are more promising. burning forehead.There were seven men in Obierika's hut when Okonkwo returned. or rather to his death. And he had all but achieved it. it is for you.

In his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace. They were the harbingers sent to survey the land." said the old man. and in the end they were received by them They asked for a plot of land to build on. At the end of it Okonkwo was fully convinced that the man was mad. The only work that men did at this time was covering the walls of their compound with new palm fronds. Although he had prospered in his motherland Okonkwo knew that he would have prospered even more in Umuofia. For how else could he explain his great misfortune and exile and now his despicable son's behavior? Now that he had time to think of it." said Machi." he had said. He pushed the thought out of his mind. In the end Okonkwo threw the Cat. and Nwakibie's two grown-up sons were also present in his obi. a thing set apart??a taboo for ever. Abame??I know them all. There must have been about ten thousand men there. But as he flew home his long talon pierced the leaves and the rain fell as it had never fallen before. Anyone seeing Chielo in ordinary life would hardly believe she was the same person who prophesied when the spirit of Agbala was upon her. His mother had wept bitterly. And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the clan. Ekwefi had nothing but good wishes for her.

" They were hard and painful on the body as they fell. the grown-up. Where is my daughter."The crowd roared with laughter. and the smell of burning hair blended with the smell of cooking.""I don't know how we got that law. "He hardly ever walks. It was such a forest that. they talked about everything except the thing for which they had gathered.The year that Okonkwo took eight hundred seed-yams from Nwakibie was the worst year in living memory.That night a bell-man went through the length and breadth of Mbanta proclaiming that the adherents of the new faith were thenceforth excluded from the life and privileges of the clan. who clung to her. was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. and sat speechless."I must go home to tap my palm trees for the afternoon. When your neighbors go out with their ax to cut down virgin forests. fantastic figures that dissolved under her steady gaze and then formed again in new shapes. I salute you. She was rewarded by occasional spells of health during which Ezinma bubbled with energy like fresh palm-wine. and through these Okonkwo passed the rope. Their fathers had never dared to stand before our ancestors.

""Let us not reason like cowards. At last I went to my in-laws and said to them. her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender."I don't know why such a trifle should come before the said one elder to another. It was like the pulsation of its heart. and brought out his snuff-bottle from the goatskin bag by his side. the white man began to speak to them. You yourselves took her. first with little sticks and later with tall and big tree branches. "As for me. as everybody knew they would. But he was happy to leave his father. They were locusts. to harvest cassava tubers."That is not the end of the story. some of them having come a long way from their homes in distant villages. he was repentant." he asked Obierika. Okonkwo came next and Ekwefi followed him. He trembled with the desire to conquer and subdue. He would be very much happier working on his farm.

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. If we should try to drive out the white men in Umuofia we should find it easy. Okonkwo said he was sorry for what he had said."Agbala do-o-o-o!?? Agbala ekeneo-o-o-o! ??" Ekwefi trudged behind. "Ee-e-e!""We are giving you our daughter today. The barn was built against one end of the red walls. And what was more. When the pot fell down and broke she burst out laughing. children sat around their mother's cooking fire telling stories. The faint and distant wailing of women settled like a sediment of sorrow on the earth."Let me make the fire for you. Without further argument Okonkwo gave her a sound beating and left her and her only daughter weeping. But at that very moment Chielo's voice rose again in her possessed chanting. Although her husband's wives were saying that it was nothing more than iba. This one had only one hand and it carried a basket full of water." said Ekwefi. sad and pleading. Unoka." said Ezinma. 'You have done very well."Ekwefi came out from her hut carrying her oil lamp in her left hand.

The lizard that jumped from the high iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no one else did. That was how Okonkwo first came to know that agbala was not only another name for a woman.Having sworn that oath. the medicine itself was called agadi-nwayi. Once he got up from bed and walked about his compound. He had therefore put his drinking-horn into his goatskin bag for the occasion." said Okonkwo." she replied. But for a young man whose father had no yams. They must have bypassed it long ago. He. The crowd wondered who would throw the other this year. "1 told you.It seemed to Ekwefi that the night had become a little lighter. The hosts nodded in approval and seemed to say. the sky. the feasting and fellowship of the first day or the wrestling Contest of the second. skirting round the subject and then hitting it finally. He was a flaming fire. The first thing he would do would be to rebuild his compound on a more magnificent scale." lied Nwoye's mother.

" he said. and she agreed also.Nwoye's younger brothers were about to tell their mother the true story of the accident when Ikemefuna looked at them sternly and they held their peace. His mind went back to Ikemefuna and he shivered. His younger wives did that."That wine is the work of a good tapper. but he had been too surprised to weep.Okonkwo knew she was not speaking the truth. The huge voice of the crowd then rose to the sky and in every direction. But he now knew that they were for foolish women and children. Okonkwo. If a clansman killed a royal python accidentally. The spell of sunshine which always came in the middle of the wet season did not appear.As the broken kola nuts were passed round. and soon the children were chasing one of their cocks. But although Okonkwo was a great man whose prowess was universally acknowledged.""Why?" asked Obierika and Okonkwo together. a long. and Ikemefuna helped him by fetching the yams in long baskets from the barn and in counting the prepared seeds in groups of four hundred."Go and burn your mothers' genitals." said one of the converts.

"Then I shall go back to the clan. and Okonkwo filled his horn again. But the drought continued for eight market weeks and the yams were killed.Okonkwo was very happy to receive his friend. Surely the earth goddess would not visit the sins of the missionaries on the innocent villagers?But on one occasion the missionaries had tried to over step the bounds. It was a warrior's funeral. But he threw himself into it like one possessed. Why. They were both Uzowulu's neighbors. But very few people had ever seen that kind of wrestling before.'"He began to eat and the birds grumbled angrily.'Ask my dead father if he ever had a fowl when he was alive. Here we say he cannot climb the tall tree but he can tap the short ones standing on the ground. I fear for you.One morning Okonkwo's cousin." said Obierika. she prayed a thousand times. He was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams." The man who had contradicted him had no titles. Okonkwo. "God will laugh at them on the judgment day.

twenty-five. The other people were released. it could also mean a man who had taken no title. They throw away large numbers of men and women without burial. Okonkwo stood by the pit. Unoka loved the good hire and the good fellowship. But if they thought these things they kept them within themselves." said Obierika." said Obierika. All the women shouted with joy because Ekwefi's troubles were at last ended. in the sunshine. a long. 'You have taken back your sister. He was a great man. Go home and work like a man. When they did.The missionaries spent their first four or five nights in the marketplace. even into people's beds. leaving a regular pattern of hair. The neighbors and relations also saw the coincidence and said among themselves that it was very significant. he had already put aside his goatskin bag and his big cloth and was in his underwear.

I salute you. and so they suffered. he would use his fists.Low voices. and a girl. Amikwu. He continued:"During the last planting season a white man had appeared in their clan. and. Ofoedu ate slowly and talked about the locusts. nine of the greatest masked spirits in the clan came out together it was a terrifying spectacle.His life had been ruled by a great passion??to become one of the lords of the clan."Tufia-al" the priestess cursed. Many of these messengers came from Umuru on the bank of the Great River.The wrestlers were not there yet and the drummers held the field. but now sat with Okonkwo in his obi." said the leader of the ecjwucjwu."Come.- one could not have known where one's mouth was in the darkness of that night. On his head were two powerful horns. He would stamp out the disquieting signs of laziness which he thought he already saw in him.He went back to the church and told Mr.

and four or five others in his own age group. The first day passed and the second and third and fourth. about the next ancestral feast and about the impending war with the village of Mbaino." She sat down and stretched her legs in front of her. A child belongs to its father and his family and not to its mother and her family. "The bell-man announced it last night. Okonkwo had returned home and sat waiting. and most of them never did because they died too young - before they could be asked questions. he said to Okonkwo:"That boy calls you father. She wore a black necklace which hung down in three coils just above her full. stopped them. They do not decide bride-price as we do. If they imagined what was inside. Then she suddenly turned round and began to walk back to the road.In this way the moons and the seasons passed. and the other an old and faint shadow."1 have told you to let her alone. She was full of the power of her god. Spirits always addressed humans as "bodies. the "medicine house" or shrine where Okonkwo kept the wooden symbols of his personal god and of his ancestral spirits."That was about five years ago.

A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. 'What did the mother of this chick do?' asked the old kite. "They had been warned that danger was ahead. or ndichie. and very strong. Okonkwo looked up from his work and wondered if it was going to rain at such an unlikely time of the year. Uchendu before her. The oldest man present said sternly that those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble. The heathen speak nothing but falsehood." replied the other.In this way the moons and the seasons passed. There is only one true God and He has the earth. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!"She walked through Okonkwo's hut into the circular compound and went straight toward Ekwefi's hut. carrying the stamp of their mutilation??a missing finger or perhaps a dark line where the medicine man's razor had cut them. What crime had they committed? The Earth had decreed that they were an offense on the land and must be destroyed." he said."We are all well. He was to be called All oj you."We have heard both sides of the case. Okonkwo was not a man of thought but of action. as she had accepted others??with listless resignation.

" said Obierika. Di-go-go-di-go-di-di-go-go floated in the message-laden night air.' Maduka has been watching your mouth. He still remembered the song:Eze elina. or pounding food. Everybody soon knew who the boy was. slanting showers through sunshine and quiet breeze. Evil Forest represented the village of Umueru. where his friend gave them out year by year to sharecroppers. They must have used a powerful medicine to make themselves invisible until the market was full. But it had gone on living and gradually becoming stronger. The bush was alive with the tread of feet on dry leaves and sticks and the moving aside of tree branches. and the little children to visit their playmates in the neighboring compounds. But if they thought these things they kept them within themselves. "They are young tubers. The white man has no sense. whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. The next child was a girl. her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. like a mother and her daughter. A mighty wind arose and filled the air with dust.

And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the clan. The words of the hymn were like the drops of frozen rain melting on the dry palate of the panting earth. the sky. Iweka. It was also part of the night. "Agbala greets you. sandy beach. My in-law. Before the day was over he was dead. Nwoye's mother. It was a cry in the distance: oji odu aru ijiji-o-o! (The one that uses its tail to drive flies away!). in the sunshine. and the crowd answered. not for hearing. somewhat lamely."Yes." Okonkwo was specially fond of Ezinma. Okagbue worked tirelessly and in silence. and they closed in. "I remember when I was a young boy there was a song about them.""I do not.

An evil forest was where the clan buried all those who died of the really evil diseases. If they became more troublesome than they already were they would simply be driven out of the clan. and men dashed about in frenzy. As they emerged into the open village from the narrow forest track the darkness was softened and it became possible to see the vague shape of trees. His own home had gradually become very faint and distant. for although nobody else knew it. the matter lies between him and the god. She ran faster. Why."Uzowulu's body. his son's crime stood out in its stark enormity. It all began over the question of admitting outcasts. 1 know you will not despair. He was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood. and it was not until late in the evening that one of them saw for the first time his in-law who had arrived during the course of the meal and had fallen to on the opposite side. "I had something better to do. For many market weeks nothing else happened. Why is it that when a woman dies she is taken home to be buried with her own kinsmen? She is not buried with her husband's kinsmen. and the burial was near. Uchendu. But tonight she was addressing her prophecy and greetings to Okonkwo.

"I shall return very soon. go home before Agbala does you harm. The locusts settled in the bushes for the night and their wings became wet with dew. buoyant maiden. especially at festivals and also when an old man died. In Umunso they do not bargain at all. but no one spoke. The rain became lighter and lighter until it fell in slanting showers."Yes. This was a womanly clan. afraid of your next-door neighbor. the women who had gone for red earth returned with empty baskets."As he was speaking the boy returned. and the little children to visit their playmates in the neighboring compounds. But it turned out to be even bigger than we expected. A great evil has come upon their land as the Oracle had warned. "But what is good in one place is bad in another place. When everything had been set before the guests. the wife of Amadi. But he was so weak that his legs could hardly carry him. There was nobody in the hut and the fireplace was cold.

Ezinma." He put it down to his inflexible will."She will bring her back soon. and his children after him.When they had harvested a sizable heap they carried it down in two trips to the stream. And so he regretted every day of his exile.Suddenly Okagbue sprang to the surface with the agility of a leopard. which together formed a half moon behind the obi. Nwoye's mother thanked her and she went back to her mother's hut. the women who had gone for red earth returned with empty baskets. like something agitating with a metallic life. When he thought he had waited long enough he again returned to the shrine. therefore. Ezinma. But he had recently fallen ill. They haggle and bargain as if they were buying a goat or a cow in the market."The court messengers did not like to be called Ashy-Buttocks. And he had all but achieved it.Ekwefi did not answer. They sang the latest song in the village:" If I hold her handShe says. as if he was going to pounce on somebody.

which were passed round for all to see and then returned to him. They must have bypassed it long ago."That wine is the work of a good tapper. "1 shall think of another one with a song. what do we do? Do we go and stop his mouth? No. and at the end of it beat his instrument again. and all the tragedy and sorrow of her life were packed in those words. Tortoise stood up in his many-colored plumage and thanked them for their invitation. Three converts had gone into the village and boasted openly that all the gods were dead and impotent and that they were prepared to defy them by burning all their shrines. His mind went back to Ikemefuna and he shivered. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders. "You are not a stranger in Umuofia. And they might also have noticed that Okonkwo was not among the titled men and elders who sat behind the row of egwugwu. At such times she seemed beyond danger."You are right. Every man rose in order of years and took a share.""I think it is good that our clan holds the ozo title in high esteem. It had not happened for many a long year.""One of the men told me. therefore. At last the man was named and people sighed "E-u-u.

When your neighbors go out with their ax to cut down virgin forests. But that was only to be expected. "It is enough. That was a favorite saying of children. who walked away and never returned.When she had shaken hands. When she came to the main road. Evergreen trees wore a dusty coat of brown." As he looked into the log fire he recalled the name. and something seemed to give way inside him. He can curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors. He had called the first child born to him in exile Nneka??"Mother is Supreme"??out of politeness to his mother's kinsmen. Ezinma went with her and helped in preparing the vegetables. Their fathers had never dared to stand before our ancestors. beat me up and took my wife and children away. "I had something better to do. But now she found the half-light of the incipient moon more terrifying than darkness." replied Odukwe. it was true. But he had recently fallen ill. of all people.