Agon in the Coliseum

In Umofia, after it was the time to celebrate the coming crop season, the New Yam Festival came the time of the competitions and the wrestling. Drums would start to play at noon all the way until dusk even though the wrestling itself begun at sundown. “The drummers took up their sticks and the air shivered and grew tensed like tightened bow.” (pg. 49) The men would strike the instruments harder and harder every time; “they were possessed by the spirit of the drum.” (pg. 46)  The entire village gathers around and the crowds are huge. The wrestling event is somewhat similar to the Roman gatherings in which gladiators and animals would fight to death  in the Coliseums for the sake of entertainment. People would get together and it would be an event in society that you would be privileged to witness.  In Umofia, the wrestling escalated and so did the tension; first the youngest, 15 and 16 year olds, wrestled and then the age increased until the strongest and probably most valuable men, strength and cunningness-wise, wrestle. Once the men “danced into the circle and the crowd roared and clapped. The drums rose to a frenzy. The people surged forward.” (pg. 47) The events resemble the Greek Agon and the Roman Gladiators.