Written piece
A Book That Resembles All of Us.
Stephen Adinoyi
Nigeria
About this piece
The thread is about Chinua Achebe's book. I have always believe that Things Fall Apart is not an Igbo book, but an African book. No African tribe can claim ownership of the book. Everything about the book is African. From the cultural depictions to ancestral worship are African.
I have always believe that: Things Fall Apart is not an Igbo book, but an African book. No African tribe can claim ownership of the book. Everything about the book echoes Africa. Africa has similar faces; the great Achebe used one of its faces, the Igbo face, to tell the world how our faces resemble each other, and who we are.
Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe, is one of the topmost cultural books woven into a story to showcase African diverse cultures. A diversity scenting with similarities. Differences with resemblances. It's a book with one main purpose: To show the identity of Africans, her culture to the other parts of the world.
Some of the cultural harmony are as followed:
Masquerades:
The festival for masquerades as described in the book performed by the Igbos is harmonious with other races in Africa. The deep reverence and spiritual awe ascribed to these masked men is still common among African tribes in Togo, Ghana, Mali and Kenya etc.
Spirit Child.
In the novel, Okonkwo’s daughter, Ezinma, was a spirit child: A child with the ability to die and be reborn again and again. The Yoruba people called them Abiku. The Ebira people called them Emasu. It's a familiar spiritual phenomenon in other African tribes.
Ancestral Worship.
The ancestors, in spite of the fact that they are no longer on the earth remains an integral part of those still living, and deserves worship. In the novel, Okonkwo, Obierika etc, can be seen, during festive seasons or moments of eating, throwing a lobe of a kolanut on the ground for the ancestors to eat; or splashing palmwine on the ground. The Akan people of Ghana also pour local drinks on the ground during cultural ceremonies; the Abang people of Cameroon do that , too.