Saturday, March 9, 2013
Opportunism and the Igbo.
The part where the locusts came and the villagers collected them to cook and eat them made me think of how opportunistic and economic they are. In fact, they constantly worship the earth goddess for the things she gives them in their harvests. Similarly, in the chapter we read from "An Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, the author mentions many examples of how the Igbo people are in fact very economic as well. I remember in particular the palm wine and how they also harvested the same tree for nuts and oils.
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3 comments:
The Ibo lifestyle seems to revolve around nature since subsistence farmers. They pay very close attention to weather patterns for agricultural purposes. Their gods are gods of specific facets of nature and their most important goddess, Ani, is the Earth goddess. It is no suprise that the Earth goddess is their biggest since their livelyhood depends on farming. It also makes sense that Ani is female since earth "gives birth" to new life and vegetation which sustains the people.
I too found that economical uses for locust in both pieces of literature to be quite interesting. It is interesting to see how economic imperatives permeate through many of the decisions that civilizations have made in the span of history, as it is one of the few things that ties together all civilizations. We have learned that much of the political situations/strife are rooted in issues to prosper and move forward. I believe Achebe is attempting to show that people such as the Igbo who were considered "primitive" by Europeans, were just like them as they had many of the same interests.
Tejas, now that I think about it, that last part of your post seems kind of ironic for the Igbo. In the grand scheme of things, they as well as all Africans are very much different from the Europeans and their sense of economic imperative is one of the few aspects of their culture which is similar to that of the Europeans. The irony is that that same similarity is the rationale for their enslavement and oppression.
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