THE GREAT DRUM

The outbreak of war seemed a favourable opportunity for discontented natives to throw off the restraints imposed by Government and return to old customs, and disturbances occurred in various parts of Nigeria. One of these took place in Aba District to the north-east of Degama. We have since learned that the native name for this region is Aba-Ala, _i.e._ Aba of the Earth Goddess Ale or Ala. Here two messengers employed by the Native Courts were seized and dragged before the great drum, described as from 18 to 20 feet in length, which stood in one of the Juju houses. Later, reliable testimony declared this to have been one of the principal shrines of the Earth Mother herself.

According to the account given us, the unfortunate victims were forced to kneel at the end of the long, trough-like base, from the centre of which the rounded portion of the drum was carved, and their heads struck off so that they fell forward into the cavity. The drum was then splashed with blood and the heads, still bearing the uniform caps, were placed thereon amid the skulls of former victims as a defiance to British rule, which, the insurgents hoped, was no longer powerful enough to protect its servants.

Shortly afterwards, a policeman passing through the region with a prisoner, whom he was bringing down to Degama, was also seized and done to death. Vengeance, swift and sure, followed these crimes. By order of the Resident, the blood-stained drum was burnt to ashes and justice meted out to the guilty persons. The destruction of this fetish was an act of necessity, since no other measures would have produced the same effect upon its worshippers; yet the step was taken with great regret, for the drum was of an interesting type and most elaborately carved.

Some weeks later our road led us through the town of Ihie, where we came upon a similar drum, of a kind then new to us. Cleft from an even larger trunk than the Ibibio big drum at Jamestown, to which it showed some points of resemblance, the giant bole extended at both ends in a Noah’s Ark-like base, on which were seated, at either extremity, a male and female figure--the latter holding a babe in her extended arms. (See fig. 1.)

We were informed that the name of the drum, and of the cult, was Ikoro (or Ikuru). One of the chief towns devoted to its worship was Ohambele nearby. ‘This town,’ in the words of Mr. B. M. Pepple,

has a big Ikoro drum which is highly respected. Before Government came, they gave it human sacrifices, but now only goats and fowls. They beat this drum during war time. Any human head cut off in war is brought and placed on the drum with blood. No man can see the big Ikoro drum unless he has cut off a human head and presented it to this. It does not matter whether the head was got by war or not. The Ikoro play falls twice a year. The first is called Mkpukpu-Chi (thanksgiving) and falls at harvest time. The second is carried out in the farming season, and is called Omehie Ogugu (remembrance of the Juju Ogugu). Any man in the town has the right to dance the Ikoro. The big Ikoro is beaten in the house, while the dancers keep outside. Those men, who had cut off a human head, would come to the front of the big Ikoro house and play their motion by raising the sword and telling of the brave deeds they have done; then they would begin to dance again. The Ikoro drum was never carried to another town. Before the time of Government small towns did not make an Ikoro drum. If any small town ventured to do so, the big towns fought them and seized the drum.

Detailed examination of the drum at Ihie showed that the ornamentation carved in relief was of exceptional interest. In the middle, between the figures of a man and woman rudely enough represented and probably depicting the carver and his wife, who were usually sacrificed on the completion of the work, was the carefully chiselled shape of a great serpent folded round on round. On either side of this, various symbols were to be seen, several of which were easily enough recognised as the crescent moon, the sacred crocodile, a Juju horn, and, what seemed to our eager imagination, a fresh example of the double-headed axe, but which was explained by the natives as a musical instrument called, in Ibo, Igilla. The reason why, on closer investigation, our interpretation rather than theirs seemed to be the right one, will be stated later. For the moment our attention was caught by an object quite new to us, the meaning of which we could not even conjecture. On asking its significance we were told simultaneously and with like positiveness from two different sides, one that it was a representation of the familiar tortoise, while the other volunteered the unexpected statement that it pictured the labia majora, with the clitoris showing between.

Those who voiced the opinion first given asked contemptuously whether it was not a matter of common knowledge that tortoise played an important part in the greater number of Jujus. On this, the second party subsided for the moment as if abashed by their opponents, but later one came in private to point out that tortoise is depicted with the crossed lines which indicate the cracks in her shell, whereas in this case the small vertical dashes are the conventional representation of hair. He further explained that the opposition party was right to a certain extent, in that tortoise herself symbolises the feminine generative organs, just as the serpent is well known to typify the phallus.

Till then, the presence of the impaled tortoise before most Jujus, even remotely concerned with the granting of fertility, had been more or less of a puzzle; for, although the snake is recognised by anthropologists as the phallic emblem, no widespread feminine symbol of like significance appears to have been known here hitherto.

The supremacy of tortoise in most tales of African origin has often proved puzzling to folklorists. The subject is mentioned in _The Times Literary Supplement_ of 10th December, 1914:

There is one very curious point which these and other stories of the kind have in common--that though these professional jokers, so to call them, have the better of all the animals with whom they ordinarily enter into a contest of wits, there is one ... who always has the better of them all, even of the jokers themselves--the tortoise. He appears under that name in the translation of the bushman’s tales; he is, of course, Uncle Remus’s Brer Tarrypin and he has no less credit in South American stories. Why is the tortoise credited with such wisdom? One wonders.... Is it just this--that the bright little up-looking head and eyes, when put forth, suggested the idea of intelligence? It is something of a serpentine head and we have read a piece of folklore which tells us that the serpent was the most subtle of all the beasts of the field.

Surely the meaning of the tortoise symbol, stumbled upon thus unexpectedly, goes far to explain the difficulty. To the native mind the ‘serpentine head,’ appearing between the walls of shell, as naturally pictures the clitoris as does the serpent its male counterpart. By a train of thought not difficult to follow, this particular part of the body has grown to symbolise femininity in general. For Africans, therefore, tortoise stands for the feminine qualities of persuasion--sometimes, perhaps, not untinged by guile--as opposed to the more forceful male attributes. It may be remembered that, in Pliny’s day, a powder made of a whole tortoise shell was thought to be an aphrodisiac.

A few days later, in an Mbari house close to Okpala market-place, the two emblems, snake and tortoise, were found modelled side by side in the very centre of the first row of symbolic figures. Further on at Obogwe, where the Mbari house is built in two separate sections--the first, dedicated to the Thunder God Amade Onhia, usually contracted into Amad-ongha, and the second to his spouse, the Earth Goddess Ale or Ala--the phallic serpent was found in a position of great prominence in the shrine of the male deity, while tortoise was seen, modelled alone, in that of the goddess. Another example in which the two symbols were found, this time again in juxtaposition, was upon the main post of the shrine of the Juju Ogboloma at Tema near Degama--one of the principal Kalabari Jujus. Here, as so often, the two are combined with the figure of the sacred crocodile.[1]

Okpala.]

With the new suggestion in mind, the detailed drawing of the sacred drum was examined, with the result that the emblems carved thereon seemed to take upon themselves a deeper significance. As already mentioned, at either end of the trough-like base, sits a male or female figure carved from the solid wood and distinct from the drum. To the left, the male, bearing the symbols of manly strength, the sword in the one hand and the horn, typifying plenty and masculine virility, in the other. To the right the Mother--her head adorned with the high coiffure which, among Ibo, designates pride in offspring--a babe in her outstretched arms. In the centre of the drum itself, in the place of honour, carved in bold relief, is shown the phallic serpent. To the left of its pointed head rises the crescent moon--the world-wide symbol of growth--especially connected with childbirth, since expectant mothers count their time by its waxing and waning.

On either side, in the one case above and on the other below, are seen, twice repeated, the disputed signs, in both cases in conjunction with the old Cretan symbol of the union of the sexes--the double-headed axe. That the native explanation of the last-named figure was given in good faith, there is no reason to doubt. It is only another case of the way in which a symbol has survived long after the loss of its meaning. Indeed, a certain similarity exists; but, to those acquainted with native ways, I venture to think that the sharpness of angle marked in the joining of haft to head, instead of the easy curves called for by a representation of the musical instrument, is clear enough indication that the carver was following faithfully, though blindly, in the footsteps of long dead craftsmen whose work once bore another significance. A considerable number of examples of the old Minoan double-headed axe cult were found in other parts of West and Central Africa.

Besides those already discussed, only three other symbols are shown on the front of the great drum: viz. (1) the sacred crocodile--the terrible emblem of West Coast cults such as the Human Alligator Society and the great Ekoi women’s secret cult of the Nature Goddess Nimm. Possibly the crocodile sometimes symbolises another plane of being or the future life; it is a common belief here that many souls live in crocodile form both during the life, and after the death, of the human body. There may also be some connection with the Egyptian worship of this creature. (2) The horn placed beneath the double-headed axe, as the so-called tortoise symbol is above--considered so powerful an emblem of virility that even its representation in bronze is supposed to excite desire, and, held in the hand of a pregnant woman, to assist delivery; and (3) the figure of a dog--regarded among Ibo and Kalabari as the means of first bringing fire to earth--possibly typifying the brute creation in general, or at least that part of it which is friendly to man.

Among some tribes, especially the Ekkett Ibibio, the tortoise shell is looked upon as the symbol of the Earth Deity, the goddess of fertility. The snake is the chief phallic symbol, not only on account of its shape but also because many species live underground and are therefore taken to represent the dead, to whose influence the fruitfulness of the crops is in many places considered mainly due.