This document discusses ethnographic readings and taboos in Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart. It provides context about the Igbo community of Umuofia that is depicted in the novel, including details about their customs, religious practices, and societal rules. Some examples of taboos that are mentioned include the killing of twins, not calling snakes by their name at night, and the treatment of those who committed suicide or had certain illnesses. The document also examines how Achebe used this depiction of Igbo culture to shed light on identity and the repercussions of disrupted traditions.

1. The Pitfalls of
Ethnographic
Readings : and Taboos
in TFA…..
Tamsa Pandya
Department Of English
MKBU, Sem-4

2.  Particular human society
 Description of peoples and cultures
 With their customs, habits, and mutual differences.
“Ethnographic writing “is composed of a number of literary
conventions that contribute to the construction of a
representational text, that is, a text that claims to represent
literally the way of life, attitudes, practices, beliefs and so on of
those studied” (95)-In The SAGE Dictionary of Qualitative
Inquiry, Thomas A. Schwandt
Ethnographic
work

3. An entanglement of
different temporalities
“Reproduce the look
and feel of the real
thing”
Origins in colonial
modernity
1
2
3
4
Create a strong
sense of place

4.  The setting is a fictitious
Igbo community called
Umuofia. The Igbo who
are found in southeast
Nigeria.
 Pre-colonial era
Map Location
Setting

5.  As we all have our civilization, our system of record keeping, religion, belief
system, marriage system, indigenous technology, agriculture, means of
communication etc., even before the coming of the colonists. As depicted in
the novel, the coming of the white men brought more damage than good.
Consequently, Okonkwo resisted them as well as the changes they brought
with them, even to the extent of ending his own life. This work centers on the
past with a view to understanding it.
Ethnographic Contents of Things Fall Apart

6. MARRIEAGE Agriculture
Communication Religion

7.  Festivals / Various gods
 Regulations / Female
sacrosanct ( A taboo)

8. Why this such festivals and rituals considered as
taboo?
A week of Peace
Celebrated as a means of
expressing gratitude
humility, peacefulness
and pay tribute to Ani,
who is the Earth mother
goddess.
Fest of New YAM
An annual cultural festival
by the Igbo people held at
the end of the rainy
season in early August.
Welcome of new season
and season of new cops.
Unoka had complained thus:
‘Every year, ‘he said sadly,
‘before I put any crop in the
earth, I sacrifice a cock to Ani;
the owner of all land. It is the
law of our fathers. I also kill a
cock at the shrine of Ifejioku ,
The God of Yams. (13)
Sacrifice Of Cock

9. A week of
Peace
A week of
Peace
eek of
Peace
Fest of New
YAM
Sacrifice Of
Cock

10. Women in the novel were productive
and fertile and Ani, blesses them
all, yet Okonkwo would always
find a way to molest his wives and
by so doing threaten the peace of
the community. Apart from
desecrating the Week of Peace,
he beats his second wife, Ekwefi
for merely plucking leaves from a
banana tree.
Women as taboo..

11. Ozoemena (May it
not happen again)
Onwuma (Death may
please himself),
Onwumbiko (Death,
I implore you),
Somuadina (Let me
not live alone)
Nneka (Mother is
supreme)
Names to sustain life…..
Chichetaram (God has
remembered me)

12.  It was the custom to kill a goat for any woman who gave her husband three
sons in succession.
 A husband was forbidden from sleeping with his pregnant wife.
 Deceased married women were not buried in the land of their husbands, but
were taken to their fathers’ land.
 Men inherited things like title, barn and even the younger wife of their
father.
 If a woman died when the deceased husband was yet to be buried, (as in
the cases of Ndulue and Ozoemena, page 54) the funeral of the wife was
first conducted before that of the husband.
 A man that committed suicide was not brought down from the noose by the
people of his kindred and clan; he was not committed to the mother earth,
but was thrown into the evil forest.
Customary practices that guided Umuofia were
recorded by Achebe as outlined below:

13.  A man having disease like stomach and the limbs to be allowed to
die in his home. He was carried to the evil forest and left there to
die so as not to incur the wrath of the earth goddess. (14)
 The birth of twin children was also seen as an abomination and
therefore the twins were cast into the evil forest to die.
 They believed that children must not whistle at night for fear of the
evil spirit. Furthermore, snake was not called by its name in the
night (it was called a sting) because it was believed that it would
there by appear.
 “repeater children”.children whose mission was to come to the
world and die so as to cause pains to their mothers.
Beliefs

14.  As being insides Achebe used Umuofia community to throw light
on who we really are.
 Judicious use of various modes of African traditional, Including
taboos gives new words and linguistic markers.
 Repercussions will always different
 Evidence base studies, comparative studies
 Better To have Constitution
 Reading of accepted norms of culture will helps students to be
aware with multicultural info.
 Such as religion, politics, domestic violence, sexuality, suicide
,racism topic areas for EFL/ESL students.
My outcome……

15. THANK
YOU

16. Work sited…
Works Cited
Okpoko, Patrick Uche, Chinwe Okpoko and Afamefuna Eyisi. "Ethnographic and
Communication Components of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart." Nsukka Journal of
the Humanities (2016): 97-130. PDF. 25 October 2021.
<researchgate.net/publication/306079713_Ethnographic_and_Communication_Compon
ents_of_Chinua_Achebe's_Things_Fall_Apart/citation/download>.
Snyder, Carey. "The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Ethnographic Readings: Narrative
Complexity in Things Fall Apart." (2008): 154-174. PDF. 26 April 2021.
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236814004_The_Possibilities_and_Pitfalls_
of_Ethnographic_Readings_Narrative_Complexity_in_Things_Fall_Apart>.
Vuletic, Snezana. "From Colonial Distruption to Diasporic Entanglements." (2018): 198.
PDF. 26 April 2021. <https://su.diva-
portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1247469/FULLTEXT01.pdf>.