Chapter Eighteen Summary

The Mbanta church survived a lot of crises in the beginning. They survived in the “evil forest” and also began to rescue twins who were thrown away at birth. News began to travel that the white man had brought not only a church but also a government that protected Christians and had even killed a man for murdering a missionary in Umuofia. However, Mbanta was too far from the evidence and the relationship between the church and the clan remained intact.

The Mbanta church encountered its own problems in admitting outcasts whose arrivals were perturbing to new converts. Mr Kiaga’s firmness and resilience helped him win his converts over in accepting the osu or outcasts in their midst. Very soon, all of Mbanta’s outcasts became converts and one even killed the village’s revered python. There were no punishments set out for a man who intentionally killed a python; so when it happened, the elders were clueless. They held a meeting where it was decided that all Christians would be made outcasts from the village. This made Okonkwo bitter because he wanted violent action against the Christians.

The Christians are fully outlawed from the village, with no access to water or the markets. In the interim, the outcast who had killed the python died suddenly and the village saw this as enough redemption to reverse their own command of outlawing the Christians.

Chapter Eighteen Analysis

The missionaries have now introduced governance into the tribal lands. With religion as the first step, governance follows, soon to be succeeded by imperial enslavement and exploitation.

The Christians are outlawed for a few days but the Igbo people still have enough empathy to allow them in, when they see justice for the former’s crimes. Although tribal tradition may seem blind, it is logical and always empathetic, unlike the cold governance and shrewd planning of the church.