Igbo People, a Study in Anthropology

The dependence of the Igbo people on their system of agriculture can be seen as the primary example for the Igbo’s strong religious beliefs. As can be seen in almost any agricultural society throughout history pure skill can only go so far, nature is unpredictable and unchangeable. Perhaps this is why religion developed, as a way for humans to hopefully control the uncontrollable, or at least this is why the Igbo had such beliefs. A farmer could do back breaking work all day long, and at no fault to himself a bad rain could ruin his crop. The Igbo sought to prevent this by offering sacrifices to their gods. The religion in itself was not what mattered to the Igbo, but rather the food that they needed was what they truly sought.

The Igbo people relied almost entirely on their crop of yams. The yams were always planted at a particular time of year and in a particular fashion. Years of planting and harvesting perfected the Igbo way of farming, including but not limited to crop rotation and forest removal. These ways of farming allowed for good crops the majority of the time. Some seasons however, yielded failed crops, too wet or too dry could prove fatal for the Igbo people. Inevitably the Igbo needed a reason as to why their crops failed, this reason came in the form of Ani the earth goddess. Ani was like a mother nature for the Igbo people and Ani decided how much rain would fall. Therefore the Igbo people in hopes of gaining a good harvest would pray to Ani and sacrifice goats, hens, or even first-born children. In a way it can be said that the Igbo people did not need a deity or gods, they just needed assurance that their crop wouldn’t fail, and by idolizing this mythical deities the Igbo had all of their bases covered.

The laws of the Igbo which reflected their views of religion were also mainly based on the principle of subsistence farming. For if a woman had several of her children die repeatedly then it was seen that the children were all the same child coming back to life from the dead, such a child was called Obanje or changeling. The dead child would be mutilated or cut so that if it decided to come back again then it would stay for fear of being cut once more. This was the Igbo’s way of keeping sickly children healthy (mentally) seeing as sickly children cannot help with the work and cannot help provide food for the family.

The Igbo religion was not a binding one but rather a way of ensuring good fortune for their people. It was out of hope, and need that the gods were created and the Igbo were only bound to their religion because of their own need to survive and a widely accepted belief that this religion kept them alive.

The arrival of the British marked an obvious turning point for the Igbo. The British missionaries purposefully defied many of the century old traditions, which bound the Igbo people to their laws and customs. For example the missionaries came to the Umuofia clan and asked for some land on which to build a church. The Umuofia gave them the part of land known as the evil forest where bad spirits were supposed to roam. The evil forest was seen as a place of death and the elders of the Umuofia believed fully that the forest would swallow these white men whole. As would be expected the forest did not kill the missionary or his servants and the church prospered. This alone allowed for a few beginning converts to this new Christian faith. To the Igbo the breaking of their laws would be subject to justice via the hand of the gods, but to the Christians there was nothing to fear from the heathen people or their false idles.

The Christian religion shares many aspects with the Igbo religion; both religions have one primary god who created everything. The Igbo religion has minor gods which server the main god (Chukwu), these could be easily compared with the angels of the Christian faith whom also are servants to the Christian god. When the British missionaries began conversing with the Igbo people they find the similarities however, they cannot manage to find a common ground but rather the Christians were so 100% sure of them selves that they were less successful than they could have been had they just made comparisons. If they had said, “Chukwa is god, and Jesus is Chukwa” then they probably could of presented their message better. Unfortunately they did not and the results were unsettling and sometimes violent throughout the Niger River area.

The conversion of so many Igbo people over to Christianity was not the result of failure on the part of their own ancestors or religious beliefs, but simply a change from stable to advancement. The British offered new goods and items. With the white man came assurance and safety. The Igbo who converted became wealthy in this new era; they learned to read and became teachers themselves. The Igbo people were not necessarily forced to change but rather they saw some of the prospects of this new religion, this new way of life, an easier way of life. By no means were the British taking the right action in all cases, but to some degree they helped the Igbo people become a better society, which didn’t exist solely from yam season to yam season.

Achebe, Chinua: “things Fall Apart”, Heinemann educational publishers