SECRET SOCIETIES AND FESTIVALS IN OLD
CALABAR—AND THE COUNTRIES UP THE
CROSS RIVER
To describe all the customs of the Old Calabar people would take up more space than I am allowed to monopolise in this work.
They have numerous plays or festivals, in which they delight to disguise themselves in masks of the most grotesque ugliness. These masks are, in most cases, of native manufacture, and seem always to aim at being as ugly as possible. I never have seen any attempt on the part of a native manufacturer of masks to produce anything passably good looking.
Egbo, the great secret society of these people, is a sort of freemasonry, having, I believe, seven or nine grades. To attempt to describe the inner working of this society would be impossible for me, as I do not belong to it. Though several Europeans have been admitted to some of the grades, none have ever, to my knowledge, succeeded in being initiated to the higher grades. The uses of this society are manifold, but the abuses more than outweigh any use it may have been to the people. As an example, I may mention the use which a European would make of his having Egbo, viz., if any native owed him money or its equivalent, and was in no hurry to pay, the European would blow[1] Egbo on the debtor, and that man could not leave his house until he had paid up. Egbo could be, and was, used for matters of a much more serious nature than
- ↑ It is called blowing Egbo because notice is given of the Egbo law being set in motion against any one by one of the myrmidons of Egbo blowing the Egbo horn before the party's house.
