Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

the place where three footpaths meet, and plants yarns; but at harvest time he find s an
old man supervising his labourers in harvesting the yams. The old man teUs Odewale
that be is from a bush tribe and makes fun of his mother tongue (45-46) . Odewale
fights with the old man 's workers and mesmerizes them with his charms. The old man
takes out his charms and a battle of the supernatural forces ensues until Odewa1e
strikes the old man with a single blow of his hoe (49). The encounter between
Odewale and the old man minors the act of war that is re-enacted during the Ogun
festival in which peopl e attack each other with matchers. Ibigbami asserts that only
those who are sure of immunity to the effect of mate hets take pan in the remembrance
of the battling spirits of Ogun: "It was then a common occurrence to see marchers
breaking into two instead of cutting human flesh" (47) . By using supernatural forces.
Rotimi justifies Odewale striking someone old enough to be his father .
Since in the Nigerian cultural setting therecan be no justification for a young
man to strike an elder in a dispute over right -of-way as happened in the Greek
original, Rotimi replaces the cause with a more a plausible scenario. Rotimi explains
in Dem Say that he chose "landed property as the instrument to galvanize [his ] hero' s
temper. In addi tion to this , [he] introduced , as a kind of catalyst, another touchy issue
- tribalism - the ban e o f con temporary African soctal Hfe" (63) . Tw o issues em erg e
from Roti mi 's argument, landed property and tribalism. Co ncernin g the first. it is
ackn owledg ed that the own ershi p of land is an integral part of any African society
because of its ties with the ancestors. It is also a very val uable asse t in an agrarian
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