Les figures spatio-temporelles dans le roman africain subsaharien ...

Ce point de vue, Chinua Achebe semble le partager lorsqu’il
met en scène l’affrontement entre les dieux du clan Umuofia et le
Dieu des chrétiens. L’affrontement au pilier social, à la géographie des
représentations de la vie après la mort, au système des relations entre
différentes sphères du monde, et aux échanges qui les relient, voilà le
point culminant au sujet du bouleversement des espaces sacrés dans
les sociétés traditionnelles. Une fois cassés et détrônés les dieux des
religions traditionnelles, les missionnaires font asseoir définitivement
leur Dieu.
A Mbanta, l’offre que font les notables aux missionnaires
s’inscrit dans cet affrontement des dieux claniques au Dieu de la
religion chrétienne. Ne désirant pas les missionnaires dans leur clan,
les Mbantais laissent leurs dieux d’agir sur les intrus :
« ‘They want a piece of land to build their shrine,’ said Uchendu
to his peers when the consulted among themselves. ‘We shall
give them a piece of land.’ He paused, and there was a murmur
of surprise and disagreement. ‘Let us give them a portion of the
Evil Forest. The boast about victory over death. Let us give them
a real battlefield in which to show their victory.’ The laughed
and agreed, and sent for the missionaries, whom they asked to
leave them for a while so that the might ‘whisper together.’ The
offered them as much of the Evil Forest as they cared to take.
And to their greatest amazement the missionaries thanked
them and burst into song.
‘The do not understand,’ said some of the elders. ‘ But they will
understand when they go to their plot of land tomorrow
morning. ‘ And they dispersed.
The next morning the crazy men actually began to clear a part
of the forest and to build their house. The inhabitants of Mbanta
expected them all to be dead within four days. The first day
passed and the second and third and fourth, and none of them
died. Everyone was puzzled. And then it became known that
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