Indigenous Igbo Culture in Things Fall Apart: An Anthropological Approach

  • Publication date October 22, 2024

Tara Cristin McKee

“This theme – put quite simply – is that African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans; that their societies were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty, that they had poetry and above all, they had dignity. It is this dignity that many African people all but lost during the colonial period, and it is this that they must regain now.” — Chinua Achebe, “The Role of the Writer in a New Nation”

Introduction

“Yams? Why Yams?”—a question asked a lot when starting Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in my sophomore classroom. When we first learn about Okonkwo and the fictional Igbo village of Umuofia, there is a lot of talk about yams. Questions about other cultural differences come up too: how many wives does he have? What’s the Evil Forest? What’s an oracle? Why the obsession with manliness? What’s so evil about twins?

I could go on and on. But ultimately, with this bombardment of questions, I knew I needed to design a creative unit that would help my students take ownership of learning about the Igbo while facilitating their understanding of the novel’s themes and characters. This unit is about examining what is gained when students first approach this novel as an Indigenous literary text. By having my students engage directly and purposefully with the Indigenous Igbo culture as they begin the novel Things Fall Apart, I will not only create anthropologists of fiction, but I will show them how unbiased curiosity about and research of Indigenous cultures can bring them confidence and enhance their empathy in striving to understand a world that seems so unlike theirs.

Teaching Situation and Content Objectives

I teach at a magnet school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a diverse student body, with students who help support themselves and their families and with those who are extremely wealthy. At Booker T. Washington High School, our current student body is 35% African American, 36% Caucasian, 3% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 9% Multi-Race, and 4% American Indian, with 38% of our population on free and reduced lunch. My classroom reflects this diversity. Also, the three classes I teach, Pre-AP English II IB-MYP (focus on World Literature), AP Language and Composition (focus on American Literature), and IBHL Literature I, have students with ranging abilities, so it is important that I differentiate and scaffold my instruction, as well as build in some flexibility for those students who need it. This unit will be written for my Pre-AP English II IB-MYP classes, but I feel that the information and texts will be useful for other grade levels as well.

My students often struggle with understanding the Indigenous Igbo world when starting Things Fall Apart. I like that it makes my students feel a little off kilter, learning about a community and culture that they do not have much knowledge about. Achebe’s point in making two-thirds of the book all about the fictional Igbo tribe of Umuofia and Okonkwo’s journey is, in a sense, as Kenneth Harrow notes, “semi-ethnographic,” an approach which “inspires feelings of understanding and sympathy.”1 I used to teach this by not giving too much historical and cultural context because of Achebe’s authoritative narration and description of Igbo culture, traditions, proverbs, etc. However, recently while teaching this novel, I noticed there is a disconnect that my students have with this culture.  Because of their basic lack of understanding about the Indigenous practices and traditions, this disconnect gave them an excuse to not be invested in the novel or, simply, to give up reading it all together. So I designed a curriculum unit that will have my students actively engage in and take ownership of learning about the Indigenous Igbo tribes of Nigeria.

What does it mean to read Things Fall Apart as an Indigenous narrative? According to Daniel Heath Justice’s Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, many Indigenous texts focus on “relationship to land, to human community, to self, to the other-than-human world, to the ancestors and [their] descendants, to [their] histories and [their] futures”2 Things Fall Apart does this. In “The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Ethnographic Readings: Narrative Complexity in ‘Things Fall Apart,’” Carey Snyder remarks that “to Achebe, the novelist is a teacher, and educating Africans and foreigners about a heritage that has been demeaned and eroded through colonization is a viable way of fulfilling an important social mission.”3 While Justice may see that these texts are mainly written for Indigenous readers, Achebe recognizes the importance of  rewriting the narrative that colonizers have written and educating those people who have a single story about Africa and its Indigenous people. What seems to be the barrier to walking through that door is their inability to understand the world of the Igbo. By engaging in learning about Igbo social practices, religion, and traditions, this unit will give my students the tools to truly understand and relate to an Indigenous community that seems so foreign to them. Again, by understanding the pre-colonial world of Nigeria, they can better understand the post-colonial effects of a culture being torn apart.

Unit Content

To understand the Igbo culture, I want my students to think about two things: first, the importance of Indigenous Literatures in a classroom, and second, the value of learning about a new culture with a respectful, curiosity-driven interest that directs their research through a cultural anthropology lens. This unit’s mission is quite ambitious and complex, but it will ultimately challenge my students to read this novel critically. My hope is that this curriculum will position them to learn about a world as unbiased outsiders, opening themselves up to cultures beyond their own.

Importance of Studying Indigenous Literature and Culture

My sophomore curriculum is guided by Chiamanda Adiche’s TedTalk “The Danger of a Single Story,” wherein she describes how important it is to read many stories and look at situations from many different perspectives. I want my students to engage with stories from Native peoples. I recognize that Chinua Achebe and Things Fall Apart might not have been what Justice had in mind when writing Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. When writing about Indigenous people, he focuses on Indigenous peoples in what is now Canada and the United States. The category of Indigenous peoples and cultures is not one with clear boundaries, as the UN’s United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples makes clear.4  While the category of Indigenous or Native literature usually is associated with Native or first peoples of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific, there are clear arguments to make for understanding the Igbo people as Indigenous.5 Justice notes that the word Indigenous “affirms the spiritual, political, territorial, linguistic, and cultural distinctions of those peoples whose connections to this hemisphere predate the arrival of intentional colonizing settlers.”6 He also mentions that the word “is a broadly inclusive and internationally recognized term, admittedly vague and non-specific.”7 This definition fits my purpose of including Things Fall Apart as an Indigenous text, written by an Igbo tribesman, although he grew up Christian.

While reading Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, knowing it is focused on “those kinship-based tribal-nation peoples” in what is known now as North America, I saw clear connections with the Indigenous Igbo people of Nigeria.8 So when Justice writes of these specific groups, there is no denying the fact that, globally, Indigenous people share similar experiences. In a world perspective, Indigenous Literatures, no matter what continent you are on, are an important addition to a Literature class. It is important to note that Justice prefers to use “Literatures” in the plural to emphasize the plurality of literary traditions. Although Things Fall Apart has received international critical acclaim and does not have some of the challenges that Justice notes North American Indigenous authors’ works have in being recognized as “Literature,” this novel does offer a rich description of an African Indigenous culture and allows my students to look at their world beyond a single story. This novel gives them an opportunity to understand the effects of colonization on Indigenous people – to hear a voice not often heard or represented. If you teach other works by North American Indigenous writers, you will be able to draw parallels between universal themes or thoughts– a common thread is their authentic Indigenous experience. Justice writes, “What Indigenous texts do is make visible what’s so often unseen, and suggest a much more complicated perspective on what is too often grossly simplified in popular culture and mainstream media.”9 And this is why Indigenous Literatures matter in the high school classroom.

While I have made the argument that it is important to read Things Fall Apart as an Indigenous text and attend to how it clearly informs readers about the Igbo culture, the world that Achebe depicts is, in fact, fictional, even as Achebe was clearly well informed by his own family’s knowledge and experience along with scholarship on the Igbo. The importance of Things Fall Apart has been so immense, the influence so great, that one effect it has had is to almost stand in for anthropological and historical sources, teaching the entire world, including many Africans, about the Igbo people. In “Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Culture,” Simon Gikandi writes about this matter, pondering “why the institutions of power have been so keen to place Achebe at the center of the curriculum.”10 He comes to the conclusion that “Achebe’s intervention in the already existing colonial and Pan-African libraries transformed the idea of Africa and that his project has indeed valorized the idea of culture in the thinking of African worlds.” One effect is “that these works have been read or at least render themselves to being read as counterpoints to the colonial library.”11 In my classroom, this is one reason why I bring in this novel. This is usually my students’ first exposure to African Literature and reading about Indigenous cultures, outside a social studies context. Because of this, we do not read this novel in a vacuum.

I pair this novel with texts by other African writers– from excerpts of novels to short stories that expose them to other parts of this vast continent. While I cannot cover all African countries, I can provide a few different voices so that students can see there isn’t just one perspective. By doing this, I show students again the importance of looking beyond a single story. And Achebe drives this point as well with the famous ending of this novel where the District Commissioner reduces Okonkwo’s life to a paragraph and decidedly titles his book “The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.” As Adiche says in “The Danger of a Single Story,” “Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.”12 This is what Achebe achieves with his novel and what students clearly gain by reading this text as a work of Indigenous Literature. Gikandi ends his essay with acknowledging how Achebe was able “to shift the idea of Africa from romance and nostalgia from European primitivism, and from a rhetoric of lack, to an affirmative culture. It is in this sense that Achebe can be said to have invented, or reinvented, the idea of African culture.”13

Reading Things Fall Apart through a Cultural Anthropological Lens

Although reading Things Fall Apart on its own without historical and cultural context can be done and enjoyed by many, there is much to be gained for today’s students with access to all the information contained on their cell phones. Why not harness the capacities of their access to the web in order to widen their perspectives and understanding about a culture they may have not encountered before, purposefully combatting the District Commissioner’s point of view at the end of the novel? Monarch’s guide to teaching this novel shows how “[t]he anthropological and sociological examinations and discussion of Achebe’s tales also give the student of literature a wider perspective for understanding both the content of the novels and the author’s choice of techniques for expressing himself.”14 This affirms the approach I want to take with this curriculum unit.

Because “Achebe’s ethnographic descriptions lend a sense of authority to his narrative, as the distant, third person narrative is full of facts about some of the more traditional aspects of Igbo life,”15 attention to historical and cultural context allows for a sense of exploration of a new culture. The narrator of the novel also approaches his descriptions of this culture from a neutral position, with absolutely no judgements. It is the attitude of the narrator that I want my students to emulate when learning and researching about Indigenous Igbo culture. In “Playful Ethnography,” David Borman focuses on Achebe’s ethnographic voice. He does draw a distinction between classic ethnographies and what Achebe was trying to do. Borman writes, “Achebe begins his account with ethnographic language, but as he expands and revises this language throughout the novel, it becomes clear that the teachings of Things Fall Apart concern the changing and adaptable nature of Igbo society in ways that authoritative ethnographic accounts…simply cannot accommodate.”16 He continues to describe Achebe’s treatment, for instance, of the yam and kola nut in contrast with G. T. Basden’s discussion of these two items in his 1966 ethnography titled book, Niger Ibos. Where Basden might describe the yam as a food necessary for survival, Achebe takes it one more step further, noting that the number of yams you have in Igbo society also conveys status.17 His description of the yams’ importance to Igbo is more nuanced than any outsider’s ethnographic account.

Borman goes on to note, “Like his portrayal of the yam, Achebe addresses Igbo customs and traditional conventions as significant pieces in a complex world order.”18 Later in his essay, Borman introduces Carey Snyder and Oliver Lovesey’s critical reading of the novel. They suggest reading the novel “‘meta-ethnographically, in a way that attends to the complexity inherent in any ethnographic situation.’”19 As Borman observes, “Snyder notes ‘many of the dilemmas of ethnographic observation’ that are highlighted in the novel’s narrative voice, which exists where the implied authority of both insider belonging and outsider observation intersect.”20 One effect of this approach is that, in the words of Lovesey quoted by Borman, “the reader is confronted with his or her own position as an ethnographic reader: when the District Commissioner comes into the story, the reader can recognize that he or she “is an outsider who has believed him/herself to be a sympathetic insider and is now positioned with the arrogant, myopic, annihilating District Commissioner.”21 This “meta-ethnography” interests me as a teacher because, no matter the complexity of the idea, it does encompass what I want my students to encounter. The way this novel is written is semi-ethnographic and I also want my students to take this ethnographic approach while learning about Indigenous Igbo culture.  One outcome I seek is for there to be this hyper-awareness of being an outsider who is trying to understand being an insider, but who is, ultimately, still an outsider. This idea is at the heart of this novel, and approaching the reading of this novel from a place of curiosity and research, an anthropological way of understanding, will immerse my students in understanding the Igbo in a way that will promote observation and the spirit of inquiry.

Yes, Achebe’s narrator is the “implied authority” of the novel; however, as Snyder and Lovesey argue, “Things Fall Apart cannot be read as an unmediated portrayal of Igbo culture.”22 This is where my students’ natural curiosity comes into play and the idea that we always get multiple perspectives on a subject we may be unfamiliar with.  It is this idea where I charge my students to become cultural anthropologists and ethnographers. First, it will be important to introduce the concept of anthropology to students, generally speaking. I plan on having students write down the definition of anthropology and discuss what anthropologists do. This could be a quick set of notes before you introduce the concept of reading the novel as an anthropologist. Anthropology is the study of what makes us human. According to the American Anthropology Association, “Anthropology takes a broad approach to understanding the many different aspects of the human experience.”23 This website also describes all facets of the study of anthropology, including human biology, archaeology, cultural anthropology, and linguistics.  It describes how these different areas of study “complement one another and give a well-rounded picture not only of what we all share as humans, but also of our rich diversity across time, space, and social settings.”24

When I first introduce the concept of anthropology to students, I will also give them these basic definitions from the Introduction to Anthropology. There are many types of perspectives to have. I will just highlight two for them to write down in their notes. There is ethnocentric or etic perspective, which “means someone is judging a culture according to the standards of their own culture and belief system.”25 This is the type of perspective that is used by the District Commissioner at the end of Things Fall Apart and is a biased perspective. Then there is the emic perspective, which is “to observe a culture from the perspective of the people being researched.”26 This is the approach I want them to take as it is an unbiased approach, which will allow them to be more effective anthropologists of fiction. This textbook also describes how “Working in the field often places anthropologists in settings very different from what they are familiar with. Upon first arriving at an unfamiliar field location, it is common for anthropologists to feel out of place and uncomfortable as they adjust to a new culture and environment.”27 This perfectly describes how my students feel while beginning the book. I plan on emphasizing this concept as they start reading. The textbook continues to describe how “Many anthropologists keep a daily log of their feelings and impressions in their new environment. Researchers studying other cultures practice a method called participant observation, which entails directly participating in the activities and events of a host culture and keeping records of observations about these activities.”28 They also highlight the importance of taking field notes, pictures, film, and collecting objects like maps, brochures, or even crafts from the culture they are studying. Again, I will let students know that they will be doing similar things as anthropologists of this fictional world of Umuofia as they continue to learn about an Indigenous Igbo culture that is unfamiliar to them.

After they learn about what anthropology is and as they begin to read, I will have them do the following. When they encounter an aspect of Igbo culture that they do not understand, they write it down in their fieldbook with either a small sketch or printed image and the quote it is connected to. After that, they should conduct informal research on these subjects. As a teacher you can do two things to help facilitate their research depending on the type of students you  have. One, you can provide them with a few websites to use: Re-Entanglements Archive, Ukpuru Blog, and The Medicine Shell. Allow them to follow their curiosity. Two, you can also create a page on your Canvas, Google Classroom or whatever platform you use to help guide them more on their research endeavors. On this page, you can provide some of the information from this unit and from your own research and create a place to have students “shop” for research.

The research topics below are chosen from those most asked about from my students and do not encompass everything that is mentioned in the novel. I am focusing on three categories that confuse my students: Nigerian geography and Igbo historiography, Igbo village life and community, and then difficult concepts surrounding some of the Igbo’s cultural practices.

Nigerian Geography and Igbo Historiography

This section will do more with setting up and understanding the fictional village of Umuofia and provide visual stimulus for my highly visual students.  I plan on using maps in order to help the students understand and appreciate the vastness of Africa and the diversity of African culture, so that they don’t think the Igbo stand in for all Africans.  You could use a variety of sources to find maps to help students visualize where in the world they are when starting this novel. There is a great resource called “Things Fall Apart Map and Timeline” which has a map to use when introducing where the Igbo lived and where Umuofia would be located.29 You could also use this article by Sophie Morlin-Yrun that has a presentation of Africa and comparative spaces.30 This comparison of spaces will begin to have them visually start questioning their Westernized world view. This attention to large-scale maps will pair nicely with the fictional mapping of the village that will be introduced in the latter part of this unit.

Some basic information about the Igbo might be important to introduce along with the visual accompaniment of maps. Chika Ezechi’s An Illustrated Introduction to Igbo Culture notes that “‘Igbo’ is the name and language of an ethnic group indigenous to West Africa. Technically, Igbo is a meta-ethnicity which includes several subgroups that share the same or very similar linguistics, ancient belief systems and cultural practices.”31 In “Igbo Historiography: Parts I, II, and III,” Gloria Chuku discusses the uncertainty and debates surrounding Igbo origins. She suggests that Igbo historian Adiele Afigbo has the less problematic description of their origins. Afigbo concluded that “the Igbo were among the members of the Kwa sub-group of the Niger-Congo family of African languages who established ancient sociocultural and political communities in the forest belt of Nigeria within the Niger-Benue area dating back to over 6,000 years ago.”32 Within Ezechi’s book, there is a map that shows a good breakdown of Igboland, which is “situated in Nigeria’s southeastern tropical region and is home to between 32 and 40+ million Igbo people.”33 This book continues to describe how “In Nigeria there are five states with an outright Igbo majority population (Abia, Anambra, Ebony, Enugu, Imo) and two other states with significant numbers of Indigenous Igbos (Delta and Rivers).”34  Learning a little about the history and placement of the Igbo tribes will help with my students’ understanding of the tribes’ indigeneity within Nigeria and their cultural significance to this country.

Igbo Village Life and Community

It will be essential for my students to understand what village life was like and the shared community beliefs and culture of the Igbo. While this section will not cover all aspects of village life and community, it will touch upon the highlighted concepts that Achebe focuses on in his novel.  This information will be used in two activities: the fictional mapping of Umuofia and the keeping of Things Fall Apart field notes. In an article on Igbo village arenas, Ugwuanyi and Schofield explain that every Igbo village has a center, variously called many names, although “Otobo” is the most common, which “provides the frame around which the architecture of the village and/or town structure is constructed.”35 They continue to describe how it is a place “for ceremonies and masked performances, religious tabernacle and a place for judicial proceedings.”36 There are many instances in the book where the elders gather to discuss important decisions in Umuofia and where masked performances happen. In the novel, this village center is called the ilo.  It would be beneficial for my students to understand this town center and its importance. It also helps students understand the democratic nature of Indigenous Igbo Tribes.

Next, it will be important for the students to understand how the village is physically set up, especially when they are creating their fictional map of Umuofia. Okonkwo had “a large compound enclosed by a thick wall of red earth. His own hut, or obi, stood immediately behind the only gate in the red walls.”37 Achebe goes on to describe how each wife had their own hut. A barn would be built against a wall housing the yams and sheds for goats and hens. There is also a medicine house that is a shrine for Okonkwo’s personal god and family spirits.38 Understanding how each family sets up their compound is essential to a student’s understanding of the relationships among each member of the family, the significance of yam farming, and the importance of religion for the Igbo. Britannica describes how “Most Igbo occupy villages of dispersed compounds, but in some areas villages are compact. The compound is typically a cluster of huts, each of which constitutes a separate household. Traditionally, the village was usually occupied by a patrilineage (umunna).”39 Before colonization, the largest Igbo village contained about 5,000 people and they had shared spaces like a common market and a village arena, which was mentioned previously.40 Visualizing how Umuofia is set up, again, will help students understand not only the physical space, but the foundations of Igbo community life and their relationships. 

How the village is run is an important concept to explore. Chuku notes that although there were numerous complex political and social institutions prior to colonization, “most Igbo polities were village republics governed by councils of elders and village assemblies.”41 Ojaide describes the systems of government controlled by the “consensus of elders, men of title, priests, and priestesses. Though the patriarchal system put men in decision-making positions…at the expense of women who were not priestesses or old, the system was more ‘democratic’ than the colonial imposed one.”42 It might be worth noting the differences between the types of government, Igbo versus colonial, especially since Achebe paints the government in Umuofia as one that listens and then tries to maintain peace and order through dialogue. When Achebe talks to Raul Granquist in a 1988 interview, he speaks of this self-governing society. He makes the point that “The reason why they chose it [this system] was because they wanted to be in control of their lives. So if the community says that we will have a meeting in the marketplace tomorrow, everybody should go there, or could go there. And everybody could speak.”43 So while students might note the differences between this system and modern American government, they should be able to see the sophistication of a society that listens, talks, and collectively respects the wisdom of the elders of their community. In The Indigenous People of Igboland, Vivan Chibuife writes, “The whole social and political systems were based on the concept of overlapping relationships.”44 Diana Rhoads explains in her “Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart” that “The clan rules all, and the collective will of the clan can be established only by the group. Further, as is appropriate in a democracy, each man is judged on his own merits, ‘according to his worth,’ not those of his father, as would be appropriate in an aristocracy or an oligarchy.”45 We see this in the beginning of the novel, when Okonkwo is not judged for his father’s less-than-desirable actions within the community of Umuofia.

Another aspect of Igbo community and village life that students may latch onto are the many celebrations and ceremonies that Indigenous Igbo communities participate in. While I do not plan on describing each one of these celebrations and ceremonies, students could pick one of these subjects for the field notes they will be doing when they start reading the novels as anthropologists of fiction. Adetunji describes how Achebe characterizes the Igbo community “by depicting the day-to-day activities of the community and the mode or nature of relationship between individuals, villages and their respective gods. He is able to prove that it is a well-organised and pluralistic society with laws and orders, having respect for their neighbours and gods, and above all, performing social, cultural and religious activities.”46 This will be key for students to understand as they begin their research about these cultural activities. Adetunji lists a variety of unique cultural traditions in Things Fall Apart, along with their page numbers, which you could provide to students. He mentions the “villagers celebrating different socio-cultural activities such as the Egwugwu Festival (p.62-66 ), the Week of Peace (p.19-22), the New Year Festival (p.26-28 ), Marriage Ceremony (p.77-83 and 92-94 ), Burial Ceremony (p.84- 87 ), Wrestling Contest (p.33-36), etc.”47 Adetunji highlights at the end of this list that all of these events are meant to show “that African people did not hear of culture for the first time from the Europeans.”48 The richness, complexity, and beauty of these events will obviously be highlighted when students do their field notes and research.

Thinking of Igbo village life and community, what students should take away and, hopefully, note in their field notes, at the core of this culture are “democratic institutions, tolerance of other cultures, a balance of male and female principles, capacity to change for the better or to meet new circumstances, a means of redistributing wealth, a viable system of morality, support for industriousness, an effective system of justice, striking and memorable poetry and art.”49 Every aspect of this culture should be explored, and when students share their field guides with the class, a bigger tapestry of Indigenous Igbo culture will be woven, and students will gain a greater understanding of a new world and culture.

Yams and the Kola Nut

I introduced this unit with the question of yams. As I stated earlier, some of the earliest signs of curiosity exhibited by my students are focused on this food source and the ceremony of breaking the kola nut. Borman suggests that Achebe’s introduction to “these two cultural artifacts—the yam and the kola nut—suggest an approach to delivering knowledge about Igbo practices.”50 The Igbo people are known for their farming and, in Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is very concerned about his planting and harvesting of his crop: yams. According to Vivian Chibuife’s book The Indigenous People of Igboland, “The yam is their most significant crop, and ceremonies are performed yearly to mark its harvest. Other important crops are taro and cassava,” and a quick Wikipedia search notes that Nigeria is by far the biggest cultivator of yams today.51 Achebe explains to readers that the “[y]am, the king of crops, was a man’s crop.”52 Providing a little twisted history of the yam, Lex Pryor writes how “A West African yam can grow to the size of an arm or a leg. It is earthen and hairy, like an elephant or a rhino, and tastes kind of like a russet potato with a far more fibrous consistency. It is white, not orange, on the inside, and it cannot grow in non-tropical climates. There is nothing sweet about it.”53 Just understanding its size can allow students to understand why it was so important to fictional Okonkwo and the real Igbo people– it could feed many, many people. Through his explanation, not only do readers understand this food’s requirement to feed families, but also, its communication of social status, especially through the story of Okonkwo’s father unable to provide this source of sustenance to his family and pass this important inheritance down to his son. You might mention to students that the yam is so important to the Igbo that they have created folklore about its significance to this culture. Through an Igbo creation story, we can understand this crop’s significance to the people. As explained by Chibuife, the story starts with the first family created and they needed food. Chukwu (The Supreme God), gives the father of the family a piece of yam. The family consumed it and asked for more, and Chukwu gave the father seeds to plant. Once the water covering the earth was removed by the blacksmiths of Awa, Chukwu told the father “to kill his first son and daughter and bury yam seeds in their graves.”54 The father did this and the graves of his children started growing yams. Once the yams were harvested, the father “distributed them to the Igbo people.”55 This creation story shows students the importance of this food to the Indigenous Igbo tribes of Nigeria.

The kola nut is introduced at the beginning of the novel. We see Unoka, Okonkwo’s father, breaking a kola nut when a guest, Okoye, comes over. According to Ezechi, “The breaking of the kola nut is a significant Igbo ritual traditionally performed to welcome guests at a gathering or ceremony.”56 The eldest man present breaks the nuts into pieces and shares them with guests.  If students want more detail about the ritual, you may provide them with this description:

As a mark of respect, the kola nut is broken with a knife and then followed immediately by prayers. Once the kola nut is broken; its pieces are distributed to everyone starting with the eldest, by the youngest among them. When a kola nut is present, the host hands it to the oldest man among his guests. The oldest man then shows it to everyone present and then passes it around and when each of them records his approval by touching the nut, greetings and prayers are said to God Almighty, the gods as well as the ancestors.57

We see this interaction described in Things Fall Apart, where Achebe describes the hierarchy of respect. In “The Historical Significance and Role of the Kola Nut among the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria,” Ikenna Ukpabi Unya describes how the “kola nut is something bigger than that popular seed crop tree grown in the Central and Western part of Africa. The traditional oral history of the Igbo claims that the kola nut tree was the first tree on earth and therefore, its fruit, the first on earth.”58 Students will want to recognize the kola nut’s religious significance as well. Not only is it a sign of respect, it is mentioned in their oral history. The kola nut is not only used as a sign to welcome people into their homes, it is also used “during meetings or public gatherings, used for marriage ceremonies, title-taking, oath taking, sacrifices and others. Kola nut is often presented to guests and is viewed as an unavoidable gesture expected from a host. No matter the extent of cordiality shown by a host and no matter the type of delicious meal served to a visitor, he will feel unwelcome if he is not presented with a kola nut.”59 In the novel, we see how respected Okonkwo is when he honors the kola nut’s traditions by bringing a “little kola. As our people say, a man who pays respects to the great paves the way for his own greatness. I have come to pay you my respects and also to ask a favor. But let us drink wine first.60 Nwakibie sees Okonkwo’s adherence to this honored Igbo tradition and then gives him the yam seeds Okonkwo asks for. Students will ultimately see by their research that “The presentation of kola nut is an evidence of social harmony, love and happiness for one another,” bringing community together with mutual respect.61

Egwugwu

When the egwugwu are introduced in the novel, they are done so with great mystery and power surrounding them. They are described as “the most powerful and the most secret cult in the clan” and that women could not ever go inside their hut.62 According to Bernard Eze Orji’s “Amari-Akaghi’—The Knowledge of the Unknown: Women and Masquerade in Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart,’” “The egwugwu masquerade represents a tangible art form of the igbo and festivals embody the physical platform to showcase this agelong, revered, and venerated ancestral phenomenon.”63 Even today, these masquerades take place. Orji continues to describe how these performances have a “spectacular showiness accompanied with dance, music, drumming, and costume; and embodied liveliness.”64  As mentioned in Things Fall Apart and An Illustrated Introduction to Igbo Culture, egwugwu “are performed by men in exclusive fraternities and involve elaborate and colourful costumes meant to invoke ancestral spirits.”65 What students should realize is that when a man puts on that mask, he becomes a spirit, not to be recognized as his human form. Achebe hints at this when he writes, “Okonkwo’s wives… might have noticed that the second egwugwu had the springy walk of Okonkwo.”66

Traditionally, the egwugwu “were seen as a way of maintaining peace and order and were primarily used as law enforcement agents.”67 In chapter 10 of Things Fall Apart, Achebe shows readers that “This justice system, though patriarchal in nature, ensured justice for everyone, including women, who were not directly involved in the arbitration.”68 This is especially with the case of the beating of Uzowulu’s wife Mgbafo, where they rule justly to both sides and remind the reader that they are here “to not to blame this man or to praise that, but to settle the dispute.”69 It is important to note that “This igbo justice system may have reduced women to mere spectators yet did not deny them a fair hearing when and where necessary.”70 They were concerned with doling out justice with fairness and without violence.

Another issue that comes up in the book is the idea of unmasking an egwugwu, which is akin to killing the ancestral spirit. We learn from Achebe that this unmasking is a grave sin when Enoch, a Christian convert, unmasks one of the egwugwu.71 Orji writes of the act of taboo by noting, “You cannot fight a masquerade. You cannot unmask it, and you have no right to identify the person under the mask, even if you know who he is (‘amari-akaghi’). Once under the mask, he becomes sacred, a person used to embody the spirit.”72 So by unmasking the egwugwu is “one of the greatest crimes a man could commit,”73 which basically “reduces its immortal prestige”74 in Indigenous Igbo communities. In the novel, the egwugwu reacted swiftly to this great crime by destroying and burning down Enoch’s compound, as well as the church that was built by the Christians. You might point out to students who research this cultural component that the egwugwu did not kill anyone for this horrible act against their ancestors.

Treatment of Twins, Ritual Sacrifice, Women

With this section, I want to focus on the treatment of others in Igbo society, which my students question often. As a teacher, I wanted to be more informed about these practices as well. When learning about another culture or religion that is different from ours, we have a tendency to judge them against our beliefs. It’s human nature. However, since I am charging my students to look at these cultural norms from an anthropological lens, I wanted to focus on more of the controversial cultural practices from a neutral perspective. In “Socio-Cultural Commitment in Things Fall Apart,” Bamisile Adetunji writes about how “Other writers should follow [Achebe’s] example of avoiding the temptation of idealizing their people’s past but should be able to assert the worth and value of their society”75 Achebe does not portray a perfect Indigenous Igbo society. He presents its complexity, beauty, and sophistication, but does not hide this society’s weaknesses. Adetunji also comments on this fact by noting that Achebe has painted “a true and complete picture in which the whole background is fully realized.”76 This idea drives this anthropological approach; I want my students to mimic Achebe’s approach while learning about and researching Indigenous Igbo communities and their cultural practices, especially with the concepts that are harder to accept as a modern American teenager.

Twins

The killing of twins in Umuofian society is a cultural practice hard for my students (really anyone) to understand, as well as Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son. However, it is important to look at this practice from an anthropological perspective. It was a common practice to cast away twin newborns in Igbo society. According to “Twin-killing in Some Traditional Societies: An Economic Perspective,” the authors discuss the beliefs of the Igbo. They note, “The laws of the ancestors and the deities were vitally important to the community and were strictly enforced, with a violation of these rules seen as “spoiling the earth.” Multiple human births were seen as unnatural and an abomination against Ala/Ani (the earth deity) which was severely punished. Some believed that the twins were returned animal spirits.77 Twins were taken to the Evil Forest and left there to die. The Igbo believed that twins “were perceived as a type of species renegade whose very existence threatened the balance between awa mmuo (the world of spirits) and awa mmadu (the material world of human beings).”78 Although this concept still may be hard to understand for my students, they can see it was deeply embedded in their religious beliefs.

While this explains the concept for the acceptance of killing twins, Marroquín and Haight do propose another argument that underlies this acceptance within the community. These authors suggest that although the killing of twins is costly in terms of labor and emotional distress, what is more costly is being banished from your community, which would be the punishment for not following the cultural norms established.79 They write, “When a member of the community fails to follow that community’s edicts, that failure in some measure challenges or impairs the belief system of the entire community. As such, the edicts bind the communal identity of the entire group together. In a sense, these behaviors make up the very fabric of the communal identity, in which a single pulled thread can constitute significant damage.”80 So adherence to this custom was more about being accepted in the community for survival and benefits for your family, such as marriage, safety of environment, and opportunities for your children.

Ritual Sacrifice

In Things Fall Apart, one of the most shocking scenes is when Ikemefuna is sacrificed. When we first meet Ikemefuna, we are aware that his village gave him up as a sacrifice to avoid war. It is important to note that for the Igbo, “All avenues of avoiding war have to be explored. In this particular case, one person is sacrificed in a situation in which, if there were a war, hundreds of people might have been killed. In a communal society like Umuofia the overall well-being of the group supersedes the rights of an individual. Ikemefuna’s fate falls within the tradition of many carriers in African society who are sacrificed for the health and peace of the larger community.”81 The idea of sacrifice should be understood as a way to save more lives and promote continued peace between tribes. Traditionally, before an Igbo village went to war, they would consult the gods and ancestral spirits and an offering would be made to appease them. Offerings could be from animal to human, and essentially, “The quality of the victim depends on the nature of the sacrifice to be offered; the greater the need, the bigger and more significant the victim.”82 Chibuife describes how killing someone “was a grave sin in the eyes of the earth goddess.”83 Wartime killings were the only time to shed another person’s blood, and even after that “extensive purification procedures after returning from battle”84 would have to take place before men could come home to their families. These thoughts about murder and shedding blood of another person help readers understand why Okonkwo was advised to not participate in Ikemefuna’s sacrifice. The Igbo saw Okonkwo’s participation in the murder as taboo and his deed does not go unpunished, as it is this part where Okonkwo’s successful trajectory changes. The Igbo disliked “Okonkwo’s participation in the sacrifice since the boy calls him father. Ikemefuna could still have been killed without Okonkwo’s participation in the act.”85 After the sacrifice, Obierika tells Okonkwo, “What you have done will not please the Earth. It is the kind of action for which the goddess wipes out whole families.”86 It is not Ikemfuna’s sacrifice that the gods are punishing; it is Okonkwo’s desire to prove his manliness and go against the advice of the community that the gods are punishing. As Chibuife reminds us, “no killing has ever gone unpunished.”87 It’s this belief that guides Igbo. So while murder is not accepted by the Igbo, sacrifice for the greater good, saving more lives, is accepted.

The Igbo Balance of Masculine and Feminine

Another concept that students focus on is the Igbo beliefs surrounding masculinity and femininity, and the treatment of women Igbo culture. Rhoads mentions how “Okonkwo is defective in his rejection of the feminine, but the tribal norms combine the masculine and feminine.”88 It is his rejection of all things feminine that contributes to his downfall.  He is hypermasculine, concerned with proving to his tribe that he is the opposite of his failure father. What needs to be pointed out to students is that the Igbo value a balance between the masculine and the feminine. If students look critically at the society, they will find priests serve Ani, the Earth goddess, and Chielo, a priestess, serves a god. Being too masculine, like Okonkwo, or too feminine, like Unoka, Okonkwo’s father, is what gets you in trouble. Achebe creates characters that do have that balance. Rhoads mentions how “Obierika, for instance, helps to burn Okonkwo’s compound, but succors him by taking care of his yams when he is in exile. Or Uchendu reports the need to kill Ikemefuna, but advises Okonkwo not to participate.”89 It also shows how Okonkwo’s mother’s land becomes his refuge when he is exiled for his feminine crime of accidentally killing a member of his tribe—yes, there is negative connotation of the feminine crime, yet what absolves the crime is his feminine homeland, showing the importance of balance between the feminine and masculine.

It might be important to point out to students or suggest they research why certain patriarchal communities have women do tasks such as gardening, cooking, and general housekeeping. In “‘Amari-Akaghi’—The Knowledge of the Unknown: Women and Masquerade in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” Orji writes how “Igbo society was built around patriarchal orders and women’s ability to procreate was seen to be endangered (as wives and mothers) if exposed to strenuous and physical tasks, like men. This may not have gone down well with women, but they respected it as part of culture and tradition.”90 Students should recognize that many cultures have traditions and practices that may be not fair to a certain group, but at the same time within that community, the “tradition as put in place by the family, kinship system, and the community is respected and revered even when they appear oppressive or offensive against any group or members of the same society.”91 No culture is perfect in its creation, beliefs, and practices, and by using this anthropological approach, students will be able to recognize that.

Another idea students may want to research is the strong roles, as mentioned earlier, that exist for women in Igbo society as represented by Chielo, the Priestess of Agbala, and Okonkwo’s daughter Enzinma. Achebe explains, “Chielo’s assertive influence here sends a signal that women can also wield and command powers that must be obeyed by men,”92 suggesting a more equal distribution of gender roles in Igbo society. One critic mentioned in Orji’s article argues that “the reaffirmation of the female principle signified by the Chielo–Ezinma episode is reinforced by other indications that suggest a consistent undermining in symbolic terms of Okonkwo’s masculinity and the entire male dominance in Igbo society.”93 This may be Achebe’s point to show that, although men dominate, it is not without little subversions (or big ones) that women continue to assert their power, adding to the balance between masculinity and femininity.

There are more topics your students may decide to home in on like the osu, oracles, ogbanje, or their festivals and wedding ceremonies. The possibilities are endless with this approach, but at the forefront of this anthropological approach is this: “Achebe presents in Things Fall Apart an image of social stability and a rich cultural heritage, which goes a long way to reinforce his socio-cultural commitment as a writer and an ambassador of African cultural values. The novel shows that Africa has rich cultural values and, like every other society, some defects.”94

Teaching Strategies

Cultural Anthropological Field Notes

If you want your students to read anything from a neutral, anthropological lens to learn about a particular culture or country, have them use this strategy of creating field notes, just as a cultural anthropologist would. In “Field Notes and Participant Observation in Ethnographic Studies: A Skill Summary,” anthropologist Nicole Delarbrer describes how “Participant observations are used to gain insight into cultural practices and phenomena. Without field notes we are very likely to forget the information and important details presented throughout participant observation.”95 This particular piece of information shows why anthropologists use field notes as a way to record their observations of a new culture or place. Delabrer continues to explain how “Field notes must be useful and reliable while regarding the details of their research. The best way to guarantee this is for ethnographers to write their field notes immediately after their participant observation.”96 Since this strategy is a replacement for literary annotations for a work, teachers should emphasize that students record information and research while they are reading. Each reading assignment should yield more information in their field notes. Field notes should include “Date, time, and place of observation, specific facts, numbers, details of what happens at the site, sensory impressions: sights, sounds, textures, smells, taste, personal responses to the fact of recording fieldnotes, specific words, phrases, summaries of conversations, and insider language, questions about people or behaviors at the site for future investigation,”97 quotes, and page numbers of book where they found encountered something culturally new. Every entry should be focused on 1-2 cultural curiosities, a rough sketch or a printed picture of the cultural object or practice, and 2-3 sentences of summarized research with a proper MLA citation. If you google images of ethnographic field notes or visual field notes, you should find many different examples you can show students what these look like. I will have my students do this physically in a notebook, but there are opportunities for teachers to have students do this digitally, which may be helpful for the Jigsaw presentations.

Fictional Mapping

High school students are visual creatures. Using fictional mapping, a strategy where students draw out a setting from a novel or short story, students will be able to really connect to the work’s setting and build that world inside their imagination. There is a disconnect these days from what students read and what they see and know. So why not have students draw out what they see in their heads to better understand setting and character setting. Students can draw stick figures, along with key identifying features and personality traits, for characters within the maps to better understand plot and characterization. This is especially important for works that engage with different cultures. This pairs well with the use of maps at the beginning of the unit where we are studying the geography of Nigeria.

Jigsaw

This is a technique used where you have students become experts in a subject. You can have them meet in expert groups so that they can confirm and, if needed, update their research. Once they meet in their expert groups, then they jigsaw so that there is one expert of varying subjects in each group. Each expert will present on a topic, and the other members of the group will take notes on their subjects. I will be using this technique as mini-anthropological conferences, so that students can learn about a concept they did not pick and add to their field notes.

Classroom Activities

Map of Umuofia and Characters

In order to visualize the village of Umuofia, I want students to include in their ethnographic field guide a map of how they visualize Okonkwo’s world. They can look up pictures of what typical Igbo villages look like to help base their map off of.  Their maps should include Okonkwo’s compound, the village ilo, the Evil Forest, Elder compound, Obierika’s Compound, and meeting hall. They should also include major characters, drawn as stick figures, with their names and major characteristics. This will help them visualize the Igbo village and learn the characters as they begin the novel. As students continue to read, they can add to their maps: Mr. Smith and Brown’s lodgings, the missionaries’ church, the District Commissioner’s Headquarters, and the prison.

Anthropological Jigsaw Conference

Before they turn in their final Ethnographic Field guides, we will host an Anthropological Conference, using the Jigsaw strategy. Students will sign up for one of the concepts about the Igbo culture that interests them. You might have them have a back-up choice or two because you should have a 5-person limit (this may change depending on the size of your classroom). They will be presenting in small groups about the topic they chose. If any students have the same concept they are presenting on, they should have time to meet to exchange information that might be useful for their presentations. Then arrange students in small groups of 5-7, with each student having a different cultural topic. I plan on having students create a google slide presentation which they can show on their school Chromebook. You could have students make physical presentations as well if you are not one-to-one. As students are presenting, the others should be taking notes on their topics, in a back section of their field guide entitled Anthropological Conference 2024 (whatever the year is). They should write down 5 facts from each presentation.

Things Fall Apart Ethnographic Field Guide

Instead of annotating literary devices as a normal English student would, I want my students to approach reading Things Fall Apart more from an anthropological lens. Because of this approach, students will pick 15 cultural concepts (five from each part of the novel) and add them to their ethnographic field guide. Each concept will be accompanied by an image, either a rough sketch or an image printed from the internet, and a quote from the book where Achebe is explaining an aspect from that concept. Additionally, there will be 2-3 sentences of summarized research about that concept, containing a proper citation. They will have to add 3-5 cultural concepts from the Anthropological Jigsaw Conference. Once they turn in their field guides, they can be displayed in your classroom, in the library, or display case in your school. By the end of this unit and creation of this field guide, students should feel like true anthropologists and have a better understanding of the Indigenous Igbo culture, as well as the overall meaning of the novel.

It is important to note that once they finish the novel, students will experience the ethnocentric perspective of anthropology. As Rhoads highlights, “Firsthand European accounts of the colonial period, such as the district commissioner’s Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger in Things Fall Apart, reduce the African experience to an anthropological study told from the white man’s point of view.”98 Since the ending is an anthropological study from one man’s (a colonizer’s) point of view, why not challenge your students to read this as an anthropological study from a true participant observer’s unbiased, emic perspective? This approach will juxtapose the two types of reporting of new cultures — one of exploiting and judgment and another of appreciating and understanding. The ultimate goal is when students are learning about Indigenous cultures around the world (or honestly, any new subject my students encounter), they will observe, research, reserve judgment, and understand that there are many stories, many perspectives, and many worldviews.

Appendix on Implementing District Standards

10.3.R.1 Students will evaluate the extent to which historical, cultural, and/or global perspectives affect author’s stylistic and organizational choices in grade-level literary and informational genres.

Before reading Things Fall Apart, understanding and studying the historical and cultural perspective is necessary for students to understand the themes, plot, and characters of the novel, as well as the Igbo Tribe’s customs and beliefs.

10.3.R.2 Students will evaluate points of view and perspectives in more than one grade-level literary and/or informational text and explain how multiple points of view contribute to the meaning of a work.

By using an anthropological lens, students will be reading and researching about the Indigenous Igbo culture presented in the novel, analyzing  multiple points of views over a particular cultural aspect. This will allow them to see what Achebe was trying to do with writing this book.

10.6.R.2 Students will synthesize the most relevant information from a variety of primary and secondary sources (e.g., print and digital), following ethical and legal citation guidelines.

Students will be conducting their own research and will keep their found information in their field notes along with MLA citations.

10.6.R.3 Students will evaluate the relevance, reliability, and validity of the information gathered.

Because this unit is research focused, students will need to evaluate the sources they are using and check them against what other students have found.

10.7.W.2 Students will create visual and/or multimedia presentations using a variety of media forms to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence for diverse audiences.

Then culminating activity will have students creating multimodal content in the form of  cultural anthropological field notes to contain their research about the Indigenous Igbo tribes.

Resources

Bibliography for Teachers

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Anchor Books, 1994.

Adetunji, Bamisile S. “Socio-Cultural Commitment in Things Fall Apart.” When Things Came Together: Studies on Chinua Achebe, September 1, 2008. https://www.academia.edu/5566646/Socio_Cultural_Commitment_in_Things_Fall_Apart.

Adichie, Chimamanda. “The Danger of a Single Story.” TedTalk, 2009, https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en. This is a powerful talk that I usually show at the beginning of this unit.

Borman, David. “Playful Ethnography: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Nigerian Education.” ariel: A Review of International English Literature 46, no. 3 (2015): 91-112. https://doi.org/10.1353/ari.2015.0024.

Chibuife, Vivian. The Indigenous People of Igboland, 2022. This was a reasonably priced book bought on Amazon and might be good just to have in your classroom. Although it is self published, there is some good basic information for students.

Chuku, Gloria. “Igbo Historiography: Parts I, II, and III.” History Compass, 2018, 16, https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12489.

Delabrer, Nicole. “Field Notes and Participant Observation in Ethnographic Studies: A Skill Summary.” Media Ethnography (blog), April 10, 2017. https://medium.com/media-ethnography/field-notes-and-participant-observation-in-ethnographic-studies-a-skill-summary-bb74e3881258. This is helpful to show students as there are pictures from this blog entry of field notes.

Ezeanya, S. N. “The Osu (Cult-Slave) System in Igbo Land.” Journal of Religion in Africa 1, no. 1 (1967): 35-45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1594679. For further information surrounding the osu, this article provides some basic information about this system.

Ezechi, Chika. An Illustrated Introduction to Igbo Culture, 2023, OkwuID.

Justice, Daniel Heath. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018. This book is so cute and has some great information about the Igbo culture with pictures. Again, this would be a great source to have in the classroom.

Gale, Stephen H. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Guide to Understanding the World’s Great Writing. MacMillian Publishing, 1998. This is a very thorough teaching guide about the novel. I highly recommend buying this as it helps refresh my memory of the major events of the book, as well as cultural and literary information.

Gikandi, Simon. “Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Culture.” Research in African Literatures, 32, no. 3, (Autumn, 2001), pp. 3-8, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820418.

Hasty, Jennifer, David G. Lewis, and Marjorie M. Snipes. Introduction to Anthropology. OpenStax, February 23, 2022. https://openstax.org/books/introduction-anthropology/pages/1-introduction. This is an online textbook about anthropology. It is informative and covers a lot of information.

“Igbo | Culture, Lifestyle, & Facts.” Britannica. Accessed March 30, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Igbo.

Justice, Daniel Heath. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018. This book is an important cornerstone into understanding the importance of studying Indigenous Literatures and why it is necessary to bring into the classroom.

Marroquín, Andrés and Colleen Haight. “Twin-Killing in some Traditional Societies: An Economic Perspective.” Journal of Bioeconomics 19, no. 3 (2017): 261-279. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10818-017-9249-8. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/twin-killing-some-traditional-societies-economic/docview/1941262216/se-2. This article gave an interesting perspective on this Igbo cultural practice.

Morlin-Yron, Sophie. “Why Do Western Maps Shrink Africa?” CNN, August 19, 2016. https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/18/africa/real-size-of-africa/index.html. Use this at the beginning of the unit when you are showing students maps of Africa.

Ojaide, Tanure. “African Literature and Its Context: Teaching Teachers of Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart.’” Women’s Studies Quarterly 25, no. 3/4 (1997): 169–77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40003381. This has a lot of valuable information about teaching the novel focusing on cultural context.

Orji, Bernard Eze. “Amari-Akaghi’–The Knowledge of the Unknown: Women and Masquerade in Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart.” Research in African Literatures 53, no. 2 (2022): 148+. Gale Literature Resource Center (accessed January 6, 2024). https://link-gale-com.utulsa.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A742931153/LitRC?u=utulsa_main&sid=summon&xid=323632c6. This article has information not only about egwugwu, but about gender differences as well.

Pryor, Lex. “The Deep and Twisted Roots of the American Yam.” The Ringer, November 24, 2021. https://www.theringer.com/2021/11/24/22798644/yam-sweet-potato-american-history. A very interesting article about Yams and how it connects to slavery.

Rhoads, Diana Akers. “Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” African Studies Review, 36, no. 2 (1993), pp. 61-72, https://www.jstor.org/stable/524733.

Singh, Manvir. “It’s Time to Rethink the Idea of the ‘Indigenous.’” The New Yorker. February 20, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/27/its-time-to-rethink-the-idea-of-the-indigenous

Snyder, Carey. “The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Ethnographic Readings: Narrative Complexity in Things Fall Apart.” College Literature 35, no. 2 (2008): 154-174. https://doi.org/10.1353/lit.2008.0018.

“Things Fall Apart- Map and Timeline.” Invitation to World Literature, Learner.org, https://www.learner.org/series/invitation-to-world-literature/things-fall-apart/things-fall-apart-map-timeline/. A fundamental resource mapping out the timeline of the novel and has a map I will use to show students when I introduce the novel.

Ugwuanyi, John Kelechi and John Schofield. “Permanence, Temporality and the Rhythms of Life: Exploring Significance of the Village Arena in Igbo Culture.” World Archaeology, 50, no. 1 (2018): 7-22.

“UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples | Australian Human Rights Commission.” Accessed April 21, 2024. https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/un-declaration-rights-indigenous-peoples-1.

Unya, Ikenna Ukpabi. “The Historical Significance and Role of the Kola Nut among the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria.” Journal of Religion and Human Relations, 13, no. 1, 2021, https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jrhr.v13i1.13.

“What is Anthropology?” The American Anthropological Association. Accessed March 22, 2024. https://americananthro.org/learn-teach/what-is-anthropology/.

“Yam Production in Nigeria.” Wikipedia, April 12, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yam_production_in_Nigeria&oldid=1218641868.

Notes

  1. Borman, David. “Playful Ethnography: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Nigerian Education,” 99.
  2. Justice, Daniel Heath. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, xix.
  3. Snyder, Carey. “The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Ethnographic Readings: Narrative Complexity in Things Fall Apart,” 153.
  4. “UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples | Australian Human Rights Commission.”
  5. Singh, Manvir. “It’s Time to Rethink the Idea of the ‘Indigenous.’”
  6. Justice, Daniel Heath. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, 6.
  7. Ibid., 7.
  8. Ibid., 7.
  9. Ibid., 48.
  10. Gikandi, Simon. “Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Culture,” 6.
  11. Ibid., 7.
  12. Adichie, Chimamanda. “The Danger of a Single Story.”
  13. Gikandi, Simon. “Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Culture,” 8.
  14. Gale, Stephen H. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Guide to Understanding the World’s Great Writing, 16.
  15. Borman, David. “Playful Ethnography: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Nigerian Education,” 103.
  16. Ibid., 106.
  17. Ibid., 102.
  18. Ibid., 102.
  19. Ibid., 107.
  20. Ibid., 107.
  21. Ibid., 107.
  22. Ibid., 108.
  23. “What is Anthropology?”
  24. “What is Anthropology?”
  25. Hasty, Jennifer, et al. Introduction to Anthropology.
  26. Ibid.
  27. Ibid.
  28. Ibid.
  29. “Things Fall Apart- Map and Timeline.”
  30. Morlin-Yron, Sophie. “Why Do Western Maps Shrink Africa?”
  31. Ezechi, Chika. An Illustrated Introduction to Igbo Culture, 1.
  32. Chuku, Gloria. “Igbo Historiography: Parts I, II, and III,” 5.
  33. Ezechi, Chika. An Illustrated Introduction to Igbo Culture, 1.
  34. Ibid., 1.
  35. Ugwuanyi, John Kelechi and John Schofield. “Permanence, Temporality and the Rhythms of Life: Exploring Significance of the Village Arena in Igbo Culture,” 8.
  36. Ibid., 8.
  37. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, 14.
  38. Ibid., 14.
  39. “Igbo | Culture, Lifestyle, & Facts.”
  40. Ibid.
  41. Chuku, Gloria. “Igbo Historiography: Parts I, II, and III,” 6.
  42. Ojaide, Tanure. “African Literature and Its Context: Teaching Teachers of Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart,’” 174.
  43. Rhoads, Diana Akers. “Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” 62.
  44. Chibuife, Vivian. The Indigenous People of Igboland, 24.
  45. Rhoads, Diana Akers. “Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” 63.
  46. Adetunji, Bamisile S. “Socio-Cultural Commitment in Things Fall Apart,” 255.
  47. Ibid., 255.
  48. Ibid., 255.
  49. Rhoads, Diana Akers. “Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” 61.
  50. Borman, David. “Playful Ethnography: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Nigerian Education,” 101.
  51. Chibuife, Vivian. The Indigenous People of Igboland, 8.
  52. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, 23.
  53. Pryor, Lex. “The Deep and Twisted Roots of the American Yam.”
  54. Chibuife, Vivian. The Indigenous People of Igboland, 29.
  55. Ibid., 29.
  56. Ezechi, Chika. An Illustrated Introduction to Igbo Culture, 4.
  57. Unya, Ikenna Ukpabi. “The Historical Significance and Role of the Kola Nut among the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria,” 300.
  58. Ibid., 291.
  59. Ibid., 292.
  60. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, 19.
  61. Unya, Ikenna Ukpabi. “The Historical Significance and Role of the Kola Nut among the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria,” 300.
  62. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, 88.
  63. Orji, Bernard Eze. “Amari-Akaghi’–The Knowledge of the Unknown: Women and Masquerade in Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart,” 149.
  64. Ibid., 149.
  65. Ezechi, Chika. An Illustrated Introduction to Igbo Culture, 30.
  66. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, 89-90.
  67. Ezechi, Chika. An Illustrated Introduction to Igbo Culture, 30.
  68. Orji, Bernard Eze. “Amari-Akaghi’–The Knowledge of the Unknown: Women and Masquerade in Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart,” 157.
  69. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, 93.
  70. Orji, Bernard Eze. “Amari-Akaghi’–The Knowledge of the Unknown: Women and Masquerade in Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart,” 158.
  71. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, 186.
  72. Orji, Bernard Eze. “Amari-Akaghi’–The Knowledge of the Unknown: Women and Masquerade in Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart,” 154.
  73. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, 186.
  74. Ibid., 186.
  75. Adetunji, Bamisile S. “Socio-Cultural Commitment in Things Fall Apart,” 258.
  76. Ibid., 259.
  77. Marroquín, Andrés and Colleen Haight. “Twin-Killing in some Traditional Societies: An Economic Perspective,” 263.
  78. Ibid., 263.
  79. Ibid., 270-271.
  80. Ibid., 271.
  81. Ojaide, Tanure. “African Literature and Its Context: Teaching Teachers of Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart,’” 173.
  82. Ezeanya, S. N. “The Osu (Cult-Slave) System in Igbo Land,” 36.
  83. Chibuife, Vivian. The Indigenous People of Igboland, 62.
  84. Ibid., 63.
  85. Ojaide, Tanure. “African Literature and Its Context: Teaching Teachers of Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart,’” 173.
  86. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, 67.
  87. Chibuife, Vivian. The Indigenous People of Igboland, 63.
  88. Rhoads, Diana Akers. “Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” 71.
  89. Ibid., 171.
  90. Orji, Bernard Eze. “Amari-Akaghi’–The Knowledge of the Unknown: Women and Masquerade in Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart,” 161.
  91. Ibid., 161.
  92. Ibid., 161.
  93. Ibid., 161.
  94. Adetunji, Bamisile S. “Socio-Cultural Commitment in Things Fall Apart,” 260.
  95. Delabrer, Nicole. “Field Notes and Participant Observation in Ethnographic Studies: A Skill Summary.”
  96. Ibid.
  97. Ibid.
  98. Rhoads, Diana Akers. “Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” 63.