Methods of Metaphysical Struggle in Straight’s article
Straight outlines multiple methods of metaphysical struggle with indigenous gods in Africa. The most obvious forms of this struggle come as material violence; “divinities are hanged, burned, or killed outright (when they come in the shape of animals)” (847). The major example in this article is Scudder shooting into the cave of a god known as Nkai killing some hyenas and desecrating the sacred site. Straight gives another example of animals being killed for this purpose. In one town there were local lizards that were believed to be protectors of the town, and the missionaries had the lizards chased out of town and killed to “prove” the illegitimacy of their divinity.
As another example, Straight tells of a nineteenth century missionary, John Williams, who enacted violence upon indigenous gods through the methods of hanging and burning. Williams and other missionaries would expose the deities and publically exhibit them often from their pulpits. After the “idols” were desecrated through their exposure and hanging, they met their ultimate end through burning or display in British missionary museums.
Medical science was used to disprove the existence of traditional gods through supposed rational deconstruction. African deities were “scientifically” explained away by “proving by living demonstration the fallacy, fatuity, and powerlessness of the superstitious methods of treatment employed by the medicine man” (p. 864). Scudder engaged in dispensing medicine, because he aimed to “win souls by separating them from bodies, thereby imparting a dualistic ontology by which the body could be healed by “rational” means separate from a soul that needed to be saved by faith” (846).
Christian missionaries also resorted to bold self-contradiction to “prove” the power of the Christian God over the African traditional deities. W.F.P. Burton, a contemporary of Scudder, recounts in his history of missionary work that when his mission was being built the “native” workers took lightning and the unearthing of a human skeleton as bad omens and refused to continue their work. Burton dismissed this as superstitious and “heathen darkness” even though the building indeed suffered damage in a tornado soon after the perceived omens. However, the missionary’s bold self-contradiction emerged when more bad weather threatened, the missionaries kneeled in prayer to God, and the storm passed without causing damage. “Had the tornado wreaked Kafuke’s revenge only in the credulous eyes of the ‘natives,’ while this time God truly prevailed in protecting a chapel? Was this another case of ‘bloodless victory,’ of the Judeo-Christian God triumphing over foreign divinities?” (847).
Methods of Metaphysical Conflict in Achebe's Novels
Interestingly, Achebe’s novels are filled with examples of the principles Straight is laying out, particularly her methods of metaphysical struggle. We see obvious examples of metaphysical struggle initiated by white missionaries, sure, but also by facets within traditional Igbo religion. While Straight focuses exclusively on the white “violence” done to the traditional metaphysical realities, Achebe’s literary format affords readers a more nuanced look at various perspectives of such incidents. Here are some examples:
In chapter 18 of Things Fall Apart, we see the villagers waiting to see the Christians struck down for building their church in the Evil Forest, and the outcasts are afraid to cut their hair for fear of death. Mr. Kiaga rationally deconstructs both beliefs, saying “You fear that you will die. Why should that be? How are you different from other men who shave their hair” (157). When the church is built, the outcasts cut their hair and still no one dies - something significant happens to the peoples’ perceptions of metaphysical realities.
And then there is the material violence as demonstrated in Things Fall Apart when the over-zealous convert Enoch unmasks one of the egwugwu. In doing this, he has "has killed an ancestral spirit, and Umuofia was thrown into confusion" (186).
Perhaps the most dramatic act of divinicide within the Igbo communities themselves is when Akukalia destroys Ebo's ikenga, his god. This was an unthinkable act, the ultimate sacrilege...so heinous, in fact, that after Ebo killed Akukalia, Ebo's village sympathized with the murdered, saying "who would bear such a thing? What propitiation or sacrifice would atone for such sacrilege" (24)? Also indicative of the community’s own ability to commit divinicide comes when we hear a brief account reminding a village "of the fate of another deity that failed his people" (39). The townspeople of Aninta actually burnt one a deity and exiled the affiliated priest.
And then, of course, we have the instance of the sacred python. While not itself a god, the sacred python was just that - sacred, and prized by the diety Idemili (45). And though not killed, Oduche's capturing of the snake proved catastrophic in the village. Of course, everything started when a Christian convert named Mr. Goodcountry used rational deconstruction to convince the church that the python was not sacred, saying 'it is nothing but a snake, the snake that deceived our first mother, Eve. If you are afraid to kill it do not call yourself a Christian" (47). That rational deconstruction eventually led to the more dramatic material violence when a Christian killed a snake and Oduche captured one, intending for it to die. Interestingly, these events also demonstrate bold contradiction on the part of Mr. Goodcountry, for in the very act of assuring his people that the python was just a snake, and therefore did not hold spiritual powers, he cited its apparently remarkable ability to grow vocal chords and speak to Eve in the Garden of Eden.
These examples are all in the vein of Straight’s “exceptional moments” that she so emphatically focuses on. For her, these are the kinds of moments that define the memories and shape the “imaginaries” of those involved. However, I wonder if it could also be said that the Igbo themselves enacted a sort of slow divinicide. In Arrow of God, Ezeulu is constantly lamenting the younger generation's turning from the gods. This is highlighted when Umuaro decides to go to war against the warning of the priest of Ulu; "Umuaro challenged the deity which laid the foundation of their villages" (15). Straight seems to want to emphasize the dramatic, catatastrophic instances of divinicide, but what of the gradual encroachment of the new religion? Ezeulu himself "was becoming afraid that the new religion was like a leper. Allow him a handshake and he wants to embrace" (43). Perhaps both internal forces and external colonization forces acted over time on the Igbo traditional religions and culture.
Discussion Questions
For Straight, what is actually accomplished in metaphysical violence against the deities? What does it mean for someone to blatantly and violently attack another’s divinity? What does it mean for those whose divinity is being attacked? Are there ways in which we still do this today in twenty-first century Christianity?
When the missionaries and colonizers in the Achebe novels attempted to "kill" deities, they seemed to be attempting to prove the nonexistence of the deity (as opposed to conquering an actual agent of power). Do you think this is how the Igbo interpreted it? Or, did they understand the white men as actually murdering their gods, demonstrating greater force than that possessed by the old deities? Are foreign acts of divinicide interpreted differently than internal acts of divinicide? Can these "native" acts even be properly termed divinicide?
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