Part 1

SOME NIGERIAN FERTILITY CULTS

BY

P. AMAURY TALBOT

RESIDENT, NIGERIA

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 1927

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW.

PREFACE

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.

The region is mainly inhabited by sections of the two great tribes of Ibo and Ijaw. A full description of these will be given later, but it appeared best to issue without further delay this little monograph, dealing with a certain aspect of their religion, the publication of which has already been long postponed owing in the first place to the war and then to pressure of other work.

As regards the remaining tribes, the subject will be found discussed in other books, especially the _Ethnological Sketch_, comprising the second and third volumes of _The Peoples of Southern Nigeria_, published by the Clarendon Press. The descriptive parts in the following pages were written by my first wife.

P. A. T.

_June, 1925._

CONTENTS

PREFACE v

I. THE GREAT DRUM 1

II. MBARI HOUSES 10

III. MBARI HOUSES (_continued_) 26

IV. MBARI HOUSES (_continued_) 40

V. SKY GOD AND EARTH GODDESS 52

VI. IBUDU 65

VII. EKU 82

VIII. THE YAM CULT 99

IX. ALE AND THE ANCESTORS 120

INDEX 138

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

_Frontispiece_ Omone, son of Chief Benebo of Buguma, in the costume of the Peri play

1. Ikuru drum at Ihie

2. Phallic serpent (Eke) and tortoise (Naba), Okpala

3. Chief juju at Tema

4. Outside the Mbari House, Omo Dim

5. Clay figure of Ale in an Ibo Mbari house

6. Abara, the messenger of Ale and Amad’ongha or Otaminni

7. Girl ’Mgbe, Otaminni house, Opioro

8. Humorous figures

9. Shrine of Otaminni, Opioro

10. The chief of Opioro, head priest of Otaminni

11. Figure of Mbafor in the Njokku Mbari at Omo Dim

12. ‘Little Moon-face’, Omo Dim

13. Group in Obogwe Mbari house

14. Obukere Club head-dresses

15. Sacred drum used to call together the Obukere Club, Oduaha

16. Figure in Mbari house, Umoyo

17. Wrestling scene (’Mba) in shrine of Amade Onhia and Ale. Shrine drummers on the right

18. Clay figure of Amade Onhia in an Ibo Mbari house

19. The Guardians of the Shrine, Omogwa and Otamelli

20. Burial scene in Amade Onhia shrine, Okehin

21. The Aroid which grows round about the great Amad’ongha shrine at Ozozo

22. The shape, surrounded by skulls and draped with blood-stained linen, which represents the earth goddess Ale in the shrine at Ewawfe

23. Obelli Oduaha Ibudu juju for granting many piccans

24. Ibudu in compound next to Chief Ababua’s, Omo Chuku

25. Headless Ibudu in Omo Alipo compound, Omo Chuku

26. Ibudu at Ogaminni, near Ndelle

27. Ite Uru Ibudu

28. Charm

29. Ibudu Nwa

30. Ibudu Nwa at Ale-Barada

31. Ibudu at Digiriga

32. Ibudu placed before the entrance to Omu Dara quarter of Akpani

33. Ibudu at Akpani

34. Eku at Umo Abale quarter of Omo Dioga

35. Pillars, carved tusks, and bronze torques. Kalabari shrine of Awome-Ka-So

36. Patterns of the low Eki

37. Group of Eku, near ’Ndelle

38. The Wekwe Eruru

39. The ‘Servants of Ezum Mezum’

40. Clay figures at the base of a cotton tree near Elele

41. Figures at the base of a cotton tree, near Elele

42. The Eni Awsoku

43. Ife Ja Okko or Ife Ajokko at Ogu

44. Chief Eleche with his head wife, standing by the memorial pillar of the late Head Priest of Aya-Eke

45. Wrestling to make the yams grow. Chief Eleche’s place, Elele

46. Ancestral tablet

47. Shrine of Ojuku juju at Woji

I

THE GREAT DRUM

The outbreak of war seemed a favourable opportunity for discontented natives to throw off the restraints imposed by Government and return to old customs, and disturbances occurred in various parts of Nigeria. One of these took place in Aba District to the north-east of Degama. We have since learned that the native name for this region is Aba-Ala, _i.e._ Aba of the Earth Goddess Ale or Ala. Here two messengers employed by the Native Courts were seized and dragged before the great drum, described as from 18 to 20 feet in length, which stood in one of the Juju houses. Later, reliable testimony declared this to have been one of the principal shrines of the Earth Mother herself.

According to the account given us, the unfortunate victims were forced to kneel at the end of the long, trough-like base, from the centre of which the rounded portion of the drum was carved, and their heads struck off so that they fell forward into the cavity. The drum was then splashed with blood and the heads, still bearing the uniform caps, were placed thereon amid the skulls of former victims as a defiance to British rule, which, the insurgents hoped, was no longer powerful enough to protect its servants.

Shortly afterwards, a policeman passing through the region with a prisoner, whom he was bringing down to Degama, was also seized and done to death. Vengeance, swift and sure, followed these crimes. By order of the Resident, the blood-stained drum was burnt to ashes and justice meted out to the guilty persons. The destruction of this fetish was an act of necessity, since no other measures would have produced the same effect upon its worshippers; yet the step was taken with great regret, for the drum was of an interesting type and most elaborately carved.

Some weeks later our road led us through the town of Ihie, where we came upon a similar drum, of a kind then new to us. Cleft from an even larger trunk than the Ibibio big drum at Jamestown, to which it showed some points of resemblance, the giant bole extended at both ends in a Noah’s Ark-like base, on which were seated, at either extremity, a male and female figure--the latter holding a babe in her extended arms. (See fig. 1.)

We were informed that the name of the drum, and of the cult, was Ikoro (or Ikuru). One of the chief towns devoted to its worship was Ohambele nearby. ‘This town,’ in the words of Mr. B. M. Pepple,

has a big Ikoro drum which is highly respected. Before Government came, they gave it human sacrifices, but now only goats and fowls. They beat this drum during war time. Any human head cut off in war is brought and placed on the drum with blood. No man can see the big Ikoro drum unless he has cut off a human head and presented it to this. It does not matter whether the head was got by war or not. The Ikoro play falls twice a year. The first is called Mkpukpu-Chi (thanksgiving) and falls at harvest time. The second is carried out in the farming season, and is called Omehie Ogugu (remembrance of the Juju Ogugu). Any man in the town has the right to dance the Ikoro. The big Ikoro is beaten in the house, while the dancers keep outside. Those men, who had cut off a human head, would come to the front of the big Ikoro house and play their motion by raising the sword and telling of the brave deeds they have done; then they would begin to dance again. The Ikoro drum was never carried to another town. Before the time of Government small towns did not make an Ikoro drum. If any small town ventured to do so, the big towns fought them and seized the drum.

Detailed examination of the drum at Ihie showed that the ornamentation carved in relief was of exceptional interest. In the middle, between the figures of a man and woman rudely enough represented and probably depicting the carver and his wife, who were usually sacrificed on the completion of the work, was the carefully chiselled shape of a great serpent folded round on round. On either side of this, various symbols were to be seen, several of which were easily enough recognised as the crescent moon, the sacred crocodile, a Juju horn, and, what seemed to our eager imagination, a fresh example of the double-headed axe, but which was explained by the natives as a musical instrument called, in Ibo, Igilla. The reason why, on closer investigation, our interpretation rather than theirs seemed to be the right one, will be stated later. For the moment our attention was caught by an object quite new to us, the meaning of which we could not even conjecture. On asking its significance we were told simultaneously and with like positiveness from two different sides, one that it was a representation of the familiar tortoise, while the other volunteered the unexpected statement that it pictured the labia majora, with the clitoris showing between.

Those who voiced the opinion first given asked contemptuously whether it was not a matter of common knowledge that tortoise played an important part in the greater number of Jujus. On this, the second party subsided for the moment as if abashed by their opponents, but later one came in private to point out that tortoise is depicted with the crossed lines which indicate the cracks in her shell, whereas in this case the small vertical dashes are the conventional representation of hair. He further explained that the opposition party was right to a certain extent, in that tortoise herself symbolises the feminine generative organs, just as the serpent is well known to typify the phallus.

Till then, the presence of the impaled tortoise before most Jujus, even remotely concerned with the granting of fertility, had been more or less of a puzzle; for, although the snake is recognised by anthropologists as the phallic emblem, no widespread feminine symbol of like significance appears to have been known here hitherto.

The supremacy of tortoise in most tales of African origin has often proved puzzling to folklorists. The subject is mentioned in _The Times Literary Supplement_ of 10th December, 1914:

There is one very curious point which these and other stories of the kind have in common--that though these professional jokers, so to call them, have the better of all the animals with whom they ordinarily enter into a contest of wits, there is one ... who always has the better of them all, even of the jokers themselves--the tortoise. He appears under that name in the translation of the bushman’s tales; he is, of course, Uncle Remus’s Brer Tarrypin and he has no less credit in South American stories. Why is the tortoise credited with such wisdom? One wonders.... Is it just this--that the bright little up-looking head and eyes, when put forth, suggested the idea of intelligence? It is something of a serpentine head and we have read a piece of folklore which tells us that the serpent was the most subtle of all the beasts of the field.

Surely the meaning of the tortoise symbol, stumbled upon thus unexpectedly, goes far to explain the difficulty. To the native mind the ‘serpentine head,’ appearing between the walls of shell, as naturally pictures the clitoris as does the serpent its male counterpart. By a train of thought not difficult to follow, this particular part of the body has grown to symbolise femininity in general. For Africans, therefore, tortoise stands for the feminine qualities of persuasion--sometimes, perhaps, not untinged by guile--as opposed to the more forceful male attributes. It may be remembered that, in Pliny’s day, a powder made of a whole tortoise shell was thought to be an aphrodisiac.

A few days later, in an Mbari house close to Okpala market-place, the two emblems, snake and tortoise, were found modelled side by side in the very centre of the first row of symbolic figures. Further on at Obogwe, where the Mbari house is built in two separate sections--the first, dedicated to the Thunder God Amade Onhia, usually contracted into Amad-ongha, and the second to his spouse, the Earth Goddess Ale or Ala--the phallic serpent was found in a position of great prominence in the shrine of the male deity, while tortoise was seen, modelled alone, in that of the goddess. Another example in which the two symbols were found, this time again in juxtaposition, was upon the main post of the shrine of the Juju Ogboloma at Tema near Degama--one of the principal Kalabari Jujus. Here, as so often, the two are combined with the figure of the sacred crocodile.[1]

With the new suggestion in mind, the detailed drawing of the sacred drum was examined, with the result that the emblems carved thereon seemed to take upon themselves a deeper significance. As already mentioned, at either end of the trough-like base, sits a male or female figure carved from the solid wood and distinct from the drum. To the left, the male, bearing the symbols of manly strength, the sword in the one hand and the horn, typifying plenty and masculine virility, in the other. To the right the Mother--her head adorned with the high coiffure which, among Ibo, designates pride in offspring--a babe in her outstretched arms. In the centre of the drum itself, in the place of honour, carved in bold relief, is shown the phallic serpent. To the left of its pointed head rises the crescent moon--the world-wide symbol of growth--especially connected with childbirth, since expectant mothers count their time by its waxing and waning.

On either side, in the one case above and on the other below, are seen, twice repeated, the disputed signs, in both cases in conjunction with the old Cretan symbol of the union of the sexes--the double-headed axe. That the native explanation of the last-named figure was given in good faith, there is no reason to doubt. It is only another case of the way in which a symbol has survived long after the loss of its meaning. Indeed, a certain similarity exists; but, to those acquainted with native ways, I venture to think that the sharpness of angle marked in the joining of haft to head, instead of the easy curves called for by a representation of the musical instrument, is clear enough indication that the carver was following faithfully, though blindly, in the footsteps of long dead craftsmen whose work once bore another significance. A considerable number of examples of the old Minoan double-headed axe cult were found in other parts of West and Central Africa.

Besides those already discussed, only three other symbols are shown on the front of the great drum: viz. (1) the sacred crocodile--the terrible emblem of West Coast cults such as the Human Alligator Society and the great Ekoi women’s secret cult of the Nature Goddess Nimm. Possibly the crocodile sometimes symbolises another plane of being or the future life; it is a common belief here that many souls live in crocodile form both during the life, and after the death, of the human body. There may also be some connection with the Egyptian worship of this creature. (2) The horn placed beneath the double-headed axe, as the so-called tortoise symbol is above--considered so powerful an emblem of virility that even its representation in bronze is supposed to excite desire, and, held in the hand of a pregnant woman, to assist delivery; and (3) the figure of a dog--regarded among Ibo and Kalabari as the means of first bringing fire to earth--possibly typifying the brute creation in general, or at least that part of it which is friendly to man.

Among some tribes, especially the Ekkett Ibibio, the tortoise shell is looked upon as the symbol of the Earth Deity, the goddess of fertility. The snake is the chief phallic symbol, not only on account of its shape but also because many species live underground and are therefore taken to represent the dead, to whose influence the fruitfulness of the crops is in many places considered mainly due.

II

MBARI HOUSES

From Aba, we passed through Omo Dim, in Owerri District, to visit the Mbari house there.

According to Ababua, priest of Amade Onhia at Ibo near Okomoko, the meaning of the word Mbari is ‘fine’ or ‘decorated.’

The central part of the strange structure at Omo Dim proved to be a rectangular building with steeply pointed roof and overhanging eaves, the latter so wide as to make a broad verandah. The walls, forming the central chamber, were painted with elaborate frescoes, mostly in red and white upon yellow, or red and yellow upon white. On either side of the main entrance to the inner, sacred apartment were here, and in most Mbari houses subsequently visited, figures so strikingly like those of Omogwa and Otamelli, the two strangely elongated guardians of the Thunderer’s shrine at Ibodo (fig. 19), as to make it probable that all had a common origin and were set there for the same purpose, namely to warn trespassers from approaching the shrine.

To others the people had only answered vaguely in reply to questions as to the purpose of the building: ‘We make it for nothing, only to please ourselves.’ The identity of the white figure at the top of the ladder was explained, as a portrait of the District Commissioner!

We were more fortunate, mostly on account of the energy displayed by the interpreter, Chief G. A. Yellow, a man of unusual intelligence, to whom the reason of our enquiries had been explained and who was far-sighted enough to wish to aid them by every means in his power. By his persuasion an old chief was induced to come forward and give somewhat more information. According to his account the name of the structure was Njokku Mbari, and it was erected in honour of a great ancestor, long dead, named Njokku and his wife Mbafor. The white figure at the top of the ladder on the right of the building represented Njokku himself and, as the chief artlessly pointed out, the birds upon the rungs of the ladder showed that this was the road by which the spirit of the dead man had climbed to his place in the sky, whence he now ruled as a great chief. The fact that he was painted white signified that he was no longer an earth child but had passed to the ghost realm, from whence he watched over his descendants who brought offerings at certain times of the year in order that he might be gently disposed towards them and grant plentiful harvests. As mentioned elsewhere, there is little doubt that the word Njokku is the same as that in use on the Nile, where Jok is the Dinka appellation for ancestral spirits and the Lango name for God.

On the testimony of a considerable number of Ibo we learned that no Mbari house is built save at the orders of, and in honour of, one of the great deities worshipped throughout the Etche country and Owerri District, namely Ala, Amade Onhia, Otaminni (the genius of the Otaminni River) called, by the priest of his principal shrine at the Etche town of Opioro, ‘The Lover of Ale,’ and Oloba, a spirit living in the Owerri bush. So far as we could hear, the cult of the latter is quite local.

The more than life-sized figure, facing the principal entrance to the enclosure, was explained by the same chief as that of the ancestress Mbafor, with her small girl-piccan on her knee. It was, he said, the head priest of Ale, the Earth Goddess, whose shrine is close to the Mbari house, who ordered the erection of the building, chose out those who were to raise it and himself directed every detail of decoration. There seemed, however, reason to believe that the figures of the so-called ancestors Mbafor and Njokku really represented Ale and Amade Onhia, regarded, in many parts, as consorts and jointly responsible for the crops. The resemblance between the figures of the deities, as here shown, and those admittedly meant to depict the Earth Goddess and Thunder God in other Mbari houses, is so striking as surely to be more than a mere matter of coincidence.

It is indicative of the position of Ale that only the head chief of a town can aspire to become her priest. This is the case with all dominant Jujus; for instance, Otaminni at Opioro and Amade Onhia at Ozozo, the parent shrine of the Thunder God’s worship, from which all other centres of the cult derive their power. The following was the account given by the Omo Dim chief as to the erection of the Mbari house:

‘At the time of the new yam harvest the building is begun and, throughout the first part of the dry season, men and women, chosen for the purpose by the priest of Ale, work hard at beautifying and adorning it.’ Only those specially designated for this purpose may take part. Should anyone not called thereto by the priest attempt to share in the work, death would fall upon such unauthorised intruders as surely as that which overtook him who, of old, stretched forth a presumptuous hand to the Ark.

Before the making of new farms the house must be finished and ready for the celebration of its strange rites. Later, when the germs of the new season’s crop--corn-grains, sections of yam-tubers and seeds of pumpkins, great and small--have been confided to the dark bosom of Mother Earth, men and maids of the region gather together bringing gifts, ‘rack upon rack of dried fish, goats, sheep and fowls without stint, palm-wine in plenty and all else needed for a great feast.’ Of the maids, who have undergone initiatory ceremonies, a certain number are chosen by the Ezale (head priest of Ale) to act as priestesses for the rites about to be held in and around the Mbari shrine.

As to the nature of the ceremonies, the natives were naturally reluctant to speak; but Mr. Whitehouse, a former District Commissioner, in a short account published in the _Journal of the African Society_,[2] declares them to have been of licentious character. Subsequent enquiries confirmed this, and the nature of the rites is borne out by the groups of clay figures set both round the central shrine and beneath the roof depending from the inner side of the wall, which encircles the whole erection cloister-wise. These images represent, with remarkable fidelity, the life-cycle of bird, beast and human being, from the act of procreation--depicted with astounding naïveté--to the lying down, when life is done, for a last long rest in the arms of the Earth Mother.

It is noticeable that, though beasts of prey play a great part in the series, as is only natural under the conditions here prevalent--such, for instance, as leopard or hippopotamus devouring human beings--these fierce beasts are shown either as destroyers or as falling beneath the weapons of the hunters, never in the propagation of their kind. Harmless or useful creatures, on the other hand, such as fowls, both wild and domesticated, dogs, sheep,[3] etc., together with human beings, are depicted first in the act of procreation, secondly that of giving birth, thirdly suckling their young and later in every conceivable scene of life. Men are modelled as engaged in hunting, fishing, canoeing--as police, court messengers, clerks or musicians. Women are shown grinding cam-wood, arranging elaborate coiffures, undergoing operations of extreme delicacy from native doctors--every act of life indeed from cradle to grave, and even beyond, here finds itself reproduced.

The following account of the raising of an Mbari shrine was given by Amuneke of Umo Yekki quarter, Owerri: