Calabar and its mission

Preface

Advancing years indicating that I must soon lay aside the work in which I have been so long engaged, some of my brethren made the request that, as I had been connected with the Mission since its commencement, I should make a record of its history.

Not being now able, in our rude country, to discharge the more active duties of the Mission, I had it in my power to comply with their request.

The history of the Mission is very much the beginning of the history of the country, which has just now taken an important step, in requesting to be taken up as a British colony.

I have enjoyed a melancholy pleasure, while writing the narrative, in bringing before me, and renewing intercourse with those who, during a long series of years, have given their life’s labour to the Mission, and from companionship in duty here have gone to join the great company of the redeemed before the throne. They now form part of the cloud of witnesses which surround us, and no doubt rejoice in the progress of that work for which they lived and died.

From the distance at which I am placed, it has been impossible for me to revise the proof-sheets; but this office has been kindly performed by Mrs. Edgerley, to whom I offer my grateful acknowledgments. H. G-.

Creek Town, Old Calabar,

January 1890.

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Contents

CHAP.

I. THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE,

II. THE FORM OF GOVERNMENT AND ITS ADMINISTRATION,

Chapter I. The Country And The People

Portuguese enterprise in the end of the fifteenth century unveiled the West African coast to the modern world. In 1784, that part of the continent in which Calabar lies was explored along its coast-line, and the name given to it by its discoverer, Diego Cam, is that by which it is still known to Europeans.1 English commerce was soon attracted to the coast, and as this increased, a line of settlements or forts, from the Gambia downwards, was planted along the seaboard, chiefly on the Slave and Gold Coasts, for its protection. The benefit of the natives was not contemplated thereby. Until the beginning of this century, the commerce promoted was the slave trade ; only in the end of the previous century was something done on their behalf by the private efforts of the distinguished philanthropists who, in 1787, purchased a territory along the Sierra Leone shore, and formed the settlement which bears this name, for the reception of the unhappy captives rescued from the slave ships captured by British cruisers. The wretched victims

xThe native name is Efik. There is a New Calabar, reached through a creek off the Ibanni (Bonny) branch of the Niger. This was probably a settlement from Calabar, now called Old for the sake of distinction.

IO of this traffic were there cared for and educated. Our rulers were content with the strip of coast through which a limited commerce flowed, and did not look beyond. Other nationalities are now getting into the interior beyond our settlements, and so cutting off the springs of the coast traffic. Surely such a power as that of Britain, without stepping out of its proper functions, could have in many ways advanced the welfare of the rude tribes on whose borders we had planted ourselves ; but our official men as a class have hitherto recognised no duty towards them, and have acted on the notion that the black man was created for the benefit of the white. A better class is now gradually filling the posts of power.

Leaving all the British settlements and passing southward along the base line of the extensive delta of the Niger, we reached the mouth of the Calabar river. At this point, in clear weather, the peak of the mountains of the island of Fernando Po may be seen on the one hand, and the huge mass of the Kameroons mountains on the other. The Cross river, to use the name it bears on the map, enters the Gulf of Guinea by a single outlet, twelve miles broad, so that ships of a large burden find an easier entrance into it than into the Niger, which divides its waters into many streams. For a considerable distance the banks are low, covered with a mangrove forest, but even at the entrance inhabited on Efiat (Louis Shott’s point) by a tribe of fishermen located on the swTampy soil. Proceeding up the turbid stream, the estuary begins to be divided by numerous islets ; and at a distance from the mouth of between fifty or sixty miles, high land appears on both sides, and the river divides into two main branches ; that on the right hand, still carrying the name of the Cross river, is the main stream. It has been so named from the opinion entertained so late as 1840, when M'Queen

THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE.

1 1 published his Geographical Survey of Africa, that it is an outlet of the Niger. A Mr. Colthurst, in the decade of 1830, attempted to penetrate the continent from Calabar, but reached no farther than Ikorofiong (Ekrikok), where, taking sick, he returned and died at Duke Town. In a communication to the Royal Geographical Society, Mr. Colthurst states that people from Old Calabar traded with the Niger. Depending on this and other authorities, Mr. M'Queen affirms the old opinion. There is a traffic of no great extent between the Niger region and Calabar, but it is conducted overland, and no connection, so far as is known, exists between the two rivers. The late governor, Becroft, when in charge of a small steamer, the Ethiopa, went up the Cross river till stopped by rapids, at about three hundred miles from the mouth, the farthest distance to which it has yet been navigated, and found it take a sudden turn to the south, so that a conjecture that it might have a communication with the Benue was disproved. The smaller branch on the left, locally called the Calabar river, at a distance of eighty or a hundred miles narrows into a mountain stream. On this branch Duke Town is situated, about five miles above the division of the river. At the point of the parting of the waters, the consulate and Old Town are seen in the distance, and the Factories lining the bank of the river. Duke Town, lying in a hollow, is not seen at first, but the mission-house on the top of the hill comes speedily into view.

Calabar proper is divided into four districts. These are — (1) Iboku, comprising Atakpa (Duke Town) and Okuritungko (Creek Town), which possess the traffic and power of the country ; (2) Obutong (Old Town) ; (3) Adiabo, consisting of the Guinea Company villages, with Ikotmbo and Ibunda ; (4) Mbiabo (Ekrikok), consisting of Ikunetu and Ikorofiong. Adiabo lies on the smaller branch of the

CALABAR AND ITS MISSION.

river, and above it are the petty tribes Okoyong and Uwet, leading on to a hill region. Mbiabo is situated on the main branch, and beyond it are Itu, Enyong, Union, and numerous other small tribes, into which the slave trade broke up the population of this part of the continent, leaving to them a legacy of perpetual enmity and strife.

The Efik people, as they call themselves, have, according to their tradition, come out of Ibibio, a territory which extends from the Cross river to Ibu on the Niger. Expelled by the party victorious in a tribal war, they attempted to form a settlement on a place called Old Efik, the head of the island which lies in the estuary opposite Ikunetu ; but their enemies, following up their victory, drove them from that quarter, and they scattered into the various localities which they now occupy. This compulsory migration seems to have occurred in the seventeenth or more probably in the beginning of the eighteenth century. They obtained land from the Qua, the Okoyong, and the Ibibio tribes on which to form their settlements. They report that their fathers, when they came down the river, found ships carrying on the slave trade, and, locating themselves nearer to the coast, they shut off those behind them from communication with the European shipping. The people of Old Town being at that time nearest, attempted to treat their fellow-refugees in the same way ; and to defeat this scheme, a number of families in Creek Town went farther down still, and, procuring land from the Qua tribe, built what is now called Duke Town, at first called New Town, which, from the advantage of its position, has become the principal seat of population and traffic.

The chief article of export is palm oil, got from the fruit of the palm named by botanists Elais G-uineensis, which is limited in its habitat, abounding only on the West African coast. It is not cultivated by the natives ; they gather

THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE .

what is produced naturally. The fruit is a kind of plum, compacted in numbers round a central core, forming a large cluster ; and cut from this core they are thrown into a shallow pit lined with wood, in which they are pounded in water. The oil is collected, a thickish fluid, which solidifies on its passage to Liverpool, which is the principal port for West African commerce. Formerly the stone was thrown aside, but of late it forms a large article of export, and from it another oil is extracted. Barwood, a red dyewood, and ebony also enter into the list, and now rubber is being added. The elephant is found in certain districts, but not in any number, and the people never attempt to make a prey of it. A little of what is called dead ivory is sometimes picked up. By far the greater part of the oil exported is produced by the tribes behind, especially by Ibibio ; the Calabar people acting as merchants in the trade. They make a quantity of oil in their farms, but a considerable portion of this is consumed as food, the oil forming an ingredient in almost all their dishes, and is much relished by Europeans when they get over the uncomfortable sensation of eating oil.

The country gradually rises to a considerable elevation above the river, though no hills diversify it ; and looking over it from any height which gives opportunity for a view, it presents a uniform appearance of forest. The mode of cultivation of their soil practised by the natives does not break in much on the wooded aspect of the country. In preparing the ground for planting, they do not make extensive or permanent clearances. They cut down the bush on the plot they wish to crop for the season, and when the harvest is gathered in they allow the bush to spring up again and occupy the clearance, cutting another spot for next season’s tillage, and returning on the field formerly cropped, after allowing it a rest under the bush of five or six years. The ashes of the bush cut down is the only manure given to the land. This mode of culture shows that the population does not at all press on the means of subsistence.

The yam of various kinds is the chief article of food grown. The plantain and banana, cassava, maize, coco, a species of arum resembling the taro of the South Sea Isles, the sweet potato, which is the tuber of a convolvulus, and the sugar-cane, all find a place mixed together in the farms. The maize is roasted or boiled, not ground to meal, and the sugar-cane is eaten or chewed as a sweetmeat. The mission has introduced upwards of thirty plants, of food, fruit, and flowers, such as the breadfruit, the mango, the avocado pear, the papau, the citron and lemon, and arrowroot of two species. During the prevalence of the slave trade, the possession of a home and even of life were so uncertain, that no one thought of planting a tree ; even yet the only tree generally planted is a small species of palm, the sap of which is used as a beverage. Nor do they seek to propagate flowers ; they have yet no eye for their beauty. A chief of Duke Town calling one day found me engaged in planting roses. He asked if they were good to eat, and on being told that they were not food, but beautiful to the eye, he replied that he did not see the good of bringing bush into the country, as they had already more than they wanted. The people of each tribe around us keep to the cultivation of the kind of food which they have been accustomed to grow, and do not readily introduce a new plant. Following use and wont is the rule of their lives. The Mkpongwe, at the mouth of the Gaboon river, cultivate only the cassava : the people of Efiat, at the mouth of our river, grow the plantain ; and the Kameroons people have the sweet potato as their staple article of food.

The towns in Calabar are built by the side of the river,

African River.

THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE.

and where the soil is not productive in the immediate locality, they make their farms at a distance where better land may be obtained. The principal farms of the people of Duke Town are in the hilly region on the banks of the Qua river. There they build their farm hamlets, in which they reside in the dry season, and gather into the towns during the rains. A few of the chief men reside in the town permanently, attending to their traffic and the affairs of the town.

Their mode of house-building makes a substantial and comfortable dwelling. The materials are at hand in the mangrove forests and in the palm, and every man is his own house-builder. A wall is made of strong wattle, plastered with a sandy clay which is got everywhere. The roof is supported on mangrove posts, and the rafters are the branches of a palm, the Phytelephas macrocar'pa of botanists, which are covered as a thatch by mats formed of its fronds stitched together. The roof projects beyond the wall to protect it from rain, and so forms a covered walk or verandah in which the indwellers spend most of their time during the day, and attend to their household work. The apartments are built in Eastern style, round a court or yard, without windows, each apartment opening into the court, and all having a common entrance from the street. In this manner court can be added to court, to provide the accommodation required, and a hundred or more may have their homes in the same premises. In almost every house there is a women’s yard, corresponding to the harem or zenana of the East. When the walls are finished, a clay bench is commonly formed along the bottom, inside, which, while it gives stability to the wall, forms a convenient seat or bed, as may be required. The women spend a great deal of time and exhibit their taste in painting the principal apartments with various coloured

B i8

CALABAR AND ITS MISSION.

earths, according to their fancy, frequently imitating the patterns of cloth got from the factories.

The dusky colour of the skin takes away a good deal of the feeling a stranger from Britain is apt to entertain on entering amongst our people, in the state approaching utter nudity. The native costume consists of a piece of cloth tied round the loins. In the case of a chief it is likely a piece of silk, and out of doors he assumes a hat of the chimney-pot style, black, blue, red, or green, as he may fancy, an attendant carrying over him a huge umbrella made of strips of bright-coloured cloth. European clothing is now being adopted by such, though at first it is felt less comfortable than their native mode.

By far the greater part of the population is in a state of serfdom, the people or their fathers having been brought into the country, sold for crime or debt, or it may be to get rid of any claim they might have to position or wealth seized by a stronger hand. We have amongst us also captives of the slave raids of the Tibari, as the Eulatos or Fellani are called here.1 Thus about thirteen different tribes are represented in our population. There is no record of their number, so that the amount of the population can he only guessed at. It is commonly reckoned that Duke Town has a population of six thousand, and Creek Town one thousand five hundred. By far the greater part of the people are, however, scattered in the farm districts.

The slaves greatly outnumber the free men, and have once and again overawed the chief. A number of them are employed in the traffic of the country, but they are

1 KingEyo II., who received the mission on its entry, a clear-headed man, was much amused when our custom of taking a census was explained to him. All our counting, he remarked, could not add one to the number of the people.

THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE.

mostly employed in agricultural work, scattered throughout the country districts, and left almost entirely to their own supervision. The master expects that they acknowledge him by an occasional visit with a tribute of a few yams or other farm produce, and when he has a heavy work on hand, such as building a house, he calls out his people. In the case of war, they follow him into the field, for as there is no military profession, every man is a soldier.

The master’s power over his slaves is in theory absolute, but is much modified by custom, though by occasional outrages, which still occur, this irresponsible authority is asserted. It is considered a confession of extreme poverty, a condition thought contemptible in Calabar as it is in Britain, should a master sell any of his slaves except for crime. Moreover, the abolition of the slave trade, of the slaughtering of human victims for the dead, and of substitutionary capital punishment, have greatly ameliorated the condition of the serf population. The terror of these customs enabled the masters to exercise a power which they would not now venture to put forth. Those born in the country are termed half-free, and are possessed of certain privileges above the new people brought in.

In this state of society, a slave, tending or cultivating land on his own account, may become a richer man and a greater slaveholder than his master, and practically as free. The distinction of race as between white and black does not exist to place an impossible barrier between the two classes. All are of the same race, all equally uncultivated, and all taking life leisurely. Sometimes a chief will take one of his own slaves for his wife, and a trusted slave will take charge of his deceased master’s household, should the children he too young for any one of them to assume the headship. He becomes, in fact, his

CALABAR AND ITS MISSION.

master’s heir, as Abraham, still childless in his advanced life, apprehended the steward of his household would be. It is the old patriarchal state of society which prevails, and in some points resembles that existing in our country in bypast times when might ruled rather than law. Tor protection a free man will sell himself ; indeed, the people of the smaller towns have given themselves over as clients to the leading families of Duke and Creek Towns. And it is remarkable how clannish the slaves belonging to the same house become. Each one considers that he partakes of the honour of the house, and is zealous in maintaining it. Any slight put upon his master, or father (the one word ete signifying both) as the master is designated, is resented as a personal offence, and in faction fights between houses, puts forth his powers in behalf of his owTn side. The above statements show that the native serfdom is not that of the slavery formerly existing in the British West Indies and in the Southern States of America ; but the word slave being used to translate the native term, which means dependent, the mistake has been made by some of considering both conditions to be the same.

Polygamy is a prevailing practice. The headmen have their harems. The girls are gifted or betrothed in their childhood, and a chief may keep adding to his harem so long as he lives. If he has grown in wealth, the other families, even those of neighbouring tribes, are desirous of forming connection with him, and bestow their daughters upon him. Before marriage, those so disposed of were called Nkaiferi, the naked class, and walked about clothed only with a roll of bright -coloured worsted round the loins, and leglets or buskins made of brass rods, which obliged the poor girls to hobble along not very gracefully ; but the demands of fashion are inexorable here as elsewhere. When the husband wished to complete the

THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE.

marriage ceremony, the young woman was shut up to undergo a process of fattening, a practice widely prevalent in Africa, corpulence being esteemed a chief point of beauty, as Park found it to be even in the Moorish regions he traversed to the east of the Gambia. When the desired result is attained, the bride is brought forth from her seclusion, decked with a head-dress of feathers, and profusely ornamented with beads, a silk cloth round the loins being her only garment, to be seen and admired by all publicly. Friends make her presents, and she then withdraws into the harem of her husband. The seclusion of the Calabar harem is not so rigid as that of the zenana of the East. The wives so shut up may have their own farms and their own people, and may go out to attend to the farm work in the season. The parties, moreover, may part company, on the wife giving back what the husband has expended in gifts to her and her relatives on taking her as his wife.

Dr. Eobb when in charge of Ikorofiong station, one day entering an Ibibio village behind the mission-house, found the Efik ceremony in its native soil going on with more than wonted splendour. “A great day in Ibibio,” he writes. “For several months the marriageable girls, all of whom have been bought by their husbands years ago, have been a-fattening, and on this day the whole of them come out and show their charms in the market-place. Leglets made of two or three yards of brass rods, weighing two pounds each, are twisted round each leg from the ankle upwards ; bracelets of the same material envelop the fore-arm, and an immense girdle of dark red beads with necklaces, complete the grotesque attire. In this guise they trudge three or six miles, and go round the market-place amid the plaudits of the crowd.” On another occasion he came upon an additional part of the exhibition. “ The last yard

CALABAR AND ITS MISSION.

visited in our round presented to me a curious and interesting scene. With difficulty we pushed our way through the crowd to the inner yard. There in the middle of the yard was a woman sitting on a chair covered with a rug, having a crown on her head made of feathers, many strings of beads on her neck, a cashmere kerchief spread on her knees, scarlet leggings, thickly studded with small bells, her feet resting on a box of brass rods, and her head resting on hunches of black coppers.1 In her hand was a staff headed with ivory, and decorated with a large tassel. Before her on the floor lay all kinds of earthenware, many brass pans, and heaps of small pieces of cloth. On the world at her feet her eyes were intent, like those of the man with the muck-rake in the Pilgrim's Progress. Two young girls, profusely decorated with beads, stood at her side, fanning her most gracefully. The yard was uncomfortably filled with women squatting on the floor, and men sitting on chairs. c Is this the queen of the

farm ? ’ I inquired. ‘ Oh no,’ was the reply, ‘ she is

now made a wife, her fattening being over, and her friends are presenting her with their gifts before sending her home to the house of her husband.’ Her father, while we were present, brought a calabash, from which he counted eight pieces of cloth, and laid them at her feet. He then took a little white earth out of a small calabash at her side and rubbed it on the back of her

right hand, indicating that his presents were ended. Her

mother and many others followed with their gifts. Some brought goats, one a furious pig, which caused much commotion. It was pronounced unsuitable for transmission to the future abode of the bride, and should be killed for the feast.”

It is a question still under debate among Christians,

1 The brass rods and the black coppers are the money of the country.

THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE.

whether a polygamist is admissible into the Christian Church. The practice of most missionaries is to exclude such. But it is argued that we have not scriptural authority for such action, and that it inflicts a great wrong on the poor women who may be cast off. Were such objectors to see polygamy as existing in Calabar, they would find no difficulty in coming at once to the conclusion that the only connection which a person entering the Church can have with one of the other sex must be that marriage relationship which God instituted at the creation of man. As to the injury inflicted on the wives repudiated, such even in their married state among the negro tribes have for the most part to support themselves, their husbands contributing little towards their expenses. The refusal to condone the custom of polygamy by excluding it from the Church, it is true, restricts much the numbers of those who come forward to profess Christianity, while Mohammedanism, sanctioning it, and making no demand on its converts but the abandonment of a few fetish rites, makes more rapid advance in Africa than the Christian faith. Those thus gained, however, only exchange one superstition for another.

While a marriage ceremony is observed by the chiefs when taking to wife a woman of their own rank, among the most of the population no ceremony exists. The people in this respect live like the lower creation. They form connections, and separate at their pleasure. This, as will at once be perceived, leads to a great waste of childlife, for the burden of the children’s support being commonly thrown on the mother, and having little to encourage her in bestowing upon her children the care they require, many perish through want of it.

Whether the most unnatural of the customs prevailing amongst the Calabar people, the destruction of the infant

CALABAR AND ITS MISSION.

twin -born, originated in reluctance to undertake the care of their upbringing, it is hard to say. Eventually it took the place of an act of obedience demanded by the objects of their idolatry, and, strange to say, it is most strenuously supported by the women, though they suffer most from it. The mother, who was visited with the much-dreaded affliction of a twin-birth, was no doubt formerly destroyed with her infants ; but we found on our arrival that though she was driven out of the town, and mourned for as dead, she was permitted to live in the farm districts, and a hamlet was built on the outskirts of each town, called the twin-mothers’ village, in which those resided who were undergoing this banishment for life.

Twin - births seem much more frequent amongst those rude tribes than among communities advanced in civilisation, and consequently infanticide tended much to keep down the increase of population. A detailed account need not be given of the destruction constantly occurring around us of the hapless infants whom superstition doomed. The following instances will suffice to show the feelings of the people towards such, in the cruelty practised on them. The wife of Okun ETyamsi, then teacher at Eseko, came in one day to report the circumstance of a twin-birth in the neighbourhood. The father of the infants had carried them into the bush, and buried them. Okun and his wife got notice of the matter, and he hurried out to see if anything could be done for them. The father refused at first to show the spot where he had put them, but yielding to Okun’s sharp rebuke, they were taken out of the hole still alive, but neither of them lived, and the poor mother would not look at them. A note received from the Eev. Asuqua Ekanem, native minister at Ikunetu, says : “ On Wednesday morning a lad came and told us of a twin-birth at a farm. Ekpenyong hTdang