Dead's Man Path

In the story, with the descriptions of the pretentious headmaster and his lack of respect for the elders and their traditions the narrator clearly has taken sides with the villagers. Chinua Achebe writes, "The whole purpose of our school is to eradicate such beliefs as that. Dead men do not require footpaths. The whole idea is just fantastic. Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas." The main point in question in the story is in reference to the villager's beliefs and customs and the importance it held in their lives. Obi was wrong in his thinking and in his methods, believing that he can just cut the people off from what in our time would be considered a funeral. When it comes to the destruction and rejection of something that was and is important to people such as traditions no matter how old the customs may be, nobody has the right to negate a person's background and nobody has the ability to remove a person's belief and substitute it with their own. An unfamiliar cultures belief may seem fanciful but to those who believe it, it is as much a vital part of their lives as technology is in ours. The heart of a person's belief is in having faith although what you believe can never be proven. What happens in death is a perfect example of this. Nobody alive can know what happens after death so we are left with our imaginations to hope that our loved ones are in a better place rather than in the ground or left as ashes. People need that faith to carry on because at times the thought of never again seeing those people can be unbearable. Our ancestor's traditions and customs are important because the only knowledge we have of things we have no proof on is in the things passed down for generations. Just as the story explained, the villagers were so strong in their beliefs of the path that when it became blocked they attacked the school and everything that was blocking the sacred path: "The beautiful hedges were torn up not just near the path but right