Arrow of God

Examines the private quarrels and conflicts between established government authority, represented by village elders, in early colonial eastern Nigeria. Also, what happens when the representative of a God decides to abandon his duty to the followers as a personal revenge? Desertion of the religion?

One of the elders and the key actor for whom the book was named was Ezeulu, a prophet of the powerful village god named Ulu. His detractors accuse him of being against their clan and befriending the Europeans, by not supporting a war over land that didn’t belong to them, by telling the truth to the Europeans about this war, and by allowing his son to go to the Europeans’ school and church. But to prove them wrong, he refused the offer of the Europeans to be a warrant chief for his clan as it would mean he’d be serving the Europeans as well as Ulu. He was punished by the colonizers by being detained away from his home for two months. His fellow elders didn’t do anything for his release and he felt bitter towards them. His revenge was to refuse to announce the date of the new yam festival. This caused famine and division in the village, as the yams of the villagers were not supposed to be harvested until the festival was done. By the time he announced the festival weeks later, it was too late. Many villagers had abandoned the traditional religion and embraced the Christian church so as to harvest their crops. Finally, the abrupt death of his favorite son was taken by the villagers as punishment for his intransigence; hence his ruin in the end.

The story is mostly a slow-paced account of traditional African village beliefs, life style and customs, and how these customs and beliefs were systematically being challenged by European ones of the colonizers.

January 15, 2015. Review initially written in 1999. Novel first published in 1964. Image source: Yahoo Images.