BOOK REVIEW ON THE EFFECTS OF COLONIALISM ON THE AFRICAN TRADITIONAL LIFESTYLE

Book Title: The Eagles Tribe

The Author: Onyeji Nnaji

Publishing Press: Tink Graphic

Year of publication: 2008

Place of Publication: Enugu, Nigeria

Number of Pages: 186

Price: Not stated

Reviewer: Mr. Chukwu Shadrach

Introduction

            Onyeji Nnaji, in The Eagles Tribe, portrays the spiritual relationship between the Igbo and their natural world, a relation that went beyond the visible physical correspondence. Set in a village called Umugo, Nnaji portrays nature as another character in the novel, not just keeping it in the background. He presents nature as a living entity which acts alongside the human characters. That the idea of exploiting nature for their own benefit is unimaginable for the Igbo is apparent in their physical activities and mental positions which are shaped by the surrounding environment. Nnaji shows how the Igbo agricultural life, religious beliefs, festivals, their ideas about the world and human life are all intertwined with nature. The summary of all the struggles is culture: the language which reveals the belief system of the Igbo nation is in this novel dramatized as being informed by the people’s culture. Culture itself, as Nnaji tried to argue here, is not separated from the environment since the language that serves as the conveyor of the dominant culture is itself composed of the environment.

            The novel presents to us a society orderly organized and controlled by natural law. The communities organized themselves into one bond, both in their minds and actions. With this, the society is conducive and free from certain conspicuous lifestyle that characterize the cultural extinct. The joy so long sustained in the society, as the novel presents, is based on the tradition and cultural bond which collectively hold them together. The meaning of family is dependent on the ideal concept which is only understood from some domestic activities such as eating together. It is not conclusively biological, that is why Agudu (the assumed wag in the novel) is counted among the family members of Odumu (the protagonist). It is apparent that anything eatable as food is designed to accommodate everybody present. In other words, anyone who could not crave the delicacies that the gods have blessed his neighbour with automatically becomes a non-member of the family. The same could be regarded as an enemy. The question is on the mutual interrelationship and collective mind which this unity promotes among the community members. Culture planted this in them and it becomes an axiom. Festivities also add certain definitions to the nature of the society painted in the novel.

The Novel and Its Story

            The Eagles Tribe opens with the introduction of the colonial imperialistic tool to Umugo. This leads to the introduction of two prominent characters in the novel, Nwaeza and Ofia. The former has spent greater part of his life in the city, Mba Elu, the part of the land where the colonial masters have as one of their colonies and acquires western education. He is the one who brings cloths from the White men to distribute to the inhabitants of Umugo. This idea does not go down well with the inhabitants who conclude that Nwaeza is compelling them to wear cloths. The people are astonished when Ofia, who carries the blood of the legendry Onoja, rather than oppose the success and spread of this unwanted material, accepts it and puts it on his body.

            After this, the succeeding chapters chronicle the different individual and community activities observed in different seasons. The issue of concern is the fast approaching new yam festival of the community. As the novel reveals, it is customary for the people to keep the road leading to their farm clean in preparation to welcome their chief of crops, yam. Everybody is involved in this duty. Odumu, a young man in his prime is also in the work force. The work goes successfully on the Eke market day as has been announced. This activity is succeeded after few market days with the celebration of new yam festival in Umugo. Odumu is a gifted farmer whom his ancestors have blessed with the riches of yam. He is also the community’s warlord who has led the warriors in the different wars fought by the community. He is the son of Onoja and bears the sword of the clan upon which lay the spirit of the clan, Umunna.

            The new Yam Festival is observed with all sincerity as it is an occasion for giving thanks to Ani, the goddess of the earth and fertility. Ani plays a greater part in the life of the people than any other deity. She is the ultimate judge of morality and conduct. During the period of some festivals like New Yam and Aju festivals, Umugo do not fight any kind of war. This practice of keeping peace shows the community’s great concern for not only nature, but also the ancestors who are believed to be around the inhabitants, especially during the festival. Aju is the festival dedicated to the activities of the founding fathers. The respect that the inhabitants hold for their ancestors is another evidence of their great love for the land. Their ancestors are seen as part of the land. Thus, the dead members of the community are also part of the land. This dynamic model of land extends genealogically from the past to the future.

            Partaking in the conviviality which the festivals bring usually motivates a continuous communion among the elders of the communities. This communion as orchestrated by the communal festivals also encourages unity and same spirit. From the ongoing, the novel presents to us a society whose sole purpose of survival is stirred by egalitarian drive.

            The aftermath of the new yam festival beholds a six days war that engages the warriors of Umugo. It is the war between Umugo and the people of Agede. This war is occasioned by the sudden discovery of certain population of strangers who settle in the boundary between Umugo and the Agede. The war takes the life of three warriors from Umugo as Agede misses a great number of her warriors. The war suddenly ends after the death of Kendy, the warlord in charge of the warriors of Agede. At the end of the war, the people of Agede send delegates to Umugo to pass the message of reconciliation that shows they have surrendered. To gain full reconciliation, the people of Agede have to send those settlers at the boundary packing. After this war with Agede, Umugo could not see peace for over six years, as the novel reveals.

            As the novel progresses, we are brought to another war with the people of Umuhu. Umuhu, a settlement at the northern part of Umugo land, is grossly overpopulated. They are more in population than the people of Umugo. For this reason, they quickly conclude that Umugo would be overtaken in no mean time. At the beginning, Umugu is in favour as they pressed on their opponents without respite. It goes that way until the day Odumu sustains injury and he stays at home. The people of Umuhu suppress Umugo for one whole year before the recuperation of Odumu. On arrival, the warriors take to night fight; stealing moments to advance on the unprepared Umuhu. They slaughter Umuhu until morning hours. This situation brings to an end the fight as Umuhu surrenders. Umugo fights two more wars after the war with the people of Umuhu. These confirmed the warning from Edeoga who reveals that the war will not end as the people would think. He is the priest of both land and spirit goddess in Umugo.

            When the wars end, Umugo warriors undergo blood cleansing. This is done to free the warriors of the blood they have spilled in the battle field. This also will keep them in their union with the spirits of their past fathers again, for Umugo believes that maintaining peace in domestic and societal level keeps the earth satisfied and ensures good harvest. Flouting certain rules believed t be ordained by the nature attracts certain fines, it doesn’t matter the person concerned. This is one of the reasons why all the warriors take part in the “ablution” except Odumu. The priest refuses to cleanse him because of the birth complication of Odumu’s wife (P.109).

            Any occurrence that appears unnatural such as twin babies, abnormal childbirth (like a child who comes out with his legs rather than his head is considered as an ajo nwa, bad child), diseases like small pox and leprosy, death by suicide etc. is handled in different ways in the novel. For such cases, Umugo has a reserved area called the Evil Forest where they deposit such persons. Odumu’s wife is a victim of one of these. She has unfortunate child birth during those turbulent years that Umugo has been in wars. Umugo sees this as abominable, and the earth goddess demands cleansing by the family involved. The earth is the home of the ancestors. The land does not belong to the present generation only; the ancestors and the future generations too shared in the ownership of the land. For Umugo, nature is divine. Trees, rivers, hills, cave, and different other components of the environment hold divine powers. Ani is the goddess of earth and fertility, Amadioha - the god of thunder, Ufijioku, the god of harvest and Anyanwu is the sun god. Other gods abide which are assigned with certain roles that correspond to the charges of sustaining the environment and the people in it. Many of these gods are assigned festivals in the novel.

            There are periods when the communities do not fight wars. Aju festival period is one of these periods. At this time it is expected that the community involved must not go to war; the inhabitants are expected to live peacefully among themselves and maintain a same moral condescension. They believed that the ancestors lived in peace and had propagated the gospel of peace at their time. For such reason, it is believed according to the novel that the spirits of the ancestors move around during these periods and would not be happy with the living when this propagated peace is not in place. The colonial masters have knowledge of this consolidated peace and the time when it reigned supreme. To succeed, they have to still this moment of less war condition and creep into the communities.

            After giving a complete picture of the pre-colonial Umugo and her surroundings, the novel moves to show how the Christian missionaries and colonial rulers denigrate the philosophy of the natives. The missionaries have travelled to the neighbouring communities and are attempting to advance through Umugo. At first, it is the colonial masters who intend advancing through the area, but the news of Umugo warriors could not allow them do this. The next option is to send the missionaries first. In the attempt to spread Christianity; these harbingers of colonial rule, use their preaching to destroy the spiritual meanings hold by the communities. Edeoga, the chief priest of both land and water spirits has foreseen this circumstance and has to predict the coming of the Whiteman and the damages the community’s tradition stands to suffer.

­­­            The tact in the colonial masters to penetrate the land is found in their involvement with Ofia, Odumu’s son, just for the sole interest on the presence of limestone in the area. To succeed, they have to project a disguised mission propagating a new education aimed at arresting the mind of the inhabitants. The missionary, Mr. Otomba has to be sent to Umugo for this purpose. He tries to convince the people that nature does not hold any divine power and there is only one God. Thus, all other deities of nature are dismissed through the missionaries’ teachings. To make a heyday, the missionary’s attempts to force the pupils under mandate to abandon the practice of their fathers as that is considered fetish does not only cause injuries to the Igbo religious beliefs, but it also marks the destruction of nature for the advancement of colonial enterprise. Cultural denigration which has been the architect of environmental destruction as a result of notions and ideas acquired from foreign culture is indirectly aimed at withdrawing values from those natural instincts that formed the bases of the people’s moral and religious tenets. 

            By giving a heart-rending portrayal of how the Igbo’s deeply reverenced values are negated by the colonial rulers, Nnaji‘s novel thus indicates the initial stage of what is going to take a devastating turn in the history of colonial exploitation. The Eagles Tribe is the evidence that the act of violating nature and destructing the environment is inspired by the very principles of the colonial rule which does not believe in the spiritual bond between nature and human beings. While colonial exploitation is in its initial stage in Umugo, it appears in full aggression in other communities in the novel such as Odeke, Okoto and Mba-miri. Evidence of the destruction of the natives is estimated accurately through the activities of the colonial masters in Mba-miri. Christian missionaries encourage the people to go contrary to the ancient concept which stratifies the society amidst feudal lords and their subordinates. This clash brought the novel to an end.

            The Eagles Tribe is the evidence that the act of violent and destruction is the primary instrument the colonial masters use to overtake the Blacks. They subtly present the worship of the almighty in their own ways as epitomized with the bible to make Africa less resentful, then use force to overtake them. This tact is everywhere the same in the history of colonialism in Africa. Think of Kenya, think of South Africa that just medication is a subtle means for the colonial penetration; the most is experienced in the eastern part of Nigeria. “Christianity” is used to disarm the Igbo and force to steal the artifacts in the east. Such is the subtlety that this novel stands to reveal.

Evaluation

            From the events and people in The Eagles Tribe, Nnaji attempted to dramatize the overall lifestyle of the pre-colonial African societies; not only those of the Igbo extraction. The pre-colonial African societies were patrilineal, communal and partly individualistic. These had contributed to the economic drives which had always led them to fighting wars among neighbourhoods, and during which captives are made and kept as slaves. The novel chronicles histories and casualties involved, using the major wars fought by Umugo against the communities in the neighbourhood in the past and the conditions attached to their resolutions as good examples.

            Africans fought wars to defend their lands against intrusions, they also fought to claim more land after defeating their less-assailant communities among other reasons. The war between Odeke and Umugo is also occasioned here to indicate that some wars were fought just as a show of power and supremacy of one community over others. Many of these wars had left the concerned communities with certain incurable injuries lasting for generations. Another example is the war between Eziama and Umugo which the novel clarifies that this war was fought on the account of the death of a late warrior’s sons. The late warrior held from one of the villages in Umugo, and it was discovered that the child’s death was necessitated by the people of Eziama.

            The characters in the novel are not different from what obtained in the primitive African societies. The characters represent real life heroes who had been involved in the key functions in the societies. Onoja who was prominently mentioned here had been historically significant in the history of many communities in Nigeria. As a timely legend, Onoja had contributed in the development of many communities. History also reveals Onoja as the founder of the author’s community. All these prove the novel a non-fictional prose. Any aspect of these wars not included in this work may fall under my belief in line with Awoonor (1969.31) that, “in writing about a people, the writer should understand that there are aspects of the people’s history that needn’t be exposed”.

            These modes of discord among African societies provided a succor for easy overtaking of Africa by foreign communities. To be successful, they laid hands on the more treasured aspects of our societies, leaving us to struggle for self-realization and recovery of our real self. The novel is a clear depiction of the general African life prior and in the later days of foreign invaders. One relevant message the reader is bound to drive home with - after reading this novel - is that, with the African marriage with the West, we have no life again of our own, and will only regain it the very time our memories flicker on those forgotten paths that once made us Africans. We were nations of heroes, dominating, and not dominated.

Recommendation

            Although there are aspects of the novel containing certain activities opposes to the modern religious practices, it exposes the reader to the lifestyle of the Black man that are now told, but not lived. I am of the conviction that every committed reader will by this work of art find reasons for believing in himself and develop the spontaneous drive to reflect on the relevance of epic heroes in their personal history. I recommend this book to both young and old audiences. I also congratulate the author for choosing to be completely African, even in the face of the colonial string, the English language.