Principle and practice: The logic of cultural violence in Achebe's Things Fall Apart

College Literature, Winter 1999 by Hoegberg, David

Okonkwo and Ekwefi engage the second ritual option, the search for the buried iyi-uwa, after Ezinma has almost died from a serious illness at the age of nine. More elaborate than the mutilation ritual, this option receives a lengthy description from Achebe indicating its importance to the overall design of the novel.

A medicine man asks Ezinma where she buried her iyiuwa and encourages her to lead him to the exact spot. All of the family and some of the neighbors participate as spectators of the search, quietly and cheerfully following Ezinma as she takes them on a long journey into the bush and back home to Okonkwo's compound (Achebe 1959, 77-79). The journeying of the ritual recapitulates the ogbanje's habitual wandering while reducing its power to hurt because the family and neighbors-the very people who would be most grieved if Ezinma were to die-actually go along on the journey. The ritual thus produces travel without departure. It also casts Ezinma in the role of leader of the group, making her own decisions about direction and destination despite the presence of her elders. As Achebe says, her "feeling of importance was manifest in her sprightly walk" as she playfully runs, stops, doubles back, while "the crowd followed her silently" (1959, 78). Cultivating this "feeling of importance" may in fact be the main function of the ritual, for Ezinma's "sprightly walk" is the sign of a link between a person's physical symptoms and how s/he feels about her/his relationship to (or position in) the community. If the Igbo believe in such a link (even if none "actually" exists), it would explain how a ritual like this is supposed to work to stop the ogbanje's cycle of illness and death. Making a child feel important, welcome, and valued, (the theory goes) would produce a sprightliness, a vigor, and therefore a tendency toward healthiness. Conversely, a child treated with suspicion and fear that s/he might be an ogbanje or, worse, one of the "really evil children," would tend to feel unwelcome and depressed. The medicine man's demeanor also serves the ritual's goal of cultivating social bonds. Throughout the scene his voice is described as "cool," "confident," and "quiet" (1959, 77, 79). When Okonkwo fumes at Ezinma with threats such as "if you bring us all this way for nothing I shall beat sense into you" (1959, 78), Okagbue, the medicine man, restores calm: "I have told you to let her alone. I know how to deal with them" (1959, 78). Okonkwo's repeated outbursts threaten to turn this ritual into a version of the mutilation ritual, but Okagbue holds his ground and will allow no intimidation or violence. Characteristically, Okonkwo does not see that the spirit and method here are entirely different and fails to understand the power of gentleness.