Some Nigerian fertility cults

The facts collected here are almost exclusively such as came to my notice in the course of the ordinary administrative work in Degama Division, to which I was posted in June, 1914.

There are many such houses in our part, and they are starting to make a new one, in honour of Ala, this month (October 1915) in my own quarter. First of all, when she, Amad’ongh...

In the temple dedicated to the Thunderer, on the left of the central figure is seen one, the name of which was said to be Eku Nechi--_i.e._ ‘the big woman who cooks,’ or more fu...

Save for the fact that the outer colonnade, which gives accommodation to further groups of figures in Owerri Mbari houses, is absent, wholly or in part, from many of the Etche s...

Among Okrikans, during the seven days on which the feast of the Earth Goddess, called by this tribe Elechu, is held, a similar rule obtains. Should a man die, he may not be buri...

It is not without significance that the trinity of cone-shaped pillars, with cup-like depressions, raised before the Kalahari Nduen Fobara (ancestral shrines), into which libati...

Such unfortunate members of the community were well fed for several days, during which everything was done to cause them to be of good cheer and in perfect condition. Then they...

Men and women danced in separate lines, approaching and retreating. To our surprise we saw that many of the latter wore not only white robes but white coiffures as well; for the...

From a case heard in Degama Native Court it also transpired that, among some Kalabari at least, the belief is held that the spirits of dead husbands are not altogether cut off f...