Things Fall Apart Farming

Farming Throughout Things Fall Apart

Andrew, Jennie, Juanita, and Anastasia

Farming Methods

In the Ibo culture, farmers used machetes to cut down trees. Farmers who held high titles had people to assist them in cutting branches. The slave or servant would cut branches at the top of the tree while the farmer would cut at the bottom.. Farmers used to stake yams with small sticks and tree branches during the season. When a farmer wanted a superb season to come, they would sacrifice something or even someone to an individual god.

Specific Farming Jobs

Farming jobs varied with region. For example, in the north, Hausa women did not work on the fields, while Kanuri women did. Both helped with harvesting.

In the south, women worked on farms as major labor sources.

Up until the 1980s, the term "farmer" was assumed to be exclusively male, even though in some areas of the south women did most of the farm work. There is not a significant difference in farming jobs of men and women in Nigeria, however the crops they cultivate differ.

• yams are seen as men's crops
• beans are seen as women's crops

Crops

There are many crops in the Ibo community, but yams and palm oil were the primary crops. Other crops were maize, or corn, melons, and beans.

Works Cited

"Nigeria-Women's Roles". Web. 17 March 2013. http://www.mongabay.com/history/nigeria/nigeria-women's_roles.html.

"Culture of Nigeria". Gender Roles and Statuses. Web. 17 March 2013. http://www.everyculture.com/Ma-Ni/Nigeria.html#b.

Yams

Yams are potato like roots that are found in West Africa. Their origin comes from Nigeria, which produces about 37 million tons of yams per year. The Ibo community heavily relies on yams to fullfill the cullinary needs of the village. There are certain crops that are considered to be "male crops" and "female crops", and yams are considered "male crops". Okonkwo and other males harvest yams, but women never appear to harvest yams.

Climate in the Ibo Region

Palm Wine

Many Western African civilizations use palm wine as a habitual drink to welcome guests and show respect. The drink comes from palm sap, which is tapped from palm trees into any sort of container. Okonkwo uses palm wine to welcome guests (Achebe chapter 3)

Works Cited

The rainy season begins in February or March. The land receives between 2,000 and 3,000 millimeters of rain annually.

The average temperaure is 27°C.

"Farming." Things Fall Apart. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.<https://sites.google.com/site/southwindsoribo/farming>.

Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Nigeria: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1991.

Aregheore, Eroarome Martin. "Nigeria." Food and Agriculture Organization. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: First Anchor Edition, 1994. Print.

Soil

Level 3 Questions

• Interior zone of laterite soils
• Gray and black sands and clays
• Corroded, sticky, impervious to water, barely fertile
• Has low agricultural value
• Southern belt of forest soils
• Similar to tropical forest climate zones
• Soil largely depends on parent rock
• Yields cocoa, oil palm, rubber
• Of high agricultural importance
• Zone of alluvial soils
• Formation of soils doesn't depend highly on climate and vegetation
• Soil largely depends on parent rock
• Gray to white sand, gray clay and sandy clay, brownish to black saline mangrove soils

Climate in Culture

" And so nature was not interfered with in the middle of the rainy season. Sometimes it poured down in such thick sheets of water that earth and sky seemed merged in one gray wetness. It was then uncertain whether the low rumbling of Amadiora's thunder came from above or below. At such times, in each of the countless thatched homes of Umuofia, children sat around their mother's cooking fire telling stories, or with their father in his obi warming themselves from a log fire, roasting and eating maize. It was a brief resting period between the exacting and arduous planting season and the equally exacting but light-hearted month of harvests" (Achebe 34).

How do foods and wines provide an outlook of a culture's methods and rituals? -Andrew

What is the correlation between a person's social ranking in his community and society and the farming methods he uses? -Juanita

How does temperature and rainfall shape a region's culture? -Jennie

Why are the farming jobs the same for both men and women in Nigeria, even though women have less rights? -Anastasia