Summary

“The Village Priest” - Joshua is a Christian convert, and the priest of a small village (Makayu) near the Mugumo, the sacred tree. The village and the area have been experiencing drought, and Joshua prays for rain to come so that, among other things, “the dry anxious looks on the faces of mothers and fathers would disappear” (26). He is disappointed, however, when rain does come; it arrives on a day that the village rain maker had offered a traditional sacrifice at the tree. As he contemplates the tension between the old ways and the new faith, Joshua recalls his conversion to the ways of the white man’s God, a conversion to which he was guided by blue-eyed white missionary Livingstone. He realizes that every people has their own god, that he has offended the god of his own...