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A list of Igbo words and phrases that appear in Things Fall Apart, as found in the glossary of the 1994 Doubleday/First Anchor Books edition.
agadi-nwayi: old woman
agbala: woman; also used of a man who has taken no title
chi: personal god
efulefu: worthless man
egwugwu: a masquerader who impersonates one of the ancestral spirits of the village
ekwe: a musical instrument; a type of drum made from wood
eneke-nti-oba: A kind of bird
eze-agadi-nwayi: the teeth of an old woman
iba: fever
ilo: the village green, where assemblies for sports, discussions, etc., take place
inyanga: showing off, bragging
isa-ifi: a ceremony. If a wife had been separated from her husband for some time and were then to be re-united with him, this ceremony would be held to ascertain that she had not been unfaithful to him during the time of their separation
iyi-uwa: a special kind of stone which forms the link between an ogbanje and the spirit world. Only if the iyi-uwa were discovered and destroyed would the child not die.
jigida: a string of waist beads
kotma: court messenger. The word is not of Ibo origin but is a corruption of “court messenger.”
kwenu: a shout of approval and greeting
ndichie: elders
nna ayi: our father
nno: welcome
nso-ani: a religious offence of a kind abhorred by everyone, literally earth’s taboo
nza: a very small bird
obi: the large living quarters of the head of the family
obodo dike: the land of the brave
ochu: murder or manslaughter
ogbanje: a changeling; a child who repeatedly dies and returns to its mother to be reborn. It is almost impossible to bring up an ogbanje child without it dying, unless its iyi-uwa is first found and destroyed.
ogene: a musical instrument; a kind of gong
oji odu achu-ijiji-o: (cow i.e., the one that uses that uses its tail to drive flies away.)
osu: outcast. Having been dedicated to a god, the osu was taboo and was not allowed to mix with the freeborn in any way.
Oye: the name of one of the four market days
ozo: the name of one of the titles or ranks
tufia: a curse or oath
udu: a musical instrument; a type of drum made from pottery
uli: a dye used by women for drawing patterns on the skin
umuada: a family gathering of daughters, for which the female kinsfolk return to their village of origin
umunna: a wide group of kinsman (the masculine form of the word umanda)
uri: part of the betrothal ceremony when the dowry is paid
