and his barn is full of
yams. Okonkwo has his own hut in addition to a shrine for his ancestors.
Okonkwo built his fortune alone as a sharecropper. He asked a wealthy clansman,
Nwakibie, to give him some seed-yams to start a farm.Nwakibie admired Okonkwo's
hard-working nature, so he gave him eight hundred. A friend of his father gave him
another four hundred. Okonkwo could keep only one third of the harvest. That year, the
harvest was terrible.The village first suffered a bad drought and then a relentless
downpour of rain. Okonkwo has a fierce contempt for less successful men.
Ikemefuna becomes very popular with Okonkwo's children. Nwoye becomes his
close friend. Okonkwo himself becomes very fond of him, but he does not show affection
because he considers it a sign of weakness. Ikemefuna begins to call him "father."
During the Week of Peace, Okonkwo notices his youngest wife, Ojiugo, left her hut to
visit a friend without cooking dinner. He beats her for her negligence, breaking the peace
of the sacred week. The priest demands that Okonkwo sacrifice a nanny goat and a hen,
and pay a fine of one length of cloth and one hundred cowries. Okonkwo does everything
he says because he truly repents his sin. After the Week of Peace, the people begin to clear
the land in preparation for planting their farms. Nwoye and Ikemefuna help Okonkwo
prepare the seed-yams, but he finds fault with their work. He wishes his criticism to drive
his son to be a great man and a great farmer. Ikemefuna settles into Okonkwo's family,
and he shares his large stock of folk tales with them.
Just before the harvest, the village holds the Feast of the New Yam to give thanks to the
earth goddess, Ani. Okonkwo does not really care for feasts. The women scrub their huts
and paint decorative designs on them. Everyone decorates their bodies. Okonkwo loses his
temper and beats his second wife, Ekwefi. He decides to go hunting...