“Looking at a king’s mouth,” said an old man, “one would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast.” He was
talking about Okonkwo, who had risen so suddenly from great poverty and misfortune to be one of the lords of the clan. The old man bore no ill will towards Okonkwo. Indeed he respected him for his industry and success. But he was struck, as most people were, by Okonkwo’s brusqueness in dealing with less successful men. Only a week ago a man had contradicted him at a kindred meeting which they held to discuss the next ancestral feast. Without looking at the man Okonkwo had said: “This meeting is for men.” The man who had contradicted him had no titles. That was why he had called him a woman. Okonkwo knew how to kill a man’s spirit.
Everybody at the kindred meeting took sides with Osugo when Okonkwo called him a woman. 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. Okonkwo said he was sorry for what he had said, and the meeting continued.
But it was really not true that Okonkwo’s palm-kernels had been cracked for him by a benevolent spirit. He had cracked them himself. Anyone who knew his grim struggle against poverty and misfortune could not say he had been lucky. If ever a man deserved his success, that man was Okonkwo. At an early age he had achieved fame as the greatest wrestler in all the land. That was not luck. At the most one could say that his chi or personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed. And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of his hands. That was why Okonkwo had been
chosen by the nine villages to carry a message of war to their enemies unless they agreed to give up a young man and a virgin to atone for the murder of Udo’s wife. And such was the deep fear that their enemies had for Umuofia that they treated Okonkwo like a king and brought him a virgin who was given to Udo as wife, and the lad Ikemefuna.
The elders of the clan had decided that Ikemefuna should be in Okonkwo’s care for a while. But no one thought it would be as long as three years. They seemed to forget all about him as soon as they had taken the decision.
At first Ikemefuna was very much afraid. Once or twice he tried to run away, but he did not know where to begin. He thought of his mother and his three-year-old sister and wept bitterly. Nwoye’s mother was very kind to him and treated him as one of her own children. But all he said was: “When shall I go home?” When Okonkwo heard that he would not eat any food he came into the hut with a big stick in his hand and stood over him while he swallowed his yams, trembling. A few moments later he went behind the hut and began to vomit painfully. Nwoye’s mother went to him and placed her hands on his chest and on his back. He was ill for three market weeks, and when he recovered he seemed to have overcome his great fear and sadness.
He was by nature a very lively boy and he gradually became popular in Okonkwo’s household, especially with the children. Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, who was two years younger, became quite inseparable from him because he seemed to know everything. He could fashion out flutes from bamboo stems and even from the elephant grass. He knew the names of all the birds and could set clever traps for the little bush rodents. And he knew which trees made the strongest bows.
Even Okonkwo himself became very fond of the boy—inwardly of course. Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength. He therefore treated Ikemefuna as he treated everybody else—with a heavy hand. But
there was no doubt that he liked the boy. Sometimes when he went to big village meetings or communal ancestral feasts he allowed Ikemefuna to accompany him, like a son, carrying his stool and his goatskin bag. And, indeed, Ikemefuna called him father.
Ikemefuna came to Umuofia at the end of the carefree season between harvest and planting. In fact he recovered from his illness only a few days before the Week of Peace began. And that was also the year Okonkwo broke the peace, and was punished, as was the custom, by Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess.
Okonkwo was provoked to justifiable anger by his youngest wife, who went to plait her hair at her friend’s house and did not return early enough to cook the afternoon meal. Okonkwo did not know at first that she was not at home. After waiting in vain for her dish he went to her hut to see what she was doing. There was nobody in the hut and the fireplace was cold.
“Where is Ojiugo?” he asked his second wife, who came out of her hut to draw water from a gigantic pot in the shade of a small tree in the middle of the compound.
“She has gone to plait her hair.”
Okonkwo bit his lips as anger welled up within him.
“Where are her children? Did she take them?” he asked with unusual coolness and restraint.
“They are here,” answered his first wife, Nwoye’s mother. Okonkwo bent down and looked into her hut. Ojiugo’s children were eating with the children of his first wife.
“Did she ask you to feed them before she went?”
“Yes,” lied Nwoye’s mother, trying to minimize Ojiugo’s thoughtlessness.
Okonkwo knew she was not speaking the truth. He walked back to his obi to await Ojiugo’s return. And when she returned he beat her very heavily. In his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace. His first two wives ran out in great alarm pleading with
him that it was the sacred week. But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not even for fear of a goddess.
Okonkwo’s neighbors heard his wife crying and sent their voices over the compound walls to ask what was the matter. Some of them came over to see for themselves. It was unheard of to beat somebody during the sacred week.
Before it was dusk Ezeani, who was the priest of the earth goddess, Ani, called on Okonkwo in his obi. Okonkwo brought out kola nut and placed it before the priest.
“Take away your kola nut. I shall not eat in the house of a man who has no respect for our gods and ancestors.”
Okonkwo tried to explain to him what his wife had done, but Ezeani seemed to pay no attention. He held a short staff in his hand which he brought down on the floor to emphasize his points.
“Listen to me,” he said when Okonkwo had spoken. “You are not a stranger in Umuofia. You know as well as I do that our forefathers ordained that before we plant any crops in the earth we should observe a week in which a man does not say a harsh word to his neighbor. We live in peace with our fellows to honor our great goddess of the earth without whose blessing our crops will not grow. You have committed a great evil.” He brought down his staff heavily on the floor. “Your wife was at fault, but even if you came into your obi and found her lover on top of her, you would still have committed a great evil to beat her.” His staff came down again. “The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan. The earth goddess whom you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase, and we shall all perish.” His tone now changed from anger to command. “You will bring to the shrine of Ani tomorrow one she-goat, one hen, a length of cloth and a hundred cowries.” He rose and left the hut.
Okonkwo did as the priest said. He also took with him a pot of palm-wine. Inwardly, he was repentant. But he was not the man to go about telling his neighbors that he was in error. And so people
said he had no respect for the gods of the clan. His enemies said his good fortune had gone to his head. They called him the little bird nza who so far forgot himself after a heavy meal that he challenged his chi.
No work was done during the Week of Peace. People called on their neighbors and drank palm-wine. This year they talked of nothing else but the nso-ani which Okonkwo had committed. It was the first time for many years that a man had broken the sacred peace. Even the oldest men could only remember one or two other occasions somewhere in the dim past.
Ogbuefi Ezeudu, who was the oldest man in the village, was telling two other men who came to visit him that the punishment for breaking the Peace of Ani had become very mild in their clan.
“It has not always been so,” he said. “My father told me that he had been told that in the past a man who broke the peace was dragged on the ground through the village until he died. But after a while this custom was stopped because it spoiled the peace which it was meant to preserve.”
“Somebody told me yesterday,” said one of the younger men, “that in some clans it is an abomination for a man to die during the Week of Peace.”
“It is indeed true,” said Ogbuefi Ezeudu. “They have that custom in Obodoani. If a man dies at this time he is not buried but cast into the Evil Forest. It is a bad custom which these people observe because they lack understanding. They throw away large numbers of men and women without burial. And what is the result? Their clan is full of the evil spirits of these unburied dead, hungry to do harm to the living.”
After the Week of Peace every man and his family began to clear the bush to make new farms. The cut bush was left to dry and fire was then set to it. As the smoke rose into the sky kites appeared from different directions and hovered over the burning field in silent
valediction. The rainy season was approaching when they would go away until the dry season returned.
Okonkwo spent the next few days preparing his seed-yams. He looked at each yam carefully to see whether it was good for sowing. Sometimes he decided that a yam was too big to be sown as one seed and he split it deftly along its length with his sharp knife. His eldest son, Nwoye, 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. Sometimes Okonkwo gave them a few yams each to prepare. But he always found fault with their effort, and he said so with much threatening.
“Do you think you are cutting up yams for cooking?” he asked Nwoye. “If you split another yam of this size, I shall break your jaw. You think you are still a child. I began to own a farm at your age. And you,” he said to Ikemefuna, “do you not grow yams where you come from?”
Inwardly Okonkwo knew that the boys were still too young to understand fully the di cult art of preparing seed-yams. But he thought that one could not begin too early. Yam stood for manliness, and he who could feed his family on yams from one harvest to another was a very great man indeed. Okonkwo wanted his son to be a great farmer and a great man. He would stamp out the disquieting signs of laziness which he thought he already saw in him.
“I will not have a son who cannot hold up his head in the gathering of the clan. I would sooner strangle him with my own hands. And if you stand staring at me like that,” he swore, “Amadiora will break your head for you!”
Some days later, when the land had been moistened by two or three heavy rains, Okonkwo and his family went to the farm with baskets of seed-yams, their hoes and machetes, and the planting began. They made single mounds of earth in straight lines all over the field and sowed the yams in them.
Yam, the ruler of all crops, was a demanding sovereign. For several moons, it required unwavering effort, from the first crow of the rooster until the chickens returned to roost. Young yam shoots were shielded from the harsh heat of the soil with rings of sisal leaves. As the rains grew heavier, women would plant maize, melons, and beans between the yam mounds. The yams were supported, first by small sticks, and later by tall, sturdy branches. The women meticulously weeded the farm three times during the yams’ growth, at precise intervals—never too early or too late.
Now the rains had truly arrived, heavy and relentless, so much so that even the village rain-maker could no longer pretend to have control. He could no more stop the downpour than he would dare try to summon rain in the peak of the dry season, which would surely endanger his health. The energy needed to defy such extreme forces of nature would be far beyond human capacity.
Thus, nature was left untouched during the heart of the rainy season. Sometimes, the rain fell so fiercely that earth and sky blurred together in a gray, wet veil. It was hard to tell whether the low rumble of Amadiora’s thunder came from above or below. During these times, in each thatched hut in Umuofia, children gathered around their mothers’ cooking fires to tell stories, or huddled with their fathers in the obi, warming themselves by the fire and roasting maize. It was a short break between the grueling planting season and the equally demanding, yet more joyful, harvest period.
Ikemefuna had started to feel like a true member of Okonkwo’s household. He still thought of his mother and little sister back home, and at times, he felt waves of sadness. But his bond with Nwoye had grown so strong that such feelings became less frequent and less painful. Ikemefuna had an endless repertoire of folk tales. Even those that Nwoye already knew were brought to life with a fresh perspective, flavored by the customs of a different clan. Nwoye remembered this time vividly for the rest of his life. He even recalled laughing when Ikemefuna taught him that the proper name for a sparse corn cob was eze-agadi-nwayi, meaning “the teeth of an old woman.” Nwoye’s mind had immediately wandered to Nwayieke, the old woman who lived by the udala tree with just three teeth, always puffing on her pipe.
As the rains grew lighter and more sporadic, the earth and sky slowly parted once again. Gentle showers fell under sunshine and breezes, and children no longer stayed indoors. They ran outside, singing:
“The rain is falling, the sun is shining,
Nnadi is cooking and eating all alone.”
Nwoye often wondered who Nnadi was, and why he lived alone, cooking and eating by himself. In the end, he decided that Nnadi must belong to that mystical world from Ikemefuna’s favorite stories, where the ant holds court in splendor, and the sands dance for eternity.
