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I. Geography of Africa World: http://geography.about.com/od/learnabouttheearth/qt/qzcontinents.htm Africa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa Nigeria: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria II. Igbo Culture Great information about the Ibo people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_people The Igbo People – Origins and History Ibo culture http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/Igbo.html
http://logicerror.com/thingsFallApart-review (Destroying Native culture) Modern Nigeria Igbo People Nigeria How the Ibo Governed Read through this site: Ibo Government Women in the Tribe See link and read 5th paragraph, starting with “The world in Things Fall Apart is one in which patriarchy. . .” and to the end of paragraph seven: Women in Achebe's world Ibo women were not without power, and Achebe describes the umuada, or daughters of the clan, who seem to exercise authority in certain arenas. According to Rhonda Coleman, a critic who has studied the anthropological literature on the Ibo, the umuada also regulated the markets in each town and settled civic and marital disputes. The wives of the clan would bring pressure to bear on a man guilty of wife abuse through public humiliation. Women would harass him in front of clan members with songs and gestures of a rude nature until he changed his behavior. In the meantime, according to Coleman, kinsmen of the battered woman who had married into the clan would pressure their own men to do something about the abuse. Chi, The Spiritual Double Check out this site: Chi Also, read this excerpt: According to an Ibo proverb, “Nothing can stand alone; there must always be another thing standing beside it.” So too, a human being must have some company. Chi is a person’s spiritual “double,” linking him or her to the ancestors, the unborn, and to Chukwu, the great God that created all other gods and humankind. While a man who says “yes” may get his chi to agree with him, that same man may find himself in trouble if he goes against a strong “no” coming from his chi. In the Ibo world-view, chi gets the last word. Ibo Currency Among the Ibo—as in many other regions of Africa---cowrie shells were formerly used as money. The cowrie is a shiny, white and tan mollusk (snail), about a half-inch long. The typical bride-price for attaining a wife was twenty bags of cowries. In Achebe’s World, Robert Wren explains that each bag would have contained about 24,000 cowries and would have weighed about 60 pounds. For further explanation: Cowrie and Cowrie definition Nigerian Music Nigerian Music Read the information on this page for the Ibo people and the instruments they use : Ibo music Nigerian Percussion View the following pictures: Pictures of African drums Masks Read the following website and answer these questions for your presentation: Masks and Meaning See what they looked like: Masks pictures Agricultural Staples Among the most important crops cultivated by the Ibo are the Yam and the oil palm [Palm oil]. The African yam is a large tuber with a thick, dark outer skin covering white meat. Yams can be boiled, mashed, fried, or roasted like potatoes. The oil palm tree reaches heights of 30 feet or more. Small oval fruit grows in large clusters at the base of the leaves. Oil from the fruit’s soft shell is used to make soap and candles. Palm-kernel oil squeezed from the hard nut inside the fruit is used in margarine. Also take a look at this web page and scroll down to the small caption at the bottom of the picture, entitled, “Palm oil production” Ibo Food Alligator pepper: sometimes called wild ginger or malegueta (Portuguese). This spice grows well on land newly cleared and burnt for farming. For a picture, see: Alligator Pepper picture foo-foo: a dough made from mashed yams or from another tuber, called cassava. Foo-foo might be served in a calabash, a container made from hollow shells of the gourd-like fruit of the calabash tree. Foo-foo, usually eaten with a tasty sauce, is a staple food in many regions of West Africa. Palm wine: a sweet wine made form the sap of the raffia palm tree. See also under hospitality heading of webpage: Hospitatlity For more information on both palm wine and foo-foo, see web page under economy: Economy Kola nut: a nut inside the kola, which looks like a green grapefruit. Nuts are silver or pink and their juice contains caffeine. Kola nut picture Coco-yam: a large-leafed plant with round underground tubers, called taro in Asia, and known in the United states as the base for Hawaiian poi. See Taro plant and Taro information Cassava: root vegetable, also called manioc. Its leaves are rich in nutrients. The roots are processed to make foo-foo. The leaves are cooked as a green vegetable. In granular form, cassava is known as tapioca. Cassava is a staple food in many parts of West Africa. See Casava Iba (also called malaria) Check out these web pages for answers: Malaria and Malaria distribution Edema: The Swelling Disease Read through this site: Edema Wikipedia and Edema Overview
III. Colonialization What is "colonialization?": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism Corruption as a Consequence of Colonialism: http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/nigeria/corrupt.htm IV. Chinua Achebe Author Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinua_Achebe Things Fall Apart: Times Review V. Literary Elements Tragic Hero |
