The priests of Ipa are known by necklaces made of strings of beads twisted together, and having ten large white and green beads at some distance apart.
Then there is the Ovisha of children, one of which is carried about by women who have borne twins when one of them dies or is killed. It is a wooden little image, about seven or eight inches in height, carved into the rude semblance of humanity. The images are nearly all made by some men at Lagos, who charge about three shillings for each. Beside all these deities, which may be ranked among the beneficent class, there are evil deities, who are worshipped by way of propitiation.
Next come some semi-human deities, who serve as the correctors of public morals. The two chief of these deities are Egugun and Oro. The former is supposed to be a sort of a vampire, being a dead body risen temporarily from the grave, and acts the same rôle as Mumbo Jumbo in another part of Western Africa. Egugun makes his appearance in the villages, and very much frightens the women, who either actually believe him to be a veritable resuscitated corpse, or who assert that they believe it, in fear of public opinion. The adult males, and even the free-born boys, know all about Egugun, as is likely, when the deity in question is personated by any one who can borrow the requisite dress from the fetish man. Captain Burton once met Egugun in the street. The demon’s face was hidden by a plaited network, worn like a mask, and on his head was a hood, covered with streamers of crimson and dirty white, which hung down to his waist and mingled with similar streamers attached to his dress. He wore on his breast a very powerful fetish, i. e. a penny mirror; and his feet were covered with great shoes, because Egugun is supposed to be a footless deity.
The other deity, Oro, has a wider range of duties, his business being to attend to public morality. He mostly remains in the woods, and but seldom makes his appearance in public. Oro has a very strong voice, arising, in point of fact, from a thin slip of wood, about a foot in length, which is tied firmly to a stick, and which produces a kind of roaring sound when properly handled.
He is supposed to be unknown to the women, who are not allowed to be out of their houses whenever the voice of Oro is heard. Consequently, about seven or eight in the evening, when the well-known booming cry of Oro is heard, the women scuffle off to their houses, and the adult males go out into the streets, and there is at once a scene of much excitement. Dances and tumbling, processions and speech-making, go on with vast vigor, while the Ogboni lodges are filled with devotees, all anxious to be talking at once, and every one giving his own opinion, no matter how absurd it may be.
Those who have been guilty of moral offences are then proclaimed and punished; and on some occasions there is so much business to be done that the town is given up to Oro for an entire day. On these occasions the women pass a very unpleasant time, their hours of imprisonment being usually spent in quarrelling with each other. In order to make the voice of Oro more awful, the part of the demon is played by several of the initiated, who go into the woods in various directions, and by sounding their wooden calls at the same time carry the idea that Oro is omnipresent.
Oro does really act as a censor of public morals, and it is very clear that he is attended by armed followers, who carry out a sort of rude and extemporized justice, like that which was exercised by the “Regulators” of America, some fifty or sixty years ago. The bodies of delinquents have been found in the bush, their throats cut and their legs broken by the spirit in question.
The chief, or king, of the Egbas, is known by the name of Alaké, which is a transmissible title, like Pharaoh or Cæsar, and the whole system of government is a kind of feudal monarchy, not unlike that of England in the days of John. The Alaké does not reign supreme, like the King of Dahome or Ashanti, before whom the highest in the realm prostrate themselves and roll humbly in the dust. He is trammelled with a number of councillors and officers, and with a sort of parliament called the Bale, which is composed of the headmen or chiefs of the various towns. The reader may remember that the King of Ashanti found that he was in danger of suffering from a similar combination, and he took the prudent measure of limiting their number while he had the power. The Alaké has never done so, and in consequence those who are nominally and individually his servants are practically and collectively his masters.
The Ogboni lodges have also to be consulted in any important point, so that the private life of the Alaké of the Egbas is far from being so agreeable as that of the King of Dahome.
Okekunu, the Alaké at the time when Captain Burton lived in Abeokuta, was an ill-favored, petulant, and cunning old ruler. In his way, he was fond of state, and delighted to exhibit his so called power in a manner truly African, displaying an equal amount of pageantry and trashiness.