In Chapter 17, what do the missionaries ask the rulers of Mbanta for? What do they give them and why?

The missionaries asked the village leaders to give them a space for them to build a church. The village leaders decided to give them a plot in the town's Evil Forest. Every Igbo village has an evil forest, where the undesirable dead and the powerful fetishes of medicine men are buried. The Evil Forest is believed to be full of malevolent and unpredictable magical energies. Everyone expects the Christians to die in a matter of days.