Igbo Background Assignment

Rationale

Chinua Achebe immerses his audience into the history and culture of the Igbo people. In order to fully appreciate the structure of their society within the text as well as analyze its significance to the context, content, and structure of the novel it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of their culture and history.

To complete this assessment you must read the two essays provided by Don Ohadike and J.P. Clark and complete one of the following prompts. Additional research is encouraged if necessary.

Prompt 1

Create a persuasive text of your choosing that persuades a Victorian audience to visit Igboland and experience their unique culture. You must include detail of their history, belief systems, social and political structure, as well as any other relevant details. Consider the following text types: brochure, speech, editorial, magazine article, memoir, or radio broadcast. Remember that your text must show critical engagement with essays provided as well as an awareness of the Victorian audience.

My fellow community,

Recently, light has been shed on the matter of our rigid social barriers, the majority of us have come to the realization that our social barriers have been depriving us from experiencing unique cultures. A specific culture that I have been hearing about which came up in our city council meetings is the Igboland, the more I heard, the more intrigued I became. The time is right for new experiences, to open our eyes and minds, we need to explore and travel.

Allow me to introduce you to the Igbo people, they are the second largest group of people who live in Southern Nigeria, they are both socially and culturally diverse, they break off into lineage groups, according to decent from father to son. Interestingly, their villages and towns consist of three groups – the Uno, the Umunna and the Obodo (a mini hierarchy) the Igbo communities strongly believe in mutual respect and diplomacy, this bodes well for them and they live peaceful, happy lives. The Women play a huge role throughout the society as they take on certain aspects of community life. A popular form in which a woman can make a decent amount of money would be selling her weaved baskets in markets, ladies, can you imagine spending afternoons learning a new skill with these women weaving baskets? Or men, perhaps you would enjoy learning and observing about the Igbo smelting and forging iron process.

Although we are very different from them, we clearly have different skin tones, accents, and beliefs, however, we still have the same ambitions and desires, goals that we all strive to achieve throughout our everyday lives. Something that I found very interesting was that everyone in these villages have equal rights, they do not have any rulers or kings they simply make decisions as an entire village. Equalitarianism ensures that no one person has too much control, now that sounds good, right?

The Igbo's strongly believe in cosmology as it is the basic foundation of how everything came to be and along with that it emphasizes on the perspective ethics and the action system, these two aspects assist the Igbo into being better people. The Igbo religion varies from ours slightly, the Igbo believe that there is this marvellous being (whom controls everything on earth and the spiritual world) named Chukwu whom they call their God. They call him that as he is the first force and existence of all beings, and so he possesses the power to bring the rains in order for the plants to grow. Each Igbo believes in and acquires a Chi, (which is similar to a guardian angel in our Christianity). Its the Igbo belief that someone with a good chi, will always remain a successful person, whereas if someone possesses a bad chi then sadly they will remain unfortunate. Now I know this may seem very different, and perhaps a little absurd to some of you, but I can't stress enough, you must be open minded to such things. I urge you all to give this unique culture a chance. Hopefully, many of you may consider flying out and experiencing a whole new world. Can you really pass up an opportunity like this?

Isn't it time we break free from our self imposed rigid barriers that have been depriving us the opportunity to explore the world? Surely we have the right to explore and live a little?