how Sky withheld rain for seven years, until crops withered and the dead could not be
buried because the hoes broke on the stony Earth. At last Vulture was sent to plead with
Sky, and to soften his heart with a song of the suffering of the sons of men. Whenever
Nwoye's mother sang this song he felt carried away to the distant scene in the sky where
Vulture, Earth's emissary, sang for mercy. At last Sky was moved to pity, and he gave
to Vulture rain wrapped in leaves of coco-yam. But as he flew home his long talon
pierced the leaves and the rain fell as it had never fallen before. And so heavily did it
rain on Vulture that he did not return to deliver his message but flew to a distant land,
from where he had espied a fire. And when he got there he found it was a man making a
sacrifice. He warmed himself in the fire and ate the entrails.
That was the kind of story that Nwoye loved. But he now knew that they were
for foolish women and children, and he knew that his father wanted him to be a man.
And so he feigned that he no longer cared for women's stories. And when he did this he
saw that his father was pleased, and no longer rebuked him or beat him. So Nwoye and
Ikemefuna would listen to Okonkwo's stories about tribal wars, or how, years ago, he
had stalked his victim, overpowered him and obtained his first human head. And as he
told them of the past they sat in darkness or the dim glow of logs, waiting for the
women to finish their cooking. When they finished, each brought her bowl of foo-foo
and bowl of soup to her husband. An oil lamp was lit and Okonkwo tasted from each
bowl, and then passed two shares to Nwoye and Ikemefuna.
In this way the moons and the seasons passed. And then the locusts came. It had
not happened for many a long year. The elders said locusts came once in a generation,
reappeared every year for seven years and then disappeared for another lifetime. They
went back to their caves in a distant land, where they were guarded by a race of stunted
men. And then after another lifetime these men opened the caves again and the locusts
came to Umuofia.
They came in the cold harmattan season after the harvests had been gathered,
and ate up all the wild grass in the fields.
Okonkwo and the two boys were working on the red outer walls of the
compound. This was one of the lighter tasks of the after-harvest season. A new cover of