Achebe’s Success in Revealing African Tribal Culture
by Melanie Cole
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is one of the most famous rebuttals against the stereotypical thoughts on African Tribal culture in the Western world. The purpose of Achebe’s novel was to “re-story a people who had been knocked silent by disposition.” Needless to say, Achebe used his precise detailing of the Ibo African culture to tell the story of one man’s life and one tribe’s tribulations. Within his text, it becomes apparent to the reader that the culture and practices, as strange as they may seem to Westerners, hold the same basic foundations, ideals, and moral importance as most cultures around the world. Achebe uses the long and complex story of Okonkwo, a man determined to preserve the jewels of his Ibo tribe’s culture, to show readers that African tribal culture isn’t the savagery and complete lack of civilization that the world often perceives it to be. Through his work, Things Fall Apart, Achebe successfully reclaims African tribal practices and opens the reader’s eyes to the magnificently rich culture that the Ibo tribe has to offer.
Things Fall Apart opens by introducing the character of Okonkwo, a complex man with a determination to preserve the fundamentals of his tribe’s practices, and shake the connection to his late father, whom he considers everything a man should not be. In one the first chapters, the immense wealth and achievements of Okonkwo are described with, “Okonkwo’s prosperity was visible in his household. He had a large compound enclosed by a thick wall of red earth…Each of his three wives had her own hut…The barn was built against one end of the red walls, and long stacks of yam stood out prosperously in it. At the opposite end of the compound was a shed for the goats….and a small attachment…for the hens. Near the barn was…”the medicine house” or shrine where Okonkwo kept wooden symbols of his personal god and of his ancestral spirits.” This long paragraph describes Okonkwo’s status in the Ibo society by measuring the amount of wealth he has acquired throughout his lifetime. Western culture often values the same status, even though what is considered “wealth” is different from the Ibo tribe. In the popular American novel American Psycho, a very similar passage appears within the first chapters of the story. “In the early light of a May dawn this is what the living room of my apartment looks like: Over the white marble and granite gas-log fireplace hangs an original David Onica…The painting overlooks a long white down-filled sofa and a thirty-inch digital TV set from Toshiba …Standing at the island in the kitchen I eat kiwifruit and a sliced Japanese apple-pear (they cost four dollars each at Gristede’s) out of aluminum storage boxes that were designed in West Germany.” Each excerpt from the novels similarly describe the status of a person through the amount of wealth he has. This is just one of the many similarities between the Ibo and Western cultures.
Although African tribal cultures are often thought to be alien and their practices are often perceived as strange, some practices in particular, are not too far off from what used to be regular practices in Western society. The Uri Festival is the festival of a wedding between a young girl and a man. During the festival, the family of the bride is brought money, food, pots and pots of palm-wine, and other delights from the tribe of the groom. The festival is one of the most important in the Ibo culture and the entire village helps to prepare the wedding feast and the ceremony. Achebe describes this festival with great detail in writing. “On the following morning the entire neighborhood wore a festive air because Okonkwo’s friend, Obierika, was celebrating his daughter’s Uri…It was really a woman’s ceremony and the central figures were the bride and her mother…Obeirika’s compound was as busy as an anthill…Cooking pots went up and down the tripods and foo-foo was pounded in a hundred wooden mortars. Some of the women cooked the yams and the cassava and others prepared vegetable soup.” The Uri is surely a festival of community, and bride is the most important person on such a day. Similar customs are practiced in the Western world. In Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice a similar passage occurs. “Their sister’s wedding day arrived; and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her probably more than she felt for herself…They came. They family were assembled in the breakfast room, to receive them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet, as the carriage drove up to the door.” The practices of wedding ceremonies are similar throughout all of the world’s cultures, and the comparison between the family communal aspect of wedding ceremonies in Africa and England are shockingly similar.
Cultures often distinguish themselves through each other’s religious practices. In Things Fall Apart, the polytheistic religion of the Ibo people is tragically overridden when Christian missionaries from England “discover” the Umuofia village. The Christians try to convert the people of Umuofia by forcing and preaching their views and beliefs on the town. The Christians, as written in the novel, “had indeed brought a lunatic religion” and with this “lunatic religion,” they brought a sense of fear to the Ibo people. Although, these religions may not be as different as they might seem. In Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions, both Christianity and polytheistic- or primal- religions are introduced and discussed. Although the religions differ in the beliefs of monotheism, written texts, and rituals, the basic teachings of the religions are the same. In reference to this, Achebe writes, “‘You say that there is one supreme God who made heaven and earth,’ said Akunna on one of Mr. Brown’s visits. ‘We also believe in Him and call Him Chukwu. He made all the world and the other gods.’” In this section, of the last in Things Fall Apart, Achebe recognizes the similarities of the religions. Moreover, while the Christians are teaching the Ibo people what they believe to be the “right” way, they are basically re-telling similar moral beliefs in a new way. This again is evidence that people are not as different as they seem to be.
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart takes an accurate look at African Tribal culture in Nigeria. Although the stereotypes and preconceptions of such culture are often thought to be alien and outrageous, Achebe’s novel reclaims tribal heritage and gives back the name of civility to the people who are apart of it. The purpose of the novel was to give back a name to the Ibo people, and to show present day Africans as well as those of other cultures, that people really aren’t that different from each other. The novel and its references and comparisons to Western culture and religion, are successful in fulfilling their mission. All in all, Things Fall Apart is a wonderful novel about the rich culture of African Tribes, and the truth that people aren’t really all that different from one another.
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