Religion and the Igbo People
The Igbo are a profoundly religious people who believe in a benevolent creator, usually known as Chukwu, who created the visible universe (uwa). Opposing this force for good is agbara, meaning spirit or supernatural being. In some situations people are referred to as agbara in describing an almost impossible feat performed by them. In a common phrase the igbo people will say Bekee wu agbara. This means the white man is spirit. This is usually in amazement at the scientific inventions of the white man.
Apart from the natural level of the universe, they also believe that it exists on another level, that of the spiritual forces, the alusi. The alusi are minor deities, and are forces for blessing or destruction,
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The living show appreciation for the dead and pray to them for future well being. It is against tribal law to speak badly of a spirit. Those ancestors who lived well, died in socially approved ways, and were given correct burial rites, live in one of the worlds of the dead, which mirror the worlds of the living. They are periodically reincarnated among the living and are given the name ndichie – the returners. Those who died bad deaths and lack correct burial rites cannot return to the world of the living, or enter that of the dead. They wander homeless, expressing their grief by causing harm among the …show more content…
Religious taboos, especially those surrounding priests and titled men, involved a great deal of asceticism. The Igbo expected in their prayers and sacrifices, blessings such as long, healthy, and prosperous lives, and especially children, who were considered the greatest blessing of all. The desire to offer the most precious sacrifice of all led to human sacrifice – slaves were often sacrificed at funerals in order to provide a retinue for the dead man in life to come. There was no shrine to Chukwu, nor were sacrifices made directly to him, but he was conceived as the ultimate receiver of all sacrifices made to the minor
Along with the belief in a Higher Power comes the belief in the continued existence of the soul after physical death. Many Root-Workers start out working with spirits of the dead in the form of the Ancestors, the spirits of the dead connected to them by blood. It is believed that the dead don’t die, but rather ascend to another level of being, from which they can look on and assist us. From this higher level, the Ancestors can guide us in our daily lives, intercede with the Godhead on our behalf and protect us in times of
You also say that human sacrifice is disgusting and revolting to sacrifice another human being. That it is savage and disgraceful. We Ibo believe that human sacrifice is sometimes appropriate because it is ordered by the oracle and can prevent punishment and devastation for our village. Human sacrifices are most of the time necessary to avoid war, dysfunction and chaos. If the Oracle is meant to be obeyed , the clan must follow and obey the oracle. No questions would be asked, you simply nod and do as told.
... die, innocence and good is corrupted and there is a connection to sexuality. Both novels create an aspect of mystery for the reader of the 19th century. Stoker’s portrayal of a creature little known by the English public of the 1890’s would have been of fear inspiring fascination to read about. Though few would have read John Palidori’s vampire novel, more perhaps would have heard the tale of Vlad the Impaler. He was a man who supposedly drank human blood or the blood of his war victims, and was in fact a ‘Dracule’. This basis in reality would add a sadistic interest to the novel. Wilde’s novel, though equally inexplicable, doesn’t create the same feeling of terror, but does raise a number of reservations in its reader.
Kathy Prendergast, further contends, that it is this convergence of the Gothic art style and Romantic genre which was quintessential of the nineteenth century era. Both collided to spotlight terror, valuelessness emotion and vulnerability. Both collided to perpetrate a sense of wonderment in the reader/viewer, a sense of helplessness in the face of some superior force. The Gothic architecture with its peculiarity, mystery and imperilment; the Gothic architecture with its a...
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, was published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, in London. This year is exactly ten years into Queen Victoria’s sixty-four year reign of the British Empire. The Victorian Era was renowned for its patriarchal Society and definition by class. These two things provide vital background to the novel, as Jane suffers from both. Jane Eyre relates in some ways to Brontë’s own life, as its original title suggest, “Jane Eyre: An Autobiography”. Charlotte Brontë would have suffered from too, as a relatively poor woman. She would have been treated lowly within the community. In fact, the book itself was published under a pseudonym of Currer Bell, the initials taken from Brontë’s own name, due to the fact that a book published by a woman was seen as inferior, as they were deemed intellectually substandard to men. Emily Brontë, Charlotte’s sister, was also forced to publish her most famous novel, Wuthering Heights, under the nom de plume of Ellis Bell, again taking the initials of her name to form her own alias. The novel is a political touchstone to illustrate the period in which it was written, and also acts as a critique of the Victorian patriarchal society.
”Two little groups of people stood at a respectable distance beyond the stools. they faced the elder’s” (Achebe,1994,p.87). The court system only consist of the elders of the village but, all of the elders are males. And because they are males so they are biased to the other males so it can become an unfair court trial for the women of the village because the elder’s side with the men. Therefore there is still the debate that it is only their way of life so the Igbo people are still somewhat
In a number of African Traditional Religions there exists a varying sense of morality. In Mama Lola author Karen McKarthy Brown states that Vodou morality is a “survival ethic.” Brown goes further and states that morality in Vodou is tailored to the situation and to the specific person or group involved. Brown elaborates by stating that Each spirit has a moral pull, but no one spirit prevails in every situation (Brown pg.242). One of Brown's best explanations of why this is so is because there is no Golden age in the past and no heaven in the future so nothing is valued higher than survival of oneself and the survival of one's group. (Brown pg.242). Furthermore, Vodou is not a religion that promises a dues ex machina (a god that appears and solves a problem). (Brown pg.242). On the other hand, what Vodou does offer is empowerment to fix or do whatever a person wants and allows them to do it for themselves (Brown pg.242). An example of this tailored morality and survival method for women is when they are pregnant, the naming of a father for their child is a part of their strategy (Brown pg.243). Due to Vodou being a religion of survival, it counsels what it must to ensure survival (Brown pg.254). The downside to this lifestyle Brown shares is that it can become brittle and threatened by inner rage (Brown pg.257).
Charlotte “Jane Eyre” Bronte was born April 21, 1816. She was born the third daughter out of six children. In 1824, Charlotte and her older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth Bronte, enrolled in the Cowan Bridge Clergy Daughters’ School and obtained their education. Soon after Charlotte’s younger sister, Emily, joined them at the school, Maria and Elizabeth became very ill. Charlotte’s father, Patrick Bronte, requested for Maria and Elizabeth to be sent home to be taken care of. Charlotte and Emily were left to attend Cowan Bridge alone; however, this did not last long because they were soon requested home by their father as well. In the following year, Elizabeth and Maria both died of consumption. The death of these two beloved sisters took a toll on the Bronte family causing the remaining siblings to cling together for support and become best friends. Charlotte, her brother Branwell, Emily, and youngest sister Anne began to write epic stories and poems together, often set in the realm of the Kingdom of Gondal. This was the beginning of the legacy to be left by Charlotte Bronte. (Gerin, 169)
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is set towards the offset of the 1800s. The protagonist goes by the name Okonkwo. He has lived all his life resenting the poverty that his father represented and the man he was. In his adult life, Okonkwo becomes, extremely wealthy, but is strict and withdrawn from his wives and children. He commits a crime by killing a boy who was under his care during the non – violence week of peace. As a result, he is banished from the community. During the period of exile, white missionaries come to his village and spread the Christian gospel. Okonkwo is shocked by this conversion upon his return because his son is amongst those that were converted (Achebe, 179). Okonkwo constantly battles with the missionaries to the point where he murders one of them. His struggle with all the mixed emotions he goes through causes him to take his own life.
Throughout the years, Gothic literature has developed to be a mirror representation of what the beliefs and thoughts of the time were. The Gothic has a tendency to express beliefs towards the socioeconomic, political and religious situations and grievances of the time. Many texts express this, some including Edgar Allen Poe’s The House of Usher and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to then allow for the general public – at least those who were literate – to, subconsciously, understand the environment around them without being too direct. This gave the writers of the time a new channel, through this ge...
William Butler Yeats’s poem, “The Second Coming” represents the view of the African society by the Western Civilization. He and the Europeans renders the African society as a uncivilized, warlike, society comprised of barbaric and savage human beings. However, many people disagree with this, such as the author Chinua Achebe. His goal is to educate and inform the readers that the Africans are not primitive and savage but rather civilized. Achebe demonstrates his views in his book, Things Fall Apart, which shows the Igbo, an African civilization, being a civilized group. Chinua Achebe effectively educates his readers that the Igbo were not a primitive, savage, and uncivilized society, as viewed by the Western Europeans, but rather a civilized, peaceful, and
Vampires have been a popular figure in literary works for almost 200 years; from John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2005), the figure of the vampire has changed and developed over time but still remains popular and recognisable throughout literary history. The figure of the vampire is often used to represent ‘the other’, or as a manifestation of social anxieties at the time of writing. This is why it is interesting to study the how the tropes found within vampire fiction differ between texts, and the reasons behind these differences or transformations in the figure of the vampire. I will look at a range of texts to study how sexuality
Over the centuries vampires have been creatures of mystique and intrigue to our society. They represent danger, death, lust, and allure. They are immortal, and often sexualized beyond the bounds of the puritanical values that still guard modern society. Due to these traits they are practically irresistible to the reader and have fascinated society for centuries. While vampirism can take on multiple forms, with each form possessing its own specific set of traits that allow it to successfully prey on the living, the official definition for a vampire in literature is: “The vampire as ghost or revenant; as monster or deformity; and as reanimated corpse, revenge-seeking emanation of the dead. (Huggan, 192) Early mythological vampires date back centuries
Do you think men are held at a higher standard than woman? In the book “Things Fall Apart” it deals with the Igbo Tribes history on how they treat women . There are many constant struggles that a women has to face within this book, from getting treated unfairly to being ruled by their husbands. These are gender roles in the African Igbo society when it comes to women. Throughout history , from the beginning of time to today, women are frequently been viewed as slaves to men. Meaning that they are a men’s possessions whose sole purpose is to satisfy the men’s needs. This might be because men are physically stronger than women and have always had the ability to control them that way.
As the English began to colonize the Igbo society, there were few natives who opposed it, they others just felt that the English would come and go, but they were wrong. Soon, the English began to introduce "white man's religion." This new religion was completely the opposite from what the natives were accustomed to. Christianity was rather intriguing to many of the natives and many of them turned away from their families and everything they were to become a member of this new religion. Before this, they natives had been very superstious, but as they new religion flooded over the peoples, their superstiousocity began to lessen and their belief in the many gods they had previously believed in.