containing a fetish, the like of which is not, to the best of my
belief, to be found elsewhere in these parts. It is in the corner of a
room set apart as sacred to Chineke, the Creatrix, in the compound of
Chief Wegu, and consists of an oblong block, terminating in a carefully
modelled representation of the male genital organs, raised upon three
steps. To this the owner makes sacrifice every month, usually at the
time of the new moon, in order that ‘plenty piccans’ may be born to
those of his house.
[Illustration: FIG. 28. Charm
_See page 71_]
A somewhat similar fetish was found among the Ale Nsaw Ibo in the
shrine of Chief Idu of Oborotta raised upon a clay step in the angle of
the wall at the right hand corner. This consisted of two small round
pots fixed neck-downward into the clay, while between them protruded a
piece of wood, roughly phallic in form, on the upper surface of which
two miniature Offor sticks were bound lengthwise and side by side.
The object of this fetish was to bring prosperity in general and, in
particular, many children to the compound.
A Juju, intended to represent a woman’s body from the waist downward,
was found among the same people. This was called Ite Uru, _i.e._ pot
of gain, and was supported at the rear by the wall and in front upon
two roughly modelled legs. It formed the principal cult object in the
shrine of Chief Okuroji of Obokoffia and was set up by the grandfather
of the present head of the house, but had been freshly decorated (fig.
27).
[Illustration: FIG. 29. Ibudu Nwa]
Another Juju for bringing ‘plenty piccans’ to the house and for making
them grow up fine, strong and tall--also for giving long life to its
owner--was hung up to the roof over the main door of the head chief’s
house at Ndelle (fig. 28). The arrows were planted so thickly that one
could not see of what the oval groundwork was made.
At Ale-Barada, a charming town to the west of the Upper New Calabar
River, never before visited by a white man, and which, as its name
denotes, is under the special protection of the Earth Goddess, a Juju
is to be found, called Ibudu Nwa, _i.e._ Ibudu for children. This
occupies the centre of a rectangular shrine and is set beneath a canopy
of tie-tie, attached to the roof, from which depend inverted pots,
the shape of a shallow bell, each with a twist of gay-coloured cloth
swinging, clapper-wise, from its centre. Beneath these hang fringes of
palm-leaf, so long, in places, as almost to sweep the market-basket
placed upon the neck of the strange, headless figure beneath (fig. 29).
On marriage, before going to the bridegroom’s house, each maiden of the
town is brought by her friends to this shrine and, bending before the
image, dips her hand into an earthen pot filled with ‘medicine’ which
is placed there in readiness. Then she rubs her hands over the Juju,
after which she laves them in a small bowl filled with pure water.
Again she passes her left fingers over the image and afterwards over
her own body; ‘for’ as the head chief explained, ‘Ibudu Nwa is a very
strong Juju in our town and will surely grant fruitfulness to all those
who carry out these rites. So we were taught by our forefathers and
this we believe even to-day. Should any man doubt, he has but to look
round and see the many piccans which are born to our town.’
[Illustration: FIG. 30. Ibudu Nwa at Ale-Barada]
Between the upraised arms, resting upon the place where the head should
be, is a market-basket, full of dried roots, seed yams, etc. Outside
the shrine, each protected by a small shed, were two unusually large
phallic pillars, to which bridegrooms bring offerings. Across all,
from post to post, rising like Venetian masts, were long chains made
from linked rings of creeper, from which hung, at intervals, inverted
bowls with gay-coloured strips of cloth waving to and fro in the
breeze, like those decorating the canopy of Ibudu Nwa. To the left
stood a great tree, its trunk hung round with white cloth, the reputed
home of a powerful and beneficent nature spirit. Before the principal
shrine sprang little saplings of the bush which Ale first brought when
she came swimming through the wide waste of waters to form the first
abiding place for her children--men, beasts, trees and flowers.
Altogether Ale-Barada is a charming spot and the manners of the sons of
the soil were unusually gentle and friendly. They willingly answered
every question, in striking contrast to the inhabitants of the next
town, Oduaha, where a Juju of somewhat different type is to be found.
This was sullenly explained to us as without name and only used for
protection--‘not to give piccans.’ The canoe upon its head was likewise
stated to have been put there ‘only to look fine. Not for any purpose.’
At Omo Hume, a quarter of Omo Dioga, another Ibudu was found, which
was said to be intended as a representation of the Earth Goddess, here
called Aja. In a little clearing to the right of the main road stood a
shrine of unusual size, sheltering two phallic pillars. The smaller of
these, placed in front and a little to the left, was obviously female
and smeared with blood from the breast downward. The rear figure bore
no name save ‘Husband of Aja,’ or at least none other was confided
to us. So tall was this that it filled the whole space from floor to
roof, looming, colossal and with a certain impressiveness, from out the
shadows at the back of the shrine. Between the two, on either side, lay
a piece of plaited palm-cloth, black and white, such as widows wear in
some parts; while two deep fringes of palm-leaf were hung before the
entrance, screening the strange, rude deities within from the glances
of passers-by.
It was explained that the cloths were those of barren women, and had
been laid at the feet of Aja and her spouse in the hope that, when
resumed by their owners, the ban of sterility, imposed through the hate
of some rival, might be broken by the power of the fertility-bestowing
Earth Gods.
[Illustration: FIG. 31. Ibudu at Digiriga]
[Illustration: FIG. 32. Ibudu placed before the entrance to Omu Dara
quarter of Akpani]
At Bush Digiriga again, a small town to the east of the Sombreiro River
inhabited by Abuan people and never before visited by Europeans--a
Juju ‘for the obtaining of piccans’ is to be found, which in many ways
resembles the Ibo Ibudu. About this particular fetish, however, there
are certain points which we never met elsewhere. In addition to the
high coiffure--a recognised symbol of femininity--the head is provided
with a square beard in shape like those false ones worn during certain
dynasties by Egyptian rulers, especially queens reigning in their own
right. It is perhaps worth noting that, while the arms of the figure
are mere stumps, without any attempt to reproduce hands, and the feet
are so rude as to be almost shapeless, the phallus is modelled with the
utmost care, showing that in the minds of its makers this detail was
of very special significance.
Outside the entrance to the Omo Dara quarter of Akpani, an Ibudu of
unique type may be seen, one looking-glass eye twinkling in the middle
of its head beneath a ring of feathers set crown-wise in the clay.
Before it, to a four-branched post, a medicine-pot was bound.
In the midst of the quarter, beneath a little palm-leaf hut, stands a
group of Ibudu. The largest of the pillars represents the female, the
smaller the male, attributes. They are modelled seated back to back--a
prostrate leopard lying to the left and a crater-like mound, containing
a pot for Juju medicine, to the right. Chief Woke Abara, head of the
quarter, gave the following explanation:
‘Formerly it was very hard for us to get children. Nearly all our women
were barren, so we raised the two Ibudu, one male and the other female.
Since then we got plenty piccans in our town.’ He added that the
‘leopard spirit’ helps the Juju to prevent the deaths of children. The
small cone in the foreground and the headless animal lying in front of
this were the work of the few children then existing.
[Illustration: FIG. 33. Ibudu at Akpani]
With regard to the figure of a leopard, it is perhaps worth remarking
that the ancient kings of Benin were wedded, in mystic spousals, with
a leopard bride. Also, among those Ibo dwelling in the group of towns
round Igrita, the spirits of the righteous dead often take up their
abode in leopard form while awaiting a new term of earth life, but
those who enter into crocodile, ape, or bush cat, are regarded as for
ever accursed.
Amid a branch of Kalahari settled at Oguta in Owerri District, a type
of Ibudu is to be found, not, so far as our knowledge goes, to be met
with in other parts. Each of these emblems consists of two sphinx-like
figures, one male and the other female, facing different ways but
joined together by a ridge of clay, which forms, as it were, the back
of the sphinx.
At the Ibo town on the far side of the beautiful Oguta lake, we came
across another phallic pillar combining the figures of the dual
personality, male and female, of the Ibudu Ezum Mezum. As in the case
of the Ale shrine, described on page 74, the consort was nameless,
bearing no designation save that of husband of Ezum Mezum. The figure
representing him held the place of honour at the base of the column
which symbolises the joint attributes of the Juju; while, at a height
almost double that of the husband, towers the face of the wife. On
either side of the pillar, out-topping the male figure from the neck
upwards, climb two great crocodiles; while placed here and there, at
irregular intervals, human heads stand out in high relief.
Chief Onomonu, the owner of the shrine, told us:
The Ibudu Ezum Mezum is mostly worshipped at Amaii in Abaw
District and priests came thence to build this shrine for us.
It was made at a time when a great sickness was raging in our
town, in the hope of staying this scourge, granting protection
and prosperity in general and especially to help our people in
the bearing of piccans.
At its installation, about twelve years ago, the Abaw doctors held a
great ‘smelling out,’ and, in consequence, decreed that the epidemic
was caused by the witchcraft of the six _richest_ women of the town,
who must therefore be put to death and their property be made over to
the medicine men! When informed of their doom, the victims refused to
acquiesce and were therefore beaten to death in the market-place.
The number of heads, modelled at irregular intervals over the pillar,
corresponds to that of the victims thus slaughtered at the inauguration
ceremonies--four at the back and two in front, between the sacred
crocodiles. All are liberally smeared with blood poured upon the heads
and trickling downward. This is the only example known to us at the
time in which an Ibudu is so represented as to show the dual creative
forces, male and female, combined so as to form a single pillar. Many
Ibudu were later seen among the Abaw Ibo of Kwale District, where this
particular type of symbol would seem to have reached its greatest
development.
The phallic figures, above-mentioned, are, however, by no means the
only examples met with in West Africa of the mingling, in one object,
of male and female symbols. For instance, the emblem of the greatest of
all Ekoi Jujus, Eja, unmistakably combines the two. Here, the phallus,
represented with the uttermost pains and fidelity, is the sign of the
harvest god himself, while the bowl-like object to which it is attached
represents the womb of his wife Ekumoke. The united symbol stands upon
a base formed of wide-open human jaws.[16]
Among the Ekoi, both in the South Cameroons and Southern Nigeria, as
indeed throughout the greater part of the West Coast generally, a pot
or calabash is regarded as a feminine symbol, and it is of considerable
significance that traces of male semen have been found in no
inconsiderable number of the pots set before Ibudu images and in other
Juju shrines throughout the Ibo country. This fact is vouched for by a
medical officer.
In the ritual chant sung by Ekoi at the festival of Eja, which is also
the feast of the first fruits, the names of the combined deities are
always invoked:
Man Eja! I am staying with you.
O, I am staying with you!
Ekumoke! I am staying with you.
O, I am staying with you!
Of these two deities it was expressly stated: ‘Eja is male and the most
strong. Ekumoke is less strong than Eja; nevertheless without her help
he can do nothing.’
During the annual rites a woman was formerly sacrificed and the
genital organs cut out and laid in the sacred pot, which contains the
‘medicine’ of the cult. Since the coming of Government it has naturally
become increasingly difficult to obtain this necessary ingredient, and
it was a matter of grave anxiety on the part of the priest lest the
power of the Juju should decrease in consequence.
Amidst some of the eastern Ibo sub-tribes and the northern Semi-Bantu,
the ancestors are represented by small clay pillars or mounds, clay
balls or round or pointed stones, before which sacrifices are made and
prayers offered for the granting of fertility, especially at the two
great festivals of the year, the planting of farms and the harvest.
In those parts of the country where rock is available, _i.e._ among
the northern Yoruba and Semi-Bantu, many stone monoliths may be found,
some of which are unmistakably phallic, while others are used not only
for this worship but also as ancestral memorials. In fact, the two
cults are inexplicably mixed, as is natural when it is remembered that
amongst these peoples fruitfulness is, to a large extent, attributed
to the forefathers. Some of these memorials date back many hundreds of
years; a fuller description will be found in Chapter XVII, vol. ii, of
_The Peoples of Southern Nigeria_.
In the club-houses of the great Ekkpe secret society the sacrifices
are made before a phallic monolith, which represents the former
members of the club as also the tutelary deity, while in, or near, its
base are generally placed rounded pebbles, the symbol of the Earth
Goddess. A similar monolith is worshipped amongst many of the Bantu and
Bafumbum-Bansaw as a representation of the supreme deity.
[Illustration: FIG. 34. Eku at Umo Abale quarter of Omo Dioga]
VII
EKU
All over the western part of the District a strange rite still obtains
which is obviously only another manifestation of the phallic cult. As
there are local differences it will be necessary to describe separately
the peculiarities of each centre.
By the roadside near Umo Abale, a quarter of Omo Dioga, half hidden
amid grass and creepers, we came across a crowd of figures formed of
sun-baked clay, cone-shaped and painted black. Further on, in front of
almost each compound, smaller groups were to be seen, usually arranged
at the base of some Juju tree, or round a sapling of the sacred Ogrisi
(_Dolichandrone_ sp.). In several cases circular moulds of baked clay,
much like an old-fashioned spittoon in shape, lay nearby. It was
explained that upon these the girls of each compound, after undergoing
the initiatory ceremonies preparatory to marriage, set the food cooked
as an offering to the Eku, as the phallic figures are called. This
word is also used to designate the cones of baked clay used to support
cooking-pots. Should any girl, after arriving at the age of puberty and
being inducted into the feminine mysteries, neglect to set up such an
image each year, about the time of making new farms, until she becomes
a member of her husband’s house, no babes would bless their union.
In one or two cases a slight amount of decoration, formed by lines
drawn with the fingers in the soft clay, has been added; while here and
there an attempt was made to surmount the cone by what was explained as
a representation of the high head-dress only allowed to Ibo women after
the birth of a babe. Mostly, however, the images showed nothing more or
less than a simple attempt at depicting the phallus.
About a month later, at the house of Chief Ugwa in the Oturu quarter
of Akpani, Eku of a still simpler type were found, together with clay
pot-rests of much the same shape as those already described; while
just outside, in the bush by the roadside, we came upon some thirty or
more phallic figures, the tallest and frankest yet seen. Some stood on
circular, some on rectangular, bases; but on each the membrum virile
was modelled with especial care.
It was explained that every year, when making the more elaborate
pillars, each betrothed girl fashions several of the plainer type,
a foot to a foot and a half in height. These are said to be used as
‘strong Juju on which to swear people.’[17] Three of these are borne by
each maid to her bridegroom’s compound, there to be presented to the
chief woman of the family, by whom they are set together to support
the pot in which food is cooked for the future husband. When ready,
this is poured into a native bowl and placed upon the clay ring.
After marriage, the bride comes to the new home and herself cooks her
husband’s meals upon the same three pillars prepared by her own hands.
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 libations to the forefathers are poured
every eighth day, are of almost identical type. At Oru-Sangama, an
ancient town on a creek leading into the San Bartholomeo River, we came
across two of these small cones modelled within a circle, also of clay,
beneath the palm-leaf roof of a tiny hut. So like were these to the Eku
emblems that we took for granted that the little shrine was but another
dwelling-place of one of the manifold representations of Ibudu Omumu,
_i.e._ the Ibudu of fertility. Long sojourn in Africa should, however,
teach caution even to the most careless enquirer, and we therefore, as
always, took the precaution to keep our ideas to ourselves and asked
the significance of the symbol. As a result we were told that they
represented the Nduen Fobara of a neighbouring house. Our informant
added:
Some men make three, some two, small pillars for the pouring
out of libations to the spirits of their dead. Some again make
only one such emblem for the reception of drink offerings. Here
no carved images are shown as is usual in rich Kalahari towns;
the cones themselves represent the ancestors, except in the
case of men of distinction.
Considering the peculiar powers thought by many tribes to attach to
the phalli of the dead, especially those of warriors or others who
excelled in strength or power, as also the Egyptian legend of the birth
of Horus--that seed of life, snatched by the widowed Isis from Death
himself--it is perhaps not too far fetched an idea to imagine that the
likeness of symbol was intended to signify a connection between the
physical body of the new-born and the astral shape or ethereal mould,
supplied in most cases according to general belief from the ghost
realm, where the ancestral shades await reincarnation--by preference
in the bodies of those about to be born to the family to which they
themselves formerly belonged.
[Illustration: FIG. 35. Pillars, carved tusks, and bronze torques.
Kalabari Shrine of Awome-Ka-So]
Sir James Frazer, in his wonderful _Golden Bough_, tells of sacrificial
victims whose phalli were beaten with twigs--not out of cruelty, but
with the idea of increasing the powers of virility. Among the Ekkett
Ibibio sacred boughs are drawn over the pudenda of warriors while
parts are even cut off and buried secretly by the marriage bed, in the
byre or on the farm. In this connection it is perhaps worth mentioning
that one of the most dreaded of West African tortures, employed upon
captives of distinction, was the continued flagellation of the phalli.
Chief Igo, of Omo Nelu, gave the following information:
We start to make the Eki--as they are locally called--at the
time of cutting the undergrowth for the new farms. Then, when
we have carried out the images and set them up by the roadside,
we begin clearing away the top branches. The ornamented
pot-rests are used for cooking chop for the Eki.
Chief Chuku’s quarter cooks for two weeks (_i.e._ sixteen
days). Amadi’s and my quarter cook for thirty days. It is the
young girls who make these things--both the cooking ones and
the others. For twenty-five days we hold the first festival,
that of the low round Eki, which we call Eki Mother. Every
evening at about five o’clock time the girls cook. On the
twenty-fifth day each girl starts making one of the high Eki,
Ada Eki (eldest daughter of Eki), which is worshipped for
five days before carrying it out. When my father was alive,
the ceremony always started in his compound; for he was the
head chief. After he had made festival for eight days, all the
other compounds joined in and continued till thirty days were
finished. Then all men took notice and said: ‘It is now time to
start the new farms.’
[Illustration: FIG. 36. Patterns of the low Eki]
With us also the young girls go and get ant hill earth before
they make the Eki, but they do not use it for these, only keep
it in their houses for three months and afterwards take it with
them to the market-place, where they dance and play round it
and then finally throw it away.
Egu ’Nde ’Nwayin is a woman’s festival held at the time of
digging new yams. It was my father, the priest of Ale, who set
the time for this ceremony also. At this time the women dress
very finely, wearing many beads round their ankles.
On another occasion, just after leaving Ndelle en route for Rumoji,
we found, by the side of a bush-path beneath the spreading branches
of a Berlinia, a hut, the long, low, palm-leaf roof of which was
covered with the fragrant white-petalled flowers showered down from
above. Under this shelter was a platform of clay some twenty feet
in length, carefully smoothed and with gaily coloured plates set at
intervals along its edge. Upon this a double row of strangely-shaped
finely-decorated figures were to be seen, formed of sun-dried
clay, much in the style of the Eku already mentioned, but far more
elaborately modelled and painted. On the bright yellow clay, ridges and
lines of shining black, vivid blue and white were to be seen, while
each was surmounted with an attempt to represent the elaborate styles
of coiffure affected by girls of marriageable age.
Each had been brought thither by a maiden of the neighbourhood after
undergoing initiatory rites in company with her ‘age class.’ The
ceremonies are conducted in places set apart, under the leadership of
elderly women of the town. The time chosen is after the planting of new
farms when the seeds first germinate. At this season all little maids
who have reached, or are approaching, the age of puberty--for the ‘age
class’ includes those born within three years of one another--come
together to be instructed, by matrons chosen for the purpose, in all
that it is thought necessary for them to know as a preparation for
marriage. Later, the neophytes return to their parents’ house and there
model the figures shown in the photograph. When all are ready they go,
together with their instructress and a band of relatives, each bearing
one of the Eku upon her head in procession to the spot chosen by
priest or instructress. Here a platform of clay, decorated with insets
of plates, pieces of looking-glass, etc., has already been prepared.
The celebrants in turn place thereon the queerly shaped image which
is supposed to be necessary in order to draw down upon the girl, who
offers it, the blessing of fertility.
Beside those newly initiated, older maidens, to whom the mysteries have
formerly been revealed but who are as yet unwedded, also take part in
the rite, bearing a fresh Eku in the procession, year after year until
the whole, or at any rate the main part, of the dowry has been paid,
and they leave their parents’ house for that of a husband. The elder
girls offer images often over a yard in height, while the new initiates
bring smaller ones, proportionate to their size.