Dec 30, 2009
SOURCE: “Safety in Numbers: A Note on Numerology in African Writing,” in Literary Criterion, Vol. XXVI, No. 3, 1991, pp. 31-7.
[In the following essay, Wright traces the use and ritual significance of numbers in several of Armah's works.]
Numbers have a customary importance in the proverbs, folk-myths, modes of divination, and seasonal ritual observances of traditional African societies, so the numerological neatness of much West African writing comes as no surprise. The days of the week, months of the year, or years in a given period may acquire magical significances and correspondences in drama and fiction in the light of numerological traditions.
For example, in Soyinka's early tradition-oriented play The Strong Breed （1963）, the hero Eman is guilty of twelve-year dereliction of his ancestral duty as hereditary carrier of the village community's sins, and this is made to...
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