WEIRD RITES OF AN AFRICAN SWAMP

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 477, 14 July 1914, Page 2

WEIRD RITES OF AN AFRICAN SWAMP

A land where etones- are so rare that 1 they are regarded with awe and veneration ' was recently described by Mr P. Amaury 1 Talbot to the Royal Geographical Society of England m a, 'paper on the Eket distinct of Southern Nigeria—" the Land of i the Ibibios." Hardly a stone is to be i found throughout the whole region, which >. has been built up almost entirely from ■ alluvial deposits brought down 'by the Kwa Ibo '.and' Cross Rivers, and held back by the mangroves. Such stones and rocks as the natives come across are therefore looked upon' as something uncanny and therefore " Juju." The influence- of this . environment of water and mangrove swamp i can be clearly traced m the character and . beliefs of the race said the speaker, for all the most powerful Ju jus of the region i are connected with the sea and the, rivers, i He described picturesquely the Kwa Ibo estuary, where the perfect sand is strewn with gleamine shells and fragments of coral. Near by are masses of beautiful flowers. ' — Praying to the '■ Sea-goddess. — Hither, at low tide, come Eket and Ex Ibe.no maids, and, casting off their robes, kneel on the edge of the foam to pray to the sea-goddess — Uman Ibeno — to send them husbands. Men, too, do not despise the aid of ihis West African aphrodite, but come to plead, with arras? outstretched, her help m unexpected difficulty or danger! To all those who seek hei- aid the goddess ordains a sacrifice of white cocks and hens, varying m number , according to the ricries of the petitioner — " for white are the chicks of Uman Ibeno, and the foam which fringes her malachite waves is as a flight of snowy birds over green bush." The worship of nature forces played a prominent part m Ibeno religion, said Mr Talbot, and among these the spirits of vegetation were held m special reverence. The Mission Church now- stands on the site of the sacred grove of Ainyena m a clearing where the bones and skulls were discovered of many victims who had beeii bound to tree -trunks and left to be devoured by leopards and other fierce jungle ' folk. This grove was formerly thought so sacred* that a cruel death was the. doom of any woman who should dare to set foot within its ill-omened shades. The pythons are 'thought to be tenanted by the spirits of wicked men, said the speaker. Indeed, among all Ibibios the belief ih metamor- * pilosis is very strong, and strange • coincidences are always happening to confirm _ them m such ideas. Many women say that ' their souls go forth and enter the great fish m the rivers, and so firmly is' this belief m fish "affinities" held among Eket women that, when other Ibibios have had ' a specially good catch, tho former often weep and cry out, " You have slain .our • kin!" ' '