Relationship between Igbo people and “The white man” Flashcards
When the missionaries and “white man” are first introduced to the Igbo community…
confusion and rejection can be seen from the Igbo people. As the missionaries preached on about Christianity, the differences in beliefs are polar opposites:
for example..
Christianity holds one god, but the Igbo people have a set of oracles and society members to enact the will of various gods. Thus this caused conflict between the Igbo people and the missionaries.Or the replacement of the traditional Igbo four-day week by weekly calendar to ‘come every seventh day’.
The white men saw Igbo as a…
‘burden’ that they had to take care of by informing and educating things they didn’t know or ‘wrongly believed.’
—> Because of how the white man believed his culture to be morally superior to the Igbo culture this caused conflict from the beginning.
The relationship between the Igbo people and the white man…
can also be viewed as a victim being fooled. The Igbo people didn’t suspect the white man’s true intentions, offering a piece of their land, not knowing it would be the root cause to the collapse of their culture.
One of the main reasons…
they may have been fooled is because Mr Brown (the first Christian missionary) was much more kind, understanding and open minded; respecting the Igbo beliefs. Mr Brown was possibly based on the real-life missionary G. T. Basden, who worked among the Igbo at the turn of the twentieth century and was a friend of Achebe’s parents.
the African Igbo society which was dominated by European imperialism…
Many people of Umuofia are not entirely unhappy with the white man’s influence on their community. They have set up trading posts, and money is flowing into the village.The first Europeans that observed the Igbo way of life knew only a little of the previous aspects of the Igbo culture. When a society is economically dominant, it is easy for its members to assume that such dominance reflects a deeper superiority – whether religious, racial, genetic, ethnic, cultural. The Umuofia elders even show a much greater insight, when they state that the white man “does not understand our customs, just as we do not understand his”
The igbo way of life…
slowly becomes more undermined when ‘the white man’ converts an egwugwu and takes off his mask during a ritual amounts to the death of an ancestral spirit resulting in the ‘egwugwu’ (high ranking members of the clan, which has been passed on from generations to burn down the church —> arrested and humiliated in front of whole village.
Although Okonkwo…
is released he is filled with despair as everything he has fought for; his culture, way of life has faded and commits suicide. This is also because he beheaded a council member and none of his clan men came to back him up.
It shows…
the drastic and dramatic shift in the relationship between ‘white man’ and Igbo, from powerless and undermined —> to the igbo clan ceasing to exist. The Igbo’s ways and beliefs ultimately was the main reason this occured.
The Europeans and the lgbo people…
Working together as one in any issue, if there is a dispute between two villages, the clan leaders listen to each one of them and decide who the one who committed a crime is. Then, he must apply the sentence given to him by the community leaders in the novel, the reader is also made aware of the arrival of white missionaries or colonised people in Umuofia as well as the reactions of Igbo to this arrival.
The important reason…
for the collapse of the Igbo was caused by their inability and unwillingness to learn English because they believed that it is not their native language and they will never have to apply it in their lives. The missionaries or colonised were stronger than the Igbo because civilised and equipped with modern things in life and education
they have…
a stronger influence and controlling power over Igbo and their land. The Missionaries used a militant way in taking over the ruling powers of Igbo land from its natives by using their influence to spread their holy Christian book and wiping out Igbo traditional customs and beliefs.
In chapter 16…
when the white missionaries try to convert the igbo. The white missionaries tell the igbo people “All the gods you have named are not gods at all. They are gods of deceit who tell you to kill your fellows and destroy innocent children. There is only one true God and he has the earth, the sky, you and me and all of us,”.
This attitude…
that the white missionaries have toward the igbo’s religion causes conflict to increase even more than they already have because not only do they have completely different religions but the missionaries are flat out telling the igbo people that everything in their religion is wrong.
Overall…
the igbo culture is based on nature and is all they have ever known, so when this new culture tries to take over it causes a lot of conflict. The few similarities and multiple differences between these two cultures makes it clear that the igbo and the white missionaries do not have the same point of view.
