MEMOIR

Umuofia. My clan, my tribe, my home. So much changed has happen right under our noses yet we were too blind to notice that we soon were no longer the rulers of our own land. The white people were very sneaky when they came along with their strange and abnormal beliefs and customs.  When my good friend and also one of the greatest men in Umuofia, Oknokwo was exiled, I knew that things were slowly starting to change, the seven years that he missed was the introduction of the arrivals of the colonists. They has slowly taken our people into their side and manipulated their minds into believing that Christianity was the right way and that our well-shaped and vigorous culture and superstitions were erroneous and disapproved by them. The settlers had even gone as far as killing of the village of Abame and attempted to convert the rest and imposing their power upon all the different lands.

The white people have done many things in which they had disrespected us and our traditions and way of life.  The first reverend sent to our land was Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown was actually respected by the clan because he trod softly on our faith and had even made friends with some of the great men of the clan and would frequently visit us in the villages. But with the coming of the new reverend, Mr. Smith, things were bound to change. Mr. Smith thought about nothing but numbers. Yet before that let me talk about Enoch. Enoch was one of the white missionaries who was the son of the priest of the snake. Enoch had murdered an egwugwu by unmasking him during the annual ceremony to honor the earth deity which caused a horrible conflict between us. This led us to burn down Enoch’s compound and then burning down the church. This act led 6 of us to the court and then unknowingly being imprisoned by the white missionaries (who had also beat us with sticks) who only accepted to release us if our village would pay a fine of two hundred and fifty bags of cowries. From this point on we knew that they were the enemies. It wasn’t a joke anymore; the white men had more power than we had anticipated, they were a smart bunch and we had foolishly accepted their stay. They had taken many of our people and our culture society was starting to break down and the falcon could no longer hear the falconer and that’s when I knew things changed. Things had fallen apart.