Freely based on the short story by Barbara Kimenye, Battle of the Sacred Tree focuses on the conflict between traditional African beliefs and missionary zeal in a Kikuyu village. There, life revolves around a sacred tree that exerts a strange power over the members of the community. The Christian ladies come to see the tree as an offensive reminder of a pagan past, but upon her return from the city, Mumbi, daughter of an old-fashioned medicine man, opposes their plan to cut it down. Her Polaroid snapshots of "the most dramatic occasion of the felling of the Sacred Tree" reunite the community in healing laughter.