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Summary: Speaking with Our Spirits: Before Palm Sunday—Part 3
“I remained a backyard snob to most of my class girls . . .”
The school term ends, and Kambili reclaims first place. Papa tells her she has fulfilled god’s purpose. In December, as is the Igbo custom, the family goes to Papa’s hometown of Abba for Christmas. They travel in three cars and take along enormous amounts of food and drink. Their house in Abba is a four-story mansion, walled and gated. Papa spends the holiday season greeting villagers and hearing their petitions. Mama supervises Sisi and the village women in preparing food and serving the visitors. One morning, Papa subjects his family to an especially long prayer session, ending with a prayer for the conversion of his father, Papa-Nnukwu. Then Papa has Kevin drive Kambili and Jaja to visit Papa-Nnukwu, their grandfather. Papa allows only a fifteen-minute visit and forbids them to eat or drink anything in that heathen house. Papa-Nnukwu’s home is a simple, square house in a small yard with an outhouse out back. Jaja and Kambili obey Papa’s orders about eating or drinking, but they visit for twenty-five minutes. When they return, Papa punishes Jaja and Kambili by sending them to their room. Minutes later, he throws an old man, one of Papa-Nnukwu’s contemporaries, out of the family compound.
Summary: Speaking with Our Spirits: Before Palm Sunday—Part 4
“Aunty Ifeoma came the next day . . .”
Aunty Ifeoma, Papa’s sister, arrives in Abba. A widow with three children, Aunty Ifeoma lectures at a university in Nsukka. Aunty Ifeoma chats with Mama and describes the civil unrest and shortages of food and fuel that plague Nsukka. Ifeoma suggests that they take their children to a traditional festival, but Mama knows Papa will forbid it. When Papa comes in, Ifeoma nags him to let her take his children sightseeing. Later, Ifeoma’s children arrive. Amaka is a fifteen-year-old girl, like Kambili. Obiora is a slightly younger boy, and Chima is a boy of seven. The next morning, Aunty Ifeoma and the cousins pick up Kambili and Jaja. Then they stop to pick up Papa-Nnukwu. Kambili and Jaja know their father will be furious, but they say nothing, even when Aunty Ifeoma drives them to the Aro festival so they can see the mmuo, masqueraders who represent the spirits. Papa-Nnukwu tells folktales about the various spirits as the mmuo dance along. Jaja envies his cousin Obiora, who has been initiated into the spirit world. After they leave the festival, Aunty Ifeoma drops Papa-Nnukwu off before taking Kambili and Jaja home.
Analysis
As Kambili’s family travels to Abba, their great wealth becomes apparent, and Papa’s use of their money is both benevolent and stifling. In Abba, Papa gives out money everywhere he goes, even to the hawkers he doesn’t buy from, and to the little boys who chase after their expensive car. The family also prepares to feed the whole village each Christmas. But while strangers and outsiders enjoy the fruits of Papa’s labors, his family often does not. On the outside, Kambili appears to live a privileged life, though even she is blown away by the grandiosity of the family’s house in Abba. When Aunty Ifeoma’s family visits, however, it is Amaka’s commentary on their material goods that highlights Kambili’s lack of true entitlement. Amaka assumes that Kambili doesn’t watch the satellite television because she is used to such luxuries and is therefore bored with them. Kambili is embarrassed to admit that she and Jaja don’t watch television because Papa doesn’t allot TV time in their daily schedules. Though Kambili is surrounded by material wealth, the opulence serves only her basic needs and does not bring her joy. Papa is also tight-fisted when presented with opportunities to improve his father and sister’s economic situations. When his children visit his father, Papa-Nnukwu, he sends them with a gift of less money than he pays his driver as a Christmas bonus. When Mama states that Aunty Ifeoma should ask Papa for some fuel for her cooking stove, Aunty Ifeoma suggests that she would only ask her brother for financial help if she were dying. Papa’s generosity is reserved for those he perceives as wholly devout Christians, and he presents his money as a gift from God rather than from himself.
The oppressive and fearful silence that hangs over the Achikes continues while the family is on holiday, although it is in contrast to the laughter that comes later when Aunty Ifeoma arrives. When Ade Coker comes to greet the family in Abba, he tries to talk and joke with Kambili and Jaja, but the children smile and say nothing. Ade’s commentary on their quietness indicates his lack of understanding that their muteness is a product of Papa’s domestic violence and control. Jaja and Kambili continue to speak to each other silently and hope to spend time together when Papa is busy with church events. The silence of the first few days of the family trip is broken up after Aunty Ifeoma arrives. Before Kambili even sees Ifeoma, she hears her laughter. Aunty Ifeoma’s nonchalance when speaking to Papa, though, makes Kambili nervous and afraid. Kambili struggles to understand why her aunt is not reverent to her father nor afraid of him. After spending a day with Ifeoma, Kambili dreams about laughing in the style of her aunt, foreshadowing Ifeoma’s role as a catalyst to Kambili’s future freedom from silence and oppression.
The tension between traditional ways and colonialism is more apparent when the family goes to a more rural setting. Kambili mentions that it is Igbo tradition for people to have large houses in their hometowns even though they live in the city, and Sister Veronica, a white nun, doesn’t understand why they do this. This shows the colonial tradition of assuming that all cultures should work in the same way, and that the European way is superior. The strain between Papa and his father Papa-Nnukwu also illustrates the tension between traditional ways and colonialism. Papa has embraced the colonial version of Christianity, and he pressures others in his life to do the same. But Papa-Nnukwu refuses to give up his chi, a sign of traditional African religion. Kambili also struggles to understand what Papa-Nnukwu says right away because she is used to a more anglicized accent. Papa-Nnukwu represents a traditional point of view that doesn’t believe European ways are superior. In contrast, Kambili’s maternal grandfather was Christian, spoke English, and had light skin. He preferred the anglicized title of Grandfather instead of Papa-Nnukwu. Papa respects Kambili’s maternal grandfather while viewing his own father as a heathen.
