Arrow of God

The narrative returns to the British camp in Chapter 8. Mr. Wright is making progress on a road to connect Okperi to Umuaro. He wants to expand his workforce, which he is fond of because they are “loyal as pet dogs” (76). Because he cannot reach his desired ends, he decides to “use unpaid labor” (77) recruited from the nearby villages for the project.

The two groups most recently admitted to manhood in Umuaro are conscripted, but they do not get along. They arrange to work separately when possible. Moses Unachukwu, who knows English, translates for all the groups, despite that he is much older than them. Wright distrusts him, an “uppity native” (78), yet he is thankful for the help. Moses’s reputation rises as he demonstrates his skill in English.

The day after the festival, Obika and his friend miss their shift on the road after drinking too much palm wine. They had taken up, and lost, a drinking challenge thrown by an older man. Obika’s friend struggles to wake him up, and the commotion wakes Ezeulu. Ezeulu laments Obika’s behavior, which is “like a heavy load on his father’s head” (80).

Once the two boys awaken and begin their walk to work, they agree that they had been given wine with “potent herbs in it” (80). But when they reach the road, the “feeling of openness and exposure” that it gives makes the boys “alert” (81). They hear the crew singing a song to mock them, which angers Wright, but Wright only grows angrier as he sees the young men approaching: “His face smoked with anger” (82). Wright whips him.

The men mock Obika for inciting this violence with a swaggering walk. Wright yells at them to quiet down and, through Moses, tells the crew not to be late so that the road will be finished by June. 

The young men meet to argue over whether or not Moses should stay on with them. They are suspicious that he incited Wright to whip Obika. Moses says that he will go, but they urge him to stay; as the group works to quiet the tension, someone shouts: “We have not come here to abuse ourselves!” (84).

When they consider stopping their work, Moses reminds them that “the white man would reply by taking all their leaders to prison at Okperi” (85). He says that “there is no escape from the white man. […] As daylight chases away darkness, so will the white man drive away all our customs”(85), meaning power given by their god.

One young man, Ukpaka, explains that the white man “is like hot soup” and suggests a strategy of fighting them: “[W]e must take him slowly-slowly from the edges of the bowl” (85).

The story of Obika’s whipping travels through the six villages of Umuaro. Ezeulu feels certain that Obika incited the white man, and he is distressed. When a white man arrives to speak with him, Ezeulu is disappointed that it is not “his friend, Wintabota, the Destroyer of Guns,” but a man who is “short and thick, as hairy as a monkey” (88).

When he sees that Obika, his good-for-nothing friend Ofoedu, and Edogo, his eldest, accompany the man, he asks Edogo what the cause of the whipping is. Obika avoids the question. In anger, Ezeulu warns him: “This is only the beginning of what palm wine will bring” him, adding that “the death that will kill a man begins as an appetite” (89). 

After their father warns Obika, Edogo returns to his compound, which is built deliberately small while he waits “until he [can] inherit his father’s place” (90)as eldest son. He works on a door that he is carving. As he carves, he reflects on his infants’ mysterious struggle to survive. After the first died in infancy, now the second has fallen ill after just months.

Edogo also thinks about his father, Ezeulu, and his tendency to treat “his grown children like little boys” (91). He also thinks about the recent transfer of Ezeulu’s favor from Obika to Nwafo. Edogo wonders if he sees in Nwafo “at last a successor to the priesthood” (92). None of the other children wanted to be Chief Priest, and Edogo recognizes that Ulu, not his father, would ultimately choose the successor. He begins to worry that he could be selected for the role.

While Edogo thinks these thoughts, Ezeulu confides in Nwafo. He speaks about Nwafo’s coming marriage and offers Nwafo advice. As he speaks, Ogbuefi Akuebue, who is “one of the very few men in Umuaro whose words gained entrance into Ezeulu’s ear” (94), arrives.

Ezeulu greets Akuebue with customary kolanut and chalk. The kolanut has six lobes, a sign that “the spirits want to eat” (95). The two men enjoy snuff together, too. Edogo arrives with palm wine. Oduche arrives, but due to his new religion, he abstains from drinking. The speak of Oduche’s upcoming trip to Okperi, where he will undergo a test of his “knowledge of the holy book,” but Ezeulu explains that he is “not sure that [Oduche] will go” (98).

In his absence, the male group discusses Obika’s beating at the hand of the white man. Ezeulu expresses his uncertainty that Obika didn’t hit the white man first. When Edogo stands up for his brother, Akuebue tries to defuse the situation. He warns the boys that “those of you who think they are wiser than their father forget that it is from a man’s own stock of sense that he gives out to his sons” (99). Young people are bold in ignoring their fathers’ wisdom.

Akuebue also tells Ezeulu that he is “too hard on Obika” (100). His compound needs “people of all minds” (100), including the foolish.