Interpret the Festival of Pumpkin Leaves in Achebe's Arrow of God

During the Festival of Pumpkin Leaves ritual, we see the embattled Ezeulu at the height of his fearsome religious authority. Scholar Marcel Ikechukwu Sunday Onyibor points out that here Ezeulu, dressed in ceremonial garb with the left half of his body painted in white clay, embodies the principle of duality that governs Igbo society. He represents a balance between man and the divine, and the individual and the community. In the Festival of Pumpkin Leaves, he represents Ulu’s function of protecting and ensuring the well-being of the people. Yet this moment of seeming harmony offsets the rest of the plot, in which, Onyibor argues, Ezeulu upsets this cosmic balance by “attaching too much importance to himself and Ulu,” over and above the people both are intended to protect (“Igbo Cosmology,” Onyibor).