TFA Chapters 9–13

Of his three wives Ekwefi was the only one who would have the audacity to bang on his door.

Ekwefi even gave her such delicacies as eggs, which children were rarely allowed to eat because such food tempted them to steal.

As she buried one child after another her sorrow gave way to despair and then to grim resignation.

The birth of her children, which should be a woman's crowning glory, became for Ekwefi mere physical agony devoid of promise.

When all the egwugwu had sat down and the sound of the many tiny bells and rattles on their bodies had subsided, Evil Forest addressed the two groups of people facing them.

Uzowulu bent down and touched the earth with his right hand as a sign of submission.

There was a loud murmur of approbation from the crowd.

"I don't know why such a trifle should come before the egwugwu," said one elder to another.

After kola nuts had been presented and eaten, the people of the sky set before their guests the most delectable dishes Tortoise had even seen or dreamed of.

Now and again an ancestral spirit or egwugwu appeared from the underworld, speaking in a tremulous, unearthly voice and completely covered in raffia.

Many years ago another egwugwu had dared to stand his ground before him and had been transfixed to the spot for two days.

One of them was so old and infirm that he leaned heavily on a stick.

It was a great funeral, such as befitted a noble warrior. As the evening drew near, the shouting and the firing of guns, the beating of drums and the brandishing and clanging of machetes increased.

But before this quiet and final rite, the tumult increased tenfold. Drums beat violently and men leaped up and down in frenzy.

It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land. The crime was of two kinds, male and female. Okonkwo had committed the female, because it had been inadvertent.

When the will of the goddess had been done, he sat down in his obi and mourned his friend's calamity.

The Earth had decreed that they were an offense on the land and must be destroyed.