"A Famous Were-Leopard"

"A Famous Were-Leopard". Percy Amaury Talbot. Internet Archive.

The power of metamorphosis is generally termed Uworraw-Ukponn, corresponding to the Ibo word Ehihi, and is sometimes inherited, sometimes bought. Since many believe that it is only used for evil purposes, the faculty is not often boasted of, or admitted, by its possessor. Nearly all " strong " animals in the bush, such as leopards, elephants, etc., are credited with being were-beasts, but such can only be recognised by hunters, who, unless bad men, would not shoot them, since their death would entail that of their affinity.

Women's War: 1930 British Report Map

A map from an official 1930 British colonial government report on the Women's War of the Calabar and Owerri Provinces (1929-1930). The pink dots (enhanced) pinpoint places where "firing took place," the blue dots are Native Courts that were either damaged, burnt, or destroyed.

Òmenàlà

Symbol of Ala, the Earth Mother, among the Eda Igbo, present-day Abia or Ebonyi State. P. A. Talbot, c. 1920s.

Most Igbo people in the past did not perceive themselves as belonging to a religion. The split between culture and religion did not exist. All practices were viewed as duty. This view of duty, compulsory rites that place tradition and service and reverence to ancestors over belief itself, still exists in the kola nut rite, ịche ọjị, for example, which could've been classed as a religious rite.

Igbo Male Hairstyle

This is the kind of hairstyle worn by young Igbo men around the northern side of the Igbo area. The photo was taken around the 1920s. Young guys grew their hair like this for the same reasons young guys grow their hair today.

Igbo hair

Women's hairstyles from different Igbo groups sketched by P. A. Talbot in or before the 1920s.

Bende Ekpe Club House

Interior of an Ekpe society house in Bende photographed by P. Talbot around or before the mid-1920s.

Ọ̀gwa - Igbo shrine hall

An ọ̀gwa, an ancestral meeting and reception shrine hall of household patriarchs photographed by P. Talbot around or before the mid-1920s in reference to Ogwashi Ukwu. Ogwa Nshi Ukwu means the great ọ̀gwa of founding Nri-Igbo migrants.

Murdering Women in Nigeria [Women's War]

The Crisis, May 1930, p. 164.

“Murdering Women in Nigeria” by Ben N. Azikiwe, better known as Nnamdi Azikiwe. This is a report concerning the Women’s War of 1929 against British taxation and the killings of women in Opobo by British forces. This was published in The Crisis, May 1930, a Black American journal for civil rights, history, politics, and culture founded by W.E.B. Du Bois as the official publication of the NAACP. The reference to the March 1930 issue is the single strip. Nnamdi Azikiwe was a key figure in Nigerian independence who later became the first indigenous Governor General of Nigeria on Nigeria’s independence in 1960 and the first president of Nigeria in 1963.

The Crisis, May 1930, p. 178.

The Crisis, March 1930, p. 98.

The Crisis, May 1930 [Google Books]
The Crisis, March 1930 [Google Books]

[Links Accessed September 19, 2018.]

Odeziaku: Poet, pederast and palm-oil merchant

John Moray Stuart-Young (1881–1939) was an English 'Uranian' poet, memoirist, novelist and merchant trader who was born into poverty in the slums of Manchester and eventually found his way to Onitsha where he later became a wealthy merchant palm-oil trader under the British colonial machine. Ostracised by the white colonial upper class in the British west African colonies, Stuart-Young was embraced by the people of Onitsha who nicknamed him Odeziaku. He grew famous in Onitsha for his stores and his 'strange ways' as well as for his lack of interest in women and his apparently unmarried status. His 'strange ways' were really his 'Uranian' tendencies, John Stuart-Young was a 'boy-lover' who took a few [very young] Onitsha boys under his wing over the years, sponsoring them and their families and leaving much of his wealth to them on his death. John Stuart-Young's perceived 'effeminate' demeanour earned him the names Eke Young and Mami Wata's Wife by the Onitsha people, names he detested, preferring Odeziaku ('writer of wealth', originally a misspelling of Odoziaku, 'treasurer'). His weird shopfronts in Onitsha town, some of the shops including 'Ye Little Wonder Shop', Half Way to Bush' (his dwelling called 'The Little House of No Regrets'), with distorting mirrors in his largest store, had his stores nicknamed Mami Wata's shrine and further linked his 'unconventional' ways with the water spirit, a figure that was largely born out of the contact between west Africans and Europeans on the coast.

As a writer Stuart-Young assumed names such as "Jack O'Dazi" and "O. Dazi Aku", carrying on from his consciously manufactured identity in Onitsha, a place far from the slums of Manchester. His articles and poems were highly regarded and printed in several African-edited newspapers which had him hailed as "West Africa's Poet Laureate". John Stuart-Young died from throat cancer in Port Harcourt on 28 May, 1939. The ceremony for his mourning lasted up to four days and was attended by 10,000 Igbo mourners; a newspaper suggested his grave should become a national shrine.

John Stuart-Young's story highlights many things about Africans and Europeans in the colonial period and the relations between them, one of the largest take aways is the unveiling of the breadth of exploitation of Africans by European colonial agents. Stuart-Young's story shows the extent to which a European could be embraced in an African society and how different identities were dealt with in Igbo society in particular.

John Stuart-Young's life and implications surrounding his identity has been expounded upon in The Forger's Tale: the Search for Odeziaku by Stephanie Newell.

Boy from Umuahia

A boy with chalk patterns on his body, Umuahia, Eastern Nigeria, ca. 1925. Shot by Emily Godfrey. USC Digital Library.