Short Response 4: Chinua Achebe

The lives of the Ibo had a very distinct culture and were very different from today's society. Each man had several wives and there seemed not to be much of an emotional attachment. A man's power depends on his wealth; the wealthier; the more powerful. When another village commits what they consider to be a crime the village has to chose a war or an offering of a young man and a virgin. If the village decides to give up a young man, he is later killed. The culture is not allowed to hit their wives and when they do they are punished. In the book Okonkwa was punished by one she-goat, one hen, a length of cloth and a hundred cowries. They also have a week of peace; no one is allowed to talk badly about each other.

A practices that they believed strongly in was their culture believed they each had their own god called a chi. A sport that they all celebrating and enjoyed watching was wrestling. The men in this culture are to be very strong and masculine. A very surprising practice this culture had was if a women had twins they were to be killed; they were considered evil.

These customs and practices show how strong willed a man had to be in this culture. They believed in a lot of spirits and good luck and bad luck. They were very strong spirited and enforced the rules very harshly. Okonkwa's role in this tribe was a man who was trying to be a leader but his anger got in the way of that. Okonkwa seemed to break a lot of rules and always had to pay for it.