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PUBLIC LIBRARY
FORT WAYNE AND ALLEN COUNTY, IND.
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THE IBO OF BIAFRA
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE APACHE INDIANS

Raiders of the Southwest
THE ASHANTI OF GHANA

THE AZTEC
Indians of Mexico
THE CHEROKEE
Indians of the Mountains
THE CHIPPEWA INDIANS

Rice Gatherers of the Great Lakes
THE CROW INDIANS

Hunters of the Northern Plains
THE DELAWARE INDIANS

Eastern Fishermen and Farmers
THE ESKIMO
Arctic Hunters and Trappers
HORSEMEN OF THE WESTERN PLATEAUS

The Nez Perce Indians
THE INCA
Indians of the Andes
INDIANS OF THE LONGHOUSE

The Story of the Iroquois
THE MASAI
Herders of East Africa
THE MAYA
Indians of Central America
THE MISSION INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA

THE NAVAJO
Herders, Weavers, and Silversmiths
THE PUEBLO INDIANS

Farmers of the Rio Grande
THE PYGMIES
Africans of the Congo Forest
THE SEA HUNTERS

Indians of the Northwest Coast
THE SEMINOLE INDIANS

THE SIOUX INDIANS
Hunters and Warriors of the Plains
THE TUAREG
Nomads and Warriors of the Sahara
THE IBO
OF BIAFRA
SOMA BLEEKER
ILLUSTRATED BY EDITH G. SINGER
WILLIAM MORROW AND COMPANY

NEW YORK
Copyrig-ht © 1969 by Sonia Bleeker
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may
be reproduced or utilized in any form or
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cording or by any information storag-e and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the Publisher. Inquiries should be ad-
dressed to William Morrow and Company, Inc., 105 Madison Ave.,
New York, N.Y. 100 16.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-76981

1509348
CONTENTS
I THE PEOPLE I I
2 GROWING UP 29
3 THE MARKETPLACE 57
4 AT HOME 85
5 RELIGION AND THE ARTS 1 1
6 THE DANCE OF THE TIMES 133

INDEX 153
THE IBO OF BIAFRA
1
CHAPTER 1
THE PEOPLE
The Ibo are a numerous group of West Afri-

cans living in their original homelands. Their
estimated population is between seven and eight

million people. Ibo is pronounced Ee-boh, al-
though the Ibo themselves add a slight g sound

to their name and pronounce it Eeg-boh. The
hundreds of Ibo villages and homesteads and
1
12 THE IBO OF BIAFRA
some two dozen large towns are located in
southeastern Nigeria, along the Niger River
on the west and the Cross River on the east.
Iboland stretches over the hot swampy delta
region of the Niger River on the Gulf of
Guinea. It includes the swamps of Ikwerreland,

the rain forest to the north, and still farther
north almost to the town of Ogoja, the dry-
upland grasslands. The rivers of Iboland, in

addition to the Niger and the Cross, are the
Imo, Oji, and Qua.

The Ibc began as yam (a kind of large,
long potato) farmers and oil-palm cultivators,

and their estimated 200 subtribes grew into
millions of people, becoming one of the densest
populations in Africa. In the old days, between

annual yam harvests, the Ibo knew hunger and
need. But after they learned to grow other
crops, to supplement their farm income with
trade, and began to migrate north, they became
quite successful.
lOO MILES
Gulf of Guinea O
THE PEOPLE 15
We have learned about the Ibo from Euro-

pean and American scholars who lived among
them in their villages and towns and studied
their ways, their religion, their art and music.
Also their own educated men and women have
written some excellent books and stories about
themselves. These writers and reporters tell us
about their ancient ways as well as about Ibo

life today.
Since the British began to trade with the
Ibo some 300 years ago, these schooled Ibo

have learned to write excellent English — as
well and often better than some Europeans and
Americans whose native language is English.
Because the Ibo language is more flowery than

English and filled with a thousand proverbs,
these writers have enriched their English with
colorful expressions. Sometimes the wording

seems quaint to the outsider. But it is so taste-
fully put and so full of African as well as Ibo
wisdom and vitality, we find ourselves repeat-

6 —
1 THE IBO OF BIAFRA
ing with pleasure —and oftentimes with envy

— the sayings the Ibo live by.
Ibo writers say their people are generous,

hospitable, easy to know, not too proud and yet
not humble. As with any population that num-
bers into the millions, there are variations in
customs and beliefs, in personal characteristics

and behavior. The Ibo writers, of course, refer
to the majority and the major characteristics

of their countrymen. They further say that no
Ibo likes to depend on another. Everyone in

Iboland works —men, women, and children
whether rich or poor. Each has his task and

jobs to do and does them cheerfully. An Ibo
would rather die than be idle. There are no
beggars in Iboland. An Ibo likes to give rather

than take. And no Ibo, neither a man nor a
woman, will embarrass anyone by asking for
help. An Ibo man or woman will readily fight
for justice, whether for himself or for others.
A common belief among non-Ibo tribes is that

THE PEOPLE 17
two men are needed to restrain an Ibo when he

knows he is right. Furthermore, an Ibo will
always talk back, if he feels he is not being
treated with justice.
The Ibo describe their legendary heroes as

"tall and straight as a tree and a skin shining
like the sun.'' They describe themselves as hav-
ing a chocolate brown complexion. Strong and
well built, they are a trifle shorter and stouter
than their neighbors to the north, the Fulani

and Hausa. An Ibo, whether adult or child, al-
ways looks at the person he is talking to di-
rectly, without self-consciousness, and does not

mind if the person, in turn, stares at him.
The dress of the Ibo is simple, since their
country is hot. The men wear the equivalent of

a breechcloth when working. Some put on little
skullcaps; others have no headgear at all. A

man likes to carry a machete a long knife —
when he leaves the compound. It is a useful
tool for clearing brush as well as a weapon. To
8
1 THE IBO OF BIAFRA
dress up, a man changes into a colorful blue or

yellow cloth, which covers him from his hips
to his knees. Blue seems a favorite color. He

also puts on a cape, which may be of coarse,
homespun, white cotton or a colorfully designed
imported cotton. This cape is worn long, like a
Roman toga. It is passed under the right arm-
pit and the two upper ends are thrown or tied
over the left shoulder. This arrangement leaves

the right arm free to handle the machete, when
necessary, or a staff.
On the left shoulder a man carries an art-
fully made goatskin bag. The fur is on the out-
side, and the legs and head are sewed so as to
look as though the man is carrying a live, al-
though somewhat limp, goat. The bag lasts a
lifetime, and some Ibo can be recognized by the

one they carry. It usually contains a man's to-
bacco box or snuffbox, a small knife, his drink-

ing horn, and other personal items, depending
THE PEOPLE 19
on the man's role in the village. In the past, it
also held the strings of cowrie shells that were

used as money. A medicine man's goatskin is
stuffed with paraphernalia he needs for his

work in curing illness.
Instead of a machete, an elder carries a cane,
both for support and also as a weapon, if need

be. On important missions, an elder is usually
accompanied by a son, who carries a machete,
and by another small son or son's son, who car-
ries his old father's (grandfather's) stool. For

night meetings, however, the elder carries a
roUed-up goatskin. When he needs a mat to sit
on, he unrolls it. An important man's cap, or
ozc, is usually red. If the man is titled, the
leather band on the cap holds an eagle feather
in place.
The younger people dress more informally,

but even they wear the toga when the occasion
calls for it. Little boys go about naked for the

first few years of life or put on a simple loose
shirt, as do little girls. As they get older, boys
wear breechcloths or shorts.
A man may wear sandals, but in the villages
he goes about barefoot. When a man comes in
from the street, he usually washes his feet,
especially if it has rained and the paths and
village square are muddy. The red African

soil cakes like mud the world over and is best
washed off while it is still wet.
Ibo women wear a blouse and a wraparound

length of cloth that covers them from the
shoulders to their ankles. In the old days they
wore only a short apron front and back. Blue

is their favorite color, and they like jewelry.
A woman's numerous bracelets prove that her
husband is rich and that he is generous. Some-

times women are accused of marketing their
children's food to buy cowrie shells and ivory

and shiny metal bracelets for their legs and
arms. In this way they make themselves more
THE PEOPLE 21
attractive to their husband. At one time in the
past women covered their legs with metal rings

from ankle to knee, so that they could barely
walk.
The main food of the Ibo is the yam, which
must have been introduced to Iboland from the

Guinea coast, where it first was grown. Called
the Guinea yam, it is the pride of the Ibo. They
say "it is the tastiest tuber in the world.'' They
eat it with every important meal, mostly
mashed or in the form they call foo-foo. To
make foo-foo, the yam is mashed, rolled into
balls, and cooked. The hot balls are dipped into
palm oil spiced with peppers and popped into
the mouth.
Yams are planted by the men from February

to May. Men and their sons prepare mounds in
the fields into which they place the seed yams.

Planting time usually follows a rain. After the
yams are planted, men hope for more rain to
keep the yams growing. Weeding is done by

Wives, daughters, and young sons. A man does

little work in the fields after the clearing and
planting.
The Ibo say that no one in the world raises

more yams than they do. After the harvest, the
yams are stored in special houses on the out-
skirts of the villages, and each compound tries
to make a yam harvest last them from one year

to another, with enough left over for trading
and planting.
The oil palm, another important product to
the Ibo, also came from the Guinea coast.
Other staple food plants, such as the cocoyam

(taro), which has starchy roots and grows the
year round in the tropics, originated in East
Asia. American plants, including sweet pota-
toes, tomatoes, okra, pumpkins and squash,

pineapples, peppers, maize (corn), and cassava
(manioc), reached Iboland by way of Ameri-

can slave traders. Cassava and cocoyams are
next in importance to yams in the Ibo diet.
THE PEOPLE 23
In addition, the Ibo grow tropical fruits:

mangoes, oranges, peaches, bananas, and plan-
tains (a more mealy banana). They raise palm
nuts, kola nuts, coconuts, and peanuts, which
the Ibo call ground nuts. There is game in
the rain forest: leopard, antelope, duiker (a
dwarfed antelope), buffalo, and monkey. The

Ibo consider rodents wild game too, and hunt
and eat them. However, hunting is not an im-
portant Ibo occupation. They also fish in all
their rivers, using nets, basket traps, and spears.
All of an Ibo's livelihood in the old days
came from the land. The head of a household

had a number of wives, children, and slaves,
who worked the fields and palm groves. A son
inherited land from his father and from his
father's people. A daughter might inherit land

from her mother and her mother's people.
An Ibo's relatives are both his father's and

mother's kinsmen, or lineages. A father and
head of a household (or compound) always
gives a piece of land to his newly married son.
On this small piece of land the son is able, with

his wife's help, to raise enough yams for an
entire year —from one harvest to the next. The
father-in-law also gives his new daughter-in-
law a small piece of land on which she grows
crops other than yams. The young woman
works this field by herself at first and later with
her children's help. She is given, too, a small
THE PEOPLE 25
piece of land near the compound as her garden.

In addition, the daughter-in-law may have
inherited land from her mother and her moth-
er's lineage. After her marriage, her new hus-
band assumes charge of the parcels of land she
owns. If the wife's inherited land is too far
from her new home for her to walk there and

back daily, he tries to exchange the land for a
piece nearer home. Negotiations for all these
small land parcels can become very compli-
cated, since no written record is kept of their

ownership.
Farmland is precious and in great demand.
Since the Ibo have not used fertilizers exten-
sively, they have worked out their own method

of soil conservation. The farmlands are divided
into sections. On a rotating schedule, each sec-
tion is allowed to lie fallow for a time so the

soil's fertility can renew itself.
When a piece of land is not farmed by its
owners, they permit another family to use it,

since the need for food is always great. How-

ever, after a family has worked the fields so
generously loaned them, they begin to cherish

the land, the trees upon it, the ground they
cleared with so much labor, by hoeing and

burning the brush. They do not want to part
with it when the real owners come to claim it.
Thus a land dispute develops.
Disputes over land between individuals or

between neighboring villages is the most com-
mon cause of conflict among the Ibo, even
though their ideal in life is peace and harmony.

Men of the same lineage always side together
and fight their opponents. If a man of one line-
age hurts or kills someone from another lineage,

the victim's kinsmen must avenge him or his
spirit will haunt them forever. Men in the
victim's age-group arrive with their machetes
ready for a fight. No consideration is given as
to whether the offender is the father or the
head of a large family. Revenge must be car-

THE PEOPLE 27
ried out for the peace of their kinsman's spirit.
The offending side accepts this need for re-

venge, because it is traditional Ibo justice.
The war party gets under way quickly. How-

ever, the enemy's kinsmen, friends, and every
male in his age-group are ready and waiting.
To avoid a catastrophe, the elders in both vil-
lages work even faster. They arrange an offer
of conciliation to the victim's lineage. It may

consist of gifts and a special sacrifice of a cow
to the victim's spirit. If the victim's kinsmen
accept this offer, the fighting is averted.
Long after the matter of the land is settled
and peace returns to the villages, the incident
remains in the memories of the Ibo. It will be

referred to again, when similar situations arise,
and the peaceful settlement will be cited as an

example in future disputes among villages or
between compounds in the same village.
Violence, as a rule, settles nothing and merely
furnishes grounds for continuous feuding.

Therefore, the Ibo elders try to keep a firm hold

on their outspoken, independent and hot-
headed young men. Unfortunately, the young

men still sneak away to administer their own
swift type of justice. No Ibo shrinks from a
good fight.
CHAPTER 2
GROWING UP
In the densely settled Ibo compounds a child is
never alone for long. He is always within sight

of an older person or a young sibling. "Watch
the child" is Mother's command that always
rings in the sibling's ear. Since a man may have

from two to five or more wives^ the baby's
sibling may be a sister or brother, or a half sis-
29
ter or half brother. Among the Ibo, the terms

half sister and half brother are not used. A
youngster calls the children of another mother,
but of his own father, brother and sister. Fa-
ther's other wives are called Mother, too. An
older child also may call a stepmother by her
first name. Very often in these polygamous
(many wives) households a younger wife is the
same age as some of her older stepsons and step-
daughters, whom she calls sons and daughters.
A child's well being concerns everyone in the

compound. He is treated with kindness and con-
sideration. His parents, siblings, and kinsmen
are attentive and easygoing. They rarely insist
that a child obey them. "Let him learn in his
own time," is what they say. Toilet training,
which in our culture parents are anxious to
complete within the first years, the Ibo do not
worry about. They feel that a child will get
the proper habits when he is ready for them.

This informal and permissive treatment of
GROWING UP 31
children may be due to the Ibo's belief that

every child inherits at birth the spirit of an
ancestor or inherits several ancestral spirits.
Thus, an infant already has wîthin him the wis-

dom of those spirits and of his parents, which
he inherited at birth. Sometimes, however, a
spirit changes his mind and decides to leave the
child's body. Then the child dies.
The spirits are wayward and unpredictable.
An ancestor may have been the finest of men, a
kind husband and father. In his peaceful life-

time everyone held him in highest regard. He
acquired many honored titles. Yet after death
he may turn into the exact opposite. Perhaps
the spirit is angry, because his children and
kinsmen did not honor him properly after

death. Revenge then becomes entirely proper.
The spirit may turn into a tease, enjoying prac-

tical jokes. It may drink too much palm wine,
quarrel and fight. This changed spirit enters
into an infant and makes him a rebel. The child

cannot be blamed. The fault lies with the an-
cestral spirit's behavior, and so the child should

not be punished. In time, the child will out-
grow his rebellious ways as the ancestral spirit
mellows.
Ibo women are hard-working and strong, and
they begin to bear children when they are
young. Most of them are helped in childbirth
by a midwife, who is an older woman with
much experience in delivering babies. A mid-
wife sees the mother through her labor, and
the birth is usually successful. But after birth,
Ibo mothers expect to lose, on the average, one

out of every two or three babies they bear.
Babies are nursed beyond two and up to three

years. The mother avoids becoming pregnant
during this time for fear her milk will dry up

or undergo a change and sicken her child.
Hopefully, after the first year of life, the child
will live on. The joyful parents no longer fear
talking about him. Earlier in his infancy, they

GROWING UP 33
hesitated to answer queries about him, since
they were not sure that their child had come to

stay. Now they cheerfully reply, in Ibo fashion,
"He is well and hungry.''

As much as the Ibo parents want big fami-
lies, they are wary about the birth of twins.
Twin infants, in the past, were taken out to a
special place on the outskirts of the village and

left to die. These beliefs, however, have been
changing.
The father is kind to his children, but lets
the mother supervise them. A six-year-old boy
runs errands for his father and carries messages.
At eight, when a boy goes to live in a boys'
house, his father takes a greater interest in him

and watches him. The boy begins to help him
as well as his mother in the fields. A sickly boy
who prefers to stay with his mother is laughed

at and nicknamed "mother's tail." A boy must
show manliness, strength, and fearlessness to
become a true Ibo.

A boy is not thrown in among total strangers
when he carries his mat and few personal things

into the boys' house. At least one sibling almost
his own age^ and with whom he has played since
early childhood, also moves in with him, as
well as other relatives and playmates. Since the

Iboj like many other African people, do not
count age exactly, there may be differences of
several years among the group of boys sharing
a house. Still they are considered to be in the
same age-group, or age-mates.

Living together, sharing their growing
problems, learning the customs, playing games
and working together for the community ties
these youngsters into a group that lasts through-
out their lifetime. Most continue to live in the
same village, or homestead. There they bring

their wives and raise their children. The rela-
tionship, as it reaches old age, becomes even
closer, as old cronies watch members of their

age-set die, and fewer and fewer remain.
"
1509348
GROWING UP 35
Young boys learn the behavior expected

among how older
their age-set by watching
age-mates act toward each other. One Ibo

grandson has described vividly how Old Father
(his grandfather) received a crony calling upon
him. These two are the last of their age-set.
The old man enters, through the low door-
way, his right hand resting on his knee as he
bends low, his body forward.

Grandfather, seated on his mat, with his
back against the wall, says teasingly in a loud
voice, "Who is this man coming into my house?
I heard say he died two markets ago!'' He
laughs and continues, "Are you waiting for

mushrooms to sprout on your old head before
you know that your time is over.^
The guest, all out of breath, does not reply.
He unrolls the little goatskin rug that he car-
ries under his arm and sits down.

"And how are your people?" Grandfather
inquires.
"They are quiet/' the guest replies.
This reply is a customary one to such a ques-

tion. It is like our reply "Fine! '' to the question
"How are you.^^''
Both men burst into loud laughter and nearly

roll off their goatskins. Everyone in Grandfa-
ther's village and everyone in the neighboring
villages knows that the guest's compound is the
noisiest in Iboland. The women are forever
shouting to each other across the compound

square. The numerous children and grandchil-
dren are always underfoot playing, singing,

and, like their mothers, scrapping and shouting
among themselves.
When he stops laughing, the guest asks,

"And how are your people?"
"Nobody died," Grandfather replies tersely.
He is busy rummaging in his goatskin bag. At

last he pulls out a piece of chalk and hands it
over to his guest. The guest ceremonially draws
a few diagonal white lines on the floor and a

"
GROWING UP 37
ring around his big toe. These marks are the

guest's special ones. Everyone will know that
he has been here and that he has come in peace.
Had the visitor carried a palm frond, everyone
in the compound would be on the alert. A palm
frond is a challenge to a fight.
Grandfather, still chuckling, begins to bustle
about to entertain his guest. "Ajeke,'' he shouts

to his grandson. "Get a kola nut from your
mother.'' To share a kola nut with a visitor is
a ritual of Ibo hospitality. Without fail a visitor
who is welcome must be offered a kola nut.
The guest protests politely, as we do, "Don't

bother with kola nuts. I am not a stranger."
"I was not taught that kola nuts are for

strangers," Grandfather replies with pretended
severity. "You know our saying: he is a fool
who treats his brother worse than a stranger."

Then he adds in a quiet tone, no longer hiding
his affection for his guest, "Are you not my
brother.?
But being an Ibo, Grandfather cannot resist
another teasing remark. "But I know why you

are so polite and refuse to chew a kola nut with
me. People tell me you have lost all your teeth."
Again the cronies burst into laughter, the
guest displaying two rows of even, healthy

teeth. The grandson brings in the kola nut in a
special wooden bowl used for serving guests.
The guest, following Ibo custom, motions to
Grandfather to break the small nut. Grand-

father reaches for his knife and cracks the
kola nut into sections and looks up happily at

his friend. "This nut has six lobes. The spirits
must be hungry. It is long since I have had a

kola nut that had more than four lobes in my
hands."
Grandfather quickly tosses outdoors the two
extra lobes, as an offering to the spirits. The
grandson takes the bowl from Grandfather and,
bowing, offers it to the guest, who takes a sec-
GROWING UP 39
tion. Grandfather takes another. "May you

and your people live long. May we have what
we need to live well. May good come to our
land and to our neighbors/' Grandfather says
solemnly, as he pops the kola nut into his
mouth.
"So be it/' rejoins the guest, and begins to
chew.
"Just to live life is not enough/' Grand-
father says. "There is a kind of slow and weary

inactive life that is worse than death, and I do
not want it."
Grandfather points to the gourd with palm

wine that is hanging from the rafters. The
grandson takes it down, and the guest rum-
mages in his goatskin and takes out his drinking
horn. Ajeke is ready to pour.

"Don't give him too much," Grandfather
teases. "This man has inherited the stomachs
of all his ancestors. He can never have enough

to drink. Remember our proverb/' he warns

the guest, "the death that kills a man begins
with his appetite."
Again the cronies chuckle as they sip their
palm winCj and Ajeke refills the guest's drink-
ing horn.
Since children learn by imitation, they, too,
tease and joke with their age-group. They in-
vent nicknames —monkey, mad dog, anthill
nose — for each other. They make up teasing
songs about each other and play tricks on one
another. Sometimes this by-play leads to a fight
between two youngsters, but they soon make

peace and together tease a third person.
At home, a youngster treats his mother with
as much respect as he accords his father and the
head of the compound. Whatever food is given
him, he accepts with thanks. But an older son

likes to tease his mother. He has heard Father
grumble many times about the evening meal

GROWING UP 41
served hinij and he does the same, but with
humor and restraint.
"These must be old beans in my soup. Moth-

er. You said you had meat for me or was it
fish? But this fish has turned into old tough

beans, just like the ones you gave us yesterday."
All this time he is sipping busily from the bowl

and pushing the hunks of meat into his mouth
v/ith his fingers.
When Father complains about the food, the

wife usually explains matters quietly and hopes
not to anger her husband further or let any
co-wives hear and relish the argument. But

when the son complains, the busy mother may
remain silent while she finishes her cooking.
In her way, she likes this teasing and likes to
have her son happy.
Sometimes Mother teases her son in return.
She may say, without even turning in his direc-

tion, "Well, Son, you do not have to eat my
cooking. Get a wife to cook for you. You are
old enough. Pll be glad to help her learn to
cook, since I am the best cook in this compound.

Everyone knows that! But you are so lazy and
so ugly no one will marry you. Every father
will double the bride-wealth the moment your
father's people and his messengers come to speak
for you. Your father knows that. Ask him.''
Mother and the son now have a good laugh

together.
Playing in the fields or, as the Africans say,

in the bush, boys build with bamboo, mud, and
a few pieces of palm fronds a toy resthouse like
the men's in the village square. They carve
masks and figurines from pieces of wood and

coconut husks in imitation of the masks and
other sculpture done by their fathers. They
dance, wearing the masks, in imitation of the
dances they have seen at ceremonials and meet-

ings of secret societies. They make up their
own songs. Every boy learns to beat a drum.

«"-i' r-^- >,
f'/-
GROWING UP 45
They form secret societies and hold meetings as
they have watched their fathers do. A boy plays

elder and makes speeches. Like the elders, a boy
stands up to speak. "I salute you/' he begins,
and waits for the audience to shout back,
"Hem, hem.'^
As the boys reach the age of twelve to four-
teen they are initiated into manhood. This

initiation is not the painful circumcision cere-
mony of other African peoples. Instead, it is a
gay occasion. The circumcision is performed

when the boy is four to five years old. The
initiation ceremony includes wrestling matches.
The boy who shows great strength and fearless-
ness makes his parents very proud.
The favorite game of the Ibo is wrestling.
A champion wrestler is carried about the streets
on people's shoulders. Men and women rush up
to him with presents. Young girls wipe his face
and give him a drink of cool water. His proud

parents reward him with gifts too. Girls, too.
have wrestling bouts, but they are less strenuous

and are more in the nature of a ceremonial. Ibo
women are famous for their modesty and do not

wish to show greater skill than their opponent,
who is usually a girl friend.
When a girl reaches the age of thirteen or
fourteen, she too is given an initiation cere-

mony. In the past, she underwent a type of cir-
cumcision called clitoridectomy, but gradually

this practice has been abandoned.
As she grows up, a girl remains close to her
mother and the kitchen. She works in the fields
and tends her younger siblings. She goes to the
weekly market with her mother, knows her

kinswomen from other villages, and learns to
trade. She plays house with girls in the com-

pound, enjoys her toys and dances, and sings as
she has seen her mother do. By the time the
girl is fourteen or fifteen, she is a replica of her
mother. Her mother watches over her more
carefully now. Since a girPs reputation deter-

GROWING UP 47
mines how high a bride-wealth she is worth,

her mother advises her on proper behavior.
A girPs skills include making baskets and
weaving mats. After she has married, she also
turns to making cooking pots. She has watched

her mother and knows the technique. The best
potters are always older women, often widows.

Since there is always a ready market for the
very useful Ibo pots, many women like to know
this craft so they may earn extra money with
it. They save money, too, by making pots for
their own home use and for gifts to their sons'
wives.
Before marriage negotiations start, the
young man sees the girl at a market or at a
dance in the village. The girl sees him too, al-
though he does not suspect he is being watched.

If the pair like each other, the marriage
negotiations proceed. If they do not like each
other, they may object. Such objections always

are considered by the parents, and a girl is
never forced into a marriage she does not want,

or is a young man forced into a union with a
girl whom he does not like.
The groom's father and members of his
lineage then pay several visits to the bride's
parents. His father's middleman may make a

few more trips to the girl's parents to negotiate
the bride- wealth (or, as we often say, bride-

price) that the parents have asked for. Each
time the visitors bring small gifts and palm
wine with them. In turn, they are given kola
nuts, food and palm wine by the girl's parents
to show they are welcome. As soon as the bride-
wealth is agreed upon, the day for the marriage

is set, and the groom and his relatives and age-
set bring some of the bride-wealth to the bride's
parents.
Later the girl spends a week with her future

mother-in-law in the groom's village. The girl
and the young man are never left alone. They

are always under the mother-in-law's watchful
GROWING UP 49
eye. The last month before her marriage, a girl
remains in her parents' home, seeing no one

but her mother and her girl friends.
This time is usually a happy one for the girl.
The girPs mother and her girl friends prepare

the bride's favorite dishes. They do all the cook-
ing and housework for her. She is bathed and

her body is painted by her friends. Her hair
is combed and elaborately plaited. The girls
sing and dance and talk, giving advice and ex-
changing experiences. The young bride barely

has time to think of any problems the future
may bring or to worry about leaving her kin

and friends as she goes to live among strangers
forever.
The wedding itself is a gay affair. The bride
is accompanied to the groom's village by her

entire age-group, sometimes as many as twenty
young girls, and all the males of her family.
The bride's mother is also escorted by her fe-
male kinswomen from her own and other vil-
N^- . }i{
lages. The procession of all these women,

dressed in their best and gayest clothes, walk-
ing toward the groom's village is colorful and
spectacular. The beautiful, dusky, straight-
backed girls march with heads held high en-

joying every minute of the festivities. The
groups of men in their colorful togas walk
separately. Each woman carries a headload, in
a basket or in a bundle, of the bride's dowry,

as well as her own gifts to the bride. Pots, mor-
"^,l#^^
tar and pestle, baskets, mats, rolls of cotton
cloth, beads, ladles, brooms, cocoyams, cassava
meal, beans, peppers, lumps of salt, and gourds

with palm oil — all are taken to the groom's
village. As they walk the bridesmaids sing songs
of well wishing to the bride, giving her courage

to face her new home and people.
Inside the compound the groom's kinsmen
have gathered to greet the bride. After the

bridal procession enters the compound, the
guests form a circle around the bride. As she

danceSj one by one the groom's age-group and
relatives jump into the circle and throw small

coins at the bride's forehead. She smiles at each
donor to acknowledge his gift. A bridesmaid

with a basket steps into the circle to collect the
coins.
In the old days, unmarried girls did not wear

much clothing. A bride wore many strings of
beads and cowrie shells that covered her like an

apron front and back. Her body was carefully
oiled and painted. Her hair was twisted and
looped into a crown, framing her face. The
bridesmaids, too, wore beaded aprons, and their
bodies were painted. On the day following the
wedding, the bride dressed in a wraparound

skirt and plaited her hair simply, as befitted a
married woman.
An abundant feast follows the dancing and
singing. There are baked yams served on banana
GROWING UP 53
leaves. Other dishes served are yam and cassava

foo-foo with bowls of palm oil and pepper^
their favorite bitter-leaf soup^ bowls of cooked
meat and fish, and bunches of bananas, papayas,

and other fruit. Always there is plenty of palm
wine for the men.
The guests and the bridal party leave at
sunset. The bride, alone for the first time and

near tears, is glad to be taken into her mother-
in-law's house. They chat and await the dark,
before starting on the final phase of the bridal
ceremony, which is a walk back to the bride's
village.
The procession that starts from the groom's

compound is led by the groom and his brother.
Both walk holding their machetes. In his left
hand the groom holds a pot of water. His

brother holds a lily and a bunch of palm fronds
cut from the top of a tree. The bride follows
them, carrying a hen and a large clay bowl.

I
Her mother-in-law walks beside her, shading

I
with her hand the flame in the small oil lamp.
Behind the party walks the medicine man.
They reach the outskirts of the bride's vil-
lage. The medicine man selects a spot and tells
the bride and groom to kneel, facing each other.
The groom digs a hole at the medicine man's
instructions. When the hole is deep enough,

the medicine man tells the groom to stop. He
gives the bride one of the four large yams he
has brought with him. She waves it over her
head and places it inside the hole.
The medicine man then puts in the remain-
ing yams. He asks the bride to do the same

with a piece of white chalk he gives her. She
waves it over her head and places it in the hole,
too. He next gives her the palm leaves and the

white lily her brother-in-law has brought.
Again she waves them overhead and places

them in the hole. She does the same with the
cowries that the mother-in-law has handed to
GROWING UP SS
the medicine man. He twists the neck of the

hen that the bride has carried, and after she
waves it over her head, it is added to the other
objects in the hole.
The medicine man prays aloud, "May evil
things that your parents may have given you

be buried here. I cover them." He takes the
clay bowl the bride has carried and covers the
objects placed in the hole. He sifts and pushes

the loose earth into the hole, leaving the back
of the bowl exposed. A villager or any outsider,

passing by, will know that a sacrifice has been
placed here and will leave the sacred spot un-

disturbed. The bride now takes the water the
groom has carried and washes her face, arms,
legs, and feet.
So ends the ceremony. The medicine man

says to the groom, "I have performed the task
as you asked. May your wife bear many sons.''
And the bridal party replies, "We thank

you.''
They turn toward the young husband's vil-

lage, while the medicine man continues on his
way to his own compound.

CHAPTER 3
THE MARKETPLACE
The Ibo have been traders for a long, long

time. At first their trading was solely inter-
African, but later they traded with Europeans

who came to the Gulf of Guinea. Some of this
trading — the slave trade that reached Iboland
in the seventeenth century — the Ibo today
57
would rather forget, as we, in turn, would like
to dismiss our part in it.
For many centuries the Ibo used war captives

as slaves. These slave-captives were allotted
farmland and houses in Iboland, but they also
were required to work in their master's fields
and homes. They kept the produce from their

own fields for themselves and could sell the
tools, baskets, pottery, and cloth they made.

Profits from this trading eventually enabled a
war captive to buy his freedom. If he so chose,
he could continue living among the Ibo as a
free man. His children were free men, too.
Many such freed slaves preferred to remain

among the Ibo, for if they returned to their
homeland they might be discriminated against,
because they once were slaves. Their children,
too, were never fully accepted. In Iboland,

however, their past soon was forgotten, and
the ex-slave enjoyed equal status.
With the discovery of the New World in
THE MARKETPLACE 59
the fifteenth century, a demand for cheap labor
arose, and the Ibo responded with alacrity.
Soon they became known as West African

slavers. Boat owners paid them at first so many
cowries per head for every captive delivered:
man, woman, or child. Later payments were
made in guns, gunpowder, iron and copper
utensils, tools, and cloth. Perhaps the Ibo did
not fully realize the horrors these unfortunates
were to face in the hands of the slave traders

and their new masters. They did not s^^ the
captives shackled to one another on long

marches and loaded into crowded holds of
ships. In fact, some of the Ibo ex-slaves
became slavers themselves and grew rich. Even

the slaves may have had hopes of better treat-
ment in their new home than they had enjoyed
in their old.
To the Ibo who traveled to the Gulf of

Guinea with slaves, the Europeans were strange-
looking, pink- white men with pale beards. Since
6o THE IBO OF BIAFRA
the Europeans always wore shoes^ the Ibo be-
lieved that they lacked toes and had to wear
shoes to walk and to balance themselves. Ibo

women believed that a white woman would
melt in the sun if she took off her pith helmet.
The white people had long^ pointed noses,
which the Ibo thought must be a nuisance.
How could one drink out of a cup without such
a nose getting in the way?

The Ibo also had strange ideas about Europe
and faraway America. They believed that the
sun never shone there, but that the eternal
night skies of those lands were lighted up by
several moons. The European and Arabian
goods were often defective: the insides of the
rolls of cloth rotten, the knives and machetes
of poor workmanship and easily broken. So the
Ibo soon formed the opinion that the foreigners
were bad craftsmen and cheaters and liars be-
sides. Quickly the Ibo learned to distrust the
traders from outside Iboland and to watch

1
THE MARKETPLACE 6
them. As long as the slave trade was profitable,
however, the Ibo continued trading.

The repercussions of the slave trade were
tragic for Iboland. No longer could a child or

a woman go out to work in the fields or go to
market unguarded. Always a trusted slave with
a ready, sharp machete or a woman's male
relative accompanied her and her children.
Otherwise, an Ibo from another lineage and
village, lurking in the bush, could kidnap them
and sell them out of the country. To protect
themselves further, the Ibo walled in their

compounds. Strong entrance doors, which were
always guarded, led into them. Still, the same
men who so carefully guarded their own went
into the bush to capture others.
The independent Ibo women, accustomed

for many centuries to working in the fields,
to fetch water some distance from the com-

pound, to walk long distances to markets, now
grew dependent on their menfolk. Women
prayed for many sons to protect them when

their husband grew old. A girl who did not
marry had to be looked after by her old father
and brothers. At last, early in the nineteenth
century, the slave trade was abolished legally,
although it continued on a small scale in Ibo-

land until the beginning of the twentieth
century. Only then did the Ibo women regain
their independent status and complete freedom
of movement.
Although a man is responsible for growing
enough yams to last his family and other

dependents for an entire year, the other food
needed in the household is usually supplied by
the women. If a yam harvest is hurt by drought
or if the yams harvested are insufficient for the
year's supply, the women fill in with the

produce from their fields and gardens, and
with the additional supplies they can buy in
the market.
If a woman raises any surplus, she likes to

THE MARKETPLACE 63
sell it and put away the money for an emer-

gency. Like women the world over, however,
the Ibo women are not above temptation. They
too buy trinkets and goods they do not need,
hoping that their co- wives will not be jealous
and gossip about them.
Markets have always been an important
social center for the Ibo. They are found in
every large town, and joint markets are held

on designated days by a group of villages.
People who live within walking distance of a

market always attend, unless the farmwork is
too pressing.
The marketplace is usually set aside in a
vacant square in a village or town. Age-sets

within the villages have the responsibility to
keep the marketplace clean. Several young
people rise at dawn on market days to sweep
the square, since people begin to stream in with
the sunrise. Women traders arrive with their
headloads of produce, baskets, mats, pots —and

babies wrapped up on their backs. They push

their way toward the sections where produce
is sold. Each likes to find a place on the ground
next to a friend or kinswoman.
The market is divided into sections for
various goods. People familiar with the market
know where to go for the things they wish to

buy or sell. Early arrivals take the shady places
within each section. Some put up a small over-
head shade of their own. Others sit in the sun
on a mat and display their goods on moistened,

fresh banana leaves or in large baskets and
bowls. There are farm tools and machinery

for sale in one section, with men as salesmen,
clothing in another. The food sections display
vegetables, spices, yams, and fruits. There is
also a section where palm wine and other drinks

are sold. Women bring cooked food and baked
cassava cakes, so no one who can afford the

small cost need go hungry or thirsty.
In the early days a string of some ninety
I
THE MARKETPLACE 67
cowrie shells was worth about two cents in

American money. Prices were also low then.
A big hen cost only fifteen cents.
Prices, however, have never been set, and

people haggle in loud voices before a trade is
completed. If a saleswoman is offended because

the price offered is too low or the quality of
her produce has been questioned, she does not
hesitate to raise her voice and tell her customer
to go elsewhere. Her friends nearby chime in
to defend her. The customer can leave or pay
the price asked for, if she wants the merchan-

dise. Passing friends and potential customers are
hailed by the saleswomen with loud greetings,
so they will not be overlooked.
In another area there is singing and drum-

ming. Lively youngsters dart about, while their
mothers trade. Since the market is an all-day
affair, people are in no hurry to leave even
after they have loaded their purchases onto
their heads. They wander about and talk and

gather news. The sellers are continuously busy

rearranging their displays and filling empty
spaces left by articles sold. They clean vegeta-
bles, sprinkle them with or dip them in cool
water to freshen wilting leaves, nurse a hungry

baby, and snatch a few bites of fruit or cassava
cake.
There is still another section in the market-

place. This one, usually in cool shade of a large
tree, is relatively quiet and peaceful, away from

the noise and bustle. It is reserved for men.
Here the elders sit as judges, to hear cases
brought before them. Nearby is the large talk-
ing drum that announces the opening of the
session and gives the names of the elders who

are present. This drum also announces the fes-
tivals, which are held regularly in the market-
place. The drum is a large tree trunk, which

the men have hollowed out. Small toeholds
have been cut into one side of the drum, so that
the drummer can climb up it.

THE MARKETPLACE 69
In this same area there is also a small shrine-
building, where sacred masks, figurines, and

pots are kept. During festivals sacrifices are
made to these objects. No one but the priest

who serves the particular deity, in whose honor
the feast is held, may enter the shrine.
Men from the neighboring villages who are
the first to arrive choose the shadiest spots

under the tree. They sit either on small stools
or on mats placed on the bulging tree roots.
Kinsmen stay together. Some have brought

palm wine and pass it around to quench the
thirst brought on by the long journey. Each
man has his own drinking horn. Even when a
festival is about to take place, the men drink

freely.
The Ibo have no noblemen or royalty. Theirs

is a true democratic government. The elders of
each homestead and of each village act as

judges in councils. On market days they listen
to quarrels that have come up among neighbors.

The elders try to settle the arguments in accord-

ance with custom. Their main concern is the
well being of their people and maintenance of
peace among them. Anyone, man or woman,
provided he or she is old enough and married,
may speak out at these gatherings. The Ibo
elders try to be just. They are, as the Ibo
proverb says, men full of memory who follow

their fathers' ways carefully and truthfully.
The judges meet on every market day in the
marketplace. A market day occurs every four
days, or once a week. The Ibo week has only
four days: Eke, Oye, Afo, and Nkwo. Thus,
the Ibo month consists of seven weeks, and the
Ibo year consists of thirteen lunar months.
There are 364 days in each year.
Each group of neighboring villages holds its
market day on one of these weekdays. One

group of villages may hold its market day on
Nkwo, another on Eke, and still another on
Afo. The day's deity watches over the market

1
THE MARKETPLACE 7
and is believed to punish anyone who tries to
harm the people attending the market bearing
his name day.
As men and women grow older, they are
treated with increasing respect. In addition,

men acquire titles by joining various societies,
some of which are secret. The first one a man

joins is the village men's society. The member-
ship fee is very low, and everyone must belong.
Some men who have a little extra money enroll
their small sons in their village society. This
membership is an honor for the parent as well

as the son. The fee paid by a newcomer is
divided among all the members. So, if a man

belongs to a society long enough, his share of
the fees collected from newer members is often
more than his original investment. The trade-
minded Ibo especially enjoy making such a
profit.
Furthermore, such profits go toward accu-

mulating money to join another society or to
help pay a son's or nephew's membership into

his society. All these accomplishments are great
honors. A man who belongs to as many as four
societies is said to carry four titles. He is very
much respected in the community and people
listen to him. If he is "an owner of words/' as
the Ibo describe a man who is a good speaker,

he can sway people and become a leader. But
a self-centered man, who is interested only in
his own welfare and that of his family, is not

popular, even though he may have four or five
titles. An honored man works for the welfare
of his community.
A man with several titles is thus a man of
wealth. Such a person might be asked to manage
the village's finances. He is accountable, how-
ever, to the elders, and any man old enough to
speak at a council may challenge him.

The elders sit in a separate group on market
day and discuss the day's business ahead of
them. Those who are to plead cases bring their
THE MARKETPLACE 73
kinsmen and friends to act as witnesses for
them.
As a case is placed before the judges, spokes-
men for both sides are called upon. Each group
chooses its most gifted "owner of words" to
represent them. Perhaps he holds several titles.
Speeches are formal, beginning with salutations

to the elders present. Each elder is addressed
by name and saluted. From time to time, the

speaker turns to his kinsmen and asks them,
"Do I speak well?"
They reassure him, "You speak well. Con-
tinue."
Non-literate people, as all the Ibo have been
in the past, have learned to listen well. They

give a speaker full attention and remember
what he says. Their memory is indeed remark-
able. Weak arguments are noticed immediately.
A careless phrase is repeated exactly and dis-
proved. A good speaker with a gift for words
and excellent command of proverbs wins over
this critical audience, which shouts praises at
him and enjoys every bit of his performance.
Land disputes, quarrels between individuals,

questions about children, reprimands and pun-
ishment for hot-headed young men, and many

other matters that daily beset a community are
aired, defended, and judged according to Ibo
custom and tradition. If, after much oratory,
there is no agreement, the court adjourns with-

out rendering a final decision. Hopefully, in
the interval before the next market day, an
agreement will come. In the meantime, talks

and arguments continue within the village.
Wisdom and justice will prevail in time.
The middle age-set also hold court sessions
to judge infractions of village laws. This group

has the power to impose fines on a transgressor.
When a festival is to be held, it is announced

on the drums to all the neighboring villages.
People arrive early, dressed in their best, and
THE MARKETPLACE 75
trading is held off till the ceremony of the
festival is concluded.
All men like to buy new cloth and ornaments
for their wives to wear at festivals. A wealthy
man with eight to ten wives has them dress up
in their most colorful and expensive velvet
skirts and headcloths. They wear all the beads,
all the ivory and brass arm and ankle bracelets,
that he has bought. His children, perhaps

fifteen sons and twenty-five daughters, also
wear their best and most costly clothes. The

man chuckles with pleasure and pride at the
envious remarks made by the women present
as his wives appear, swaying in a slow walk,

under the weight of their dress and jewelry.
The Festival of the Pumpkin Leaves is one
example of an important Ibo festival. It is
held before yam planting. The ceremonial and

prayers are intended to cleanse people of their
sins, before the gods and ancestral spirits, and

to insure successful planting, growth, and har-

vesting of the yams.
The sacred drum begins to "talk" as soon as

people arrive. It gives the names of the villages
from which the people have come. As elders
from these villages appear, their names are also
drummed. People shout greetings as a name

from their village is announced. Loud shouts
mean that many people of that village are
present.
When all the villagers have assembled, the
drummer's beat changes. He now drums a
prayer of praise to the mighty god to whom

the Pumpkin Leaves Festival is dedicated. Six
messengers of the god come running in and

push people aside to clear a space near the
shrine for their priest. However, no one wants

to yield and move from his good position.
Everyone wants to get the best view of the

ceremony. So the crowd keeps pushing and
THE MARKETPLACE 77
pressing. Men, afraid their children will be
crushed, raise them up on their shoulders.
Women form groups for the ceremony.

Many like to be with their kinswomen, who
have married into other villages and whom
they do not see very often. Before leaving for
the market that morning, each woman has cut
a few pumpkin leaves from the pumpkin vines

she is growing, and she carries a bundle of

them in one hand.
The old priest now conies running into the
cleared space. He is costumed for the occasion

in a voluminous skirt of brown raffia. The skirt
flows after him as he runs. The upper half of

his body has been painted with white chalk. A
tall eagle feather waves in his red cap. In his
right hand he carries his staff of office, in his
leftj his long cane with its iron point.
The priest stops before the drum. Looking

up at the drummer, he shouts, "Speak. He (the
god) hears you." He prays simply, begging
forgiveness for all who have sinned. The priest
dances in a circle before the crowd. As he nears

each woman, she waves and shakes the pumpkin
leaves from side to side. Thus she, her husband,
and children will be cleansed. As the priest
waves his staff and plunges his cane into the
ground, the audience seems to hear voices from

beyond reply to the priest. Spirits are present.
THE MARKETPLACE 79
People shrink in terror and move away from

the circle^ closer to their own kin. Women hold
their children's hands tightly.
The belief is that the spirits of the four
weekdays tried long, long ago to prevent the
god who bore the yams from coming down to
earth. But he outwitted them and descended,

and gave the Ibo yams. The priest now repeats
this story aloud for everyone to hear once again.

He circles the cleared space for the last time
and disappears into the shrine. The women raise
their voices in song, waving their bundles of
pumpkin leaves, and begin to regroup. They

leave their kinswomen from other villages and
join their husband's village group.
One after another each group of village

women dances in a circle, within the cleared
space, stamping in rhythm, waving their bun-
dles of pumpkin leaves —and raising clouds of
red dust. This performance concludes the cere-
mony.
8o THE IBO OF BIAFRA
The Yam Festival that follows some five or
six months later is the happiest of ceremonies

in the Ibo villages. It is a thanksgiving festival,
for a generous harvest that will assure the Ibo
of food for the year to come.
Throughout the year, the village priest, who

serves the god of yams, has kept count of the
new moons as they appear. Thirteen sacred
yams have been set aside in the storeroom next
to his house. The priest eats them ceremonially

on each night that he first beholds a new moon.
All regular food is cooked for the priest outside
his house and brought to him, but the priest
bakes the sacred yams himself inside his house.
No one else touches them, and no one else par-
takes of them. The priest brushes the ashes off
the freshly baked yam, cuts it open, and eats it
with a prayer of thanks.

When the priest at last consumes the thir-
teenth sacred yam, after beholding the new

moon for the thirteenth time he rings the
THE MARKETPLACE 8 I
village gong to announce that the harvesting of

yams may start. He prays as he finishes the last
yam:
We thank you for the nevs^ moon, and

hope to see it again. May our households
remain healthy and may they prosper.
May our wives be well and may they bear
us many sons. May good meet the face of
every man, woman, and child. May we
escape injury from machete or hoe. May
we be safe from snakebite, scorpions, and

leopards. May the children put their
fathers into the earth and not the fathers
their children. May good also come to the
lands of our neighbors.
As people harvest their yams, each brings to
the market square one yam for each member

of his household, including himself. Each
village's yams are placed in separate heaps,
then counted. When the count is completed.

the priest joyfully announces the number of
yams received. Thus, everyone know^s exactly
the number of people v^ho live in each village.

If the number is larger than that of the
previous harvest, there is more rejoicing. But
if the total is smaller, then there is sadness.
People vônder what has gone amiss that their

population should shrink. This worry calls for
more prayers and sacrifices to the gods.
From the heaps of yams brought in by the

THE MARKETPLACE 83
people, the thirteen sacred yams are selected
and carried to the priest's storeroom for the

coming year's ritual. The rest of the yam
harvest is safely stored away, and the people
gather for the gay Yam Festival.
Neighbors from adjoining villages stream to

the marketplace. Sacred objects from shrines
are carried on the shoulders of their custodians.
These men line up outside the shrine of the

god of yams. Villagers bring to the deities little
presents, since these village gods appear only
once a year at this Yam Festival. The custo-
dians dance circling the yam god's shrine.
Some of the masks and figures that represent
the village deities are very old. The custodians,
in caring for them, usually report to the elders
when a mask is about to crumble with age. A

new carving is then ordered. At the next Yam
Festival the custodian will bear on his shoulders
a fresh-looking mask, with perhaps a few recent
artistic innovations in its shape and carving.

CHAPTER 4
AT HOME
The hundreds of spreading Ibo villages and

homesteads, nestling among the tall tropical
trees, look sleepy and deserted at noonday.

Almost every one of these farming families is
away in the fields. The peaked, thatched roofs

with wide overhang rest on mud-walled homes,
giving them shade and a shut-in appearance.
85
No one seems to be about. A few cows, chickens,

and goats are resting in the shade. Only the
old people and young children are inside the
square, dark homes, which have tiny window

openings, low doors, and high thresholds.
As the sun sets people return from fields and

markets, and the Ibo village compounds begin
to fill and overflow with activity. A compound
consists of a dozen or more houses crowded
together. They are separated by narrow pas-
sages and surrounded by a low mud wall. A
compound may hold several hundred people,
who are related through their fathers. The
head of the group is the oldest father, and he
lives in a house at the center of the compound,

facing the main entrance. This entrance consists
of a handsome, carved wood door. The richer
the head of the compound, the more handsome

his carved door. As a man acquires more wealth,
he discards an old door and has another one

carved to his orders.
AT HOME 87
Father's house is simple inside. One small
room is his bedroom. In it there is a low bed

of bamboo or packed earth, covered with a
goatskin rug or a rush mat. The sitting area
has a space for a small fire and a raised dried-
mud platform. The man's belongings are stored

overhead. His machete and knife are stuck into
spaces between the bamboo rafters. His gourds
of water and palm wine, his goatskin bag and
cane, hang from them. Near his house is the
shrine of his ancestors.
Food is brought to Father's house, and

Father usually eats alone. Each day, in turn,
one of his wives prepares his meals. One of her
older children brings the bowl of food to Father
and a gourd of fresh drinking water. If Father

wants anything special for his next day's meal,
he asks the messenger to call his second wife and
he gives her his instructions.
Father commands everyone's respect and
obedience. People in the compound do not
contradict him. An older son will state his

opinion and speak frankly to his father, but
he does not argue with him. If Father's wives
do not get along among themselves^ they seldom
complain to him. The older wife is usually
jealous and feels that her husband favors a
younger, prettier wife, who does not even know

how to cook a good stew. Each wife tries to
prepare the best meal for her husband, when

her turn comes to cook. Yet she will accuse a
co-wife, who does the same, of trying to flatter
the husband and become his favorite.
If Father finds one of the sons brighter and
more efficient than the others, he may use him

as messenger and have him carry his stool. This
attention, too, arouses jealousy among the co-
wives. Each compound has these problems, and
each seethes with spoken and unspoken jeal-

ousies and resentments. But, at the same time,
there is love for family and lineage loyalty.
A wife's house is also very simple. From the

AT HOME 89
rafters and ceiling, which are black with smoke,
are suspended her household utensils, baskets,
gourds, pots, and dried vegetables. On a shelf
by the fire she keeps her few cooking pots and
ladles. Wooden bowls serve as plates for all
meals, and they are also kept on the shelf when

not in use. The wife's bamboo or packed-earth
bed is usually in one corner of the hut. She
sleeps there with the smallest son or daughter,

unless her husband invites her to his house.
In addition to these houses, there are boys'

and unmarried men's houses and small storage
huts on the outskirts of the village or at the
edge of the compound. In them, the family's

yearly supply of yams is kept. Father distributes
yams to his wives and other dependents within

the compound according to the size of each
family. The produce a woman raises in her
field and garden belongs entirely to her, and

she is free to do with it as she pleases.
As sons grow up and marry, each brings a

go THE IBO OF BIAFRA
wife or wives to live within their father's

compound. The entire group helps build a new
home and storage huts for the young couple.
In this way buildings are constantly added to
the compound. Women try to save space for
their gardens and a few fruit trees, but the
compound gets more crowded all the time.
Sometimes a young couple may have a serious
quarrel after marriage, and the girl may return
to her father's compound. Perhaps her husband

has beaten her. Then her brothers intervene on
behalf of their sister. They go to the husband's
village to talk to him and urge him to change

his ways. Usually the girl returns to her hus-
band, but if he is stubborn, the brothers may

find another husband for their sister. The new
husband pays the original bride-wealth to the
first husband and welcomes the girl into his
father's compound. Such divorces and remar-

riages are quite common among the Ibo.
The Ibo's day, which begins with sunup, is

//^//// '/// ////' ///I///' '
AT HOME 93
a long one. Cooking is done in the late after-
noon, when the women have returned from

their labors in the fields or from the market.
They bathe themselves first, then the children,
and fetch fresh water from the stream or river.
In the tropical twilight, the children play out-
side while their mother prepares the evening

meal. Mother has built up the small fire. The
youngsters see that she has enough firewood.
If there are no children, a woman must gather
firewood herself or pay a youngster in the com-
pound to do the task for her.
Although the meals are simple, cooking over
the small fires is slow. Mother has to bake the
yams in the coals. If she makes foo-foo, the
yams have to be boiled and then mashed. She
has to grind the cassava, wash and drain the
meal well to bake cassava cakes, or start a
porridge or stew going, adding vegetables. If

there is meat or fish, the cooking takes longer.
When the children come in, they wait
patiently, but the smell of the food sharpens
their appetite. An older boy might snatch the
stirring ladle Mother uses and lick it clean,
while she is not paying attention. He knows he

will be reprimanded and perhaps slapped, but
he has to take the chance if he is not to collapse
from hunger. Like all children, Ibo youngsters
prefer certain foods to others. The favorites
are yams and foo-foo. The Ibo say that what

one child does not want belongs to another. So
if a child refuses to eat his food, it is given to
the next child. No substitutes are offered by his
mother.
The little sister, sitting on her mat on the
floor, balances the baby on her outstretched legs
and sings to him in a low voice, rocking herself
from side to side as she has watched her mother

rock him. She, too, is hungry and cannot hope
to reach for the ladle Mother put down again,
because the baby has her "tied" to the floor.
She makes up a song:

AT HOME 95
Baby is happy
Sister is hungry
Sister is hungry
Baby is happy
Sister will eat soon
Baby will nurse soon. . . .
At last the baked yams, which have been

turned over several times so that they bake
evenly, are cut into portions. Mother holds a
crisp banana leaf over the fire to soften it. She

hands each child a section of the steaming yam
on the piece of banana leaf and a bowl of stew.
The children dip the yam into the stew, sure
that yams are the best food in the world.
The stew is sipped right out of the bowl.

Everyone uses his fingers to pick out the pieces
of meat or fish. The meal is over quickly. Each

bowl is wiped with fingers and licked clean,
then put away on the shelf. Now Mother eats
too. After she wipes and puts away her bowl,

she picks up the baby to nurse it.
The children put away the mortar and the

cooking potj and gather up from the floor the
discarded remains of vegetables. The boy banks

the ashes against the glowing coals. The day's
work is done. Evenings are for pleasure.
Mother, baby, and children step outdoors to
enjoy the cool evening. There is always some-

thing going on in the compound or the village
square. The men, who ate their meal first, are
back in their accustomed places in the square.

They, too, have bathed and changed into clean
clothing. They continue playing games started
before the evening meal.
Boys are tossing a ball, wrestling, running
their favorite three-legged races, or playing
leapfrog. They like to mimic birdcalls, the
buzzing of insects, the sounds of their domestic

animals. Some practice with small bows and
arrows, using a big tree trunk as a target. Some
play jacks with small animal bones. The men
play azigo. This game is a type of checkers.
AT HOME 97
Two men sit before a balanced board with

many holes in it. Sometimes there are as many
as twenty and even forty holes in a board.
There is a pebble in each hole^ and the players
manipulate the pebbles in deep concentration.
The crowd of onlookers, men and boys, dare not
utter a word for fear of distracting the players.
Boys, too, play azigo, but with smaller ten-hole
boards.
After dark a few young people from a com-

pound start beating a drum and dancing. Per-
haps they are celebrating a successful birth or

a young man's getting a bride. Or perhaps they
are drinking some palm wine together and danc-
ing for its own sake. Immediately groups form.
Everyone joins in the dancing. Everyone is wel-
come. A few more drums and flutes are heard.
Someone begins to sing, and soon several other

singers chime in. The evening turns into a gay
event, for the Ibo are a fun-loving people, even
though they work hard.

When they return to their compoundsj the

houses are dark. The older people are already
asleep. Mother lights the tiny oil lamp. It casts
heavy shadows on the walls, and the children

move closer to her. Mother has placed the baby
in Sister's lap again and cautions her to sit
quietly, so as not to wake it.
Mother now picks up the bundle of raffia,
which she had soaked earlier, and starts to finish
a basket on which she has already worked a

few evenings. The boy moves the oil lamp
closer to her giving her more light. Through
the narrow door the blue sky and stars give off
more light. The cool evening breeze is agree-
able. The children are not yet ready for bed.
An older woman, a widow whose house is
next door, greets Mother from the outside and
asks her permission to come in. The older wom-

an now lives alone. Her daughters have mar-
ried and moved away. She has no sons. Al-
AT HOME 99
though she could move back to the distant
village where she was born and has her kins-

men, she prefers to remain in the familiar com-
pound. She does her own cooking and has a
small plot of land, where she grows enough
cassava and other vegetables for her needs. The

boy calls her Grandmother and gets firewood
for her when he gathers it for his mother. The
boy's father supplies her with yams.
The old woman is an excellent potter. Now

that she has only herself to care for, she has
joined a women's society that supervises pottery
making. This group advises the potters where

the best markets are and what prices to expect.
The older members check the quality of the
pots made by the group and limit their produc-
tion in order not to glut the market.
The old woman always saves an especially

good pot for Mother, grateful for her com-
panionship and the help the children give her.
lOO THE IBO OF BIAFRA
She is also a fine storyteller, and when she visits
in the evening, the children hope she will tell
them a story before they have to go to bed.

"It will be a fine day tomorrow/' the old
woman says, looking at the girl. "If Daughter

could help me get firewood and some moist
leaves from the river, we will be sure to fire
some fine pots.''
With parental pride. Mother answers, "We

will be glad to help you with your work to-
morrow. My son can take care of the baby in-
stead." Mother knows that the Ibo women like
to discard their clothes when they are firing
pots and so do not want to have any men about.
The reason for the custom is the fear that a
woman may get too close to the fire and burn
her dress. When a pot cracks during firing,
people always say that the woman was too care-
ful of her clothing and careless with the pots.
The old woman starts to get up, but the little
girl stops her. Turning to Mother, she asks,

1
AT HOME 10
"Could Old Mother tell us a story before we

go to sleep?'' The story the old woman tells is
already well known to the children, but they

are glad to hear it again.
An Ibo farmer had two wives. The older
wife gave her husband many children, but the
second wife bore him only one son. Yet the

older wife was jealous and gossiped that her
husband favored the second wife's son above his
other children.
All worked with their parents in the field,
quite far from their village, even farther away

than our fields are from our village today.
Father's piece of land was close to the forest.
Everyone knew that the spirits, which lived in
the forest, disguised themselves as little people

and farmed the land right next to this farm-
er's field. So the farmer and his family were
always careful to finish their work before dark
and start for home. The little people then could
begin working on their field when darkness fell

and work all night.
One day the two wives and the children were
so busy hoeing and weeding they did not notice

that the sun had set. Everyone quickly picked
up his tools and baskets and took the path for
home. When they reached homcj the only son
of the second wife missed his flute. He would
not eat his evening meal and begged his mother
AT HOME 103
to let him return to the field for his flute.
Otherwise, it might be ruined overnight by the

damp. Both parents told the boy not to go.
"The little people do not like interruptions and

may even kill you/' they warned. The boy
promised to be careful and finally the parents
let him go.
The night and the darkness stretched the
road, but at last the boy came to his father's

field.He saw dark forms bending over the field
beyond. He was afraid, but tried to think only

of his flute, as he searched the ground under
the tree where he had left it.
Suddenly he heard a nasal voice close to him,

"Ibo boy, what are you doing here?''
"I had to get my flute," the boy replied, "so
it would not be ruined in the damp.''
"Would you know your flute if we showed it
to you.^"
"Yes," said the boy.

The little man held up a flute and offered it
to the boy. It was a golden flute that shone in
the dark.
The boy said, "This beautiful flute must be

yours. It is not mine. Mine is a simple one of
bamboo. My father made it."
"Then it must be this one," the little man

said, holding up another flute that shone as
bright as a star.
"Oh, this one is even more beautiful," the

AT HOME 105
boy exclaimed. "Never have I seen such a flute
before. But it is not mine. Mine is an old one,

of bamboo. My father made it.^'
"This is it then/' the little man said, and

handed the boy his old bamboo flute. "Can you
play it.?^'
The boy took the flute and played as well as

he could. More little men gathered around to
listen. '^ As he finished, the men cheered him,
in their nasal voices, ^^HaWy haWy haw^
Their spokesman now held up two pots.
"Take one of these," he said. The boy took

the smaller pot, and said, "Thank you. Father,
for this and for finding my flute for me."
"Take the pot home. Son, and open it before
your father and mother. But be careful on your
way. If you hear anyone whose steps sound
dum iiim diim following you, run into the
bushes. If you hear the sound jam janiy the
path is clear. You may go on safely."
The boy followed the little man's advice.

I06 THE IBO OF BIAFRA
Several times on his way home he heard the

dum dum dtmi footsteps behind him, so he ran
into the bushes to hide. He waited in the dark
until he heard the signal, jam jam^ and then
continued homeward.
When the boy reached his mother's house,
he asked her to come with him to his father's
house. There, before both parents, the boy

broke the pot, as the little man had instructed
him. The hut was instantly filled with great
wealth, with rolls of cloth and velvets, strings

upon strings of cowries, foods of all kinds. Out-
side the door they heard the call and mooing of
many cows, sheep, and goats.
The mother immediately filled a few baskets
and sent the boy to present them to the first
wife. But the first wife pushed the baskets away

and refused to accept the gifts. "Tell your
mother," she said angrily, "that we do not need
her gifts. My son can get them for me."
The next day the first wife told her eldest
"
AT HOME 107
son to take his flute when they went out to

work in the field. There she made him put the
flute under the tree. At sunset, when the boy-
started to pick up his flute, his mother shouted

at him, "Fool. This flute is to remain under the
tree.''
After the evening meal, the mother ordered

the boy, "Go find your flute and bring it back.''
The boy begged to stay home, saying that

everyone knew there were spirits about next to
Father's field and they would kill him. But the

mother insisted, and the boy finally left.
For him, too, darkness stretched the road.
The boy walked and walked and at last came to
his father's field. Fearfully he began to search

for his flute under the tree.
Suddenly he heard a voice close to him, "Ibo

boy, what are you doing herc^*
The boy saw before him a little man with a

crowd of little people behind him. A bad smell
came from these people. The boy sniffed the
Io8 THE IBO OF BIAFRA
air, and said rudely, "You all smell bad." To

the spokesman, he added, "My mother sent me
to get my flute.''
"Is this your flute? '' The spokesman held up

a shining gold flute.
"Yes, yes!" the boy exclaimed. "It is mine.

Why do you ask?"
"Play for us," the spokesman ordered.
"I will not," the boy replied. "The stench
here is unbearable. I must return home to my
mother."
"Then take one of these pots." The little
man held up two pots. The boy chose the bigger
pot, without even thanking the little man.

The little man instructed him, as he had the
first boy. "Take the pot home and open it be-
fore your father and mother. But be careful on
your way. If you hear anyone whose steps sound

dum diim dum following you, run into the
bushes. If you hear the sound jam jam^ you may
come out safely."
AT HOME 109
It was very late when the boy came home.
The entire compound was asleep. His mother

took the pot from him^ shut the door, and cov-
ered all the openings in the house. "But we are
to open the pot in front of Father, too," the boy

reminded her.
The mother, however, told the boy to break
the pot. "Your father did not send you. I did,"
she said, busily clearing the floor to make room

for the expected wealth.
As the pot fell apart, all sorts of evil diseases

filled the room. Leprosy and smallpox attacked
the sleeping children in the house and killed
them. Then they killed the woman and her son.

In the morning the father, puzzled that
everything was so quiet in his first wife's house,
forced open the door and saw the terrible de-

struction. A few of the diseases immediately
escaped, but the man succeeded in shutting the
door quickly, and the evil spirits suffocated.
* * 5i«
I 10 THE IBO OF BIAFRA
Both of the older children were still wide

awake. The mother, who enjoyed listening to
the familiar story as much as the children did,
stopped working over the basket and cradled

the sleeping baby in her lap.
The boy got up and offered the storyteller a
drink. "We thank you. Mother, for your story,"

he said. "We were not sleepy and heard every
word. Now I can repeat the story to my sister."
"I heard every word, too,'' the girl said, "and
I also can repeat it to you. I can even sing some

of the words."
The mother smiled at the children, but the
end of the evening had come. "Now to sleep,"
she ordered them.
"Sleep well," the old woman said, "and may

you waken happy and well."
1
CHAPTER 5
RELIGION
AND THE ARTS
For the Ibo^ religion, art, music, and the dance

relate closely to one another. They are not
separated as in our American and European
cultures.
The Ibo believe that their gods and spirits are
always present — not just on festive and cere-
monial days. Chineke is the creator. He lives in
1 1
the skies. Lightning, thunder, the sun and moon

are his messengers. The all-powerful Chineke
and his messengers are lofty and remote, and
the Ibo do not pray or appeal to them for help.
Instead, they worship the spirits of their an-
cestors, resting in shrines in the compounds.

Their ancestors are represented by carved masks,
images, and charms. An Ibo prays to his an-
cestors regularly, offering them palm wine and
food. On ceremonial days he may sacrifice a
chicken or a goat and sprinkle the blood over

the ancestral pots and masks in the shrine. Each
Ibo has his own Chi, which is his personal deity
and constantly watches over him.

Sickness is believed to be a punishment by a
god or a spirit for wrongdoing. When a person
falls ill, the first question asked What have

is:
you done wrong this day? The sick man searches

his conscience and memory for the true answer.
He may have unintentionally refused to help a
neighbor. His wife may have refused food to a

RELIGION AND THE ARTS I I
3
neighbor's child. Someone in his family may

have offended a medicine man^ who has invoked
the spirits on his behalf. Another medicine man
is called in immediately to save the patient from
suffering.
There are many medicine men in the Ibo
villages. A number of them have made reputa-

tions as curers. Others are famed as diviners,
who diagnose illnesses and prescribe cures and

sacrifices. Some perform good magic and are
considered trustworthy; others are believed to

practice sorcery and are regarded with sus-
picion. A medicine man suspected of sorcery is
avoided by everyone. Youngsters are wary of

him and hide in the bush when they see him
coming toward them. Sorcerers have been
known to turn a boy into a dog with one touch
on his back.
A sickroom is thus a scene of great activity:
a struggle between good and evil spirits for the
patient's recovery. The moment the medicine

man arrives, he bursts into action. Relatives are

pushed into a corner of the sick man's house
and must sit quietly, barely permitted to whis-
per among themselves. Methods of curing vary

with each medicine man. The relatives watch-
ing the curer at work are satisfied as long as he
does something. To sit helplessly by doing noth-
ing for an invalid is unthinkable.
First the medicine man usually smears the
patient all over with camwood ointment. Cam-

wood resembles our redwood, and the ointment
is prepared from its wood, ground into a pow-

der. The patient, on his bamboo cot, is com-
pletely immobilized and kept warm. A small
fire is lighted inside the hut, close to his bed,
and the door is barred to prevent additional

spirits from coming in. Next the medicine man
hangs up gourds filled with palm wine on the
rafters over the patient's bed. They will attract
any spirits who are present and distract them

from hurting the patient further. A string of
cowrie shells, parrot feathers, and a chicken or
two that have been sacrificed are also dangled

from the rafters and serve as further bribes to
the spirits.
On the occasions when the patient shows no
improvement and, in fact, seems to be getting
worse, the medicine man may put the man's

walking stick into his hands. The walking stick
is a man's support and strength. It, too, should

help in fighting off the evil spirits. If the
Il6 THE IBO OF BIAFRA
patient does not die within three markets, or
twelve daySj from the beginning of the illness,
he surely will recover. By this time the spirits
have given in. The medicine man has won the

battle, and the relatives will reward him with
gifts and money.
A death in a compound brings with it far-
reaching readjustments that affect almost every

member, especially if the dead man was the
head of the household. For about a month the
dead man's wives remain in their houses in deep
mourning and continue mourning for a whole
year. But the man's married daughters, who
arrived from their homes when their father
fell sick, now come out into the village square
to mourn. Other women join them as they dance

together through the village, singing mourn-
fully: "Father of many children is gone. Father
has gone on a long journey." The man's sons,
accompanied by drummers they have hired, also
go about the village crying: "We are looking

7
RELIGION AND THE ARTS II
for our father. Where is he?'^ No one uses the

words, Father is dead.
Immediately upon learning that the head of

the household has died, all his relatives crowd
into the compound. Each of the kinsmen and
kinswomen is anxious to make sure that he gets
his fair share of the heritage. If the heritage is
unfairly divided, the spirit of the dead man

will haunt all his relations. The children in-
herit most of the property. Everyone sees that
the customs are observed.
The man's relatives on his mother's side en-

ter his house first, according to custom. A dying
man knows that they will come. If he is con-
scious, he asks his eldest son, who will succeed
him as head of the household, to hide most of

his wealth. Some is left out, however, so the
relatives will not be disappointed and suspect
that they are being cheated. They do not trust
the family anyway and may even search the
household, questioning everyone. The son, who
Il8 THE IBO OF BIAFRA
now has become head of the compound^ is sup-

posed to remain firm and wary, so the suspicions
remain unproved. These kinsmen, after all, are
not his own mother's people.

The funeral is simple, although very crow'd-
ed. All kinsmen stay on hand for the duration

and for the feast that follows. A few young
kinsmen dig a grave in the floor of the man's
house. The body, in the meantime, has been
washed and more camwood ointment applied.
The man's face is painted yellow. Some orna-
ments, such as a bracelet, are slipped on his
right wrist, and an iron bell is placed inside the
grave, to announce his arrival into the world
of the spirits. If the man owned titles, his red
cap and eagle feather are buried with him. The

grave is lined with a mat, and the body is low-
ered on it. In the old days the body was buried
without any clothing, but later it came to be
wrapped in the man's toga. The grave is then

covered with earth. Cut-up yams, sprinkled
9
RELIGION AND THE ARTS II
with the blood of a sacrificed chicken, and

broken pots are put on top of the grave.
If the dead man was a priest, he too is buried
in the floor of the house where he lived. In
time, however, his skull is unearthed and placed
in the shrine next to his house. There it will
hang with his many predecessors and will be
prayed to by the priest who is elected to his
office by the elders of the village.

The new head of the compound will have
his father's house refurbished. Perhaps he will

put on a new thatched roof. The earth will be
stamped in, level with the rest of the floor. In

some compounds, where the house has grown
too old for repairing, he will build another
house. A small thatched lean-to is then placed

over the grave to protect it from the rain.
After the funeral, the kinsmen begin to de-

part. They have done their duty, and the
funeral ceremony has been properly carried out
to honor the man who now will become an

ancestral spirit. They carry away with them the

inherited goods.
Once a year the man's widows prepare food

for his spirit. Each sets out a bowl outside her
door on the special ceremonial night when all
widows honor their departed husbands. In the
morning these bowls always are found empty.

In a year or a little longer, depending on
what the sons can afford and how bountiful the

yam harvest has been, a second funeral is held.
Again both sides of his father's kin come. Again

the head of the compound and his brothers
house and feast them. If the dead man, on his

deathbed, made special requests to sacrifice a
cow or even a buffalo in his memory, the sons
do their best to carry out this wish. Often the

cost of such a feast may impoverish the family,
but the Ibo are not concerned. Honoring an an-
cestor properly is more important.
A woman's funeral is less elaborate than a
man's. Her married daughters come from

RELIGION AND THE ARTS 121
wherever they live and form a procession with

their friends, through the village, as they did
for their father. But no one beats drums. The
kinsmen arrive too. The kinsmen on her moth-
er's side find the small money inheritance they
look for. A woman, too, is buried in the floor
of her house.
A male kinsman holds a second funeral for
her at a later date. For this occasion he sacri-
fices a goat. Her eldest son also honors his
mother with a second funeral, which is some-

what more elaborate than the one given by her
kinsmen.
Both men and women have shrine pots
placed for them in the ancestral shrines. A son
places shrine pots for his father and mother in
the shrine of his ancestors. The eldest daughter

places a shrine pot for her mother in the village
where she lives. Women usually offer sacrifices
at women's shrines. The daughters inherit most

of their mother's property.
The masks and figures within a shrine repre-
sent deities. They have been carved by the Ibo
in much the same way since time immemorial.

The faces are large, often elongated, with nar-
row slits for eyes, long ears, horns, and enor-
mous carved teeth. The mouth is sometimes

thick lipped, sometimes represented by a slit, or
sometimes smeared with white paint. Whatever

the variations, the masks always awe and im-
press. Youngsters especially are frightened when

dancers perform in them for a ceremony. Fasci-
nated, they cling to their mothers, but try not
to miss anything.
Some ancestral female figures that the Ibo
carvers have created show special artistry and

style. They are beautiful, indeed. The African
looks upon a woman's mask or carved statue as
a symbol of motherhood, which they revere.

The more harmonious and beautiful such a
statue, the greater the response. The African

mask carved by a master seems to have a life
and character of its own, as though the carver

merely brought out the shape and design that
already lay hidden in the vôod.
The shape of the wood usually suggests to
the artist the design and size of the mask he

will carve. His tools are simple. He has an
adze, which resembles an ax, but has a thinner
blade and is set at a right angle to the handle.

He uses a chisel and a double-edged knife for
trimming the wood. His sandpaper consists of
rough animal skin and rough-surfaced plants.
The colors are white, pink, yellow, and those

of the earth. The artist rubs the wood with
lampblack mixed with grease to give it a lus-
trous color. Most West African sculpture has
this dark color. The wood for carving is rela-
tively soft, almost like our pine, and is easy to

work with, but care has to be taken not to crack
it.
The carver chooses mostly human or animal
subjects. Perhaps he will carve a low, simple,

four-legged stool in the shape of the square or
rounded body of an animal. He will flatten its
back for the seat and form a carrying handle

out of the head and tail. Some carvings are
delicate. Some are heavy and coarse, depending

on the artist's concept of what he has been
asked to execute and on the wood he has avail-
able. The Ibo seem to prefer masks with long
beak noses, slits for eyes, and thin lips. They
cover some of the masks with a hatching design.
Sacred carving has to be done away from
home. Other objects, however, such as drums,
carved doors for compounds, children's toys,
cane heads, and houseposts, can be made openly
out in the artist's compound. The carver's sons,
his brothers, or brothers' sons can work with

him, help him, and at the same time learn

carving. The finest artists are usually so busy
carvingj they become specialists and devote most
of their time to their art. Yet the Ibo farmers
can turn out good carvings, too, and they enjoy
making tool handles, fishhooks, ladles, and
bowls, after the yams are planted and there is
freedom for the men from work in the field.
Music and dance are also important to every
Ibo. At the first sound of a drum, youngsters

flock into the village square. Women peer out
of their doors to see how soon they should cover
their fires in order to join the group. Older
children, holding their smaller charges by the
hand, dance on the sidelines, watching the

movements of their elders and imitating them.
An African dancer uses his entire body. Each
part of his body, however, may follow a rhythm
of its own. He will begin moving his head to
one rhythm, then let his shoulders respond to
a faster beat, and his legs and arms to still

another rhythm. The African lets loose with

his entire body, and the result is a gay abandon,
which no one can resist for long. There is danc-
ing in every ceremonial, and everyone always
takes part.
There are no Ibo celebrations without music

and singing. Singing also accompanies work,
helping people do a job together. Men working
in the forests, families working in the fields,
people walking to and fro at weddings and

funerals — all of them sing, and drums and
flutes accompany the voices. Songs seem to stim-
ulate people to labor on and diminish the fatigue

and the constant heat of Iboland. There is sing-
ing and music when men tap the palms for palm
wine. There are songs when they paddle a boat,
and more singing when they have to wait for
something or rock a baby to sleep.
The Ibo's singing sounds informal, although

the songs have been learned well. One person
begins, and the phrase has a lilt to it that the
person next to him repeats in a singsong. The

others catch it up —and soon everyone is sing-
ing. The Ibo do not recite poetry as we do; they

sing it instead. A person who is specially gifted
musically takes the lead in a gathering. The

words of a poem suggest a tune and rhythm to
him. Ceremonial songs are memorized; the

chorus repeats the end lines of the recitation or
the prayer.
The Ibo are always ready to put the words

they speak to music and their gestures into
dance. The musicians watch the dancers, and
the dancers listen to the musicians. Each seems
to challenge the other to improvise. One drum
suddenly deepens its sound. As a dancer catches
the new tone, he responds with a change in
rhythm. Each person hears music differently,

and each responds to music in his own way. Ac-
cordingly, there is no uniformity among any
group of African dancers. Each presents a rich
variety of steps, movements, and gestures.

—
RELIGION AND THE ARTS I3I
In an Ibo market, where everyone seems busy

with selling and buying, a drum suddenly
sounds. People listen and "read" the music.
Just someone playing for pleasure. It is noth-
ing, they say to one another, turning back to
their tasks. But two young boys step out also
listening to the drum and begin to move in
rhythm. A little girl joins them, with her

mother's nod of encouragement. Other children
get up, and now two drums are beating. The
marketplace is silenced except for the beating
of the drums. People sit back and listen. A flute

picks out a lonely whistling. A child, too shy
to dance by herself, pulls her mother up to

dance with her.
In no time stalls are abandoned and people
young, old, middle-aged — are moving in
rhythm. The people dance with faces alight.
Mothers pick up their babies and sway with

them. A gay, unplanned, unprogrammed
festivity that removes worry and tension from
people's faces develops. As the drums stop, and

the flute falls silent, the people turn back to
their occupations once more. They are happy
as though they have just enjoyed a half hour's
refreshing rest.
i
CHAPTER 6
THE DANCE
OF THE TIMES
A man must dance the dance of the times, is an

Ibo proverb. To the Ibo, it means that they are
ready to accept change. They say "to get up^^ in
the world. At the same time they know that
much in their culture is worth saving. So they

are willing to adopt the new, but they hope to
adapt it to fit in with the old ways of life they
133
hold dear. However, change cannot be con-

trolled. Uprooting the old may be necessary,
exciting, and challenging. But modernization
brings suffering to some.
Many young people among the Ibo were the

most anxious to embrace change. They were
tired of the daily farm routine and so escaped
to towns. There they found that they had to
work even harder, in order to earn a living, but
hopefully they planned to learn, to get better

jobs, and to accumulate wealth, "to get up.'' In
towns an Ibo man readily took on any job of-
fered —no matter how menial —and worked

hard at it. An Ibo considers cooking and house-
work, for example, entirely woman's work. At
home, if a man were found cooking, he would
be the laughingstock of the village. But in

towns he accepted such jobs, because by living
in the homes of other people he could learn
their ways.
Gradually the town Ibo, or urban Ibo, cor-

THE DANCE OF THE TIMES I
35
rected their mistaken beliefs about the Euro-
peans. They had naively assumed that all Euro-

peans were wealthy and that they did not have
to work for money as hard as the Ibo. Some
Europeans, they discovered, earned only a little
more than they themselves did, working as
clerks in offices. The Ibo also got to know better
the Africans from the north, who came into
Ibo towns trading cattle, cloth, and salt. These

men differed from the European traders, but
also dijffered from the Ibo in their ways, in their
religions, and some in the color of their skin.
Ibo towns, like most Nigerian towns of to-
day, still do not have mid-twentieth century

comforts. Air conditioning, which eventually
will come to tropical Africa, is still rare. Homes

in towns are small, and ventilation often poor.
The custom of having age-groups keep the vil-
lage streets clean by sweeping them does not
work out in cities. As a result, even large sea-
ports, such as Port Harcourt and Lagos, where
European influence is strong, cannot as yet com-

pare with European or American cities in clean-
liness and planning.

In towns the population tends to live in sec-
tions. The wealthy are the only ones who can
afford to choose a site and build a home. The
rest, and they are the majority, move into what-
ever rooms are available to them. The Ibo live
together in the same sections. There the apart-

ments, or flats as they call them, are small and
the rent high by Ibo standards.
In the towns, an Ibo is glad to live next door
to people who speak Ibo, even though they may

belong to another subtribe. At least he hears
familiar language in the strange environment.
Many Ibo speak good English after a few years

of schooling and contact with Europeans. But
using a foreign tongue all the time is an effort.
Not only the words are different and difficult,
the sound, the sentence structure, and the ex-
pressions differ. The Ibo take pride in speaking

37
well and so are self-conscious. A person longs

for the ease of expressing himself in his own
language. Words in one's mother tongue are al-
ways richer and more apt than in any learned

language, no matter how rich the new language.
Ibo is a tonal language, where the same word,
spoken in a different pitch, has a different mean-
ing. It is a rich and a musical language. Eng-
lish, to the Ibo at first learning, is very compli-
cated. Its grammar and expressions are strange
to an African. The language seems very flat,
nasal, and full of tongue twisters. Although

English is the official language of Nigeria, the
Ibo also speak French and German, in addition

to several African languages —Hausa, Fulani,
Yoruba — other than their own Ibo.
The urban Ibo, even though they live with

other Ibo-speaking people, are often lonely.
Loneliness is the worst cultural shock for them.
At home, in the compound, a person is always

surrounded by relatives. He has their coopera-
tiorij their aflFection^ their encouragement, and
their teaching and guidance. The obligations

he has toward them make him feel wanted and
needed in the happy community. When he is
sick, his relatives come and stay with him till
he recovers. When it is time for him to marry,

his relatives contribute to the bride-wealth and
come with gifts to celebrate his wedding. They
fill the compound with gaiety and good will.
There are many times when a young man

away from home feels he has given up too
much and longs to return. Some do return. But
others do not want to give in, trusting that they
will learn to accept the new life and its ways.

When an Ibo can afford a wife, he hopes to be
less lonely.
The independent Ibo wives do not remain
housewives long. The young wife soon gets a
job. Perhaps at first she becomes a small trader
at the nearby market. If she has had some

schooling, she continues to attend night classes
39
and eventually gets an office job that will give

her more leisure at home. But even an ambitious
young woman has to remain home for the first
years after her children are born.
Ibo women have always worked. They grow

up in their villages with self-confidence and
courage, knowing that they can always support
themselves and their children. Even if a hus-

band is generous and wealthy, his wives are
expected to work all the same. Women have
been in charge of trading at the markets from
time immemorial. However, in towns, a house-
wife is expected to stay at home, so the Ibo
women are not always happy.
Many housewives join women's councils and
have a voice in the town's administration. The

women's councils fight for more and better
schools, and for government aid to support these
schools. As yet, most of the schools in Iboland

are run by missionaries. They have done an ex-
cellent job in many cases, but they ask that the
Ibo give up their religion and adopt Chris-

tianity, in whatever denomination runs the
school.
Iboland came under British control after

1900. Already northern Nigeria (the lands of
the Hausa and the Fulani) was under British
rule. The English had to subdue each group of

Ibo villagers with firearmSj jailing, and threats.
Gradually individual British administrators got

into villages. They proceeded to conscript road
labor (at very small pay or for no pay at all) to
build roads. They built for themselves strong,
fenced-in houses, located on high ground and

hillsides, which in an emergency could with-
stand attack. There they set up offices and
brought in clerks from Great Britain.
The British demanded that the villagers pay
for the roads, even though the Ibo had not
asked for them. In fact, the Ibo could not get

used to the wide, open roads that were unbear-
ably hot in the tropical sun. An Ibo walking
THE DANCE OF THE TIMES 1 43
down a wide, treeless road felt exposed and in-
secure. The packed dirt was hard underfoot.

To be taxed for something they found so ob-
jectionable was an additional insult to the free-
dom-loving Ibo.
Young men in age-sets were conscripted for
work on the roads. If they were late arriving,
or if the European foreman thought they were

not working fast enough, he used his whip. Ibo
teams liked to sing as they worked. But an irri-
tated foreman would shout at them to cut down

the noise and get going, often disrupting the
rhythm and coordination a team achieved with

song. Whipping only increased Ibo resistance,
and a youth never uttered a sound when dis-
ciplined. The stubbornness made the European
angrier. The Ibo stayed silent under the lash,

as though he were a ram being sacrificed in a
ceremonial. The gods were watching, and the

Ibo were sure punishment would be meted out
one day to their tormentors.

An established practice of the British co-
lonial government was to appoint African

chiefs to govern the villages and towns. In turn,
these chiefs reported to the British administra-
tor. This manner of government was especially

insulting to the Ibo. In their traditions they al-
ways elected their own headmen. There were

no hereditary chiefs or kings among the Ibo as
there were among other African groups. This
fact the British evidently failed to realize at
first.
Some of the British appointees turned out to
be ambitious, aggressive men, who abused their

power and the people's trust. Honest men
suffered in jails rather than serve the British
against their own people. One British-appointed

chief frightened several villages by telling them
that the British were planning a road right
through their compounds. The elders begged

him to speak for them to the British and not
destroy their homes. The chief agreed to do so.
provided the villagers paid him for his efforts.
The desperate people gave the chief all they

had. The road was built, finally, far away from
the villages. But the Ibo learned too late that
the British never had planned to put a road
through their property.

Were a group of elders to come to the British
station to plead a cause, such as a reduction of
taxes, they might be jailed. Since the officer in
charge did not speak Ibo, and the Ibo had not
yet learned to speak English, communication
was difficult. Their English, learned by ear, be-
came known as pidgin English. Some examples

of pidgin English are:
Good evening. Sir Deven Sah.
A man came Man dun cum.

Put him in the guardroom Puttam for gadda-
loon.
Pidgin English acquired wide usage. It be-
came the language in which Africans from dis-

tant tribes, speaking entirely different lan-
guageSj could communicate with each other.
But it has not achieved the popularity of

Swahili in East Africa.
xA.s the cities grew there was ready work to
be found at seaports and railroad centers. Thus,
the leading towns of Aba, Port Harcourt,

Umuahia, Onitsha, Enugu, and Calabar ex-
panded, attracting young Ibo from their
crowded villages and farmlands. Ibo also found

work in Lagos, Ijebu, Ode, and Ibadan. Some
became students at the University of Ibadan.
In 1929, the women of the town of Aba

went to war. Rumors spread that the British
colonial government intended to tax property
that the women had inherited from their moth-

ers and kinswomen. The women's councils in
southern Iboland protested. They started pro-
test marches on the British administrative cen-

ters of Aba and continued their march on to
Owerri and east to Calabar. Women from

towns and villages joined the demonstrations,

which became known as the Aba Riots. The
women won. The tax was never imposed.
After the Aba Riots of 1929, the British

began to reorganize their administration and
based it on village-group councils and town
councils. Later, after the Second World War,
educated, English-speaking Ibo demanded and
were granted some control over their country's
affairs.
With this change came the demand for inde-

pendence. The Ibo not only fought for their
own independence. They joined with other Ni-
gerians and demanded freedom from British
rule for the entire country. In October of 1 960,

Nigeria finally obtained her independence from
Britain, and the Ibo were the happiest of the
many Nigerian tribes. Young and old, the Ibo
all had worked for independence. Some left
good jobs and connections elsewhere in Africa

and Europe and rushed home to join the cause.
Inevitably the fifteen different major groups
that made up free Nigeria had trouble getting

along among themselves. However, for some
five years after independence the new country

carried on successfully. For a time Nigeria ap-
peared to be the only African nation that had

achieved the necessary unity. In 1962 Nigeria
changed its form of government and declared
itself a Republic.
The first president. Sir Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa, proved able and held the country to-
gether, but he could not control the graft, the
unrest and lawlessness, that developed within
the young Republic. The Hausa and Fulani of

the Northern Region dominated the govern-
ment j the Yoruba of the Western Region and
the Ibo of the Eastern Region tried to main-
tain their independence. On January 25, 1966,

a group of Ibo officers assassinated Balewa and
two other high officials in a coup, installing an
Iboj Jonson Aguiyu Ironsi at the head of the
new government. He, in turn, was murdered

six months later by a group from the Northern
Region, who also massacred hundreds of de-
fenseless Ibo living among them. The remain-
ing Ibo, some 400,000, fled to their homeland.
Colonel Yakubu Gowon became president and
hoped at all costs to keep the rich Eastern Re-

gion within the Republic. But his army mu-
tinied in October of the same year and slaugh-
tered some 30,000 Ibo, mostly women and chil-
dren.
On March 30, 1967, the Ibo declared their

independence of the Nigerian government. Un-
der the premiership of Lieutenant Colonel Odu-
megwu Ojukwu, the Ibo people and their allies
in the Eastern Region named their country
Biafra. Several African states soon recognized
Biafra's independence, but Nigeria declared the
Biafrans rebels and refused to recognize the

I50 THE IBO OF BIAFRA
secession. An estimated army of some 9000 Ibo

men made ready to defend the boundaries of
their homeland.
The Nigerian Federal government's now

Major General Yakubu Gowon organized an
army of some 80,000 men and, with the re-
ported aid of European allies, encircled the
rebel Biafrans. At this date, the Biafrans have

already lost almost all of their land. They are
THE DANCE OF THE TIMES I5I
completely surrounded by the enemy, which has

cut off all supplies and communication. The
people are starving.
The Ibo and their neighbors, the Efik, the
Ibibio, and the Riverain peoples, have mustered
an army of some 25,000, but the recruits have
little or no ammunition. In world opinion, this
war is one of extermination. It has been called
the children's war. Hunger is killing from 500 1
to 40,000 Biafrans weekly. Refugee camps are

filled to overflow. Once the Ibo had so much
food that they exported it. Today the constant
bombardment has forced the people to abandon

their fields.
Private citizens, the International Red Cross,
and many church organizations, European gov-

ernments, and the United States have given
money and food, but they cannot break through
the blockade. The Ibo's Odumegwu Ojukwu

has said that the people would rather die than
surrender to tyranny. Nigeria's Yakubu Gowon

"
feels that it is fair in war to blockade a coun-

try and bring it to its knees through starvation.
A few newspaper reporters have succeeded
in entering Biaf ra and have broadcast the criti-
cal state of the starving Ibo. One reporter who

visited several villages said that despite all their
losses the Ibo morale is high. The Ibo met the

newspaper men with a friendly "Nno!'' (Wel-
come!) They are concerned that the reporters
pity them. The villagers still maintain their

traditional hospitality. Each visitor must drink
a cup of palm wine and share a kola nut. You
can almost hear the old grandfather saying to
the guest: "He is a fool who treats his brother
as a stranger. Are you not our brother?

INDEX
* indicates illustration
Art, 111-132 British rule (cont.)

masks, images, charms, Aba Riots, 146-147
112, 121-126, independence from,
I22*-I23*, 127* 147
Calendar
Biafra
days in a week, 70
allies, 151
for Yam Festival, 80
secession, 149
Bride-wealth, 48 Day's routine, 90—1 10,
British rule, 140-147 91*, I02*-I03*
153
154 INDEX
Family life Food (cont.)

building new home, palm wine, 39-40, 69
89-90 planting, 21-22
elders, role of, 27-28 yams, counting, 81-
father-son relations, 82*
88 defined, 12, 21
growing up, 29-56 storing of, 22, 83*
head of compound, 119
household, 23 Government, Ibo, 69
hubsand-wives rela- democratic character,
tions, 41, 88 69-70
inherited lands, 23-25, in disputes, 27, 68-70
117 leaders, 72
kinship, 26-27, 29-30 role of elders, 73-74
working together, 23- under British, 144-
25, 24* 145
Festivals Growing up, 29-56
Pumpkin Leaves, 75- age-mates, or age-set,
79, 77* 34
Yam, 80-84, 82* nicknames, songs,
Food and tricks, 40
eating manners, 95 responsibility to, 63
for feast, 52-53 visit of two old age-
fruits and vegetables, mates, 35-40
22-23 beliefs about children,
hunting game, 23 31-33
oil palm, 22 betrothal, 47-49
INDEX 155
Growing up (cont.) Growing up (cont.)

children, 29-32 gifts, 50-52
and ancestral spirits, procession, 49,
31-32 50^-51*
concern for, 29—30 relationship with par-
permissiveness, 30- ents, 33-34, 40-42,
31 46-47
toilet training, 30
Home, at, 85-110, 102*-
circumcision, 45
103*
46—47
girls' training,
appearance of village,
basket making and
85-86
pottery, 47
cooking, 93-95
games, 46
eating customs, 87—88,
housekeeping, 46
95
imitating adults, 40-
evenings at, 95-97
46, 43*. 96
basket weaving, 98
initiation
games, 96-97
into manhood, 45
storytelling, loi,
into womanhood, 46
I02*-I03*-I09
kinship, 28—30
inside of, 87, 88-89,
marriage, 49—56
119
bride-wealth, 48
wedding, 47-56 Ibo
dance, 51-52 appearance, 17, 24*
feast, 52-53 dress, frontispiece, 17-
final ritual, 53- 21, 24''', 50^-51*,
56 65^^
156 INDEX
Ibo (cont.) Marketplace (cont.)

homeland, 11-13* Leaves, 75-79, 77*
boundaries, 11- 12 festival of Yams, 80-
map of, 13* 84
independence of, 1 6- market days, 70-71
17, 143 money and prices, 64,
leaders, 72 67
personality, 16-17 produce, 62-63
pronunciation, 11 sections in, 64
trading, 57-58
Land Medicine men, 1 13-1 15*
disputes and settle- Modern times, 133-152
ment, 26-28, 69-70 ambitions, 133-134
ownership, 24—26 city life, 136-139
Languages growth of cities, 135-
English, 15-16, 136- 136
137 migration to cities, 134
Ibo, 15, 137 school in village, 141*
pidgin English, 145- "to get up,"133-134
146 Music, song and dance,
95, 97, 126-132
Map, 13*
Marketplace, 57-84, Ss"^ Odumegwu Ojukwu,
court of elders,68-74 149, 150*, 151
entertainment, 67-68
festival of Pumpkin Population, 11, 81-82
INDEX 157
Religion and beliefs, Religion and beliefs

111-132 (cont.)
about children, 31-33, shrines, 69, 83-84,

III 121-123
about death, 116
Slave trade, 57-62
burial, 11 8-1 21
Societies, 71
mourning, 116, 1 20
joining of, 71-72
second burial, 120,
secret, 72
121
titles, 72
about justice, 143
women's councils, 99,
about sickness, 112—
139
115*
about twins, 33 Trading, 57-58
ancestor worship, 112
War with Nigeria, 148-
Chineke, the Creator,
152
111-112
Women, Ibo
festival of Pumpkin basket making, 98
Leaves, 75—79, 77* character of, 32
festival of Yams, 80- child bearing and birth,
84 32-33
offerings to the spirits, farming, 23-25, 24*,
38,84 62-63
revenge demanded by pottery making, 99-
spirits, 26-28 100
sacrifices, 112, 118- preparing food, 93—95
119, 120 societies, 99-139
\
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sonia Bleeker has been widely acclaimed for her

seventeen books on the Indians of North and Central
America and for her fine books on the peoples of
Africa. Educated in the New York public schools,
Dr. Bleeker (Mrs. Herbert S, Zim) received her B.A.
degree from Hunter College and did graduate work in
anthropology at Columbia University, under Franz

Boas and Ruth Benedict. In 1967, she was awarded
the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Beloit
College, Wisconsin.
159
l6o ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In 1949, while looking for some books about In-

dians to read to her two sons, she found there were
very few at their age level and decided to write one
herself. The result is her series of books on the Amer-
ican Indians, which began with Indians of the hong-
house^ the Story of the Iroquois y published in 1950.
Prior to this work, Dr. Bleeker published many short
stories and several translations. Since then, however,
she has devoted her full time to writing and doing
research for her books.
As a student, and later with her husband. Dr.
Bleeker has crisscrossed the United States many
times, concentrating on Indian country, and visited
Canada, Central and South America a number of
times as well. In recent years Dr. Bleeker has made
four trips to Africa as part of her research on the
anthropology of that continent: its peoples' origins,
migrations, beliefs, occupations, governments, arts and
crafts.
Sonia BleekerZim and her author-husband. Dr.

Herbert S. Zim, make their home on the Florida
Keys. They have two sons: Aldwin is now an Asso-
ciate Professor in Texas, and Roger, also a teacher, is
in California.

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J916.

THE APACHE INDIANS

THE ASHANTI OF GHANA

THE CHIPPEWA INDIANS

THE CROW INDIANS

THE DELAWARE INDIANS

HORSEMEN OF THE WESTERN PLATEAUS

INDIANS OF THE LONGHOUSE

THE MISSION INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA

THE PUEBLO INDIANS

THE SEA HUNTERS

THE SEMINOLE INDIANS

WILLIAM MORROW AND COMPANY

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-76981

6 THE DANCE OF THE TIMES 133

The Ibo are a numerous group of West Afri-

estimated population is between seven and eight

though the Ibo themselves add a slight g sound

some two dozen large towns are located in

southeastern Nigeria, along the Niger River

on the west and the Cross River on the east.

Iboland stretches over the hot swampy delta

region of the Niger River on the Gulf of

Guinea. It includes the swamps of Ikwerreland,

north almost to the town of Ogoja, the dry-

upland grasslands. The rivers of Iboland, in

Imo, Oji, and Qua.

long potato) farmers and oil-palm cultivators,

populations in Africa. In the old days, between

We have learned about the Ibo from Euro-

themselves. These writers and reporters tell us

about their ancient ways as well as about Ibo

Since the British began to trade with the

Ibo some 300 years ago, these schooled Ibo

well and often better than some Europeans and

Americans whose native language is English.

Because the Ibo language is more flowery than

colorful expressions. Sometimes the wording

fully put and so full of African as well as Ibo

wisdom and vitality, we find ourselves repeat-

1 THE IBO OF BIAFRA

ing with pleasure —and oftentimes with envy

Ibo writers say their people are generous,

customs and beliefs, in personal characteristics

to the majority and the major characteristics

Ibo likes to depend on another. Everyone in

whether rich or poor. Each has his task and

beggars in Iboland. An Ibo likes to give rather

woman, will embarrass anyone by asking for

help. An Ibo man or woman will readily fight

for justice, whether for himself or for others.

A common belief among non-Ibo tribes is that

two men are needed to restrain an Ibo when he

treated with justice.

The Ibo describe their legendary heroes as

like the sun.'' They describe themselves as hav-

ing a chocolate brown complexion. Strong and

well built, they are a trifle shorter and stouter

than their neighbors to the north, the Fulani

ways looks at the person he is talking to di-

rectly, without self-consciousness, and does not

country is hot. The men wear the equivalent of

skullcaps; others have no headgear at all. A