pam on Nostr: This weekend’s read, I tapped into West African history with "Things Fall Apart" by ...
This weekend’s read, I tapped into West African history with "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, set during the pre-colonization era of the 1840s. It focuses on the Igo tribe (southeast of Nigeria) and its main character Okonkwo. Nigeria has over 250 ethnic groups, whereby Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo (Ibo) as the major ones. It’s a historic fiction so characters are not real but depicts real place and cultural moments in time. Some parts I found fascinating on the tribe's culture and pre-colonization behaviour :
Hierarchy
1. There were no leaders, there were chief tribes and elders
2. The Igbo traditional calendar has 13 mths in a year, 7 weeks in a mth, and 4 market days in a week plus an extra day at the end of the year, in the last mth.
On Men – Women dynamics
1. Men are expected to be men - to hunt, kill, be violent, be strong, engage in tribal wars, plant “manly plants”, and take in many wives, anything lesser and they would be deemed unworthy, and effeminate.
On Farming
1. Women’s crops were considered menial such as coco-yams, beans, and cassava whereas yam, the king of crops, was a man’s crop.
2. Sharecropping is a farming arrangement where families rent land from a landowner and take in seeds as loans and share a portion of their crops as payment at the end of each year.
3. Prior to planting, the villagers observe a week of peacefulness, refraining from harsh words as it’s thought to secure blessings from the earth goddess for their crops.
4. There were mentions of drought. I wondered how are we separating causes of natural drought vs climate change contributors in today’s time
On believes
1. The Ibo religious structure consists of Chi—the personal god—and many other gods and goddesses.
2. The villagers believe the nine egwugwu are ancestral spirits, although they are ordinary men disguised as spirits. People sought Agbala, the powerful Oracle of the Hills and Caves, to seek guidance for misfortune, disputes, the future, or ancestral communication. No one saw Agbala except the priestess, but all who entered the shrine left fearing the immense power. Everything the oracle says is deemed true and must be done even killing own son.
This reflects the power of perception and the role of tradition in shaping their understanding of justice.
3. Those afflicted with smallpox, incurable disease, and unfortunately, newborn twins were abandoned to die in the "Evil Forest." The villagers resorted to a barbaric practice of mutilating deceased children to prevent their spirits from returning.
On Women and Kids
1. Kids tend to die at infancy, or by the age of 6 at most – due to Iba (fever) – I’d reckon Malaria?
2. Girls got married at the age of 16 and received dowries.
3. Women tend to give birth on average 10 times and most of their children die in infancy.
On food and gifts
1. Kola nut, alligator pepper, and palm wine are often brought as gift
2. They drink palm wine using the drinking horn (and sometimes drinking gourd that looks like a pipe)
3. Yam foo-foo was a popular dish (if I’m getting this right, it was yam boiled and mashed, mixed with pepper, salt, and butter
4. Another food mentioned was bean cake - some parts of the country serve it fried, some steamed, some wrapped in banana leaf. Made from blackeye pea or brown beans, red pepper, onion, and chicken broth.
5. Also mentioned was roasted plantain with slices of oil bean and salted fish
6. Conversations often came with food. They highly value conversation and use proverbs to season their meanings. They tend to speak at length, circling the topic before getting to the point. Reminded me of China to a large extent – one contract negotiation took 8 hours, lunch, and several rounds of tea - the notion behind these long conversations is politeness.
On missionaries
1. The Son of God is called Jesu Kristi (Ibo language for Jesus Christ)
2. The book identifies the British as white men, and first they brought in religion, then a government, court, prison, school, hospital slowly took over. Missionaries were present in the 1840 and Nigeria was colonised some 40 yrs later in 1884
3. The younger generation started adapting Christianity as it brought doubt to the many tribal practices especially in abandoning twins and killing others based on what the oracle says. This adoption also included practicing new rules and gov’t, and the tribe started losing control.
4. The power play started coming into effect - they prisoned the leaders of the tribe, started sending all types of fines to break them apart, and whipped them severely to scare them. They prevented local tribes from having gatherings.
Not in the book, but a bit more reading
After Independence
After gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1960, Nigeria experienced periods of political instability and military coups. The Igo southeast had a relatively higher level of economic development, due to the presence of oil reserves. Wars ensued – The Biafran War caused massive infrastructure damage. Nigeria continues to deal with challenges related to political and economic inclusion.
On Slavery
Portuguese made first contact with the Ibo people in the 15th Century. Slave trade ensued, involving Ibo slaves sold by the Aro Confederacy.
In 1816, Bussa, an Ibo slave in Barbados, led a revolt that would change slavery forever.
This book was a short read, abt 2 hrs or less and won numerous awards. If you wanna read more on missionaries and pre-colonisation, another good one is ‘Hawaii’s Story’ by Hawaii’s last queen, Queen Liliuokalani. And on Barbados, slave trader, sugar plantations, this was a good one ‘Sugar in the Blood’ by Andrea Stuart.
Hierarchy
1. There were no leaders, there were chief tribes and elders
2. The Igbo traditional calendar has 13 mths in a year, 7 weeks in a mth, and 4 market days in a week plus an extra day at the end of the year, in the last mth.
On Men – Women dynamics
1. Men are expected to be men - to hunt, kill, be violent, be strong, engage in tribal wars, plant “manly plants”, and take in many wives, anything lesser and they would be deemed unworthy, and effeminate.
On Farming
1. Women’s crops were considered menial such as coco-yams, beans, and cassava whereas yam, the king of crops, was a man’s crop.
2. Sharecropping is a farming arrangement where families rent land from a landowner and take in seeds as loans and share a portion of their crops as payment at the end of each year.
3. Prior to planting, the villagers observe a week of peacefulness, refraining from harsh words as it’s thought to secure blessings from the earth goddess for their crops.
4. There were mentions of drought. I wondered how are we separating causes of natural drought vs climate change contributors in today’s time
On believes
1. The Ibo religious structure consists of Chi—the personal god—and many other gods and goddesses.
2. The villagers believe the nine egwugwu are ancestral spirits, although they are ordinary men disguised as spirits. People sought Agbala, the powerful Oracle of the Hills and Caves, to seek guidance for misfortune, disputes, the future, or ancestral communication. No one saw Agbala except the priestess, but all who entered the shrine left fearing the immense power. Everything the oracle says is deemed true and must be done even killing own son.
This reflects the power of perception and the role of tradition in shaping their understanding of justice.
3. Those afflicted with smallpox, incurable disease, and unfortunately, newborn twins were abandoned to die in the "Evil Forest." The villagers resorted to a barbaric practice of mutilating deceased children to prevent their spirits from returning.
On Women and Kids
1. Kids tend to die at infancy, or by the age of 6 at most – due to Iba (fever) – I’d reckon Malaria?
2. Girls got married at the age of 16 and received dowries.
3. Women tend to give birth on average 10 times and most of their children die in infancy.
On food and gifts
1. Kola nut, alligator pepper, and palm wine are often brought as gift
2. They drink palm wine using the drinking horn (and sometimes drinking gourd that looks like a pipe)
3. Yam foo-foo was a popular dish (if I’m getting this right, it was yam boiled and mashed, mixed with pepper, salt, and butter
4. Another food mentioned was bean cake - some parts of the country serve it fried, some steamed, some wrapped in banana leaf. Made from blackeye pea or brown beans, red pepper, onion, and chicken broth.
5. Also mentioned was roasted plantain with slices of oil bean and salted fish
6. Conversations often came with food. They highly value conversation and use proverbs to season their meanings. They tend to speak at length, circling the topic before getting to the point. Reminded me of China to a large extent – one contract negotiation took 8 hours, lunch, and several rounds of tea - the notion behind these long conversations is politeness.
On missionaries
1. The Son of God is called Jesu Kristi (Ibo language for Jesus Christ)
2. The book identifies the British as white men, and first they brought in religion, then a government, court, prison, school, hospital slowly took over. Missionaries were present in the 1840 and Nigeria was colonised some 40 yrs later in 1884
3. The younger generation started adapting Christianity as it brought doubt to the many tribal practices especially in abandoning twins and killing others based on what the oracle says. This adoption also included practicing new rules and gov’t, and the tribe started losing control.
4. The power play started coming into effect - they prisoned the leaders of the tribe, started sending all types of fines to break them apart, and whipped them severely to scare them. They prevented local tribes from having gatherings.
Not in the book, but a bit more reading
After Independence
After gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1960, Nigeria experienced periods of political instability and military coups. The Igo southeast had a relatively higher level of economic development, due to the presence of oil reserves. Wars ensued – The Biafran War caused massive infrastructure damage. Nigeria continues to deal with challenges related to political and economic inclusion.
On Slavery
Portuguese made first contact with the Ibo people in the 15th Century. Slave trade ensued, involving Ibo slaves sold by the Aro Confederacy.
In 1816, Bussa, an Ibo slave in Barbados, led a revolt that would change slavery forever.
This book was a short read, abt 2 hrs or less and won numerous awards. If you wanna read more on missionaries and pre-colonisation, another good one is ‘Hawaii’s Story’ by Hawaii’s last queen, Queen Liliuokalani. And on Barbados, slave trader, sugar plantations, this was a good one ‘Sugar in the Blood’ by Andrea Stuart.