Published by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
First edition | 1923 |
New impression | 1967 |
Transferred to Digital Printing 2007
ISBN 0-7146-1726-1
Cover Design by Derek Ward
Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent
HERE ghosts from long-dead worlds have made their home.
Dark Mangrove boughs form window frame and door.
Of whispering wind-swayed leaves is built each wall:
And the breathless silence is peopled all
With echoes and dreams. While lily-strewn streams
And great smooth creeks form its crystal floor.
Mist-like flit Nymph and Satyr. Wan sea-foam
Laves Nereids feet upon the shell-strewn shore.
Dryads, half seen, flee twixt the tree trunks tall.
Through breeze and storm-wind, myriad voices call
Mid glints and gleams, fierce suns or moons soft beams
Seeking, in our deaf ears, to breathe the Lore,
Gleaned, in the days ere Greece and Rome were born,
From long-forgotten worlds and Faiths outworn.
D. A. T.
ABOUT a year and a half ago, when sending forth my first record of a West African people, I wrote:
To my critics I would say that, written in the depths of the bush it describes, far from every book of reference, or the society of those who might have enriched its poverty from the store of their learning, this book claims nothing, save that it strives to tell the story of a little-known people from a standpoint as near as possible to their own.
The same plea still holds, but there is one great difference between this study of the Ibibio and my former one of the peoples of the Oban District. For the first no information was available save what could be wrung, alone and unaided, from natives, long distrustful, often purposely misleading, and only partially won over after years of patient effort. Here, on the other hand, within a few weeks of arrival in the Eket District, Mr. W. W. Eakin of the Kwa Ibo Mission, who had collected valuable information concerning certain Ibibio customs, generously placed this at our disposal. It has consequently been incorporated, under his name, in this record. To one other the present volume owes more than I can say, i.e., to Etubom Nyung Ansa, better known by his English name, Chief Daniel Henshaw, Native Political Agent for the District. He is a Chief of pure blood and Head of one of the seven ruling families of Calabar, where his ancestors were found in possession on the coming of the early traders.
For over twenty years this man has been a faithful servant of Government, and his life would form a thrilling record of adventure and hairbreadth escapes. His tact and courage have, over and over again, saved the lives of white officials, and to him, and such as he, white rule owes a debt of gratitude only too little realised or expressed. He has visited England, is well educated,not merely Christianised, but Christian,and has learnt the lesson of European culture, without losing the simplicity of manner and primitive virtues of his forebears. In too many cases education has deprived the negro of the good qualities of his own people without implanting ours. Up to a short time ago I must confess to a preference for bush folk rather than the more civilised specimens of the black race; but that European education may bring the black man to a high pitch of civilisation, without destroying the natural dignity or simple charm of manner to be found among bush people, I now gratefully acknowledge.
Not only did Chief Henshaw tell us much that, in all human probability, would never have reached our ears in other ways, but he willingly consented to the labour of working through with us Sir James Frazers exhaustive list of questions. Also, from his vast knowledge of native customs and beliefs, he was able to corroborate, or gain confirmation of many a statement gleaned from sources not trustworthy enough to include without verification. Unless specially marked as uncorroborated, no information is given in these pages without the testimony of several independent witnesses.
The wishes of my wife and her sister forbid me to write as I should have liked to do concerning the help given by them; yet it is impossible to let this account appear without at least mentioning that my wife is responsible for the description of scenery, and had they not both been willing at all times, and no matter how weary from long marches and other causes, to take down information or amplify hurried jottings gleaned during the day, it would have been a physical impossibility, under the stress of political work, that this record should have been written. Not only were they of the greatest help in all branches of research; but their presence inspired confidence in many women, so crushed by centuries of oppression, that, according to native testimony, a considerable number were only thus emboldened to bring their complaints straight to me. Further, many men openly testified that they were kept from believing the statements of agitators, as to my intention of making war upon the people, by the fact, put forward by one of the principal Oronn chiefs, that no white man would have come on war palaver with his wife on the right hand and her sister on the left!
As time passes, it brings with it added humility to counterbalance a growing sense of the urgency of placing on record every scrap of information which can be gleaned from this vast treasure-house of forgotten lore, before the little lamp of antique wisdomhanded from father to son through countless generations, and still burning brightly among some few in the prime of life, and many so feeble that they must, before long, lose hold of earthly thingshas been quenched in the onward march of civilisation.
The longer a kind Fate arranges that my life should be spent among such peoples the firmer is borne in upon me the conviction that, to men so placed as I, only the privilege of the first spade-work may be accordedsuch, indeed, as falls to the lot of humble excavators who, on the other side of this great continent, wield pick and shovel, to bring the treasures of forgotten cities to the light of day. It seems better, therefore, to rest content with a simple placing on record of facts fresh from the lips of those to whom they have been confided through long lines of forebears, from a past of hoar antiquity, than to strive to present such information in more polished guise. This could only have been made possible by laying it aside till another leave, when the impressions here recorded would have been dimmed by new happenings amid other races.
Unless the love of this fascinating study deceives me, authors, golden-penned, and writing in the restful atmosphere of panelled libraries at home, may, one day, not disdain to correlate the information thus gleaned, in saddle and dug - out, through bush and creek, by such rude chroniclers as I.
