Things Fall Apart

Villagers respond to the calls of drums and ekwe instruments that both communicate messages and build urgency. A drum beat, “persistent and unchanging,” announces the coming wrestling match (44). As a cultural event, the wrestling match offers a chance for men to prove their manhood; it also brings the community together in a single space that exposes village hierarchies.

In Chapter 13, the ekwe, a “hollowed-out wooden instrument,” sends the message that “somebody [is] dead” (120). The instrument speaks a particular language with which all villagers are familiar; its specific call is more efficient than a traveling manager. Though the Ibo are not concise with language, choosing to communicate with proverbs and pleasantries, their announcements are efficient and clear.

Both the drums and the ekwe communicate with nonverbal language. The drums are “like a pulsation” of the village’s heart, “[filling] the village with excitement” that builds throughout the wrestling match (44). Similarly, the ekwe calls the villagers to unity. In addition to the rigid, recognizable structures of ancestry, Achebe introduces these other means by which the Ibo solidify kinship bonds to suggest that communication and connection can be both verbal and nonverbal, both tangible and spiritual.