New Regime

On the annual ceremony to pay their respects to the Earth goddess, a convert, a very zealous one, Enoch, provokes the Igbos by unmasking an egwugwu. Unmasking an egwugwu is like taking out his heart with your bare hands; it was killing an ancestral spirit. Enoch does this because once Mr. Brown, the man who was somewhat in charge of the colonizers, leaves Umuofia, he is replaced by Reverend Smith. Reverend Smith’s ways are different from Mr. Brown; they are not so unorthodox for Reverend Smith believes that the regime before was far too lenient. At some point within the chapter, he has some feelings about the converts who are not fully sure of their new beliefs; he strongly feels that they should be either “black or white.”  This interested me particularly because it is quite a sarcastic statement which could be interpreted in several different ways. First, he means it in the obvious way in which the men should, like everybody on the face of the earth, make up their mind; there are no grey spots for these converts. They must either pick to be Christians on the European side or Igbos on the tribe’s side. On the other hand there is also a very powerful racial connotation for he, like most white men did, believed in a superior race and this was obviously the race of those who were colonizing Umuofia. This portrays Smith as what anyone would expect a European colonist to be. Due to him having no respect for those with other beliefs, he supports s Enoch’s ways. This causes the Igbos to burn down the Christian church.