long. A steady cloud of smoke rose from his head. Uchendu before her.

"before 1 put any crop in the earth
"before 1 put any crop in the earth. All the women shouted with joy because Ekwefi's troubles were at last ended. But on one point there was general agreement??the active principle in that medicine had been an old woman with one leg. Almost immediately the women came in with a big bowl of foo-foo. Nwoye overheard it and burst into tears. Ekwefi had been returning from the stream with her mother on a dark night like this when they saw its glow as it flew in their direction. And then suddenly like one possessed he shot out his left hand and pointed in the direction of Mbaino. nor the walls of his compound. because an old man was very close to the ancestors." He then added ten sticks to the fifteen and gave the bundle to Ukegbu. and they agreed about the beating. and men. "We shall give them a piece of land."There is too much green vegetable. At first the bride was not among them. He had discerned a clear overtone of tragedy in the crier's voice. broke into life and activity. She nodded. and then he continued: "Each group there represents a debt to someone."No."But Nwoye's mother dropped her pot of hot soup the other day and it broke on the floor.

In her hand was the cloth pad on which the pot should have rested on her head." Uzowulu replied. He remembered his wife's twin children. Obiageli." said Okonkwo's voice. In the end he decided that Nnadi must live in that land of Ikemefuna's favorite story where the ant holds his court in splendor and the sands dance forever. As the rain began to fall more soberly and in smaller liquid drops. she found her lying on the mat. whose sad story is still told in Umuofia unto this day. and ate up all the wild grass in the fields. where he thought they must be. who had lived about two hundred years before. Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he had committed inadvertently? But although he thought for a long time he found no answer." she replied and disappeared in the darkness. my great friend. You know his first wife who walks with a stick?""Yes." said Ofoedu. He walked back to his obi to await Ojiugo's return. He sang the song again." he said." said Uchendu.

and others prepared vegetable soup. He must have a wife.Unoka. But it is your turn now. and stayed. "I have felt it. a large crowd of men from Ezeudu's quarter stormed Okonkwo's compound. but ill. the one young and beautiful. "You are not a stranger in Umuofia. How could she know that Ekwefi's bitterness did not flow outwards to others but inwards into her own soul. smiling. They usually stay if they do not die before the age of six. Ofoedu ate slowly and talked about the locusts. The kola nut was given him to break. Unoka was able to give an answer between fresh outbursts of mirth. His name was Maduka.' he thought as he looked at his ten-year-old daughter."We shall be late for the wrestling." said one of the women. they have killed me!" as he ran towards him.

"So you must finish this. or how. She was alive and well. I have only called you together because it is good for kinsmen to meet. Nwakibie sent for his wives.The women had gone to the bush to collect firewood. where he built his headquarters and from where he paid regular visits to Mr. consulting among themselves and with the leaders of the two wrestling teams." Some of them had big sticks and some even machetes. raised the pot on his left knee and began to pour out the wine. But she refused them all. and we would be like Abame." asked another man."Bring me my bag." Okonkwo was surprised. but many of them believed that the strange faith and the white man's god would not last."Do you know Ogbuefi Ndulue?" Ofoedu asked. Ojiugo's children were eating with the children of his first wife.It seemed to Ekwefi that the night had become a little lighter." she replied. Nothing happened at its proper time.

Uchendu had been told by one of his grandchildren that three strangers had come to Okonkwo's house. "They have that custom in Obodoani. astride the steaming pot. also had a basket of plantains and coco-yams and a small pot of palm-oil. Only the word of our God is true. Living fire begets cold. How could he have begotten a woman for a son? At Nwoye's age Okonkwo had already become famous throughout Umuofia for his wrestling and his fearlessness. "But the law of the land must be obeyed. He exchanged greetings with Okonkwo and led the way into his obi. If any money came his way.' said Tortoise. to roast plantains for him. It seemed as if the world had gone mad."It is very near now. whose sad story is still told in Umuofia unto this day. They boast about victory over death."Nwoye always wondered who Nnadi was and why he should live all by himself."I beg you to accept this little kola."In her hut. The old man bore no ill will towards Okonkwo. One day as Ezinma was eating an egg Okonkwo had come in unexpectedly from his hut.

"As they spoke Ezinma emerged from the hut. and on their way they paid short courtesy visits to prominent men like Okonkwo." said Obierika. "What we are eating is finished. They also said I would die if I built my church on this ground. and the quiet spectators murmured to themselves. "Ozoemena was. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart."1 don't know. especially the youngest. She greeted her god in a multitude of names??the owner of the future."He took down the pot from the fire and placed it in front of the stool. Tortoise's wife sent for him and he gathered all the bits of shell and stuck them together. and as if in sympathy the smoldering log also sighed. are known in all the clan for the weakness of your machete and your hoe. and when he died he was buried by his kind in the Evil Forest.Okonkwo knew these things.Ekwefi ladled her husband's share of the pottage into a bowl and covered it. She knelt on her knees and hands at the threshold and called her husband. my daughter. He held a short staff in his hand which he brought down on the floor to emphasize his points.

" said Uchendu. "But Nweke did not appear until it was quite light.Although such stories were now often told they looked like fairy-tales in Mbanta and did not as yet affect the relationship between the new church and the clan. They came to discover what the future held for them or to consult the spirits of their departed fathers.""You worry yourself for nothing." she said. beat him up and took our sister and her children away. to the boys and they passed it round the wooden stays and then back to him. Once upon a time there was a great famine in the land of animals." Ezinma said. Kiaga was praying in the church when he heard the women talking excitedly. Then something had given way inside him. They formed a circular ring with a break at one point through which the foot-track led to the center of the circle. when he was young. From then on. The Oracle of the Hills and the Caves has pronounced it. And if anybody was so foolhardy as to pass by the shrine after dusk he was sure to see the old woman hopping about. and all the tragedy and sorrow of her life were packed in those words. After the pot-bearers came Ibe. an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.His anger thus satisfied.

Ezinma had not wanted to cooperate with him at first." Okonkwo said. If it does its power will be gone. It was like a man wondering in broad daylight why a dream had appeared so terrible to him at night. I cannot yet find a mouth with which to tell the story. "I am an old man and I like to talk. And so it was time for the final ceremony of confession.""I can tell you. But he had long learned how to lay that ghost. was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. who had felt more angry than the others. each of them carrying a heavy bag on his head." And he told him what an osu was. her mother and half a dozen other women and girls emerged from the inner compound."They would have gone on arguing had Ofoedu not come in just then. One of these days your jigida will catch fire on your waist. Okonkwo slept. Okonkwo knew how to kill a man's spirit."Ekwefi. The lad's name was Ikemefuna. It was a sad miscalculation.

Large crowds began to gather on the village ilo as soon as the edge had worn off the sun's heat and it was no longer painful on the body. He pressed the trigger and there was a loud report accompanied by the wail of his wives and children. and the children who sang songs of welcome to them. men. As our fathers said."None. The villagers were so certain about the doom that awaited these men that one or two converts thought it wise to suspend their allegiance to the new faith. he would use his fists. Soon it covered half the sky. She walked numbly along. He was carried to the Evil Forest and left there to die. the sun is shining. The story was always told of a wealthy man who set before his guests a mound of foo-foo so high that those who sat on one side could not see what was happening on the other. the priest of the earth goddess. It was on the seventh day that he died. Everybody was lean except Cat. The moon was shining. She had not as much as looked at Okonkwo and Ekwefi or shown any surprise at finding them at the mouth of the cave. But she had lived so long that perhaps she had decided to stay. Two years after her marriage to Anene she could bear it no longer and she ran away to Okonkwo.Ekwefi did not answer.

"It is not to pay you back for all you did for me in these seven years. It was a story of brothers who lived in darkness and in fear.And so nature was not interfered with in the middle of the rainy season."'We know you too well. In Umunso they do not bargain at all." said Nwoye's mother. I have done my best to make Nwoye grow into a man. if one finger brought oil it soiled the others. The priestess.Thus the men of Umuofia pursued their way."Do you think you are cutting up yams for cooking?" he asked Nwoye." said Mr." he said. His wives." said Obierika.'"Parrot promised to deliver the message. When they did. In these seven years he would have climbed to the utmost heights." she said. for his father's relatives to see. It was not very easy getting the men of high title and the elders together after the excitement of the first day.

At last Sky was moved to pity. behind the crowd. and saw those who stood or sat next to them. I weed ?C I??; ??Hold your peace!" screamed the priestess. He had never been fond of his real father. not dead."Akueke moved to the other end of the hut and began to remove the waist-beads." He went away to his hut and Ekwefi began to tend the medicine pot almost as if it was itself a sick child. "A child's fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm. Unoka. many years. It was called a string."Go and burn your mothers' genitals. "I will tell Obierika's wife that you are coming later. Okonkwo said he was sorry for what he had said. It was not done earlier because the rains were too heavy and would have washed away the heap of trodden earth. She beckons in front of her and behind her. He just hung limp."Your buttocks said he had a son. Then the bride.It was going to be Okonkwo's last harvest in Mbanta.

Okonkwo. She determined to nurse her child to health. They were the harbingers sent to survey the land."But Nwoye's mother dropped her pot of hot soup the other day and it broke on the floor. But in spite of these disadvantages. People laughed at him because he was a loafer. taking their bride home to spend seven market weeks with her suitor's family. "The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan. and the women had formed themselves into three groups for this purpose. Everybody soon knew who the boy was. how many twins she has borne and thrown away. This man told him that the child was an ogbanje. entered their mothers' wombs to be born again. Sometimes another village would ask Unoka's band and their dancing egwugwu to come and stay with them and teach them their tunes. yellow and dark green. He heard the blow.As night fell.That year the harvest was sad. She is called Ozoemena. They each made nine or ten trips carrying Okonkwo's yams to store in Obierika's barn. made up her mind.

"Ekwefi. and then."That was many years ago. Even Mgbafo took to her heels and had to be restrained by her brothers. She gave the dish to her father's eldest brother and then shook hands. Nwoye. He turned again to Ezinma. and they took up fans and began to fan themselves. and filled the village with excitement. to harvest cassava tubers. who then unrolled the goatskin which he carried under his arm."The court messengers did not like to be called Ashy-Buttocks. "Your friend Anene asked me to greet you. The lad's name was Ikemefuna."Okoli was not there to answer. 'Your dead father wants you to sacrifice a goat to him. "What will the heathen say of us when they hear that we receive osu into our midst? They will laugh." she called. At first they were afraid they might die."Because I did not want to. the emanation of the god of water.

and old men and women would remember their youth. They chose to fly home on an empty stomach.""All their customs are upside-down. His name was Maduka. And so he killed her. Here we say he cannot climb the tall tree but he can tap the short ones standing on the ground. They painted their bodies with red cam wood and drew beautiful patterns on them with uli. Three men beat them with sticks. 'When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth. The rainbow began to appear.As the broken kola nuts were passed round. facing the elders and grandees of the clan. and. her face streaming with tears. and each hut seen from the others looked like a soft eye of yellow half-light set in the solid massiveness of night. As our people say. 'Don't touch!' If i hold her footShe says. Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he had committed inadvertently? But although he thought for a long time he found no answer. Ezinma struggled to escape from the choking and overpowering steam. The earth goddess whom you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase." said Nwoye's mother.

At any rate.Ogbuefi Ezeudu." he said. but now sat with Okonkwo in his obi.Ezeudu had been the oldest man in his village. all the same. And they all knew Ekwefi and her daughter very well. Brown.When the rain finally came.He went back to the church and told Mr. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. The missionaries had come to Umuofia. He turned again to Ezinma. the priestess. turning to Obierika. He had a large barn full of yams and he had three wives. The musicians with their wood." said Obierika."I don't know why such a trifle should come before the said one elder to another. and washed away the yam heaps. He would have liked to return earlier and build his compound that year before the rains stopped.

"All the gods you have named are not gods at all. Chielo never ceased in her chanting. but he had been too surprised to weep. When they had all taken. until crops withered and the dead could not be buried because the hoes broke on the stony Earth. It was powerful in war and in magic.' Why is that?"There was silence. His love of talk had grown with age and sickness."That is the strange part of it. But if you allow sorrow to weigh you down and kill you they will all die in exile."I am Evil Forest.And now the rains had really come. It was a deep bag and took almost the whole length of his arm. But when he reached Tortoise's house he told his wife to bring out all the hard things in the house. It was a smooth pebble wrapped in a dirty rag. It was a gay and airy kind of rain. Ikemefuna was equally excited. "So you must finish this. and Okonkwo filled his horn again. one of the people of the sky came forward and tasted a little from each pot. I think.

The last match was between the leaders of the teams. Children no longer stayed indoors but ran about singing:"The rain is falling. And he told them about this new God.He was tall but very thin and had a slight stoop."Will you give Ezinma some fire to bring to me?" Her own children and Ikemefuna had gone to the stream."Point at the spot with your finger. therefore. He threw down the gun and jumped into the barn and there lay the woman. spears. He tried not to think about Ikemefuna. her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender.""You do not understand. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!"She walked through Okonkwo's hut into the circular compound and went straight toward Ekwefi's hut. indeed. She was the priestess of Agbala.""That is why the drum has not been beaten to tell Umuofla. But it only lasted till the end of the service. Then it occurred to her that they could not have been heading for the cave. and prayed that the rain might fall in the night. "1 do not know how to thank you. He hit the bottle against his knee to shake up the tobacco.

"Obiageli broke her pot today." she replied and disappeared in the darkness."Obiageli called her "Salt" because she said that she disliked water. There are only two of them. His death showed that the gods were still able to fight their own battles. Some of it also went to the bride and her attendant maidens. therefore." But he was a man of commanding presence and the clansmen listened to him. but that year-had been enough to break the heart of a lion. Okonkwo said he was sorry for what he had said. One of them was a pathetic cry. only they did not understand him. In these seven years he would have climbed to the utmost heights. But I think you ought to break it. "But I have also heard that Abame people were weak and foolish. But as he walked through the market he realized that people were pointing at him as they do to a madman. long ago."Ekwefi did as she was asked. The elders and grandees of the village sat on their own stools brought there by their young sons or slaves. "Somebody is walking behind me!" she said.""You do not understand.

be cursed with such a son? He saw clearly in it the finger of his personal god or chi."The weeping was now quite close and soon the children filed in. by Okonkwo's brusqueness in dealing with less successful men. The sickness was an abomination to the earth. It throbbed in the air. "These are now your kinsmen. "I had something better to do."I wish she were a boy. When the youngest wife went to call her again to be present at the washing of the body. The poor and unknown would not dare to come forth.As night fell.' replied the young kite. and the women had formed themselves into three groups for this purpose. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!"She walked through Okonkwo's hut into the circular compound and went straight toward Ekwefi's hut. and went back to her hut. The spell of sunshine which always came in the middle of the wet season did not appear. Suppose when he died all his male children decided to follow Nwoye's steps and abandon their ancestors? Okonkwo felt a cold shudder run through him at the terrible prospect. "she will bring you back very soon. I implore you.- they merely set the scene. The young ailing girl who had caused her mother so much heartache had been transformed.

But she had grown so bitter about her own chi that she could not rejoice with others over their good fortune. Ojiugo's children were eating with the children of his first wife."That is the strange part of it. having enough in his barn to feed the ancestors with regular sacrifices. But if a man caused it. On his head were two powerful horns."Where do you sleep with your wife." and Okoye saw groups of short perpendicular lines drawn in chalk.That was the kind of story that Nwoye loved. They were silent for a long time. The dark top soil soon gave way to the bright red earth with which women scrubbed the floors and walls of huts. moved to the center. who said he should die. "We have been sent by this great God to ask you to leave your wicked ways and false gods and turn to Him so that you may be saved when you die. waving their palm fronds.And so Obierika went to Mbanta to see his friend. All that he required was something to occupy his mind. watching. If any one of you prefers to be a woman. lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper. It was a very good wine and powerful.

years ago. and they each gave him a feather. It was a warrior's funeral."Do you think you are cutting up yams for cooking?" he asked Nwoye. For how else could he explain his great misfortune and exile and now his despicable son's behavior? Now that he had time to think of it. called round his neighbors and made merry. For two or three moons the sun had been gathering strength till it seemed to breathe a breath of fire on the earth. All the neighbors and relations who had come to mourn gathered round them. Unoka prayed to their ancestors for life and health. But it was like beginning life anew without the vigor and enthusiasm of youth. Its most potent war-medicine was as old as the clan itself. Ekwefi picked her way carefully and quietly. He would have liked to return earlier and build his compound that year before the rains stopped. Now he has won our brothers. He was a man of action. when she had seen Ogbu-agali-odu. she could bear no other person but her father. Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly. when his father had not been dead very long. A steady cloud of smoke rose from his head. Uchendu before her.