Chapter 2 two

Okonkwo had just blown out his palm oil lamp and lay down on a bamboo couch when he heard Oranai, the messenger of the village, piercing through the still night sky.Gou go go go go go go, the hollow iron made a deafening sound.Then the messenger began to shout, and when he had finished shouting, he went on beating his Aurana.This is what he shouted: Tomorrow morning, all the men of Umm Ofia must assemble in the market place.Okonkwo wondered what had happened; he was sure that something must have happened, and he heard a tragic undertone in the messenger's voice, although the voice grew farther and fainter, he still You can hear it.

It was eerily quiet at night.Except for moonlit nights, the nights are always silent.For such men, even the bravest among them, darkness has always meant an elusive terror.Children are warned not to whistle in the dark, lest they attract evil spirits.In the dark, harmful animals become more vicious and terrifying.People never call a snake a snake at night, lest it hear it.So call it a rope.That night, when the voice of the messenger gradually disappeared in the distance, and the silence fell on the land again, the chirping sounds of thousands of insects in the forest were one after another, exciting, and the trembling sounds made the silence extra thick.

On a moonlit night, the situation is different.At that time one could hear the laughter of children playing in the open fields.The young may play in pairs in more secluded places, and the old may recall their youth.As the Igbo people say: When the moon shines, the cripple wants to go for a walk. But the night was dark and silent.In all the nine villages of Umm Ofia the Herald tapped his Aurana and called every man to the next morning's assembly.Lying on the bamboo couch, Okonkwo tried to figure out what kind of emergency meeting this was, to fight the neighboring clans?Probably, and he is not afraid of war.He was a man of action, a warrior.Unlike his father, he wasn't afraid to see bloodshed.He was the first to bring home the head during the most recent battle at Umm Ofiah.This was already his fifth head, and he was not yet an old man.On solemn occasions, such as funerals in the village, he would use his first head to serve palm wine.

Early the next morning, the market was packed with people.There were about 10,000 people, all talking in low voices.Finally, Ogbu Effie.Esaiug stood up from the crowd and yelled four times in different directions. Guinu of Ummofia [Note: Guinu expressed approval and a shout of tribute. ], every time he shouted, he waved his clenched fist, as if trying to push away the air in front of him.The 10,000 people also answered in unison every time, ah ah!Then there was complete silence.Ogbu Effie.Eseugo was a provocative orator, and he was always chosen to speak on such occasions.He ran his hands over his gray head, smoothed his silvery beard, and adjusted his shawl, which was looped under his right armpit and tied in a knot over his left shoulder.

Gwenu of Umm Ofiah, he cried aloud for the fifth time, and the crowd responded with shouts.Then he suddenly stretched out his left hand as if possessed, pointed in the direction of Embaino, clenched his gleaming white teeth, and said: Those little wild beasts dared to kill a daughter of Umuofia .He lowered his head, gritted his teeth, and there was a low, angry roar from the crowd.When he began to speak again, the scowl on his face had disappeared, replaced by a more sinister and terrifying smile than the scowl.Then he told the men of Umuofia, in a clear and clear voice, how their daughter had gone to the market at Embaino, and how she had been killed there.Esaiugo pointed to a man sitting next to him with his head bowed, and said that the woman was Ogbu Efe.Udo's wife.The crowd roared angrily, wanting to kill.

Many more people spoke and finally decided to follow the normal steps.Immediately sent an ultimatum to Embaino, asking them to choose either to fight a war, or to sacrifice a virgin and a virgin as compensation. The Umm Ofiah have always been feared by those in their neighbourhood.They were great in war and witchcraft, and the priests and medicine men of Umm Ofia were feared in the surrounding villages.They have one of the most powerful war potions, almost as old as the clan itself.Just how old it is, no one knows.But everyone admits one thing, that is, the most powerful medicine in this potion is an old woman with only one leg.In fact, the name of the potion was Akadi|Old Lady of Envaye.Its shrine is in the center of Umm Ofia, in a cleared land.If anyone was stupid enough to pass before the shrine after dusk, he would have seen the old woman hopping up and down on one foot.

The neighboring clans knew these things, of course, and so they were all afraid of the Umm Ofia, and they would not go to war against the Umm Ofia without first trying to make peace.And to the Umm Ofia it is fair to say that they will not go to war unless the cause is clearly on their side, and they have the permission of their god of the hills and caves.There were indeed times when the gods forbade the Umm Ofiah to go to war.If the entire clan does not listen to God, they will surely be defeated, because Akadi|Nwaye will never participate in what the Igbo call reprehensible wars. But the war that is now looming is a just war.Even rival clans understand this.So when Okonkwo came to Embaino as the haughty emissary of the Umuofia to declare war, he was received with extraordinary pomp and honor.Two days later, he returned to his village with a fifteen-year-old boy and a young virgin.The boy's name was Ikemefna, and his tragic story is told in Umm Ofia to this day.

At that time, the elders gathered to listen to the report of Okonkwo's mission.They finally decided, as everyone knew they would, that the girl would be sent to Ogbu Effie.Udo to take the place of his slain wife.As for the boy, he belonged to the whole clan, but there was no rush to decide his fate now.So everyone asked Okonkwo to take care of the child temporarily on behalf of the clan.In this way, Ikemefna lived in Okonkwo's house for three years. Okonkwo ruled his family with a strict hand.His wives, especially his youngest, were always in constant trepidation that his fiery temper might flare up again, and so did his children.Okonkwo may not have been a brutal man by his nature.But his whole life was ruled by fear, his fear of failure, his fear of weakness.His fear of failure and weakness was deeper than his fear of demons, of capricious gods and monsters, of forests, of malevolent nature with blood-red claws.Okonkwo's fear was greater than any of these things.This fear is not on the outside, but hidden deep in his heart.It was his own fear of being thought like his father.Even as a child he hated his father for his failure and weakness, and he still remembers how it hurt him once when a friend told him that his father was an Agbala.It was at this time that Okonkwo learned that not only was Agbala just another title for a woman, it could also mean a man without a title.So Okonkwo was governed by a feeling that he hated everything his father Unoka loved, one of which was gentleness, and the second was laziness.

During the planting season, Okonkwo works in his field every day, from the time the rooster crows until the chicks return to the coop.He's a very strong guy and rarely tires.But his wife and children were not as strong as he was, and that made them suffer.However, they dare not openly complain.Okonkwo's eldest son, Nwoye, was twelve years old at the time, but already exhibited a sluggish disposition, at least in his father's eyes, which worried his father greatly.Okonkwo often beat and scolded him in an attempt to correct him, so Nwoye became a teenager with a sad face all day long.

The prosperity of Okonkwo's family is evident at a glance.He had a large yard surrounded by a thick wall of laterite.Immediately behind the only gate in the laterite wall was the main house, or Obie, where he himself lived. 】.His three wives each had their own huts, which together formed a half-moon behind his hut.The warehouse was built at one end of the red wall, and there were piles and piles of cassava inside, showing his abundance.There was a sheep pen at the other end of the yard, and each wife had a chicken shed next to her hut.Near the storehouse was a small house that served as a pharmacy, or shrine, in which Okonkwo's own gods and ancestors' wooden tablets were kept.He honored them with offerings of kola fruit, food, and palm wine, and prayed to them for himself, his three wives, and his eight children.

It is said that Ikemefna has come to Okonkwo's house since the daughter of the Umuofia was killed in Embaino.On the day Okonkwo brought him home, he called his first wife and gave her the child. He belonged to the whole clan, he told her, take good care of him. Is he going to live with us long?she asked. Do as I tell you, woman, growled Okonkwo stammeringly, since when have you been an elder of the Umuofia? So Nwoye's mother took Ikemefna to her hut and didn't dare to ask any more questions. As for the boy himself, he was terrified to death.He didn't understand what happened to him now, and he didn't know what he had done.How would he have known that his father had participated in the murder of Umm Ofia's daughter?All he knew was that some people came to the house, whispered something to his father, and finally took him away and gave him up to a stranger.His mother was crying a lot.He didn't cry because he was too scared.The stranger took him and another girl out of the house, and walked for a long, long time through the uninhabited path in the forest.He didn't know who the girl was and never saw her again.