Chapter 4 Four

An old man said: Look at the emperor's mouth, you think he has never eaten his mother's milk.He was referring to Okonkwo; Okonkwo had risen suddenly from extreme poverty and misfortune to become one of the clan leaders.The old man had no ill will towards Okonkwo.In fact, he admired Okonkwo's hard work and achievements.Still, Okonkwo was as amazed as many were by the rudeness with which he treated less accomplished men.Only a week ago, at their family meeting to discuss the next ancestor worship meeting, a man had disagreed with Okonkwo, and Okonkwo deliberately looked away and said: This will be a manly meeting. .The person with whom he disagreed had no title, so Okonkwo described him as a woman.Okonkwo knew how to hurt a man's dignity.

When Okonkwo said Osugo was a woman, those at the kin council sided with Osugo.The oldest person present at the meeting said sternly that there are people whose palm kernels are opened for them by the benevolent gods, and they should not forget humility.Okonkwo said he was sorry for what he had said, and the meeting continued. But it is not true that Okonkwo's palm kernels were opened for him by benevolent gods.The palm kernels were opened by himself.No one who knows his dogged struggle against poverty and misery can say that he was lucky.If anyone deserves his achievements, Okonkwo is that person.At a young age he became known throughout the land as an excellent wrestler.That was no fluke.The best one can say is that his Patronus is good.But there is an Igbo proverb that says yes to a man, so does his Patronus.Okonkwo said yes loudly, and his Patronus had to agree.And not only his patron saint approved of him, but the whole clan, which judged a man by the merits of his hands.It was for this reason that Okonkwo was elected by nine villages to declare to their enemies that if they would not sacrifice a young man and woman to atone for the murder of Udo's wife, Umm Ofia to fight against them.Umm Ofia was feared by their enemies, so Okonkwo was received as an emperor, and a virgin for Udo's wife and a boy named Ikemefna were given to him .

The elders of the clan decided to entrust Ikemefna to Okonkwo for a period of time.But no one thought that this period would last as long as three years.After they had thus decided, they seemed to have completely forgotten about him. Ikemefna was terrified at first.Once or twice he tried to run away, but he didn't know where to go.He thought of his mother and three-year-old sister, and wept bitterly.Nwoye's mother was kind to him and treated him like her own child.But he always repeats one sentence: When can I go home?Okonkwo heard that he would not eat anything, so he came in with a big stick and looked at him.Ikemefna swallowed a few pieces of cassava shivering, but then ran behind the hut and vomited in pain.Nwoye's mother followed there and put her hands on his chest and back.Ikemefna fell ill for three market weeks. After recovering from illness, she no longer seemed to be as afraid and worried as before.

He was a very lively boy by nature, and gradually he got on well with the people in the Okonkwo house, especially the children.Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, who was two years younger than him, couldn't do without him because he knew almost everything.He can make flutes out of bamboo poles and even elephant grass.He knows the names of all kinds of birds, and he can set up clever traps to catch small animals in the jungle.He also knows which kind of tree to use for the most powerful bow. Even Okonkwo himself liked the boy very much, of course only in his heart.Okonkwo never publicly showed any emotion other than anger.It is a sign of weakness to show kindness.Only strength is worth showing.So Okonkwo treated Ikemefna as harshly as he treated everyone else.But there is no doubt that he likes this child.Sometimes when he went to a great village assembly or a feast for the ancestors, he would let Ikemefna go with him, carrying a stool and a sheepskin bag, as if he were his son.In fact, Ikemefna also called him Father.

When Ikemefna came to Umm Ofia, it was at the end of the happy season that had been reaped and not yet sown.In fact, he didn't recover until the first few days of Peace Week.In this year, Okonkwo broke the peace and was punished by the priest of the Earth Mother, Ezi Ali, according to the tradition. Okonkwo's tantrum this time was quite justified; it was because his youngest wife had gone to a friend's house to comb her hair and had not returned in time for dinner.Okonkwo didn't know she wasn't home at first, but since she never brought food, he went to her hut to see what she was doing.But there was no one in the house, and the fire was out.

It so happened that his second wife came out of her hut to draw water from a large jar under the shade of a small tree in the middle of the yard.Okonkwo asked her: Where is Ogiugo? She combed her hair. Okonkwo bit his lip to suppress the anger in his heart. So, what about her kids?Did she take them too?He restrained himself and asked in a calm tone. They're here with me, his first wife, Nwoye's mother, replied.Okonkwo stooped to look into her room.Ogiugo's children were eating with the children of his first wife. Did she tell you to invite them to dinner before she went out?

Yes, Nwoye's mother told a lie, trying to cover up Ogiugo's negligence. Okonkwo knew she was not telling the truth.He went back to the hut to wait for Ogiugo.As soon as she came back, he beat her hard.In his rage, he forgot that it was Peace Week.His first and second wives ran out of their huts in a panic, begging him, reminding him that this week was sacred.But Okonkwo never stopped fighting people, and he was not even afraid of God. Okonkwo's neighbors heard his wife's cries and shouted outside the courtyard wall to ask what was going on.Someone even ran into the yard to see it in person.Hitting people during the holy week has never happened before.

Before it got dark, Ezi Ali, the priest of the Earth Mother Ani, came to Okonkwo's house to look for him.Okonkwo brought out the kola fruit and placed it in front of the priest. Take your kola fruit.I will never eat in the house of people who do not worship God and ancestors. Okonkwo tried to explain his wife's behavior to him, but Eziali ignored him.He poked a short stick in his hand into the ground to emphasize what he was saying. Listen to me, Eziali cut Okonkwo, you didn't come to Umm Ofia from anywhere else.You know as well as I do that it was a rule of our forefathers that no one shall speak a foul word to their neighbor for a whole week before any crop has been put into the field.We live in peace with our fellows in honor of our great Mother Earth, without whose protection our crops would not grow.You have done a very bad thing.He poked the stick hard on the ground. Your wife was at fault, but if you walked into your main room and found her lover lying on top of her, if you hit her, you still did something. A big bad thing.He poked his stick into the ground again, and a bad thing you did could destroy an entire clan.The earth mother you offended may not give us anything, and we shall starve to death.He changed his tone now, from anger to command, Tomorrow you bring a ewe, a hen, a piece of cloth, and a hundred agate shells to Arni's temple.After speaking, he stood up and left the hut.

Okonkwo did as the priest ordered.He also took an extra jug of palm wine.In his heart, he regretted it.But he was not the kind of person who would go around and admit to his neighbors that he had done something wrong.So people said that he did not respect the gods of the clan.His enemies even said that luck had gone to his head.They called him Nsa the Bird, and said that after a good meal he got carried away and challenged his patron saint. During Peace Week, people do nothing.They visit their neighbors and drink toddy.That year, they said nothing except that Okonkwo had offended Ani.For the first time in many years, the sacred peace has been violated.Even the oldest people can only remember that this happened once or twice in the distant past.

Ogbu Effie.Esseudu, the oldest man in the village, told the two visitors that in their clan the punishment for breaking the peace in Ani was now much less severe. It wasn't like that in the old days, he said, and my father told me that someone told him that in the old days, violators of the peace were dragged across the village on the ground until they died.However, this custom was soon abolished, because it was originally intended to maintain peace, and thus destroyed it. A young man said: "I was told yesterday that in some clans it is considered sacrilege for a person to die during Peace Week.

That's right, Ogbu Effie.Esaiudu said that in Opodo Ali, they have this custom.If a person dies at this time, he cannot be buried, but thrown into the fierce forest.These people lack knowledge, and they observe a bad custom.They deserted great numbers of men and women and did not bury them.What was the result?Their clan is full of these ghosts of the unburied dead who seek to harm the living at all times. Peace Week was over, and each man led his family in clearing the undergrowth and clearing the land for new crops.The felled bushes were left there to dry and then set on fire to burn them.Smoke rose into the sky, and goshawks flew from all directions, circling over the burning fields, silently saying goodbye to people.The rainy season is approaching, and they leave and don't come back until the dry season. Okonkwo spent days preparing the cassava seeds.He carefully inspects each piece of cassava to see if it is suitable for sowing.Sometimes, he decided that a piece of cassava was too big to be planted as a seed, so he skillfully cut it along the body of the cassava with a sharp knife.His eldest sons, Nwoye and Ikemefna, helped him by bringing the cassava from the barn in long baskets, counting the prepared cassava, and grouping every four hundred pieces into a pile.Sometimes Okonkwo also gave them a few pieces of cassava to try to prepare.But he was always able to find fault with their work, and pointed it out to them in a stern tone. Did you think you were asked to cut cassava cubes for cooking?If you cut open a cassava of this size again, I will tear your mouth open.You probably feel like you are still a child.At your age, I already have my own arable land.And you, he said to Ikemefna, don't you grow cassava in your hometown? On the inside, Okonkwo knew that the two children were too young to fully understand the intricate techniques of preparing cassava.But he felt there was no harm in starting early alone.Growing cassava is a man's job, and a man who can feed his family with cassava all year round is truly a great man.Okonkwo wanted his son to be a great farmer, a great human being.He wanted to uproot the disturbing signs of lethargy he thought he had seen in his son. I don't want a son who can't hold his head up in the clan assembly.I'd rather strangle him with my own hands.If you keep looking at me like this, he cursed, Amadeola will cut off your head. A few days later, there were two or three heavy rains, and the ground was already wet.Okonkwo led his family, carrying a basket full of cassava seeds, a shovel and a machete, to the field to start sowing.They piled up rows of mounds on the field and planted cassava in them. Cassava, the king of crops, is a demanding king.There are three or four months in a year, and it requires people to work hard for it, from the time the cock crows until the chick returns to the nest, and take care of it continuously all day long.Its young shoots are protected from the heat of the earth by rings of sisal leaves.When it rains harder, the women will plant corn, melons and beans in the middle of the mound.Stakes are then built around the cassava, first with small sticks and later with tall branches.From sowing cassava to harvesting, women have to weed three times at a certain time, neither early nor late. The rainy season really came, and the rain fell heavily and for a long time. Even the rain master in the village dared not say that he had any way to deal with this situation.He could no more make the rain stop now than he could make it fall without impairing his health in the driest season.To stop this bad weather requires a huge amount of energy, which cannot be borne by human physique. Therefore, in the rainy season, nature will not be disturbed by people.Sometimes, the heavy rain pours down, and the sky and the earth seem to merge into one, gray and wet.It was then difficult to determine whether Amadeola's low rumble of thunder came from heaven or from the earth.At such times, in the countless huts of Umm Ofia, every family, the children sit by the mother's stove and tell stories, or sit by the woodpile in the father's hut to warm up and bake corn.Between the earnest and tormenting season of sowing and the equally earnest but joyful harvesting season it is the season of brief respite. Ikemefna gradually began to feel part of Okonkwo's family.He still misses his mother and his three-year-old sister, and he has moments of sadness and depression.But as his attachment to Nwoye grew stronger, such moments became rarer and less intense.Ikemefna has endless folk tales.Even the stories that Nwoye already knew, he told them, took on a fresh air and the local color of another clan.Nwoye remembered this period of his life vividly until his dying day.He even remembered the time when Ikemefna told him that if there were only a few scattered particles growing on a corn cob, it could be called the old aunt's teeth, and how happy he used to laugh at that time.Nwoye immediately thought of Nwayeki who lived under the Udala tree.She only had about three teeth and was always smoking a pipe. The rain gradually became lighter and less frequent, and the sky and the earth were separated again.The rain fell slantingly in thin bursts in the sun and the breeze.At this time, the children couldn't stay in the house anymore, and ran around singing: It's raining, the sun is out, Ennadi cooks and eats by himself. Nwoye often wonders what kind of person Ennadi is, why he cooks and eats by himself, and lives alone.After thinking about it, he thought that Ennadi must live in the land often mentioned in the stories of Ikemefna, where the ants have a gorgeous palace and the sand is always dancing.