Igbo

Good evening The royal colonial institute, I have studied the Igbo Culture for the past 20 years and have seen this beautiful culture blossom from what was once many states, to a concrete united state. Now, what is the Igbo society. The society is located in the continent of Africa, specifically in Nigeria. This society has had a drastic development over the past decade, for instance, the community has become more connected to one another. If you traveled through the many societies in the past, you would assume you were in a new country, due to many of the civilizations communicating through different dialects.

Not only have different dialects been developed, but also the way the society functions. At one point the Igbo people relied heavily hunting as a mean of income, and suitability for their family, however I have also seen mass development in this sector. The people have branched out from hunting, to farming, to even art in the form of poetry. Not only has this taken place, but in each foundation we see large development, for example farming has introduced irons tools, the people have mastered the craft of smelting and incorporated it into their daily lifestyle, which is purely stunning as the time scale which this has taken place is extremely rapid.       

Although this may be the case, there is still flaws in this community. A tragic barbaric act which takes place daily in the community is the treatment of babies. In Igbo culture it is seen as abnormal to have twins. The Igbo community treat this abnormality with the most barbaric treatment, they lay the babies to die in the forest, as well as perform rituals towards the women who gave birth to the babies. This leads me onto my next point, which is their religious believe. The community is heavily reliant on superstitions, they perform many rituals to ensure there farming seasons are positive as well as sacrifice many lives to the “gods”. This god is called “chukwu” in the community, and they believe he created life as we know it. They also have a devilish figure in the name of “ekwensu”. This is particularly significant as they have a correlation with our society's believes, however much more barbaric and foolish.      

Achebe Interview

What was the most meaningful takeaway from today’s discussion relating to the cultural or literary context of Achebe’s work?

I feel what was meaningful from today's discussion was how I view Achebe from due to other people's reasoning. Not only did the discussion change my opinion about Achebe but also colonialism in general which we were able to relate to the book in specific ways.  I believe that my group had great questions which we were able to build off of, such as a question I asked

“Do you think that achebe sees colonialism as a core concept to development, or a set back?”

What our group decided was that it is helpful tool for development, however people are being used for other people's advantages. We were then able to the book “things fall apart” as the colonialism brought the churches, which can be seen as less barbaric and created more order in the society. We also discussed how they were being exploited as they were indirectly being controlled. Overall I believe that this experience was good to change our points of views on specific topics.