(2.) THE ATTACK ON ABEOKUTA.
(See [page 594].)
The system of Ogboni is partly political and partly religious. It may be entered by a naked boy of ten years old, provided that he be a free-born Egba and of good repute. The fraternity extends itself throughout the whole of the country occupied by the Egbas, and in every village there is a hut or lodge devoted expressly to the use of the society. The form of this lodge varies slightly, but the general features are the same in all. “It is a long low building, only to be distinguished by the absence of loungers, fronted by a deep and shady veranda, with stumpy polygonal clay pillars, and a single door, carefully closed. The panels are adorned with iron alto-relievos of ultra-Egyptian form; snakes, hawk-headed figures, and armed horsemen in full front, riding what are intended to be horses in profile: the whole colored red, black, and yellow. The temples of Obatala are similarly decorated.
“The doors have distinct panels, upon which are seen a leopard, a fish, a serpent, and a land tortoise. Mr. Beaven remarks that one of the carvings was a female figure, with one hand and one foot, probably a half Obatala, or the female principle of Nature, and the monster was remarkable for having a queue of very long hair, with a ball or globe at the end.
“A gentleman who had an opportunity of overlooking the Ogboni lodge from the Ake church steeple described it as a hollow building with three courts, of which the innermost, provided with a single door, was that reserved for the elders, the holy of holies, like the Kadasta Kadastan of the Abyssinians. He considers that the courts are intended for the different degrees.
“The stranger must, however, be careful what he believes concerning these mysteries. The Rev. W. Beaven asserts that the initiated are compelled to kneel down and drink a mixture of blood and water from a hole in the earth. The Egbas deny this. Moreover they charge Mr. Beaven with endeavoring to worm out their secrets for the purpose of publication. As all are pledged to the deepest reticence, and as it would be fatal to reveal any mystery, if any there be, we are hardly likely to be troubled with over-information.”
The miscellaneous superstitions of the Egbas are very miscellaneous indeed. Like the Dahomans, they divide their deities into different classes, like the major and minor gods of the ancients, and, like them, they occasionally deify a dead ruler, and class him with the minor gods. The native word for the greater god is Ovisha, a title which is prefixed to the special names of those deities. Thus, Ovisha Klá, or the Great Ovisha, is the chief of them. His sacred emblem or symbol is a ship, and it was he who created the first man.
The next in order is Shango, who is evidently an example of an apotheosis, as he has the attributes of Vulcan, Hercules, Tubal Cain, and Jupiter Tonans, and is said to have a palace of brass, and ten thousand horses. He presides over lightning and fire, and, if thunder strikes a house, his priest rushes into the hut to find the weapon that Shango has cast, and is followed by a tumultuous mob, who plunder the dwelling effectually. Captain Burton saw one of the so called Shango stones, which was nothing but a lump of white quartz, of course placed in the hut by the priest.
His symbol is a small wooden bat, and his worshippers carry a leathern bag, because Shango was fond of predatory wars. If war impends, his priest takes sixteen cowries, and flings them in the air, and those which fall with the opening downward are thought to portend war, while those which have the opening upward signify peace. The last of the great three is Ipa, apparently an abstractive rather than an objective deity. He is worshipped by a select society called the “Fathers of Secrets,” into which none but males can be initiated. His chief priest lives on a mountain at several days’ distance from Abeokuta, and close by his dwelling is the sacred palm tree with sixteen boughs produced by the nuts planted by the sixteen founders of the empire. A second priest at Abeokuta is called the King of the Groove.
The emblem of Ipa is a palm nut with four holes, and these nuts are used in divination, the principle being something like the mode of casting lots with cowries. Captain Burton’s account of the proceeding is interesting. “He counted sixteen nuts, freed them from dust, and placed them in a bowl on the ground, full of yams half-boiled, crushed, and covered with some acid vegetable infusion.
“His acolyte, a small boy, was then called, and made to squat near the bowl, resting his body on the outer edge of the feet, which were turned inward, and to take from the fetish man two or three bones, seeds, and shells, some of which are of good, others of bad omen. Elevating them, he rested his hands on his knees. The adept cast the nuts from one hand to the other, retaining some in the left, and, while manipulating, dropped others into the bowl. He then stooped down, drew with the index and medius fingers on the yams, inspected the nuts, and occasionally referred to the articles in the boy’s hand.”