In the story, Michael Obi, who was a young and energetic man and was sent by the Mission authorities, standed for the power of Christianity, and the Dead Men’s Path, which crossed the school compound, standed for the traditional tribal believes.   The conflict between Obi and the villagers actually was the conflict between two different kinds of cultural.  The result that Obi failed, in my opinion, implied that culture should not be invaded. 

Obi was a man who had many wonderful ideas and had great enthusiasm to put them into practice.  Maybe it implied that the twentieth-century British was just full of ambition.  It looked for any opportunity to introduce its culture and Obi was one of the introducers. The Mission made him believe that the western culture was superior and what his work was important to lead the colonial people to the modern civil. Obi devoted all of his energy because he thought that he was “civilizing people”, or “saving people from darkness”:” The whole purpose of our school is to eradicate just such beliefs as that.  Dead men do not require footpaths.  The whole idea is just fantastic.  Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas.  “(54).

In his mind, the villagers were ignorant and he was introducing the modern civil, so what he did was undoubtedly right even if it was against their will.  It just like the Mission, who said that they were weakening people in order to save them from darkness. Obi was confident, radical and ambitious.  When he discovered the Dead Men’s Path in the compound, he felt it unbelievable:” It amazes me…that you people allowed the villagers to make use of this footpath.  It is simply incredible…That was some time ago.  But it will not be used now.  ” (53). These characteristics were associated with the twentieth century’s Christianity.  At that time, the Mission considered itself superior than any other belief and was absorbed in spreading its tenet all over the world.  It wanted to replace all the other culture by  every means, including violence. 

It was considered natural that everyone has the right to choose which kind of belief to cling to. People want to be free in heart.  If there is someone who wants to impose his belief on us, we will quarrel with him and insisted on our practices.  It is the same that when a nation wants to invade another’s culture, it will have to face up to all kinds of fight from the citizens. There were a lot of such events in history. For example, in the 1940s, Japan held a aggressive war to our country and took some provinces as its colonies. The colonial people were forbidden to study both of their language and a system of their beliefs.  But they were not threatened.  They struggled against it with their bodies and blood to defend their culture.  At last, they succeeded and Japan was expelled.

In the story, when Obi wanted to close the path, the priest came to quarrel with him:” Three days later the village priest called on the headmaster…Look here, my son, this path was here before you were born and before your father was born.  The whole life of this village depends on it.  Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit it by it.  But most important, it is the path of children coming in to be born…we follow the practices of our fathers.  If you reopen the path we shall have nothing to quarrel about.  What I always say is: let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch.”(54). Even the priest had made Obi aware of the importance of the path, he insisted on closing it.  If at that time he was willing to respect the colonial traditional culture and reopen the path, maybe there would not be violent event.  But he was not.  The villagers would not give up their struggle, so they ruined the compound at last: “The beautiful hedges were torn up not just near the path but right round the school, the flowers trampled to death and one of the school buildings pulled down.” 
 

From the last paragraph of the story, we knew that the white Supervisor condemned the young headmaster.  I think Obi’s failure implies that every kind of culture in the world should be respect.  People are free to choose their beliefs.