CHAPTER ONE

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Values

In ethics value denotes something degree of importance with the aim of determining what

action or life is best to do or live or at least attempt to describe the value of different actions. It

may be described as treating actions themselves as abstract objects putting value to them. It

deals with right conduct and good life in the sense that a highly or at least relatively highly

valuable action may be regarded as ethically ―good‖ (Adjective sense) and an action of low

or at least relatively low value may be regarded as ―bad‖. (Wikipedia)

Values are important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a culture about what

are good and desirable. Values have major influences on people‘s behaviours and attitudes and

serve as broad guidelines in all situations. (BusinessDictionary.com)

Tradition

Tradition can be defined as pertinent lasting beliefs culture and rituals among a society passed

down from one generation to another imbued with the concrete or abstract qualities or

injunctions that are regarded as supernatural from God gods goddesses heroes legends

humans animals and plants. They include symbolic representations and activities in events

festivals and rituals comparable with the sacred activities of the – Asaa Traditional Festival of

Nkpologue (Ezugu 6).

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Traditional Values:

Traditional Values are those physical or abstract qualities possessed by particular elements

events rituals or phenomena held in high-esteem respect and obedience by individuals. Such

values govern and regulate the physical and psychological behavior of individuals living in a

particular culture or a geographical area.

Africans as we know are a resilient people and over time they have developed value systems

and ways of coping with life and maintain their communities and to survive great hardships

either in the African continent or in the Diaspora. The traditional life of the clan in most tribes of

Africa has as its core value protection of the family and perpetuation of the tribe. In his

traditional life the African holds certain things to be of great value. It is these values which give

him a distinct cultural personality and enable him to make some contributions to world

knowledge history philosophy and civilization. It is not my task in this study to articulate all the

cultural values of the African but only the dominant ones.

Large Family:

One of the foremost traditional values of the African is having a large family. Children are of

supreme value to the African. His primary purpose for marriage is children and to have as many

of them as possible. This is the reason why polygamy or the union of one man with several

women still holds great attraction for him and also why the birth rate in Africa is among the

highest in the world. The fact is that the African still counts his blessings by the number of

children he has whether they are educated or not rich or poor healthy or sick well-fed or

hungry. The African smiles at the sight of his numerous children and is unmoved at the turmoil

at his gate as he has a lot of arrows in his quivers.(Seo Ogbonmwan 2008).

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Respect for elders:

Another great value in traditional Africa is respect for old people (―Senior Citizen‖) particularly

one‘s parents grandparents and relatives. The elders are revered by the young as the grey hair is

associated with wisdom and God‘s blessings. The respect and honour bestowed on the ancestors

percolate through the old people—one‘s parents grandparents and other relatives—as living

embodiments of wisdom and of the good moral life who are expected sooner or later to join other

good ancestors in the land of the ―living dead‖. Old age therefore is an important value to the

African. Even the children look forward to old age unlike now when hormones are being taken to

remain forever young. (Seo Ogbonmwan 2008)

Morning Salutation:

As part of the respect for elders the Benin people of southern Nigeria have a unique way of

respecting their elders and identifying their family of origin people say La tose (Edohen of

Benin) La emore (Eni of Uzae(Ijare) La Umogun (Royal blood from Eweka 1) La Ogiesan

(Ezomo of Benin) of which there are 56 of them in total. These salutations are in electronic from

at (www.edoglobalorganization.org).

Worship of Ancestor:

―Igba Evo‖- A day when special homage is paid to all ancestors. ―Igo Idi and Ihe Nshi‖ that is

sacrificing to the dead priests and elders of the clan in commemoration of their past roles as

keepers of the conscience of the clan when they were alive. ―Ahor Nna‖ on this day Ahor

everyone whose father (Nna) is dead sacrifices to him to enlist his help and protection. (Ezugu

12-13).

The worship of our ancestors is the basis for the honour and respect accorded to old people in the

traditional Africa culture is their closeness to the ancestors for in his ontological conceptual

scheme the African places his old relatives on his great hierarchy of beings.

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It must be noted that in the African universe the living and the dead interact with one another.

Life goes on beyond the grave for the African and is a continuous action and interaction with

dead relatives.

These unseen ancestors called ―the living dead‖ become part of one‘s living family and often are

invited to partake though spiritually in the family meals. The ancestors are not just ghosts nor

are they simply dead heroes but are felt to be still present watching over the household directly

concerned in all the affairs of the family and property giving abundant harvests and fertility and

warding off enemies at the village gate.

Extended Family Unit:

Another important traditional value of the modern African is love for and practice of the

extended family system.

This extended family system is widely practiced in Africa. Indeed it is one ―in which everybody

is linked with all the other members living or dead through a complex network of spiritual

relationship into a kind of mystical body‖ consequently it is not just ―being‖ that the African

values ―being-with-others‖ or ―being rooted in kinship‖ is an equally important existential

characteristic of the African. He is never isolated since several persons are assimilated into one

parental role: his father‘s brother are assimilated b extension into the role of father his mother‘s

sisters into the role of mother his patri-lateral uncle‘s daughters into the role of sister. A person

is an individual to the extent that he is a member of a family aa clan or community. (Seo

Ogbonmwan 2008).

Sacredness of Life:

The African does not like or nurture violence per se. this is because shedding of blood is

sacrilegious. In Achebe‘s Things Fall Apart Okonkwo goes into exile with his family for seven

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years to atone for inadvertently killing a clansman- a crime against the earth goddess. In Africa

people are never killed unless it is an act of war. In the past were those whose continued

existence as a threat to the life of others and to the peace of the community were usually sold

into slavery.

Traditional African Religion

To the African religion is of indispensable value. ―To be‖ for him is to be religious‖ as religion

truly permeates his total life there is for him no ―Secular‖ existence or naturalistic vision of

world order. In this important way also the African exhibits a cultural personality distinct from

that of western man for instance who easily makes a radical distinction between the secular and

the religious natural and the supernatural this world and the next. Apart from ancestral things

that are awesome or humans that have been inspiring or transcendental like the sun the moon

the river the earth etc.

Communal Work

Preparation for Onwa-Asaa festival (Ezugu 5). The African values communal work as an

opportunity to share his skills and give his best to his age group and the community. In the

preparation of the bush for farming the age group members arrange a date to assist Mr. A and

the following day assist Mr. B in bush clearing bush burning bush gathering planting pruning

and harvesting without money changing hands. This practice will hardly disappear in tradition

African communities.

Modernity

This refers to past-traditional past-medieval historical period one marked by the move from

Feudalism (Or Agrarianism) toward Capitalism Industrialization Secularization

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Rationalization the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance.(Barker

2005 444).

In these usages ―Modernity‖ denotes the renunciation of the recent past favouring a new

beginning and a reinterpretation of historical origin. The distinction between ―Modernity‖ and

―Modern‖ did not arise until the 19

th

century (Delanty 2007).

As the African passes from folk to urban society life with its complicated money economy high

technology and international trade his traditional values are bound to be affected. Old values

disappear; some are refined in other cases some traditional values suffer disruption at times to

the point of extinction; in yet other cases the African suffers a reversal of his traditional values;

lastly he creates altogether new values with consequent tensions.

Some of these values are:

Education:

Increase in population in the face of the world wide economic crisis makes some parents

neglect the traditional education of their children and the latter have no opportunity to appreciate

traditional ways in life. Therefore Western education forms the bedrock of knowledge and skills

to equip such persons in their pursuit of a better world.

Communication:

In our days we notice that the world is becoming a kind of village in which there is a wide

interaction between people and other different cultures. This phenomenon happens thanks to the

new technologies. People have today the possibility to be aware of what is happening all around

the world. They also have the opportunity to discover other cultures other ways of life and

behaviours thanks to the radio television and other various means of communication like the

internet.

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Technology

Old people (Grandfathers and Mothers) are no longer those persons who educate Children by

means of stories tales and so on; they are most the time seen as boring and talkative. Children

spend most of their time playing video games browsing with their mobile phones watching

television; they are fond of films through which they discover some actors that they admire a lot

and at times enjoy bad influences and pornography.

Marriage

The institution of Marriage was highly valued by all the traditional cultures in Africa. To a large

extent especially in the rural areas it is highly valued even today. The reason for this is that

marriage is the foundation on which families are built. On its part the family constitutes the

basic social group that operates most widely and most intensely in the activities of everyday life.

Human Life

Human life is highly valued in the modern world as well as it was in the traditional African

communities. In all other cases no one is allowed to take away another person‘s life. In fact no

distinction is made between murder and manslaughter; both are considered murder.

Morality

Morality is a quality highly valued by all traditional communities. Indeed moral values formed

the bedrock of the education that was given to children as they grow up. Moral values were also

impressed on people who were about to Wed or who were going through one rite of passage to

another. Leaders were also expected to be people of upright character. All these are cherished

even today.

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1.2. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The word ―Tradition‖ itself derives from the Latin‖ tradere‖ or‖ traderer‖ literally meaning to

transmit to hand over to give for safekeeping.

A tradition is a belief principle or way of behaviour of a particular people passed down within a

group or society with symbolic meaning or important significance that originated in the past.

Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes ( Like

Lawyer wigs or Military officer spurs) but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as

anthropology and biology have adapted the term ―Tradition‖ defining it more precisely than its

conventional use in order to facilitate scholarly discourse.

The concept of tradition as the notion of holding on to a previous time is also found in political

and philosophical discourse. For example the political concept of traditionalism is based around

it as are strands of many world religions including traditional Catholicism. (Wikipedia)

Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional post-medieval historical period one marked by

the move from Feudalism (Or Agrarianism) toward Capitalism Industrialization Secularization

Nationalization the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance (Barker

2005444).

Charles Pierre Baudelaire is credited with coining the term ―Modernity‖ (Modernite) to designate

the fleeting ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis and the responsibility art has to

capture that experience.

Conceptually modernity relates to the modern era and to modernism but forms a distinct

concept.

Whereas the Enlightenment (ca. 1650-1800) invokes a specific movement in Western

philosophy modernity tends to refer only to the social relations associated with the rise of

Capitalism. Modernity may also refer to tendencies in intellectual culture particularly the

movements intertwined with Secularization and post-Industrial life such as Marxism

existentialism and the formal establishment of social science.

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1.3 THE AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The aim of this research is to rejuvenate or rekindle interest in African traditional and modern

values in the works of Asare Konadu and Ama Ata Aidoo namely: A Woman In Her Prime and

Changes in a bid to entrench core African values that appear to be waning.

1.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF STUDY

This study is as well as limited to the novels of Asare Konadu and Ama Ata Aidoo namely:

• A Woman in Her Prime and

• Changes

Other sources used include: textbooks journals essays internet facilities and personal

contributions based on observations studies and private interviews.

1.5 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This work is salient in the sense that it explores African values in traditional and modern sense

which are still the foundation of existence till today.

This work will in addition serve as a means of enlightenment to the present generation and the

future.

1.6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The methodology adopted in this research is purely literary analytical comparative as well as

contrastive as a means of highlighting typical African traditional values in comparison with what

present day modern values appear to be - - some of which are acceptable since society is

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dynamic. Occasionally one comes across the so called modern values that are aberrations copied

from foreign sources that run counter to African values.

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