One of the first requirements of that particular Ju-Ju cost me further delay, for a bottle of gin had to be procured, and as the daily market in that town had not yet opened, and no public house had yet been established by any enterprising Ijo, it took some time to procure.
On the arrival of the article, however, my friend the old chief proceeded in a most impressive manner to repeat a short prayer, the principal portion I was able to understand and which was as follows: “I beg you, I beg you, don’t capsize my canoe. If you do, don’t drown any of my boys and don’t do any harm to my friend the white man.” This was addressed to the spirit of the water; having finished this little prayer, he next sprinkled a little gin about the bows of the canoe and in the river, afterwards taking a drink himself. He then produced a leaf with about an ounce of broken-up cooked yam mixed with a little palm oil, which he carefully fixed in the extreme foremost point of the canoe.
At last this ceremony was at an end and we started off, but alas! my troubles were only just beginning. We had been started about half an hour, and I had quietly dozed off into a pleasant sleep, when I was awakened by feelingthe canoe rolling from side to side as if we were in rough water; just then the boys all stopped pulling, and on my remonstrance they informed me Ju-Ju “no will,”id est, that the Ju-ju had told them they must go back. I used gentle persuasion in the form of offers of extra pay at first, then I stormed and used strong language, or at least, what little Ijo strong language I knew, but all to no avail. I then began to inquire what Ju-Ju had spoken, and they pointed out a small bird that just then flew away into the bush; it looked to me something like a kingfisher. The head boy of the canoe then explained to me that this Ju-ju bird having spoken,id est, chirped on the right-hand side of the canoe, and the goat’s skull hanging up to the foremost awning stanchion having fallen the same way (this ornament I had not previously noticed), signified that we must turn back. So turn back we did, though I thought at the time the boys did not want to go the journey, owing to the almost continual state of quarrelling that had been going on for years between the Ijos and the Brassmen. I was not far wrong, for when we eventually did arrive at Brass, I had to hide these Ijo people in the hold of my ship, as the very sight of a Brassman made them shiver.
The following morning the same performance was gone through; we started, and at about the same point Ju-Ju spoke again; again we returned. My old friend the chief was very sorry he said, but he could not blame his boys for acting as they had done, Ju-Ju having told them to return. He would not listen when I told him I felt confident his boys had assisted the Ju-Ju by making the canoe roll about from side to side.
However, I thought the matter over to myself during that second day, and decided I would make sure one partof that Ju-ju should not speak against me the next morning, and that was the goat’s skull, so during that night after every Ijo was fast asleep, I visited that skull and carefully secured it to its post by a few turns of very fine fishing line in such a manner that no one could notice what I had done, if they did not specially examine it. I dare not fix it to the left, that being the favourable side, for fear of it being noticed, but I fixed it straight up and down, so that it could not demonstrate against my journey.
I retired to my sleeping quarters and slept the sleep of the just, and next morning started in the best of spirits, though continually haunted by the fear that my little stratagem might be discovered. We had got about the same distance from the town that we had on the two previous mornings when the canoe began to oscillate as usual, caused by a combined movement of all the boys in the canoe, I was perfectly convinced, for the creek we were in was as smooth as a mill pond. Many anxious glances were cast at the skull, and the canoe was made to roll more and more until the water slopped over into her, but the skull did not budge, and, strange to relate, the bird of ill omen did not show itself or chirp this morning, so the boys gave up making the canoe oscillate and commenced to paddle for all they were worth, and the following evening we arrived at my ship in Brass. We could have arrived much earlier, but the Ijos did not wish to meet with any Brassmen, so we waited until the shades of night came on, and thus passed unobserved several Brass canoes, arriving safely at my ship in time for dinner.
I carefully questioned the head boy of the Ijo boys all about this bird that had given me so much trouble. He explained to me that once having passed a certain point inthe creek, the bird not having spoken and the skull not having demonstrated either, it was quite safe to continue on our journey, conveying to me the idea that this bird was a regular inhabitant of a certain portion of the bush, which was also their sacred bush wherein the Ju-Ju priests practised their most private devotions. The same species of bird showed itself several times both on the right of us and on the left of us as we passed through other creeks on our way to Brass, but the canoe boys took no notice of it.
In dealing with the Benin Kingdom I have allowed myself somewhat to encroach upon the Royal Niger Company’s territory, which commences on the left bank of the river Forcados and takes in all the rivers down to the Nun (Akassa), and the sea-shore to leeward of this river as far as a point midway between the latter river and the mouth of the Brass river, thence a straight line is drawn to a place called Idu, on the Niger River, forming the eastern boundary between the Royal Niger Company’s territory and the Niger Coast Protectorate. I have not defined the western boundary between the Royal Niger Company’s territory and the other portion of the Niger Coast Protectorate otherwise than stating that it commences on the seashore at the eastern point of the Forcados.
Benin Kingdom, as a kingdom, may now be numbered with the past. For years the cruelties known to be enacted in the city of Benin have been such that it was only a question of ways and means that deterred the Protectorate officials from smashing up the place several years ago.
It is a very curious trait in the character of these savage kinglets of Western Africa how little they seemto have been impressed by the downfall of their brethren in neighbouring districts. Though they were well acquainted with all that was passing around them. Thus the fall of Ashantee in 1873 was well known to the King of Dahomey, yet he continued on his way and could not believe the French could ever upset him. Nana, the governor of the lower Benin or Jakri, could not see in the downfall of Ja Ja that the British Government were not to be trifled with by any petty king or governor of these rivers; though Nana was a most intelligent native, he had the temerity to show fight against the Protectorate officials, and of course he quickly found out his mistake, but alas! too late for his peace of mind and happiness; he is now a prisoner at large far away from his own country, stripped of all his riches and position. Here was an object lesson for Abu Bini, the King of Benin, right at his own door, every detail of which he must have heard of, or at least his Ju-Ju priests must have heard of the disaster that had happened to Nana, his satrap.
Nothing daunted Abu Bini and his Ju-Ju priests continued their evil practices; then came the frightful Benin massacre of Protectorate officials and European traders, besides a number of Jakris and Kruboys in the employment of the Protectorate.
The first shot that was fired that January morning, 1897, by the emissaries of King Abu Bini, sounded the downfall of the City of Benin and the end of all its atrocious and disgusting sacrificial rites, for scarcely three months after the punitive expedition camped in the King’s Palace at old Benin.
The two expeditions that have had to be sent to Benin River within the last few years have been two uniquespecimens of what British sailors and soldiers have to cope with whilst protecting British subjects and their interests, no matter where situated.
I do not suppose that there are in England to-day one hundred people who know, and can therefore appreciate at its true value, the risk that each man in those two expeditions ran. In the attack on Nana’s town the British sailors had to walk through a dirty, disgusting, slimy mangrove swamp, often sinking in the mud half way up their thighs, and this in the face of a sharp musketry fire coming from unseen enemies carefully hidden away, in some cases not five yards off, in dense bush, with occasional discharges of grape and canister. But nothing stopped them, and Nana’s town was soon numbered with the things that had been.
It was the same to a great extent in the attack on Benin, only varied by the swamps not being quite so bad as at Nana’s town, but the distance from the water side was much farther; in the former case one might say it was only a matter of minutes once in touch with the enemy; in the attack on Benin city it was a matter of several days marching through dense bush, where an enemy could get within five yards of you without being seen, and in some places nearer. Almost constantly under fire, besides a sun beating down on you so hot that where the soil was sandy you felt the heat almost unbearable through the soles of your boots, to say nothing of the minor troubles of being very short of drinking water, and at night not being able to sleep owing to the myriads of sand-flies and mosquitoes; getting now and again a perfume wafted under your nostrils, in comparison with which a London sewer would be eau de Cologne.
I was once under fire for twelve hours against Europeantrained troops, so know something about a soldier’s work, and for choice I would prefer a week’s similar work in Europe to two hours’ West African bush and swamp fighting, with its aids, fever and dysentery.
Before I quit Benin I want to mention one thing more about Ju-Ju. When the attack was made on Benin city, the first day’s march had scarcely begun when two white men were killed and buried. After the column passed on, the natives came and dug the bodies up, cut their heads and hands off, and carried them up to Benin city to the Ju-Ju priests, who showed them to the king to prove to him that his Ju-Ju, managed by them, was greater than the white man’s; in fact, the king, I am told, was being shown these heads and hands at the moment when the first rockets fell in Benin city. Those rockets proved to him the contrary, and he left the city quicker than he had ever done in his life before.
To point out to my readers how all the natives of the Delta believed in the power of the Benin Ju-Ju, I must tell you none of them believed the English had really captured the King until he was taken round and shown to them, the belief being that, on the approach of danger, he would be able to change himself into a bird and thus fly away and escape.
Brass River is then the first river we have to deal with on the Niger Coast Protectorate, to the eastward of the Royal Niger Company’s boundary.
The inhabitants of Brass call their country Nimbé and themselves Nimbé nungos, the latter word meaning people.Their principal towns were Obulambri and Basambri, divided only by a narrow creek dry at low water. In each of these towns resided a king, each having jurisdiction over separate districts of the Nimbé territory; thus the King of Obulambri was supposed to look after the district on the left hand of the River Brass, his jurisdiction extending as far as the River St. Barbara. The King of Basambri’s district extended from the right bank of the Brass River, westward as far as the Middleton outfalls; included in this district was the Nun mouth of the River Niger. These two kinglets had a very prosperous time during the closing days of the slave trade, as most of the contraband was carried on through the Brass and the Nun River both by Bonnymen and New Calabar men after they had signed treaties with Her Majesty’s Government to discontinue the slave trade in their dominions. When eventually the trade in slaves was finally put down their prosperity was not at an end, for they went largely into the palm oil trade, and did a most prosperous trade along the banks of the Niger as far as Onitsa.
Though these two kings always objected to the white men opening up the Niger, and did their utmost to retard the first expeditions, they were not slow in demanding comey from the early traders who established factories in the Nun mouth of the Niger; this part of the Niger is also called the Akassa.
These people are a very mixed race, and to describe them as any particular tribe would be an error. I believe the original inhabitants of the mouths of these rivers were the Ijos, and that the towns of Obulambri and Bassambri were founded by some of the more adventurous spirits amongst the men from the neighbourhood of Sabogrega, atown on the Niger; being afterwards joined by some similar adventurers from Bonny River. The three people are closely connected by family ties at this day.
As a rule these people have always had the character of being a well behaved set of men; it is a notable fact in their favour that they were the only people that, once having signed the treaty with Her Majesty’s Government to put down slavery, honestly stuck to the terms of the treaty; unlike their neighbours, they did so, though they were the only people who did not receive any indemnity.
They, however, have occasionally lost their heads and gone to excesses unworthy of a people with such a good reputation as they have generally enjoyed.
Their last escapade was the attack on the factory of the Royal Niger Company at Akassa some few years ago, and for which they were duly punished; their dual mud and thatch capital was blown down, and one small town called Fishtown destroyed.
Impartial observers must have pitied these poor people driven to despair by being cut off from their trading markets by the fiscal arrangements of the Royal Niger Company. The latter I don’t blame very much, they are traders; but the line drawn from Idu to a point midway between the Brass River and the Nun entrance to the Niger River, as being the boundary line for fiscal purposes between the Royal Niger Company and the Niger Coast Protectorate, was drawn by some one at Downing Street who evidently looked upon this part of the world as a cheesemonger would a cheese.
In 1830 it was at Abo on the Niger where Lander the traveller met with the Brassmen, who took him down to Obulambri, but no ship being in Brass River, they tookhim and his people over to Akassa, at the Nun mouth of the Niger, to an English ship lying there. History says he was anything but well received by the captain of this vessel, and that the Brassmen did not treat him as well as they might; however, they did not eat him, as they no doubt would have done could they have looked into the future. Whatever their treatment of Lander was, it could not have been very bad, as they received some reward for what assistance they had given him some time after.
It was amongst these people that I was enabled to study more closely the inner working of the domestic slavery of this part of Western Africa, and where it was carried on with less hardship to the slaves themselves than any place else in the Delta, until the Niger Company’s boundary line threw most of the labouring population on the rates, at least they would have gone on the rates if there had been any to go on, but unfortunately the municipal arrangements of these African kingdomlets had not arrived at such a pitch of civilisation; the consequence was many died from starvation, others hired themselves out as labourers, but the demand for their services was limited, as they compared badly with the fine, athletic Krumen, who monopolise all the labour in these parts. Then came the punitive expedition for the attack on Akassa that wiped off a few more of the population, so that to-day the Brassmen may be described as a vanishing people.
The various grades of the people in Brass were the kings, next came the chiefs and their sons who had by their own industry, and assisted in their first endeavours by their parents, worked themselves into a position of wealth, then came the Winna-boes, a grade mostly supplied by the favourite slave of a chief, who had been his constantattendant for years, commencing his career by carrying his master’s pocket-handkerchief and snuff-box, pockets not having yet been introduced into the native costume; after some years of this duty he would be promoted to going down to the European traders to superintend the delivery of a canoe of oil, seeing to its being tried, gauged, &c. This first duty, if properly performed, would lead to his being often sent on the same errand. This duty required a certain amount ofsavez, as the natives call intelligence, for he had to so look after his master’s interests that the pull-away boys that were with him in the canoe did not secrete any few gallons of oil that there might be left over after filling up all the casks he had been sent to deliver; nor must he allow the white trader to under-gauge his master’s casks by carelessness or otherwise. If he was able to do the latter part of his errand in such a diplomatic manner that he did not raise the bile of the trader, that day marked the commencement of his upward career, if he was possessed of the bump of saving. All having gone off to the satisfaction of both parties, the trader would make this boy some small present according to the number of puncheons of oil he had brought down, seldom less than a piece of cloth worth about 2s. 6d., and, in the case of canoes containing ten to fifteen puncheons, the trader would often dash him two pieces of cloth and a bunch or two of beads. This present he would, on his return to his master’s house, hand over to his mother (id est, the woman who had taken care of him from the time when he was first bought by his Brass master). She would carefully hoard this and all subsequent bits of miscellaneous property until he had in his foster-mother’s hands sufficient goods to buy an angbar of oil—a measure containing thirty gallons. Then he wouldapproach his master (always called “father” by his slaves) and beg permission to send his few goods to the Niger markets the next time his master had a canoe starting—which permission was always accorded. He had next to arrange terms with the head man or trader of his master’s canoe as to what commission he had to get for trading off the goods in the far market. In this discussion, which may occupy many days before it is finally arranged, the foster-mother figures largely; and it depends a great deal upon her standing in the household of the chief as to the amount of commission the trade boy will demand for his services. If the foster-mother should happen to be a favourite wife of the chief, well, then things are settled very easily, the trade boy most likely saying he was quite willing to leff-em to be settled any way she liked; if, on the contrary, it was one of the poorer women of the chiefs house, Mr. Trade-boy would demand at least the quarter of the trade to commence with, and end up by accepting about an eighth. As the winnabo could easily double his property twice a year—and he was always adding to his store in his foster-mother’s hands from presents received each time he went down to the white trader with his father’s oil—it did not take many years for him to become a man of means, and own canoes and slaves himself. Many times have I known cases where the winnabo has repeatedly paid up the debts of his master to the white man.
According to the law of the country, the master has the right to sell the very man who is paying his debts off for him; but I must say I never heard a case of such rank ingratitude, though cases have occurred where the master has got into such low water and such desperate difficulties that his creditors under country law have seized everythinghe was possessed of, including any wealthy winnaboes he might have.
Some writers have said this class could purchase their freedom; with this I don’t agree. The only chance a winnabo had of getting his freedom was, supposing his master died and left no sons behind him old enough or capable enough to take the place of their father, then the winnabo might be elected to take the place of his defunct master: he would then becomeipso factoa chief, and be reckoned a free man. If he was a man of strong character, he would hold until his death all the property of the house; but if one of the sons of his late master should grow up an intelligent man, and amass sufficient riches to gather round him some of the other chief men in the town, then the question was liable to be re-opened, and the winnabo might have to part out some of the property and the people he had received upon his appointment to the headship of the house, together with a certain sum in goods or oil, which the elders of the town would decide should represent the increment on the portion handed over. I have never known of a case where the whole of the property and people have been taken away from a winnabo in Brass; but I have known it occur in other rivers, but only for absolute misuse, misrule, and misconduct of the party.
Egbo-boes are the niggers or absolute lower rank of slaves, who are employed as pull-away boys in the oil canoes and gigs of the chiefs, and do all the menial work or hard labour of the towns that is not done by the lower ranks of the women slaves.
The lot of these egbo-boes is a very hard one at times, especially when their masters have no use for them in their oil canoes. At the best of times their masters don’t providethem with more food then is about sufficient for one good square meal a day; but, when trade is dull and they have no use for them in any way, their lot is deplorable indeed. This class has suffered terribly during the last ten years owing to the complete stoppage of the Brassmen’s trade in the Niger markets.
This class had few chances of rising in the social scale, but it was from this class that sprang some of the best trade boys who took their masters’ goods away up to Abo and occasionally as far as Onitsa, on the Niger.
Cases have occurred of boys from this class rising to as good a position as the more favoured winnaboes; but for this they have had to thank some white trader, who has taken a fancy to here and there one of them, and getting his master to lend him to him as a cabin boy—a position generally sought after by the sons of chiefs, so as to learn “white man’s mouth,” otherwise English.
The succession laws are similar to those of the other Coast tribes one meets with in the Delta, but to understand them it requires some little explanation. A tribe is composed of a king and a number of chiefs. Each chief has a number of petty chiefs under him. Perhaps a better definition for the latter would be, a number of men who own a few slaves and a few canoes of their own, and do an independent trade with the white men, but who pay to their chiefs a tribute of from 20 to 25 per cent, on their trade with the white man. In many cases the white man stops this tribute from the petty chiefs and holds it on behalf of the chief. This collection of petty chiefs with their chief forms what in Coast parlance is denominated a House.
The House may own a portion of the principal town, say Obulambri, and also a portion in any of the small townsin the neighbouring creeks, and it may own here and there isolated pieces of ground where some petty chief has squatted and made a clearance either as a farm or to place a few of his family there as fishermen; in the same way the chief of the house may have squatted on various plots of ground in any part of the district admitted by the neighbouring tribes to belong to his tribe. All these parcels and portions of land belong in common to the House—that is, supposing a petty chief having a farm in any part of the district was to die leaving no male heirs and no one fit to take his place, the chief as head of the house would take possession, but would most likely leave the slaves of the dead man undisturbed in charge of the farm they had been working on, only expecting them to deliver him a portion of the produce equivalent to what they had been in the habit of delivering to their late master, who was a petty chief of the house.
The head of the house would have the right of disposal of all the dead man’s wives, generally speaking the younger ones would be taken by the chief, the others he would dispose of amongst his petty chiefs; if, as generally happens, there were a few aged ones amongst them for whom there was no demand he would take them into his own establishment and see they were provided for.
As a matter of fact, all the people belonging to a defunct petty chief become the property of the head of the house under any circumstances; but if the defunct had left any man capable of succeeding him, the head chief would allow this man to succeed without interfering with him in any way, provided he never had had the misfortune to raise the chief’s bile; in the latter case, if the chief was a very powerful chief, whose actions no one dare question, the chancesare that he would either be suppressed or have to go to Long Ju-Ju to prosecute his claim, the expenses of which journey would most likely eat up the whole of the inheritance, or at least cripple him for life as far as his commercial transactions were concerned. It is of course to the interest of the head of a house to surround himself with as many petty chiefs as he possibly can, as their success in trade, and in amassing riches whether in slaves or goods, always benefits him; even in those rivers where no heavy “topside” is paid to the head of the house by the white traders, the small men or petty chiefs are called upon from time to time to help to uphold the dignity of the head chief, either by voluntary offerings or forced payments. Public opinion has a good deal to say on the subject of succession; and though a chief may be so powerful during his lifetime that he may ride roughshod over custom or public opinion, after his death his successor may find so many cases of malversation brought against the late chief by people who would not have dared to open their mouths during the late chief’s lifetime, that by the time they are all settled he finds that a chief’s life is not a happy one at all times. Claims of various kinds may be brought up during the lifetime of a chief, and three or four of his successors may have the same claim brought against them, each party may think he has settled the matter for ever; but unless he has taken worst, the descendants of the original claimants will keep attacking each successor until they strike one who is not strong enough to hold his own against them, and they succeed in getting their claim settled. This settlement does not interfere with the losing side turning round and becoming the claimants in their turn. Some of these family disputes are very curious; take for instance a caseof a claim for five female slaves that may have been wrongfully taken possession of by some former chief of a house, this case perhaps is kept warm, waiting the right moment to put it forward, for thirty years, the claim then becomes not only for the original five women, but for their children’s children and so on.
The Brass natives to-day are divided into two camps as far as religion is concerned: the missionary would no doubt say the greater number of them are Christians, the ordinary observer would make exactly the opposite observation, and judging from what we know has taken place in their towns within the last few years, I am afraid the latter would be right.
The Church Missionary Society started a mission here in 1868; it is still working under another name, and is under the superintendence of the Rev. Archdeacon Crowther, a son of the late Bishop Crowther.
Their success, as far as numbers of attendants at church, has been very considerable; and I have known cases amongst the women who were thoroughly imbued with the Christian religion, and acted up to its teaching as conscientiously as their white sisters; these however are few.
With regard to the men converts I have not met with one of whom I could speak in the same terms as I have done of the women.
Whilst fully recognising the efforts that the missionaries have put forth in this part of the world, I regret I can’t bear witness to any great good they have done.
This mission has been worked on the usual lines thatEnglish missions have been worked in the past, so I must attribute any want of success here as much to the system as anything.
One of the great obstacles to the spread of Christianity in these parts is in my opinion the custom of polygamy, together with which are mixed up certain domestic customs that are much more difficult to eradicate than the teachings of Ju-Ju, and require a special mission for them alone.
Almost equal to the above as an obstacle in the way of Christianity is what is called domestic slavery; Europeans who have visited Western Africa speak of this as a kind of slavery wherein there is no hardship for the slave; they point to cases where slaves have risen to be kings and chiefs, and many others who have been able to arrive at the position of petty chief in some big man’s house. I grant all this, but all these people forget to mention that until these slaves are chiefs they are not safe; that any grade less than that of a chief that a slave may arrive to does not secure him from being sold if his master so wished.
Further, domestic slavery gives a chief power of life and death over his slave; and how often have I known cases where promising young slaves have done something to vex their chief their heads have paid the penalty, though these young men had already amassed some wealth, having also several wives and children.
People who condone domestic slavery, and I have heard many kindly-hearted people do so, forget that however mild the slavery of the domestic slave is on the coast, even under the mildest native it is still slavery; further, these slaves are not made out of wood, they are flesh and blood, they in their own country have had fathers and mothers. Duringmy lengthened stay on the coast of Africa I never questioned a slave about his or her own country that I did not find they much preferred their own country far away in the interior to their new home. Some have told me that they had been travelling upwards of two months and had been handed from one slave dealer to another, in some cases changing their owner three or four times before reaching the coast. On questioning them how they became slaves, I have only been told by one that her father sold her because he was in debt; several times I have been told that their elder brothers have sold them, but these cases would not represent one per cent. of the slaves I have questioned; the almost general reply I have received has been that they had been stolen when they had gone to fetch water from the river or the spring, as the case might be, or while they have been straying a little in the bush paths between their village and another. Sometimes they would describe how the slave-catchers had enticed them into the bush by showing them some gaudy piece of cloth or offered them a few beads or negro bells, others had been captured in some raid by one town or village on another.
Therefore domestic slavery in its effect on the interior tribes is doing very near the same amount of harm now that it did in days gone by. It keeps up a constant fear of strangers, and causes terrible feuds between the villages in the interior.
What is the use of all the missionaries’ teaching to the young girl slaves so long as they are only chattels, and are forced to do the bidding of their masters or mistresses, however degrading or filthy that bidding may be?
The Ju-Juism of Brass is a sturdy plant, that takes a great deal of uprooting. A few years ago a casual observerwould have been inclined to say the missionaries are making giant strides amongst these people. I remember, as evidence of how keenly these people seemed to take to Christianity up to a certain point, a little anecdote that the late Bishop Crowther once told me about the Brass men. I think it must have been a very few years before his death. I saw the worthy bishop staggering along my wharf with an old rice bag full of some heavy articles. On arriving on my verandah he threw the bag down, and after passing the usual compliments, he said, “You can’t guess what I have got in that bag.” I replied I was only good at guessing the contents of a bag when the bag was opened; but judging from the weight and the peculiar lumpy look of the outside of the bag, I should be inclined to guess yams. “Had he brought me a present of yams?” I continued. “No,” he replied; “the contents of that bag are my new church seats in the town of Nimbé; the church was only finished during the week, and I decided to hold a service in it on Sunday last; and, do you believe me, those logs of wood are a sample of all we had for seats for most part of the congregation! I have therefore brought them down to show you white gentlemen our poverty, and to beg some planks to make forms for the church.” I promised to assist him, and he left, carefully walking off with his bag of fire-wood, for that was all it was, cut in lengths of about fifteen inches, and about four inches in diameter. Here ends my anecdote, so far as the bishop was concerned, for he never came back to claim the fulfilment of my promise; but later on one of my clerks reported to me that there had been a great run on inch planks during the week, and that the purchasers were mostly women, and the poorest natives in the place. This fact, coupled with thefact that the bishop never came back for the planks he had begged of me, caused me to make some inquiries, and I found that the church had been plentifully supplied with benches by the poorer portion of the congregation.
Yet how many of these earnest people could one guarantee to have completely cast out all their belief in Ju-Juism? If I were put upon my oath to answer truthfully according to my own individual belief, I am afraid my answer would benot one.
What an awful injustice the missionary preaches in the estimation of the average native woman, when he advises the native of West Africa to put away all his wives but one. Supposing, for instance, it is the case of a big chief with a moderate number of wives, say only twenty or thirty, he may have had children by all of them, or he may have had children by a half dozen of them,—what is to become of those wives he discards? are they to be condemned to single blessedness for the remainder of their days? Native custom or etiquette would not allow these women to marry the other men in the chief’s house; they can’t marry into other houses, because they would find the same condition of things there as in their own husband’s house, always supposing Christianity was becoming general. These difficulties in the way of the missionary are the Ju-Ju priests’ levers, which they know well how to use against Christianity, and which accounts for the frequent slide back to Ju-Juism, and in some cases cannibalism of otherwise apparently semi-civilized Africans.
The Pagan portion of the inhabitants of the Brass district have still their old belief in the Ju-Ju priests and animal worship.
The python is the Brass natives’ titular guardian angel. So great was the veneration of this Ju-Ju snake in former times, that the native kings would sign no treaties with her Britannic Majesty’s Government that did not include a clause subjecting any European to a heavy fine for killing or molesting in any way this hideous reptile. When one appeared in any European’s compound, the latter was bound to send for the nearest Ju-Ju priest to come and remove it, for which service the priest expected a dash,id est, a present; if he did not get it, the chances were the priest would take good care to see that that European found more pythons visited him than his neighbours; and as a rule these snakes were not found until they had made a good meal of one of the white man’s goats or turkeys, it came cheaper in the long run to make the usual present.
It is now some twenty years ago that the then agent of Messrs. Hatton and Cookson in Brass River found a large python in his house, and killed it. This coming to the ears of the natives and the Ju-Ju priests, caused no little excitement; the latter saw their opportunity, worked up the people to a state of frenzy, and eventually led them in an attack on the factory of Messrs. Hatton and Cookson, seized the agent and dragged him out of his house on to the beach, tied him up by his thumbs, each Ju-Ju priest present spat in his mouth, afterwards they stripped him naked and otherwise ill treated him, besides breaking into his store and robbing him of twenty pounds worth of goods. The British Consul was appealed to for redress, and upon his next visit to the river inquired into the case, but,mirabile dictu, decided that he was unable to afford the agent any redress, as he had brought the punishment on himself. I don’t mention the name of this Consul, asit would be a pity to hand down to posterity the fact that England was ever represented by such an idiot.
Besides the python the Brass men had several other secondary Ju-Jus; amongst others may be mentioned the grey and white kingfisher, also another small bird like a water-wagtail, besides which, in common with their neighbours, they believed in a spirit of the water who was supposed to dwell down by the Bar, and to which they occasionally made offerings in the shape of a young slave-girl of the lightest complexion they could buy.
The burial customs of this people differed little from others in the Niger Delta, but as I was present at the burial of two of their kings—viz. King Keya and King Arishima, at which I saw identically the same ceremonial take place, I will describe what I saw as far as my memory will serve me, for the last of these took place about thirty years ago.
The grave in this instance was not dug in a house, but on a piece of open ground close to the king’s house, but was afterwards roofed over and joined on to the king’s houses. The size of the grave was about fourteen by twelve feet, and about eight feet deep. At the end where the defunct’s head would be, was a small table with a cloth laid over it, upon this were several bottles of different liquors, a large piece of cooked salt beef and sundry other cooked meats, ship’s biscuits, &c. The ceiling of this chamber was supported by stout beams being laid across the opening, upon which would be placed planks after the body had been lowered into position, then the whole would be covered over with a part of the clay that had been taken out of the hole, the rest of the clay being afterwards used to form the walls of the house, that was eventually constructed overthe grave; a small round hole about three inches in diameter being made in the ceiling of the grave, apparently about over the place where the head of the corpse would lay. Down this would be poured palm wine and spirits on theanniversariesof the king’s death, by his successor and by the Ju-Ju priests. This part of the ceremony would be called “making his father,” if it was a son who succeeded; if it was not a son, he would describe it as “making his big father”; though he was perhaps no blood relation at all.
Previous to the burial the body of the king lay in state for two days in a small hut scarcely five feet high, with very open trellis work sides. I believe they would have kept the body unburied longer if they could have done so, but at the end of the second day his Highness commenced to be very objectionable. The king’s body was dressed for this ceremony in his most expensive robes, having round the neck several necklaces of valuable coral, to which his chiefs would add a string more or less valuable according to their means, as they arrived for the final ceremony. The Europeans were expected to contribute something towards the funeral expenses, which contribution generally consisted of a cask of beef, a barrel of rum, a hundredweight of ship’s biscuits, and from twenty to thirty pieces of cloth. Even in this there was a certain amount of rivalry shown by the Europeans, to their loss and the natives’ gain. One knowing trader amongst them on this occasion had just received a consignment of imitation coral, an article at that time quite unknown in the river, either to European trader or to natives; so he decided to place one of these strings of imitation coral round the king’s neck himself, and thus create a great sensation, for had it been real coral its value would have been one hundred pounds. He had,however, not counted on the king’s very objectionable state, and when he proceeded to place his offering round the king’s neck, he nearly came to grief, and did not seem quite himself until he had had a good stiff glass of brandy and water. The news spread like wildfire of this man’s munificence, and soon the principal chiefs waited upon him to thank him for his present to their dead king; the other Europeans were green with jealousy, though each had in his turn tried to outdo his neighbour; unfortunately, there was a Scotchman there “takin’ notes,” and faith he guessed a ruse, but he was a good fellow and friend of the donor, and kept the secret for some years, and did not tell the tale until it could do his friend no harm.
The cannons had been going off at intervals for the last two days. Towards ten o’clock of the second night after death the king was placed in a very open-work wicker casket, and carried shoulder high round the town, and then finally deposited in his grave. During this time the cannons were being continually fired off, and individuals were assisting in the din by firing off the ordinary trade gun. I and another European concealed ourselves near the grave, and carefully watched all night to see if they sacrificed any slaves on the king’s grave, or put any poor creatures down into the grave to die a lingering death; but we saw nothing of this done, though we had been informed that no king or chief of Brass was ever buried without some of his slaves being sent with him into the next world; as our informant explained, how would they know he had been a big man in this life if he did not go accompanied by some of his niggers into the next?
The firing of cannon is kept up at intervals for an indefinite number of days after the final interment; but thereis no hard and fast rule as to its duration as far as I have been able to ascertain, and I think myself it is ruled by the greater or less liberality of the successors, who are the ones who have to pay for the gunpowder.
Amongst other customs that are common to all these rivers and this river is the killing of twin children; but since the mission has been established here the missionaries have done their utmost to wean the people from this remnant of savagery.
A curious custom that I have heard of in most of these rivers is the throwing into the bush, to be devoured by the wild beasts, any children that may be born with their front teeth cut. I found this custom in Brass, but with an exception,id est, I knew a pilot in Twon Town who had had the misfortune to be born with his upper front teeth through; whether it was because it was only the upper teeth that were through, or whether it was that the law is not so strictly carried out in the case of a male, I was never able to make sure of; however, he had been allowed to live, but it appears in his case some part of the law had to be carried out at his death, viz. he was not allowed to be buried, but was thrown into the bush, to fall a prey to the wild beasts, and any property he might die possessed of could not be inherited by any one, but must be dissipated or thrown into the bush to rot. I believe the Venerable Archdeacon Crowther has been instrumental in saving several of these kind of children in Bonny.
The women of Brass are, like their sisters in Benin river, moving on towards women’s rights; for though they have been for many generations the hewers of wood and drawers of water, and made to do most of the hard work of the country, they had commenced some years ago to enjoymore freedom than their sisters in the leeward rivers. They still do most of the fishing, and the fishing girls of Twon Town used to present a pretty sight as some fifteen or twenty of their tiny canoes used to sweep past the European factories, each canoe propelled by two or three graceful, laughing, chattering girls; with them would generally be seen a canoe or two paddled by some dames of a maturer age. Thoughpasséeas far as their looks were concerned, they could still ply their paddle as well as the best amongst the younger ones, as they forced their frail canoes through water to some favourite quiet blind creek where the currentless water allowed them to use their preparation[83]for stupefying the fish, and in little over three hours you might see them come paddling back, each tiny canoe with from fifty to a hundred small grey mullet, sometimes with more and occasionally with a few small river soles.
The Brass man, like his neighbours, had his public Ju-Ju house as well as his private little Ju-Ju chamber, the latter was to be found in any Brass man’s establishment which boasted of more than one room; those who could not afford a separate chamber used to devote a corner of their own room, where might be seen sundry odds and ends bespattered with some yellow clay, and occasionally a white fowl hung by the leg to remain there and die of starvation and drop gradually to pieces as it decomposed.
The public Ju-Ju house at Obulambri was not a very pretentious affair; it consisted of a native hut of wattle and daub, the walls not being carried more than half way up to the eaves, roofed with palm mats; in the centre was an ironstaff about five feet high, surrounded by eight bent spear heads; this was called a tokoi, at the foot of it was a hole about three inches in diameter, down which the Ju-Ju priests would pour libations of tombo or palm wine, as a sacrifice to the Ju-Ju. I was informed that this Ju-Ju house was built over the grave of the original founder of Obulambri town. Behind the tokoi, on a kind of altar raised about eighteen inches from the ground, were displayed about a dozen human skulls; at the time I visited it the Ju-Ju man explained to me that the greater part of these had belonged to New Calabar prisoners taken in their last war with those people; besides the skulls were sundry odds and ends of native pottery, as also a few bowls and jugs of European manufacture. What part this pottery played in their devotions I could never get a Ju-Ju man to explain, some of them appeared to have held human blood. Stacked up in one corner were a few human bones, principally thigh and shin bones.
The Brassmen do not often sacrifice human beings to their Ju-Jus, except in time of war, when all prisoners without exception were sacrificed.
Their Ju-Ju snake occasionally secured a small child by crawling unobserved into a house when the elders were absent or asleep. I once was passing through a small fishing village in the St. Nicholas river, when most of the inhabitants were away fishing, and hearing terrible screams went to see what was the cause of the trouble, and found several women wringing their hands and running to and fro in front of a small hut. For several minutes I could not get them to tell me what was the cause of their trouble; at last one of them trembling, with the most abject fear and quite unable to speak, pointed to the door of the hut. Iwent and looked in, but it was so dark I could see nothing at first, so stepped inside; when, getting accustomed to the semi-darkness, I saw a large python, some ten or twelve feet long, hanging from the ridge pole of the hut immediately over a child about two years old that was calmly sleeping. To snatch up the child and walk out was the work of a moment. I then found that the woman who had pointed to the door of the hut was the mother of the child—her gratitude to me for delivering her child from certain death can be more easily imagined than described. Upon asking why she had not acted as I had done, she replied she dare not have interfered with the snake in the way I had done. I afterwards asked several of the more intelligent natives of Brass if the Ju-Ju law did not allow a mother to save her child in such a case. Some said she was a fool woman, and that she could have taken her child away the moment she saw it in danger; but others said had she done so, she would have been liable to be killed herself or pay a heavy fine to the Ju-Ju priests; and I am inclined to believe the latter version to be correct.[84]
Amongst other curious customs these people make use of the feather ordeal, to find out robbery, witchcraft, and adultery, &c. In this ordeal it rests a great deal with the Ju-Ju man who performs it whether it proves the party guilty or not. This ordeal is performed as follows:—The Ju-Ju man takes a feather from the underpart of a fowl’s wing, making choice of a stronger or weaker one, accordingto how he intends the ordeal shall demonstrate, then, drawing the tongue of the accused as far out of his mouth as he can, forces the quill of the feather through from the upper side and draws it out by grasping the point of the feather from the under side of the tongue; if the feather is unbroken the accused person is proved guilty, if on the contrary the feather breaks in the attempt to pass it through the tongue it proves the innocence of the person. It may be seen from this description how very easy it was to prove a person innocent, the mere fact of the feather breaking in the attempt to push it through the tongue being sufficient; thus, when suitably approached, the Ju-Ju man could not only prove a person’s innocence, but also save him any inconvenience in eating his mess of foo foo and palaver sauce that evening.
The intervening rivers between the Brass and New Calabar Rivers are the St. Nicholas, the St. Barbara, the St. Bartholomew, and the Sombrero; the influence of the king of New Calabar may be said to commence at the St. Bartholomew River, extending inland to about five or ten miles beyond the town of Bugama. The lower parts of the St. Bartholomew and the numerous creeks, running between that river and New Calabar are mostly inhabited by fishermen and their families, their towns and villages being without exception the most squalid and dirty of any to be found in the Delta. Beyond fishing, the males seem to do little else than sleep; occasionally the men assist their wives and children in making palm-leaf mats, used generally all over the Delta in place of thatch—not a very profitable employment, as the demand varies considerablyaccording to the seasons. After a very rough and boisterous rainy season, the price may be two shillings and sixpence, or its equivalent, for four hundred of these mats, each mat being a little over two feet in length, but falling in bad times to two shillings and sixpence for five to six hundred. A roof made with these mats threefold thick will last for three years.
These people call themselves Calabar men simply because they live within the influence of the Calabarese. In the upper part of these small rivers, about a day’s journey by canoe from the mouth of St. Bartholomew, is the chief town of a small tribe of people called the Billa tribe, connected by marriage with the Bonny men, several of the kings of Bonny having married Billa women. These people are producers in a small way of palm-oil, and though they are located so close to the New Calabar people, prefer to sell their produce to the Bonny men, who send their canoes over to the Billa country to fetch the oil, the latter people not having canoes large enough for carrying the large puncheons which the Bonny men send over to collect their produce in.
The New Calabar men are now split up into three towns called Bugama, where the king lives; Abonema, of which Bob Manuel is the principal chief; and Backana, where the Barboy House reside. Besides they have numerous small towns scattered about in the network of creeks connecting the Calabar River with the Sombrero River. Previous to 1880 these people all dwelt together in one large town on the right bank of the Calabar River, nearly opposite to where the creek, now called the Cawthorne Channel,[85]branches off from the main river.
For some few years previous the chief of the Barboy House, Will Braid, had incurred the displeasure of the Amachree house, which was the king’s house. For certain private reasons the king, with whom sided most of theother chiefs, had decided to break down the Barboy house, which had been a very powerful house in days anterior to the present king’s father, and tradition says that the Barboys had some right to be the reigning house. Will Braid, the head of the house at this time, had by his industry and honourable conduct raised the position of the house to very near its former influence. This was one of the private reasons that caused the king to look on him with disfavour.
When one of these West African kinglets decides that one of their chiefs is getting too rich, and by that means too powerful, he calls his more immediate supporters together, and they discuss the means that are to be used to compass the doomed one’s fall. If he be a man of mettle, with many sub-chiefs and aspiring trade boys, the system resorted to is to trump up charges against him of breaches of agreement as to prices paid by him or his people in the Ibo markets for produce, and fine him heavily. If he pays without murmur, they leave him alone for a time; but very soon another case is brought against him either on the same lines or for some breach of native etiquette, such as sending his people into some market to trade where, perchance, he has been sending his people for years; but the king and his friendly chiefs dish up some old custom, long allowed to drop in abeyance, by which his house was debarred from trading in that particular market. The plea of long usance would avail him little; another fine would be imposed. This injustice would generally have the effect desired, the doomed one would refuse to pay, then down the king would come on him for disregarding the orders of himself and chiefs; fine would follow fine, until the man lost his head and did some rash act, which assisted his enemies to more certainlycompass his ruin. Or he does what I have seen a persecuted chief do in these rivers on more than one occasion: that is, he gathers all his wives and children about him, together with his most trusted followers and slaves, also any of his family who are willing to follow him into the next world, lays a double tier of kegs ofgunpowder on the floor ofthe principal room in his dwelling-house and knocks in the heads of the top tier of kegs. Placing all his people on this funeral pile, he seats himself in the middle with a fire-stick grasped in his hand, then sends a message to the king and chiefs to come and fetch the fines they have imposed on him. The king and chiefs generally shrewdly guessed what this message meant, and took good care not to get too near, stopping at a convenient distance to parley with him by means of messengers. The victim finding there was no chance of blowing up his enemies along with himself and people, would plunge the fire-stick into the nearest keg, and the next moment the air would be filled with the shattered remains of himself and his not unwilling companions.
Having digressed somewhat to explain how chiefs are undone, I must continue my account of the New Calabar people and the cause of their deserting their original town. This was brought about by Will Braid, on whom the squeezing operation had been some time at work. He turned at bay and defied the king and chiefs; this led to a civil war, in which he was getting the worst of the game, so one dark night he quietly slipped away with most of his retainers and took refuge in Bonny. This led to complications, for Bonny espoused the cause of W. Braid and declared war against New Calabar; thus in place of suppressing Will Braid they came near to being suppressed themselves, the Bonny men very pluckily establishing themselves opposite New Calabartown, where they threw up a sand battery, in which they placed several rifled cannon, and did considerable damage to the New Calabar town, from whence a feeble return fire was kept up for several days, during which time the Calabar men occupied themselves in placing their valuables and people in security, and eventually, unknown to the Bonny men, clearing out all their war canoes and fighting men through creeks at the back of their town to the almost inaccessible positions of Bugama and Abonema. The Bonny men continued the bombardment, but finding there was no reply from the town, despatched, during the night, some scouts to find out what was the position of things in the New Calabar town; on their return they reported the town deserted. The Bonny men lost no time in following the New Calabar men to their new position, but found Bugama inaccessible, so turned their attention to Abonema, which they very pluckily assaulted, but were repulsed with considerable loss, losing one of their best war canoes, in which was a fine rifled cannon; at the same time the Bonny chief, Waribo, who had most energetically led the assault, barely escaped with his life, as he was in the war canoe that had been sunk by the New Calabar men. This victory was very pluckily gained by Chief Bob Manuel and his people, who were greatly assisted in the defence of their position by having been supplied at an opportune moment with a mitrailleuse by one of the European traders in the New Calabar river. This defeat somewhat cooled the courage of the Bonny men; the war however continued to be carried on in a desultory manner for several months, until both sides were tired of the game, and at last all the questions in dispute between the king and chiefs of New Calabar and Will Braid, and the matters in dispute between the NewCalabar men and the Bonny men were by mutual agreement left to the arbitration of the king and chiefs of Okrika, and King Ja Ja and the chiefs of Opobo. The arbitrators met on board one of Her Majesty’s vessels in Bonny River in 1881, King Ja Ja being represented by Chief Cookey Gam and several other chiefs, the king and chiefs of Okrika being in full force. The result of the arbitration did not give complete satisfaction to any party, owing to the advice of Ja Ja on the affair not having been listened to in its entirety. However, W. Braid returned to New Calabar territory and founded a town of his own, assisted by his very faithful Chief Yellow of Young Town. Thus ended the last war between the old rivals Bonny and New Calabar. It is on record that these two countries had been scarcely ever at peace for any length of time since New Calabar was first founded some two hundred and fifty years ago, when, tradition says, one of the Ephraim Duke family left Old Calabar and settled at the spot from whence they retired in 1880.
Old traders I met with in the early sixties informed me that during one of these wars, between the years 1820 and 1830, the king Pepple, then reigning in Bonny succeeded in capturing the king of Calabar of that time (the grandfather of the last king Amachree), and to celebrate his victory and royal capture, made a great feast to which he invited all the European slave traders then in his country. The feast was a right royal one, the king had a special dish prepared for himself which was nothing less than the heart of his royal captive, torn from his scarcely lifeless body.
The New Calabar people, though said to be descended from the Old Calabar race, have not retained any of the characteristics of the latter, neither in their language nordress, nor have they retained the elaborate form of secret society or native freemasonry peculiar to the Efik[86]race called Egbo.
Their religion is the same animistic form of Ju-Juism and belief in the oracle they call Long Ju-Ju situated in the vicinity of Bende in the hinterland of Opobo, common to all the inhabitants of the Delta; besides the latter, they are believers in the power of a Ju-Ju in some mystic grove in the Oru country. The peculiar test at this latter place is said to have been established by some ancient dame having uttered some fearful curse or wish at the spot where the ordeal is administered. The descriptions of this are rather vague, as no one who has undergone it has ever been known to return, that is, if he has really seen the oracle work, for if it works it is a sign of his guilt and drowns him; if he is innocent it does not work, so on his return he is not in a position to describe it. But the proprietors of this interesting Ju-Ju have for very many years found that a nigger fetches a better price alive than when turned into butcher’s meat; they have therefore been in the habit of selling the guilty victim into slavery in as far distant a country as possible; but occasionally one of these men have drifted down to the coast again, but dare not return to his own country as no one would believe he was anything else but a spirit. One of these “spirits” I had the pleasure to interview on one occasion, and he told me that the only ones who were actually drowned were the old or unsaleable men; when two men went to this Ju-Ju or ordeal well, to decide some vital question between them, the party takingbest would want to see his dead or drowned opponent; for this purpose the Ju-Ju priests always kept a few of the old and decrepit votaries on hand to be drowned as required, but the opponent was never allowed to stand by and see the oracle work, but was taken up to the well and allowed to see a dead body lying at the bottom, and after he had glanced in and satisfied himself there was a drowned person there, he would be hurried away by the Ju-Ju priests and their assistants. That these priests had the supernatural power to make the water rise up in the well, this “spirit” thoroughly believed, and when I offered the suggestion of an underground water supply brought from some higher elevation, he scouted the idea and gave me his private opinion thus: “White man he no be fit savey all dem debly ting Ju-Ju priest fit to do; he fit to change man him face so him own mudder no fit savey him; he fit make dem tree he live for water side, bob him head down and drink water all same man; he fit make himself alsame bird and fly away; you fit to look him lib for one place and you keep you eye for him, he gone, you no fit see him when he go.”
Which little speech turned into ordinary English meant to say that white people could not understand the devilish tricks the Ju-Ju priests were able to do, they could so disguise a person that his own mother would not recognise him, this without the assistance of any make-up but simply from their devilish science; that they could cause a tree on the banks of a river to bend its stem and imbibe water through its topmost branches; that they could change themselves into birds and fly away; and lastly, that they could make themselves invisible before your eyes and so suddenly that you could not tell when they had done so.
I asked him why the Ju-Ju man had not altered him, so that when he sold him it would be impossible for any one who had known him in his own country ever to recognise him if they saw him in another. His reply was: “Ju-Ju man savey them man what believe in Ju-Ju no will believe me dem time I go tell dem I be dem Osūkū of Young Town come back from Long Ju-Ju. He savey all man go run away from me in my own country.” “Well,” I said, “how about the people amongst whom you now are? they believe in very nearly the same Ju-Jus that your own people do, what do they say about you?” “Oh! they say I be silly fellow and no savey I done die one time, and been born again in some other country.” I then asked him how they accounted for his knowing about the people who were still alive in his own country and to be able to talk about matters which had taken place there within the previous five or six years. Then I got the word the inquirer in this part of the world generally gets when he wishes to dive into the inner circles of native occultism, viz., “Anemia,” which means “I don’t know.”
The chiefs in New Calabar in the days of the last king’s father were an extremely fine body of men, both physically and commercially; the latter quality they owed to the strong hand the king kept over them, and the excellent law he inaugurated when he became the king with regard to trade, viz., that no New Calabar chief or other native was allowed to take any goods on credit from the Europeans. His power was absolute, and considering that he inherited his father’s place at a time when the country was in the throes of war with Bonny—his father being the king captured by the king of Bonnymentioned previously—the success of his rule was wonderful, for he pulled his country together and carried on the war with such ability that Bonny ultimately was glad to come to terms; a peace was agreed upon which lasted many years, until the old king of Bonny died, and his son wishing to emulate his father re-opened hostilities, but with such ill-success and loss to his country that it eventually led to his being deposed and exiled from his country for some years.
The New Calabar people are and have been always great believers in Ju-Juism, the head Ju-Ju priest being styled the Ju-Ju king and ranking higher than the king in any matters relating to purely native affairs.
The shark is their principal animal deity, to which they were in the habit of sacrificing a light-coloured child every seven years. This used to be openly and ostentatiously performed by a procession of a half-dozen large canoes being formed up at the town of New Calabar, each canoe being manned by forty to fifty paddlers; in the midships of each canoe a deck some ten feet long would be placed on which the Ju-Ju priests and a number of the younger chiefs and the grown-up sons of the chief men would huddle together and keep up a continuous howling and dancing, accompanied with the waving of their hands and handkerchiefs, until they arrived down near the mouth of the river. When the water began to be so rough that the singers and dancers could not keep their feet, it was a sign the offering must be cast into the sea; the Ju-Ju men and their assistants all supplicating their friend the shark to intercede with the Spirit of the Water to keep open the entrance to their river and cause plenty of ships to come to their river to trade.
Their Ju-Ju house in their original town was a much larger and more pretentious edifice than that of Bonny, garnished with human and goats’ skulls in a somewhat similar manner, unlike the Bonny Ju-Ju house in the fact that it was roofed over, the eaves of which were brought down almost to the ground, thus excluding the light and prying eyes at the same time; at either side of the main entrance, extending some few feet from the eaves, was a miscellaneous collection of iron three-legged pots, various plates, bowls and dishes of Staffordshire make, all of which had some flower pattern on them, hence were Ju-Ju and not available for use or trade—the old-fashioned lustre jug, being also Ju-Ju, was only to be seen in the Ju-Ju house, though a great favourite in Bonny and Brass as a trade article—at this time all printed goods or cloth with a flower or leaf pattern on them were Ju-Ju. Any goods of these kinds falling into the hands of a true believer had to be presented to the Ju-Ju house. As traders took good care not to import any such goods, people often wondered where all these things came from. Had they arrived shortly after a vessel bound to some other port had had the misfortune to be wrecked off New Calabar, they would have solved the problem at once, for anything picked up from a wreck which is Ju-Ju has to be carried off at once to the Ju-Ju house. I remember on one occasion visiting this Ju-Ju house just after a large ship called theClan Gregorbound into Bonny had been wrecked off New Calabar, and found the Ju-Ju house decked both inside and out with yards of coloured cottons from roof to floor; but the Ju-Ju priests did not get all their rights, for some tricky natives on salving a bale of goods would carefully slit the bale just sufficientlyto see what were the goods inside, and should they be Ju-Ju would not open them, but take them to their particular friend amongst the European traders, and get him to send them away to some other river for sale on joint account.
Every eighth day is called Calabar Sunday, the day following being formerly the market day or principal receiving day for the white traders of the native produce, which consisted principally, and still does, of palm oil. The native Sunday was passed in olden days by the chief in receiving visits from the white men and jamming[87]with them for any produce he had the intention of selling the following day, or clearing up any little Ju-Ju matters that he had been putting off for the want of a slack day, not because it was his Sunday, but because that was a day on which by custom he could not visit the ships. I remember it was on paying a visit to old King Amachree, the father of the late king of the same name, I saw for the first time a native sacrifice. I was then little more than a boy as a matter of fact, I was under seventeen years of age, but filling a man’s place in New Calabar who had been invalided home. The old king had taken me under his special protection and gave me much good advice and counsel, which was of great use to me in my novel position. My employers ought to have been very thankful to him, for though I was the youngest trader in the river by some twelve years, I held my own with them and got a larger share of the produce of the river than my predecessor had done, all owing to the old brick of a king, who would come and see how I was doing on the big trade days, and if he thought I was not doing as well as my neighbours he wouldsend off a message to a small creek close to the shipping, where the natives used to wait with their oil until it was jammed for,id est, agreed for, and order three or four canoes of oil to be sent off to me, though I had not seen its owner to agree with him as to what he was to get for it. I held this appointment for a little over six months, when, my senior having returned, I had to go back to my duties in Bonny under the chief agent of the firm, a Captain Peter Thompson, one of the kindest-hearted skippers that ever entered Bonny river. In those days we all had some nickname that we were known by amongst the natives, and another amongst the white men. Amongst the former he was called Calla Thompson, because he was short, in contradistinction to another Thompson who was tall, called Opo Thompson; but his name amongst the white men was Panter Thompson, owing to his inability to pronounce the “th” in panther during a discussion as to whether we had tigers or only panthers on the West Coast of Africa. Poor Panter, after a most successful voyage of a little over two years, was preparing to return home, and had only a few more weeks to remain in Bonny, when in stepping into his boat his foot slipped and he fell into the river at a point known to be infested with sharks. A brother skipper jumped into the boat, and actually clutched him by his cap at the same moment poor Panter said “I am gone, Ned!” no doubt feeling himself being drawn down by some hungry shark.