Things Fall Apart Chapter 16
Obierika visits again two years later and missionaries have already come to Umuofia. Obierika came to Mbanta to see Okonkwo because he had seen Nwoye, Okonkwo's oldest son, among the converts that the missionaries had brainwashed. The missionaries had wreaked havoc among the Ibo tribe, but none of the people that had been converted were esteemed members of the villages or the tribes, and so although the clan leaders were saddened by the presence of the new religion, they believed that it would fade away. Six missionaries had come to Mbanta and among them was a white man, an object of curiosity for the villagers. With the help of Mr. Kiaga, a missionary and translator who claimed to be Ibo himself, the men preached about the one true God and stressed that the people of Mbanta were wrong to worship any other gods. Although most of the villagers discounted the convoluted teachings of these missionaries, Okonkwo himself among the skeptics, Nwoye had been moved by their beliefs. Their words and songs seemed to answer the questions of the twins and the death of Ikemefuna that had long bothered Nwoye.