Chapter Thirteen

Chapter thirteen starts out with the ekwe ringing. It said that all of the men learned to speak the language of the ekwe, which is basically a drum. It announced to the villages that Ezeudu had died. This kind of freaked Okonkwo out because he was the one that warned him not to take part in Ikemefuna's death. The funeral was a big deal and all of the clan attended. Even some of the egwugwu came occassionally. These people seem to have great respect for the elderly. I wonder if it could be because they do not live very long? Those men with titles could only be buried after dark. I think it is kind of weird that they take so much care about when and where and how someone is to be buried. Personally I don't really care if someone is buried in the morning or in the afternoon. The men shoot guns and cannons as kind of a final farewell to the dead. As they were doing this, Okonkwo's gun exploded and killed Ezeudu's sixteen-year-old son. Do they ever stop having kids, I mean Ezeudu was the oldest man in the village....kind of creepy. This was considered a female crime, so Okonkwo only had to live in exile for seven years rather than his whole life. He packed up his family and most valuable possessions and fled to the village of his mother, Mbanta. In the morning, a crowd of men came and burned down Okonkwo's compound.