The pre-1940s history, indigenous culture, and heritage of the Ìgbò and their neighbours.
208. On left breast of Essem, a Bende [Igbo] man (a man offered two rods to a woman, but she refused them and turned her back upon him).
– Elphinstone Dayrell (1911). "Further Notes on ‘Nsibidi Signs with Their Meanings from the Ikom District, Southern Nigeria." The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 41.
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.
WILLIAMSBURG, September 3, 1772. COMMITTED to James City Prison, on Monday the 31st of last Month, a Negro Fellow who says he is the Property of Colonel Cary of Hampton, and that he belongs to a Quarter in Albemarle; his Name is JOE, is an Ibo Negro, about fifty Years of Age, five Feet nine or ten Inches high, with three Scars on the right Side of his Face, the middle One the largest, and has on a Crocus Shirt and Trousers, and Negro Cotton Waistcoat. JOHN CONNELLY.
