Peoples of the Niger-Benue Confluence (The Nupe. The Igbira. The Igala. The Idioma-speaking Peoples) by Daryll Forde Paula Brown Robert Armstrong

Author:Daryll Forde, Paula Brown, Robert Armstrong [Daryll Forde, Paula Brown, Robert Armstrong]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138239531
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

A Note On the Ibaji

The Ibaji occupy a large area south and south-east of Idah down to the border of Igala Division and west to the Niger. On the map at the end of his Die Westlichen Sudansprachen, Westermann includes this region in the Edo-speaking area. A missionary who has travelled in this country told me of having seen carved wooden masks there. Allison writes: “On the alluvial soils of the Ibaji country, rubber vines are uncommon and the palm produce collected by the primitive Ibaji fishermen, about whom little is known, is sold at the Anambra creek trading station of Oguruguru and at Ilushi on the Niger.”52

The proximity of these people to Adamugu, at one time a great market for ivory, and the probability that the country is favourable for elephants (as is also the adjoining region south to Onitsha) suggests that the people described in 1833 by Oldfield in the following passage were in fact Ibaji: “A great number of the natives whom I found with Abokka [at Adamugu] were elephant hunters and had a very ferocious appearance. They were destitute of every article of clothing. Their skin was of a dark copper colour, their limbs of fine symmetrical formation, and their hair, after being plaited straight down, was inclosed in a little bag, resembling in appearance a bag-wig. Their guns were their idols; several of them were hung with charms enclosed in leather, and one was literally covered with small studs of lead about the size of a nail’s head.”53

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