What not a lot of people realize is that traditions are important, even on the brink of change (be it dramatic or not). Traditions can lend meaning to things that people do not entirely understand, and explain to a specific group of people why certain things happen, or the role(s) of those things in our lives.
In Things Fall Apart, traditions help to settle disputes and keep everyone peaceful during one week, as well as explain the "supernatural" happenings around them (such as ogbanje).
During the Week of Peace in Umofia (Achebe 29-31), beating your wife is not allowed, nor is any other sort of violence. When that tradition is broken, there are punishments:
Okonkwo's neighbors heard his wife crying and sent their voices over the compound walls to ask what was the matter...It was unheard of to beat somebody during the sacred week. Before it was dusk Ezeani, who was the priest of the earth goddess, Ani, called on Okonkwo in his obi..."The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan...The earth goddess...may refuse to give us her increase, and we shall all perish." His tone now changed from anger to command. "You will bring to the shrine of Ani tomorrow one she-goat, one hen, a length of cloth and a hundred cowries" (Achebe 30-31).That occurrence was the first time in many years that someones had broken the sacred peace. The traditions demanded that Okonkwo pay for his disregard for traditions, and also sought to reveal why others should not follow in his footsteps and why they should refrain from breaking the peace.
Another place that traditions are helpful in protecting and holding together a culture is when it is time for the "spirits" of the nine tribes come to settle lawsuits and prevent fights from breaking out between clansmen and between relatives. The "spirits" are part of the tradition of the culture in Umofia, and can sometimes get through to people who would not accept anyone else's opinion or rebuke -
"I don't know why such a trifle should come before the egwugwu," said one elder to another.
"Don't you know what kind of man Uzowulu is? He will not listen to any other decision," replied the other (Achebe 94).Some men in the clan (like Obeirika) do not understand why some traditions are necessary, such as throwing twins into the forest to die. Obeirika wonders what crime they committed that they had to be killed. He wonders why the accidental killing of a clansmen by Okonkwo warrants such a harsh punishment of seven years in exile.
Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he had committed inadvertently? But although he thought for a long time...He was merely led into greater complexities. He remembered his wife's twin children, whom he had thrown away. What crime had they committed? (Achebe 125).Crimes against their gods and/or goddesses are those offenses that warrant punishment in their culture. Rules and laws dictated by years of their specific culture, through specific rituals, are those that must be followed. When a tradition is not followed, as mentioned before, there are punishments.
The reason why those traditions are not so easily changed is the fact that most everyone accepts them. The whole village scorns other teaching, and is fully devoted to the following of their gods. Attempting to change a way of thinking is really hard do do, and so the traditions and rules must continue to be followed, no matter what someone else thinks.
On the verge of change, traditions offer some comfort to those who are seeing the change as "bad" or as something needing to be destroyed and struck down. The culture of Umofia dictated that kinsmen must band together, as in the feast Okonkwo prepares for his kinsmen right before he is to return to Umofia. One of the oldest members of the umunna said this about kinship:
"As for me, I have only a short while to live, and so have Uchendu and Unachukwu and Emefo. But I fear for you young people because you do not understand how strong is the bond of kinship. You do not know what it is to speak with one voice. And what is the result? An abominable religion has settled among you. A man can now leave his father and his brothers. He can curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors...[to Okonkwo] Thank you for calling us together" (Achebe 167).These people in Mbanta don't understand how a village as strong as Umofia could fall to a foreign religion, but they take comfort in the fact that they are unmoving, and they have a place to hide from the "abominable" religion.
For those who have seen the new religion as something more, their old beliefs are something to compare their new beliefs to. They can look back at their culture, see what they have done and what doesn't fit, and then embrace wholeheartedly the new religion, with no doubts about their choice.
Nwoye makes the decision to fully and completely leave his family, because he does not like the way his father is allowed to treat him in his house (Achebe 152). Okonwko's older traditions and culture actually drive a huge rift between him and his first-born son, while Nwoye embraces the new religion, as well as a new Father and new sisters and brothers in the faith. He sees the traditions as wrong, ever since he learned that his father killed Ikemefuna (Achebe 62), and maybe even before that.
For people kind of right in between in the choice of changing or refusing to change, their known culture helps them to ease into a new culture, with new traditions. They see that the new religion is not being destroyed, even though it is planted in the Evil Forest, and they check themselves against their culture and the new one, to see where they got it wrong.
Those who decide to change, change slowly - easing into the new culture in a comfortable way. Once in, they accept the change and leave their old culture behind.
Those who cannot decide stay where they are - not fully accepting their old culture, but not ready to choose a new culture and its traditions.
As I was reading this, I also happened to be reading Divergent for the first time. I started making some connections. In Divergent, there is also a culture and a way of life on the verge of change. Erudite is targeting the leadership, and trying to control the rest of the factions. In Things Fall Apart, the change is not so violent, and actually comes peacefully through the pastor Mr. Brown.
When the world of Divergent starts to change and things "fall apart", the main character, Tris, starts to worry about her life. She will be factionless if she does not join Erudite. This new culture and traditions seems scary at first, just as Christianity looks scary and odd when it first comes to Umofia.
After a while, though, Tris discovers other Divergent like her and begins to place herself into a new "faction" - the Divergent. The old ideas of "factions" may be falling apart, but Tris finds a way to ease into it by creating her own personal faction, and mentally adding other Divergent to it.
Last summer I read the amazing book Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge. That book sets down a place with a very interesting culture: there are hundreds and hundreds of "little gods" called the Beloved. Each Beloved has a job, be it keeping "snarps" from stealing children, or controlling the flies...and each person chooses a Beloved to worship. If you're born on a certain day at a certain hour, you're named for the Beloved of that hour. The main character was named for the Beloved Goodman Palpitattle, He Who Keeps Flies Out of Jams and Butter Churns. There are actually two main characters: Mosca Mye (the one named for Goodman Palpitattle) and Eponymous Clent.
Near the end of the story, when Mosca is finally given the chance to be free and to know how to read, she is able to read some things of her father's: things that showed him to be an atheist.
"My father's book was much better...all the men praying for the Beloved's advice felt a great wind about them...They run out of the cathedral with Beloved swarming all over them, like bees over a beekeeper, all buzzin' their wishes at once...When the men was almost goin' mad with the sound of thousands of voices, they covered their ears and yelled for the Beloved to leave 'em to decide everythin' for themselves. The Beloved said they were needed there to keep the moon-blot beetles out of the lanterns, an' peel the skin from the milk, an' stop the snarps stealin' children. But the men told 'em to leave the world anyway...an' the Beloved did. And nothin' changed at all, 'cause there never were any Beloved, just people making their voices up in their heads..."
"That is a very charming story, Mosca. Never tell it again." (Hardinge 476-477)Mosca goes on to say that her father didn't believe in the Beloved, and Clent explains that they need to let the clerics and scholars decide whether or not they need the Beloved. Then they walk past a shrine, with citizens walking past and leaving an offering for each of the Beloved. Mosca realizes that the Beloved were needed to give people something to believe in, or there would be confusion, and no one would know what to think (Hardinge 478).
Mosca is ready to embrace a world without beloved, and Clent is not. He wants to stick to his beliefs in the Beloved, like the people of Umofia to their culture that is so unlike what Christianity teaches.
People need something to believe in, until they are ready to take a step into the unknown and change their traditions as their culture changes.
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Sources:
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
- Divergent by Veronica Roth
- Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge
- McCallum
