I was at the start a skeptic towards this book due to the simple writing style, but in the end grew to really like it. To me it was a thought provoking look at what civilization means, and assumptions about what constitutes a superior and more just civilization.
Yes, the beliefs of the tribe in various gods and their ancestor worship seem like primitive superstition, but on a rational objective basis is what the Christian missionaries are pushing more convincing?
The tribes have customs that seem abhorrent, such as putting new born twins out to die or labeling some people as osu (outcast). Is the latter better than the racial and religious discrimination in the British colonists?
The murder of Ikemefuna seems senseless and heartless, especially after letting him seemingly become part of Okonkwo's family. Even Okonkwo was for a time racked with doubt and guilt about that. It must also be placed in its proper context. When a war is eminent between the village of Umuofia and Mbaino due to the murder of the wife of a Umufoia man by a Mbaino man, the elders of both village decide that to avoid the possibility of great bloodshed it is better for Mbaino to give up a young women to replace the murdered wife and the lad Ikemefuna as restitution to the people of Umoufia to do as they please with. Contrast this with the response of the civilized British when the people of Abame kill the one unexpected white man that has appeared in the village. To quote:
Quote:
For many market weeks nothing else happened. They have a big market in Abame on every other Afo day and, as you know, the whole clan gathers there. That was the day it happened. The three white men and a very large number of other men surrounded the market. They must have used a powerful medicine to make themselves invisible until the market was full. And they began to shoot. Everybody was killed, except the old and the sick who were at home and a handful of men and women whose chi were wide awake and brought them out of that market.” He paused.
“Their clan is now completely empty. Even the sacred fish in their mysterious lake have fled and the lake has turned the color of blood. A great evil has come upon their land as the Oracle had warned.”
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The "civilized" response is to return and wipe out the entire village?
Anyway I enjoyed this book. In perspective colonization was inevitable and in the long run, after much depredation by the British, positive for the people. However, this book presents and nice perspective about how it must have seemed to a people who had their whole culture destroyed in the process.