Ibo Culture

... Debbie Li Ms. Hill 9th Grade English, Class 4 April 16, 2002 Ibo Culture In the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the Ibo culture considered women inferior to men and thus they did not participate equally in ceremonies. For example, women were not allowed to represent themselves, or partake directly in the justice system. This justice system consisted of egwugwu, which were masqueraders, impersonating ancestral spirits of the village, who arbitrated on matters of dispute. Women did not have a hand in the trial: "There were many women, but they looked on from the fringe, like outsiders" (Achebe 87). While seeming to be at least part of the ceremony, in actuality the women were little more than tokens, being present without actually participating. They may have been curious, but they didn't allow that curiosity to manifest into something more than meek compliance. In the trial portrayed in the novel, a man, who had

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