Nsibidi Writing

Photo: Ikpe case from Enyong in nsibidi recorded by Macgregor (1909).

In a class I was teaching, a pupil deeply resented the statement that the civilisation of the people in Nigeria was primitive because they had no writing. He [Ezeikpe Agwu?] declared that they had a writing called nsibidi. This happened in April, 1905. ... I set myself to find out all I could about nsibidi. People smiled when I asked for information and declared that they knew nothing about it. The reason for this is that in Efik nsibidi is used almost only to express love [and sex], and this term covers such a multitude of most abominable sins that no self-respecting Efik person will confess that he knows anything, about the writing of it. ... Still from them it was possible to see that here we have a genuine product of the native civilisation the origin of which is so old as to have become the subject of a Märchen.

– J. K. Macgregor (1909). Notes on Nsibidi.