Original drawings from, "Culture, Customs and Traditions of Akwa Ibom People of Nigeria," by Obong Joseph D. Esema.

By Kevin Lambert
1200 AD Ibibioland
The people of the Cross River, followed by the People of the Sea, left their crowded homes, looking for a peaceful place to live. They came on foot and in pirogues; some continued onto another sea, to the highlands, to all of what is now Nigeria. Others came upon a parcel of empty land. Whoever had occupied it before was gone, lost in the mists of legend, and even their myths had disappeared.

The people liked what they saw. Fish were thick in the river. Palm trees, bursting with oil and nuts, covered the land like weeds. The soil was black and fresh, and clay and salt could be taken from the ground.

The priests began the Uwa Mde Ikod, a religious ceremony that prepared the land for occupation. They made a sacrifice of food and delivered incantations and libations.

The first task was to clear some space from the ocean of trees that covered the land. Whatever spot that was cleared then belonged to the family that had done the work, and the business of building a farm and house could begin. If they were driven from it, they had to appease the gods before they returned. This sort of backbreaking claim to ownership made the people fiercely attached to the family plot, an attitude that persists to this day.

Original drawings from, "Culture, Customs and Traditions of Akwa Ibom People of Nigeria," by Obong Joseph D. Esema.

THE VILLAGE began to take shape. To build a home, a man first had to obtain permission and be initiated into the Upok Usen Society, which regulated the use of the land. The community would then help him with the construction. The walls were framed in local wood; the roofs were bamboo tied with reeds (Nyang) and covered with mats. Laterite mud was plastered into walls and floors.

Out of the amalgam of people claiming the land, the first or the strongest proclaimed themselves royal. Others practiced the skills they had brought with them. The idea of citizenship was developed, although on patriarchal lines. People not born in the village could actually outrank, in citizenship, those born right in the village square. Even slaves could become citizens, after the proper cleansing ceremonies. These were accompanied by feasts, music and dancing. The People of the Cross River, the People of the Sea, were becoming the people of Ibom.

They put laws in place, backed up by the religion of the time. The major crimes were little different from crimes anywhere: murder, treason, arson, and slander. The punishments ran from fines, appeasement of the gods, to slavery or death. Thieves were stripped naked, painted with charcoal, and paraded around the market square. They then had to pay damages and undergo a cleansing ceremony.

Original drawings from, "Culture, Customs and Traditions of Akwa Ibom People of Nigeria," by Obong Joseph D. Esema.

People who wanted a say in their village affairs banded together into secret societies, and actually made strong contributions. The Ekpe and Ekpo were used as a sort of police force. The initiation into the Ekpo required a payment and a blood oath. That society also put on masquerades, with specially carved masks, which represented spirits of the dead.

The Ekong was a bit like the National Guard. An entrance fee was required, along with a demonstration of physical fitness. Their members often served on juries.

All of the initiation ceremonies ended with a party; there was drinking and eating and general merriment. In this way, integrating social functions and civic requirements, the people of Ibom were able to sustain their world.

Their life was predictable, and the endless, seasonal repetition became ingrained. It was brightened by various festivals and ceremonies that took place at traditionally established times: a young man coming of age; the arrival of the new yams; harvests; and even a boat regatta.

People from the interior made the last a favorite and rarely missed it. They found the wildly decorated canoes and the fabulously dressed young men captivating. Drummers and singers provided the rhythms for the boat’s journey.

Original drawings from, "Culture, Customs and Traditions of Akwa Ibom People of Nigeria," by Obong Joseph D. Esema.

Sports had specialized festivals. One of the most popular was Esewa, named after a fruit that was stuck to a string. The pitcher would swing the fruit in a circle, and "strikers" would try and stab it with spears.

Women had their own festivals, notably the Ebre, which brought social order through dancing. Religious festivals happened less frequently; some were held at intervals of seven years. At the children’s festivals, the young men "consulted" the elders with palm wine, in return for the elder’s calling on the gods to protect them during the chaos of the day.

In this world, people entertained each other. The people of Ibom happened to be gifted with abilities to synchronize drum and dance and theatre. They could carve wood in imaginative ways that would come to be called high art by generations that followed.

Mysteries, masquerades, drumming, and dancing formed a part of everyone’s days. The happiness intersected with songs that praised good character.

Education focused on making the complete person. Children were taught history, geography, mathematics, respect for elders, and character. Trades were passed on through apprenticeships. Language was taught through riddles and moonlight stories. Girls were taught sex education, character, and honesty. Literacy was beginning, through signs called nsibidi to symbolize meanings.

Almost everything in the village had to be made there. A walk down the main path revealed woodworkers, potters, healers, weavers and painters.

Villagers traded surplus goods with other villages, regions and even other lands. Slaves, elephant tusks and palm products were exchanged for salt fish, fabric and other wines.

Bush activities included palm wine tapping, farming, hunting and fishing. Wealth was measured by land, livestock, wives and slaves. Slaves were treated far more humanely than their descendants would be.

Some hunting trips made entire reputations. Killing a leopard was one of the greatest achievements of a man. As with most important things, it had very definite rules about protocol. The leopard’s face had to be covered and taken to the paramount ruler of the area. At the palace, the whiskers – believed to be poisonous - would be carefully counted, removed by the high chiefs, and publicly burnt.

The people of Ibom were clever at medicine and healing. They studied traditional herbs and used them for cures and immunization. They practiced bone setting at very high levels of competence. As with the Europeans of the same era, medicine was inseparable from faith healing, and practitioners of what would come to be called witchcraft were never out of work. The Abia Mfa was the one who could consult with the spirits. They could—at least in theory—cure men by locating the trapped animal that held his soul.

Centuries passed in this way. Every year proved its inevitability, like rings of a tree. The people became as settled as the trees themselves. There were famines, floods, droughts, pestilence, and battles, but the people’s urge to build families kept the tribe alive. There were no great slaughters of conquest. There were no "great" conquerors; no Shaka Zulu or Tamerlane. Warfare, like agriculture, was kept to the subsistence level.

All of this was shattered, irrevocably, by the colonialists, notably the British, when they invaded and occupied Nigeria in the 19th century. Their missionaries considered the intricate woodcarvings—which represented love, care and sympathy and punishment for immorality— to be devilish idols, and destroyed almost all of them. Their capitalists gouged a profit out of both the land and the people themselves. And one of their philosophers, Alfred North Whitehead, told the world that, "The major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur."