Three Men

Three men, probably from an Igbo town around the Niger River, photographed by William Henry Crosse, part of the Royal Niger Company, 1886 - 1895. MAA Cambridge.

Guns were part of society in this area for hundreds of years before this photo was taken. The access to the Atlantic coast and the Niger meant that coastal and riverine settlements gained a head start and advantage when guns, gunpowder, and cannons newly arrived through European ships. Europeans arrived on the shores of the Niger Delta around the late 15th century. This allowed coastal polities like Bonny to grow large fleets of armed canoes, several metres in length holding dozens of men, leading to their dominance in the delta. The competition between what became slave trading and raiding states led to the increase of people ending up in the ships of Europe.

Old and faulty guns were sold to Africans by Europeans. Guns were reverse-engineered in the interior and various blacksmithing lineage groups, such as Nkwere, became known for manufacturing guns. In local histories, there is a recounting of the time when a warring faction was surprised and defeated by the party wielding the newly introduced gun. Traditions and protocol grew up around the use of guns, a certain number of shots in the sky has meaning to a lot of communities, for example.

Guns are a man’s weapon. The introduction of various products from Europe such as gin, guns, and gunpowder created or strengthened any kind of hierarchy that put men over women because only men, by custom, handled these important trade goods. In many communities, at least, it’s against custom for women to pick up guns. The European show of force was completely made up of men. The entire European interaction had emphasised male aggression and authority against any sort of authority rooted in womanhood, including the supreme deity of various communities in the delta, the Earth Mother, for example, which was overshadowed by powerful male oracles, Kamalu Ozuzu (Amadioha) and its offshoot Igwe-ka-Ala Umunneoha, Chukwu Abiama or Ibina Ukpaabi Aruchukwu, and Agbala Öka. These male oracles, controlled by men, became the nuclei for the slave trade and among the most powerful ideological and administrative strongholds which later Europeans who started off colonialism, proper, targeted and destroyed.

Òtù Ọdụ

"Rich Women. Onitsha. (church members.)" G. F. Packer, 1880s. Pitt Rivers Museum.

These women are likely part of the Ndị Ọdụ, Òtù Enyi, or Òtù Ọdụ society, the ivory society, the elite women’s socio-political and economic organisation of the Önïcha (Onitsha) ministate made up of wealthy members who either bought the rights to the title or whose relatives bought the rights to either wear ọdụ aka, ivory bracelets, or ọdụ ụkwụ, ivory anklets, or both.

Ndị Ìgbò

An unidentified group portrait taken by a Royal Niger Company employee c. 1886 - 1895. Based on other photos, these could be people from the Asaba or Önïcha area. MAA Cambridge.

Ndị Otu Ọdụ

"Rich Women. Onitsha. (church members.)" G. F. Packer, 1880s. Pitt Rivers Museum.

These women are likely part of the Ndị Ọdụ or Otu Ọdụ society which is a women’s socio-political and economic organisation in Onicha (Onitsha) made up of wealthy members who either bought the rights to the title or whose relatives bought the rights to either wear ọdụ aka, ivory bracelets, or ọdụ ụkwụ, ivory anklets, or both.

Before the 1890s, the Ọmụ Ọnicha, the female counterpart to the Obi, the overall leader of Onicha, the last being Ọmụ Nwagboka, who was also the head of commerce and trade, wielded great power over most women and the Otu Ọdụ society. Ọmụ Nwagboka, initially resistant to Christianity and the church, later became a catalyst for the growth of church attendance among women after encouraging them to attend services which brought many women, including quite influential ones, to the Anglican mission.

Ọmụ Nwagboka was initially a traditional practitioner before converting to Christianity, at least, formally. Her change in attitude to the religion may have been due to pressure from missionaries and her European trade partners who worked as two arms of European imperialism in the area, traders later becoming invaders and subsequently forming a colonial government. Indeed this may have been the case for other women traders, the most successful of whom would have no doubt been Ndị Ọdụ.

Pressure to convert also came from their children trained in mission schools; although older generations may have been resistant towards conversion, the mission school attenders eventually came to take the position at the top of society in politics, in the courts, and in what was termed ọrụ or ọlụ bekee or ọrụ oyibo, civil service and other jobs introduced by the British Empire that formed a decade after the last Ọmụ Ọnịcha. While there hasn’t been a woman appointed by the Obi Ọnịcha to the position of Ọmụ for well over a century now, the Otu Ọdụ society is still quite prominent.

Ahaba or Onicha woman

A photo of a woman taken around the Niger River, likely Ahaba (or Asaba) or Onicha (Onitsha) [partially cropped]. Photographed by Henry Crosse with the Royal Niger Company, c.1886–1895. MAA Cambridge.

[Probably onye Ọ̀nị̀chà.]

'Fishery in the Lower Niger'

Image: 'Fishery in the Lower Niger' c. 1890 engraving from the travels of the officer of the French Foreign Legion, Antoine Mattei.

[...] I had before observed below Onitsha, along the shores, rustic sentry boxes, supported on six poles about 12 feet above the ground, and had taken them to be stations for guardians of the river. They are stations, but for the fishermen. They perch themselves up in these watch-boxes, whence they can command the neighbourhood. A large oblong net, a sort of seine, with a basket in the middle, made of vegetable fibres, is suspended over the water. By the aid of a long rope of the same material, the fisherman lowers or raises his net. Near at hand, in a canoe moored to the shore, two negroes, silent and motionless, are on the look-out. As soon as the net is raised the canoe comes up and the catch is thrown into it ; the sentinel, who does not move from his eyrie, then again lets down the net into the river. This method appears to answer very well, for I have seen the natives thus catch a large quantity of fish ; they swarm there, and they are as fine as they are abundant. This does not prevent them from also using harpoons and fish-hooks, which they manufacture themselves. [...]

– Adolphe Burdo (1880). "The Niger and the Benueh." p. 174–175.

Igbo family

What is likely an Igbo family from Onicha (no known documentation left), photographed by William Henry Crosse, part of the Royal Niger Company, 1886 - 1895. MAA Cambridge.

King Oputa of "Ogbekin"

An illustration of King Oputa of "Ogbekin", an Igbo settlement noted to be near the Oshimiri (Niger River) from the book Niger et Bénoué (1880) by the Belgian explorer Adolphe Burdo.