Michael Zhu June 21, 2007 Timed-writing Three Directions: In Dead Men’s Path the priest says “let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch.” Discuss what you think he means and what this saying reveals about him.
In Dead Men’s Path, when the new headmaster Michael Obi decided to close an ancestral footpath across the school, he was confronted with the opposition of the local people. The first person coming to talk with him was the old priest. He conveyed his opposition about the closure of the path and left with this saying “let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch.”
I think by this saying this, the priest wanted to warn Obi to stop closing the path. As a prestigious priest in the local area, the priest aimed to preserve the holy footpath which connected the village shrine with their place of burial. In my opinion, the priest had two meanings of his saying. On the one hand, he wanted to educate the newcomer with their religion and tradition. He asked Obi to reopen the path so as to let their ancestors perch. While on the other hand, he hinted that if Obi did not open the path which means a disturbance and irreverence to their ancestors, they would assault and hurt Obi and his school as the nature of hawk and eagle.
What this saying reveals about the priest is both his adamancy to preserve his religion and his kind benevolence to warn the newcomer. He rejected to the closure of dead men’s path sturdily because he was the representative of the local people. It was his duty to eliminate any possible challenge to impair their religions. But he also warned Obi with this saying for the consequence of his decision. The beautiful hedges were torn up and even a school building was pull down in the end. This was a correspondence to the priest’s alarm. The local people revolted to Obi’s closure of their ancestors’ path just as the hawk and eagle revenged on their enemy.
In conclusion, the priest conveyed his objection and alarm to Obi in a smart way. He not only explained the reason why he should reopen the path, but also warned Obi with the bad consequence if he did not do so.