bring them up in the way of the clan.
He sent for the five sons and they came and sat in his obi. Th e youngest of them was four years old.
'You have all seen the great abomination of your brother. No w he is no longer my son or your brother. I will only have a son who is a man, who will hold his head up among my people. If any one of you prefers to be a woman, let him follow Nwoye now while I am alive so that I can curse him. If you turn against me when I am dead I will visit you and break your neck.'
Okonkwo was very lucky in his daughters. He never stopped regretting that Ezinma was a girl. Of all his children she alone understood his every mood. A bond of sympathy had grown between them as the years had passed.
Ezinma grew up in her father's exile and became one of the most beautiful girls in Mbanta. She was called Crystal of Beauty, as her mother had been called in her youth. The young ailing girl who had caused her mother so much heartache had been transformed, almost overnight, into a healthy buoyant maiden. She had, it was true, her moments of depression when she would snap at everybody like an angry dog. These moods descended on her suddenly and for no apparent reason. But they were very rare and short-lived. As long as they lasted, she could bear no other person but her father.
Many young men and prosperous middle-aged men of Mbanta came to marry her. But she refused them all, because her father had called her one evening and said to her: 'There are many good and prosperous people here, but I shall be happy if you marry in Umuofia when we return home.'
That was all he had said. But Ezinma had seen clearly all the thought and hidden meaning behind the few words. An d she had agreed. 'Your half-sister, Obiageli, will not understand me,' Okonkwo said. 'But you can explain to her.'
Although they were almost the same age, Ezinma wielded a strong influence
over her half-sister. She explained to her why they should not marry yet, and
she agreed also. An d so the two of them refused every offer of marriage in
Mbanta.
'I wish she were a boy,' Okonkwo thought within himself. She understood
things so perfectly. Wh o else among his children could have read his thought
so well? Wit h two beautiful grown-up daughters his return to Umuofia would
attract considerable attention. His future sons-in-law would be men of author
ity in the clan. The poor and unknown would not dare to come forth.
Umuofia had indeed changed during the seven years Okonkwo had been in exile. The church had come and led many astray. Not only the low-born and the outcast but sometimes a worthy man had joined it. Such a man was Ogbuefi Ugonna,2 who had taken two titles, and who like a madman had cut the anklet of his titles and cast it away to join the Christians. Th e white missionary was very proud of him and he was one of the first men in Umuofia to
2. Father's honor (with the eagle feather).
.
TH INGS FALL APART, PART 3 / 269 5
receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, or Holy Feast as it was called in Ibo. Ogbuefi Ugonna had thought of the Feast in terms of eating and drinking, only more holy than the village variety. He had therefore put his drinking-horn into his goatskin bag for the occasion.
But apart from the church, the white me n had also brought a government. They had built a court where the District Commissioner judged cases in ignorance. He had court messengers who brought men to him for trial. Many of these messengers came from Umuru on the bank of the Great River, where the white men first came many years before and where they had built the centre of their religion and trade and government. These court messengers were greatly hated in Umuofia because they were foreigners and also arrogant
3
and high-handed. They were called kotma, and because of their ash-coloured shorts they earned the additional name of Ashy-Buttocks. They guarded the prison, which was full of men who had offended against the white man's law. Some of these prisoners had thrown away their twins and some had molested the Christians. They were beaten in the prison by the kotma and made to work every morning clearing the government compound and fetching wood for the white Commissioner and the court messengers. Some of these prisoners were men of title who should be above such mean occupation. They were grieved by the indignity and mourned for their neglected farms. As they cut grass in the morning the younger me n sang in time with the strokes of their matchets:
'Kotma of the ash huttocks,
He is fit to he a slave.
The white man has no sense,
He is fit to he a slave.'
Th e court messengers did not like to be called Ashy-Buttocks, and they beat the men. But the song spread in Umuofia.
Okonkwo's head was bowed in sadness as Obierika told him these things.
'Perhaps I have been away too long,' Okonkwo said, almost to himself. 'But
cannot understand these things you tell me. Wha t is it that has happened to our people? Wh y have they lost the power to fight?'
'Have you not heard how the white man wiped out Abame?' asked Obierika.
'I have heard,' said Okonkwo. 'But I have also heard that Abame people were weak and foolish. Why did they
