The Igbo People

The Igbo People

The Igbo people were a highly religious and close knitted community, at least when it came to their own particular clans and tribes. They relied heavily on their farming and looked upon the strongest farmers as those blessed by the gods and carrying a good chi (Achebe, 17). By the late 1800’s however, the Igbo people came into contact with British colonialism and soon their culture and beliefs began to spread thinly among the few who remained true to their gods and superstitions. The reason for the great fragmentation of the Igbo people came about because they were always a fragmented group spread out into dozens of different Igbo clans (Miers, 437), their strong belief that the gods would intervene in the blasphemous was of the missionaries, and the missionaries use of medicine to keep the “destructive power” of the Ibgo gods at bay, making those very gods they relied on so heavily seem powerless against “the albinos.” The Igbo people were a strong community, strength that could have helped keep their culture alive and their belief system resilient against the introduction of the one God belief by the British colonials and their plan to missionize all the lost souls of the land. But the strength that they truly had with their people were limited within the vast amount of clans that they formed separately from one another, like the Umuofia clan that Okonkwo was part of. There were moments of unification when it came to the yearly celebrations and marriages, but when stories began to travel amongst the tribes and the actions of the missionaries they turned away and believed that it was only limited to the other clans and their gods would protect them as long as they kept to their prayer and listened to their oracles. It’s inaction that has caused a lot of atrocities in history from the Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass in November of 1938 in Germany, which signaled the coming horrors of the Holocaust, where the Nazi party began its attack on the Jewish people. Other non-Nazi German authorities and citizens did nothing to stop the events that would begin the segregation of the Jews into concentration (Gilbert, 42). Today many suffer from the bystander effect when seeing someone in need and action is taken because “someone else will help (Latané, 308).” The same inactions occurred amongst the Igbo people and they did not intervene as a close community, no longer were the great gatherings of celebration a factor when it came to the moments of struggle that their surrounding tribes were experiences. Even as their brethren were being hung by a foreign government for crimes that did not go against their own laws and beliefs, they did nothing and prayed for protection. Their religion and superstitions were also an important factor when it came to the very choices they made, the decision to take a stance of no action. From dumping twins into the wilderness to escape whatever evil comes from their birth, to killing the innocent because of the words of an oracle, like Okonkwo and his hand in murdering Ikemefuna, even after becoming fond of him and respecting what he taught his child Nwoye (Achebe, 41-42) In Things Fall Apart an entire tribe was eradicated because of the fear pumped into them from the words of their oracles; told to be scared of the white man since he would bring their destruction (Achebe, 93). However would the death of their culture have been less painful than the murder of the clan itself? It’s coming demise was one of the very reasons that Okonkwo took his own life instead of watching his entire tribe come under complete siege of the missionaries. As the missionaries grew larger, the tribe of Okonkwo once again decided that they would stand by and wait for the moment that their gods would finally intervene, even when it came to the slaying of the very symbols of their culture, like the sacred python (Achebe,106). The British however had something very important in their arsenal that the tribes would see as a sign of great power on the white man’s side, medicine. The location of the tribe in Ogidi, Nigeria was near the major Niger River and close to the Gulf of Guinea. This made the Igbo tribes an easy target for the missionaries and colonials to begin spreading their agenda. When first landing in Africa major communities were built close to the great bodies of water, mainly because the very medicine that would keep them alive in these new territories allowed them easy transport of supplies and medicine (Ferguson, 227). The Umuofia people even laughed at the pending misfortune that was about to take place when they gave the lands of the Evil Forest to the missionaries peoples laughed heartedly at the potential demise of the British missionaries when building in the Evil Forest. When time months passed and nothing happened it shocked them greatly (Achebe, 100). It was medicine that allowed for that, allowed them to combat the diseases that plagued the forest as they exiled lepers and allowed bodies to rot on that land. This alongside their superstitions and inaction because of their waiting for the intervention of gods made the spread of the missionaries very easy and helped sway many to believe that perhaps the gods of the white man were more powerful than their very own. These factors allowed for the slow demise of the Igbo people. While they stay live in Nigeria to this day, the influences of the colonials made a great difference in their way of life. With the spread of Christianity came the death of their gods, very few still following the rituals of the past (Ogbaa, 106). The Igbo people relied too heavily on the intervention of their gods, spread themselves out too thinly amongst different tribes and communities, that allowed for the easy intrustion of outside forces, and were unaway of the technology that the British held in their hands. This made the missionaries growing meddling easy to spread in an unknown land. Would a closer community and unified government kept this from ever happening? Perhaps the culture would still be a stronger part of the Igbo people today, but with the people separated from the evolving technology around them for so long, they would have been engulfed by the influence of the west in due time.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994. 17, 41-42, 100-106.
E-Book.
Gilbert, Martin. Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction. Harper Collins, 2006, p. 42.
Latané, B. & Darley, J.M. (1968). "Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies".
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 10: 308. Miers, Suzanne; Roberts, Richard L. (1988). The End of slavery in Africa. Univ of Wisconsin
Press. p. 437.
Ogbaa, Kalu (1999). “Cultural Harmony I: Igboland – the World of Man and the World of
Spirits.” Understanding Things Fall Apart. Greenwood Publishing. p. 106

Cited: Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994. 17, 41-42, 100-106. E-Book. Gilbert, Martin. Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction. Harper Collins, 2006, p. 42. Latané, B. & Darley, J.M. (1968). "Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 10: 308. Miers, Suzanne; Roberts, Richard L. (1988). The End of slavery in Africa. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 437. Ogbaa, Kalu (1999). “Cultural Harmony I: Igboland – the World of Man and the World of Spirits.” Understanding Things Fall Apart. Greenwood Publishing. p. 106