Igbo Religion

Throughout the world, each and every country possesses their own individual cultural customs in which they live by; however, a truly civilized society expresses an understanding in scientific findings and how they affect their lives, a strong sense of relative morality, and a judiciary system of rule enforcement. The Igbo society illustrated in Chinua Achebe’s historical fiction novel, Things Fall Apart, represents an uncivilized society in which the natives lack a moral bases for manners and conduct, hold mythological predispositions about the natures of life, and practice immoral religious precautions. Upon thorough analysis, the absence of morality and ethical values in the Igbo people’s mannerisms and quotidian actions prove the Igbo society

Ordinani, the traditional Igbo religion, consists of the belief of a supreme deity, called Chukwu, and other less powerful spirits with specific spheres of influence. In Umuofia, the people utilize their religious faith to explain natural occurring phenomena. Ezinma’s became the first of her mother’s ten children to survive beyond infancy. Ekwefi most likely possesses the rare group of hereditary disorders known as Sickle Cell Anemia, which would properly explain why all of her children, excluding Ezinma, did not survive. However, the people of Umuofia lack the scientific knowledge and understanding to diagnose such a disorder; in order to explain situations similar to Ekwefi’s, the Igbo people believe she possesses an evil spirit who, after being passed down to her children, deliberately dies and returns to her to continuously force the family to suffer. After the death of Ekwefi's third child, Onwumbiko, a medicine-man attempts to solve Ekwefi’s problem by dispelling the apparent demon inside of her. Achebe, describing the atrocity the medicine-man commits, claims, “He brought out a sharp razor… and began to mutilate the child. Then he took it away to bury in the Evil Forest, holding it by the ankle and dragging it on the ground behind him.”