Clark Atlanta University

The Status of Slaves in Igbo and Ibibio of Nigeria Author(s): Daniel A. Offiong Source: Phylon (1960-), Vol. 46, No. 1 (1st Qtr., 1985), pp. 49-57 Published by: Clark Atlanta University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/274945 . Accessed: 20/03/2013 11:19
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By DANIEL A. OFFIONG

The Status of Slaves in Igbo and Ibibio of Nigeria

Africa, Tuden and Plotnicov state that "certain West African societies, among which the Igbol and Ibibio are the best known examples, had slaves devoted to the religious cults of their owners. The descendants of these slaves were despised and could not shed the stigma of their ancestry. They could never be redeemed, no free person would marry them, and they were feared and shunned."2 What these authors have said is that the Igbo and Ibibio operated identical slave systems and that the osu, a kind of caste, existed both in Igbo and Ibibio. Nothing could be further from the truth. Undoubtedly the Igbo and Ibibio, who happen to be neighbors sharing a common boundary, have many similar structural characteristics; those on both sides of the boundary share similar culture patterns, customs and traditions. Both of them lived in small communities. The political unit was the village group comprising lineage segments bound together by the belief in the common descent of all the segments from a common ancestor. Among the Igbo and Ibibio, religion, law, justice and politics were inextricably intertwined. Law and custom were believed to have been given to them from the spirit world, from immemorial antiquity, from ancestor to ancestor.3 Furthermore, there were similarities in their treatment of slaves, as will be discussed later. However, there is absolutely no evidence of the existence of cult slaves, the osu, in Ibibio. The purpose of this essay is first to describe the status of slaves among the Igbo and Ibibio and then to argue that there never existed in Ibibio the osu system of slavery as found in Igbo, the practice of which is still extant, albeit in diluted form. Slaves in Igbo Just as in most parts of Africa, slaves were often the victims of intergroup wars as well as of economic circumstances. Those captured during intergroup wars were often sold into slavery. A father facing serious financial or economic predicament could sell his child; or any person in financial difficulty could capture or kidnap and sell any person. Disobedient children and inveterate criminals were often sold into slavery. Another very important source of slaves was judicial litigation which went on in the sacred grove of Aro-Chukwu, where the guilty were seized and sold to slave dealers.4 Slaves

IN

THE INTRODUCTION to their seminal publication on social stratification in

3 J.C.Anene, SouthernNigeriain Transition(Cambridge, England,1966)pp. 12-13.

In this essaythe Anglicized(Ibo)spelling of Igbo is avoided. 2Arthur Tudenand LeonardPlotnicov,Social Stratificationin Africa(New York, 1970), p. 13.

4 Ibid., p. 17.

49

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had few rights and their treatment varied with the character and temperament of their masters. Nevertheless, Uchendu claims "there is every indication that generally Igbo treated their slaves well."5 As his authority for making the claim, Uchendu cites Basden who has stated, "Not infrequently, a slave became the companion of his master and is put in a position demanding great trustworthiness."6 With the exception of Nike, a northern Igbo villagegroup where "slave communities" exist, slaves were generally absorbed into the lineage of their masters' lineage, it became taboo to mention the fact of the slaves' origin.7 But the above situation, that of generally fair treatment and absorption of slaves, refers to only the category of slaves known as ohu; it never applied to the osu. The osu was a cult slave, a slave who was dedicated to the service of the dedicator's deity. The descendants of such a cult slave were (and are) also osu. The dedicator could be an individual, an extended family, or a lineage. In the words of Ezekiel, Gbenro and Owen, the osu "are born beautiful. They are born gifted. They are the cream of the land - judges, lawyers, beauty queens, academicians and magistrates. But they are also cursed. They come from a society where a man's achievements could earn him the highest traditional title. But they cannot aspire to one. For they are born with a stigma; the stigma of the osu caste system. Their iniquities are the iniquities of the fathers visited on the children, their sins, ancestral: Sins they were supposed to have committed years and years ago... sins which set them apart, tagged them unclean and made them forever untouchables, generation after generation.... The roots of the curse are so deeply imbedded in the fabric of the Igbo society, like a hereditary cancerous growth.... .8 The osu system of slavery is the worst contradiction to Igbo equalitarian ideology. The osu are a people with status dilemma; they are a people hated and despised yet indispensable in their ritual role; they are a people whose monumental achievements are disdainfully treated by a society which worships achievement. Although osu serve as "special priests," they do not enjoy the high status other priests who function as "general practitioners" are accorded. Unfortunately, however, "the osu are hated and feared, treated as if mean and discussed with the tone of horror and contempt."9 The origin of the osu system of slavery is essentially religious. It started in the days of oracles and divination when it was conventional to use human sacrifices to appease the gods or deities. In those days during consultations about the state of one's health and fortunes, the priest of the oracle after supposedly consulting with the spirit concerned, divined that the client or some other member or members of his family would die and that the only
5 V.C. TheIgboof SoutheasternNigeria(New York, 1965), p. 88. eG.T.Uchendu, Basden,Amongthe Igbosof SouthernNigeria(London,1921),p. 109. 7Uchendu, in an S. Double Descent and op. cit., p. 88; AfricanSociety:The Afikpo Village-Group Ottenberg, 1968),pp. 33-4. 8(Seattle, E. Ezekiel,B. Gbenroand G.S.Owen, "TheUntouchableIgboCasteSystem,"TheConcord Magazine(Lagos), p. 1. (June 12, 1983): 9S. Leith-Ross,"Noteson the OsuSystemamongthe Igbo of OwerriProvince,Nigeria," Africa 10(April 1937): 206.

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way to avert it was to sacrifice a human being to the deity as an atonement. The client would go to slave market where he would buy one. The slave's hands and feet would be tied like an animal, his head scrapped, and half of his body smeared with uhie (the liquid from the bark of a tree) and the other half painted with nzu (native chalk). The chief priest of the oracle in his "offertory" would use ofo (staff) to strike the slave's head four times saying, "anything that kills a freeborn should go and kill the outcast instead." The priest would then place on the slave's head the leaves of a particular creeping plant saying, "we present this to you as yours." The slave would then be left in front of the deity for a couple of days during which he was fed. Some part of the body, like an ear or a finger, was also cut to give him an identity mark. He was given a name after that particular deity, like Osu Nwori or Osu Amadioha.""? Not all osu were used for sacrifices, as there were people who went there of their own volition to be osu. Such osu were people who were either too poor to fend for themselves or criminals who escaped when sought to pay for their crimes. Once they were able to run to the osu abode, they were safe, since anything, including animals that got to the osu, became theirs, that is, they became osu, untouchable. The osu were (and are to a certain extent) isolated and the isolation was intended to safeguard the community from further ritual contamination and complication. Being uncertain about the acceptable form of interaction with the osu, only ritual interaction, such as participation in sacrifices, sanctioned by a diviner was tolerated. Marriage was only endogamous and still remains largely so today. One reason for this endogamy was that if an osu married a non-osu, the non-osu automatically became an osu; the offsprings of the marriage were all osu. On the other hand, female osu, married or unmarried, were sexually exploited by the diala (freeborn), even though the osu were no good matrimonial mates for them. "It was particularly common for young men to pursue them, and while these women might attempt to resist such advances, they had no legal recourse."" Should a female osu be married by a diala, no bride price was paid, and the presents that a man normally gave a girl during courtship were all ignored. The man merely took her to his home, and they were considered married, though she was still sexually available to others and might leave the present husband for another, the marriage being considered a rather casual affair.12 There were certain things that osu could not do in common with others. They could not eat ram because the Igbo believed that the ram belonged to the deity called Ajala. Since osu were offered as sacrificial lambs to Ajala, they were referred to as Umuajala, that is, children of Ajala; the osu therefore could not eat that which belonged to that deity. The diala could not buy seed yams from osu; the diala and osu never shared barbers, drinking cups, or the same locations.

'0Ezekiel,Gbenroand Owen,op. cit., p. 1. " Ottenberg,op. cit., p. 108.

2Ibid.

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Although the osu system continues to operate in Igbo today, it is not what it used to be before the tidal wave of modernity got hold of Nigeria in general and Igbo in particular. The osu system was legally abolished in 1956 by the Eastern Nigeria Government. Although legally abolished, the osu system continues to operate. The Igbo continue to distinguish diala, ohu, and osu, in a descending order. The osu lineages are still a living social reality; although the system has been abolished, their residential segregation continues to be a living reality. Regarding marriage, Uchendu wrote in 1965, "There is no generally acknowledged intermarriage or willingness to intermarry between diala and osu, even among the most acculturated Igbo."'3 About eighteen years later, in the research conducted by Ezekiel, Gbenro and Owen (1983) only one person, an arch-bishop, of all the interviewees, including traditional rulers, herbalists, educated young men and women and the illiterate, said that he would be ready to marry an osu, or have his son marry one. These researchers recounted numerous marriages which have been broken up after either of the two partners had discovered that the other was an osu. There is a story of how a traditional ruler in Anambra State publicly denounced the osu system in his domain and this was accepted by people in his community. The people then asked the traditional ruler to show the example by marrying an osu, or give away his child in marriage to an osu. Of course, he never did. When traditional rulers were asked if the osu system could be effectively legislated upon, they showed a lot of skepticism. Their response, as summed up by Ezekiel, Gbenro and Owen was, "If the government says there is no osu ... the community will accept, but will not obey. As traditional rulers, we are the custodians of culture and tradition. Where tradition hampers human feelings, we try to adjust. But we cannot abolish the All the young men and women asked as if they would like to see the custom."14 osu system eradicated answered positively, but they are not willing to bell the cat. Ezekiel, Gbenro and Owen tell of stories of how wedding ceremonies have been cancelled because one or two days to the occasion one of the parties discovers that the other is an osu and his or her parents insist that the marriage must not take place. Many osu are unaware that they are osu because they have moved out of the osu homesteads to faraway communities, in some cases outside the Igbo territory to avoid the stigma associated with their status. They get married (probably to another osu, or may have even gotten married to another osu before they left the area). Such people tell nothing to their children about their ancestral background. But the young man or woman finds out, to his or her embarrassment, when they want to get married. The important points to note here are: (1) that there is always that tendency for people to return to their ethnic group for a matrimonial partner; and (2) that before marriage is contracted, parents of both the young man and woman must investigate the
13 Uchendu,op. cit., p. 90.

14Ezekiel, Gbenroand Owen,op. cit., p. 11.

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ancestral background as well as other facts of the would-be partner of their son or daughter. The discovery that either of them is of osu ancestry often leaves indelible psychological marks on the individual. The shrines in which the osu used to work are now barely existent, most of the paraphernalia in the shrines having been removed to the homes of the traditional rulers and the herbalists. Paganism as a religion is fast disappearing in Igboland, and Christianity has gripped most men and women. Thus certain penalties for being an osu have almost disappeared. But as already noted, osu most rarely intermarry and the segregated residential homesteads still exist in some parts of Igbo, like Orlu and Okigwi. Osu and others now visit and eat together, whereas in the past one dared not sit down in an osu's house, or he automatically became an osu. If a visitor unknowingly stopped at an osu's house for a night, he immediately became an osu; this practice did not affect strangers who were non-Igbo. In those days also, if a diala sat down and an osu crossed his legs, he became an osu; after having sex with an osu woman, the diala had to purify himself by rubbing his sex organ with a chick, and throwing it away. All such practices no longer exist. However, osu can never become rulers; they can never become eze (traditional ruler); they can only be given honorary titles in recognition of their contributions to their community, and can only hold political, not traditional, appointments. Ezekiel, Gbenro, and Owen were told of a traditional ruler in Imo State who was recognized by the government as an eze between 1976 and 1980. The people refused to accept him as their eze, because he was labeled an osu. They threatened to kill him, burgled his house and harassed him incessantly until the government stripped him of his title and passed on the recognition to a diala.15 Finally, it is a fact that the osu system is disintegrating, but it will take a long time to eradicate it, if ever. The observation of an eze in Imo State is germane here: "You cannot legislate on matters of this nature. It can only be overcome by education and civilization. Ignoring it or pretending it does not exist has been an effective means of combating it so far. The legislators who abrogated it did not follow their example by giving out their daughters and sons to osus. Besides, you cannot prosecute anybody for not marrying one, because they can always drum up another excuse."16 As observed by Uchendu, it is paradoxical that the social disabilities of the osu are the sources of their ritual privileges and legal protection. Unlike the ohu, they cannot be absorbed into their master's lineage; on the other hand, they are protected by their deity from being sold or killed, or expropriated. They are not economically exploited.17 Having been denied traditional status, the osu became the first of the Igbo to accept Western education, religious ideas, and other economic opportunities. Today, they are found among the best educated and the wealthiest Igbo, but others remain silent about their

5Ibid.,p. 5. " Ibid., p. 11. 1Uchendu, op. cit., p. 90.

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significant achievements, except for occasional recognition by way of honorary titles. Slaves in Ibibio On the other hand, slaves in Ibibio enjoyed a status similar to the Igbo ohu. Slaves were acquired very much in the same ways that the Igbo got theirs. They were bought in slave markets or caught in intergoup wars. Often people voluntarily gave themselves up as slaves when they could not feed themselves and their families. In other words, they pawned themselves. Often they sold a child to a well-to-do person in exchange for money or food. Criminals and recalcitrant children were often sold into slavery. Before the abolition of slavery, the Ibibio ranked people, in a descending order, as freeborn (amanisong), strangers or later immigrants (ududung), and slaves (ifn). The amanisong belong to the families that first settled in the village or community, the founding family or families. Ududung are later immigrants; in this category are found people whose ancestors had offered themselves to the founder of the village as servants in exchange for protection. Just as in the case of the Igbo, if a person in Lineage A had a case for which death sentence was returned and he was able to escape to the head of the Lineage B before the sentence was executed, he was protected and must not be handed over to Lineage A. In other words, he could not be extradicted. The third category, of course, were slaves. Only amanisong could become village heads and also perform certain sacrifices. Slaves were treated as members of the family of their masters. As Jones and Aye have noted, the slaves were members of the household of their masters.18They were never made to have separate villages or communities, but in isolated cases they were made to live at the village boundaries with other villages. The purpose of this was to ensure that in cases of surprise attacks by other villages or communities, slaves living at the boundaries would be the first to be attacked, having been enslaved once, they would put up stiff resistance and before the enemies could advance deep into the village or community, the amanisong would mobilize to defend themselves. Even then, not all slaves were allowed to live at the boundaries; only very strong and loyal ones were made to live there. Just like the Igbo, whenever a human being was to be sacrificed to a deity in order to avert an impending calamity in the village, community or lineage, slaves offered ready sacrificial lambs. Also, at the death of an important chief slaves had to be buried along with the deceased as a mark of respect, and these slaves were believed to accompany the chief as servants to serve him in the world beyond. Thus, in 1798 when Duke Ephraim of Duke Town died, 65 slaves were sacrificed at his funeral ceremonies; when Eyo Honesty of Creek Town died in 1820, over 200 slaves were sacrificed at his funeral; when Duke Ephraim died in 1834 hundreds of slaves and others were sacrificed at his

G.I. Jones, "The Political Organizationof Old Calabar,"in D. Forde (ed.), Efik Tradersof Old Calabar and E. U. Aye, OldCalabar (London,1963; Throughthe Centuries(Calabar,1967).

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funeral rites; and when Tom Robin, head of Old Town died in 1854 slaves and wives were sacrificed at his funeral rites.19 Of all the eastern Nigerian provinces, the Old Calabar had most slaves. There was reason for this. The U.S. and Great Britain both abolished the slave trade in 1807. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814, Great Britain made use of her influence to induce other foreign powers to adopt a similar policy, and eventually almost all the states of Europe passed laws or entered into treaties prohibiting the traffic. The Ashburton Treaty of 1842, between Great Britain and the U.S., provided for the maintenance by each country of a squadron on the African coast to enforce prohibition of the slave trade; and in 1845 a joint cooperation of the naval forces of England and France was substituted for the mutual right of search.20These international activities had serious impact on slave trade and slavery in the Old Calabar. The abolition of this odious trade overseas and the comparative ease with which slaves could be intercepted in the Cross River estuary had left the Old Calabar communities with many more slaves than they could easily absorb. In other words, all the rescued slaves settled in Old Calabar. Thus the place was made up of a limited number of freemen with a very much greater and recently swollen number of slaves. Furthermore, at this junction, wealth, an essential adjunct to authority, could be accumulated most rapidly and by the most able rater than the most elderly or the heads of large families. Among those who accumulated wealth were slaves who in fact had become masters by owning slaves of their own. Their status was in many respects highter than that of some of the freemen. Slaves became members of title or traditional associations, such as Ekpo and Ekpe, although they were not allowed to advance to the top. By the middle of the nineteenth century slaves were so numerous and powerful that they formed the Bloodmen organization after the oath they took when initiated as members. Their aim was to prevent slaves being used as sacrifices for deities and at the funeral of the chiefs. The Bloodmen constituted themselves into a kind of police force to check human sacrifice, and they were quite successful.21 Today, unlike the Igbo, no former slave has any stigma. In the particular case of Calabar, most of those who make up the Efik ethnic group or the Riverine Ibibio are ex-slaves; all of them intermarry, and it is difficult to say who is of slave ancestry. In other parts of Ibibio there is no evidence of discrimination against ex-slaves, except that they cannot be village heads (who must sacrifice to all the deities, spirits and ancestors); this prohibition is not because they are ex-slaves but because they are classified as ududung, and a stranger cannot sacrifice to the deities and ancestors of the village. Among the Igbo, as observed by Ottenberg in his study of Afikpo Igbo, early settlement in an area constitutes a most important basis for claim to traditional political authority. This distinction now is between amanisong and ududung; even the term ududung is mentioned in whispers. This writer witnessed a case in which somebody in Nsit Atai took a fellow villager to court for calling him
1

20Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia (1972),p. 411. 21Daniel A. Offiong,Continuityand Changein Traditional AhmaduBello UniverSocietiesin Negeria(Zaria:

Jones, op. cit., p. 118.

sity, in press).

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ududung, and he won the case. But this did not mean that he could be allowed to become the village head. So it is evident that the Ibibio do not, nor did they ever, have something remotely resembling the osu system of the Igbo. In fact the osu system of slavery is a caste system. The Osu as a Caste The term caste connotes the familiar social hierarchy of Hindu India, from Brahmans to untouchables. In my own observation, seven essentials of the Indian caste system are manifest in the position of the osu.22 1. Membership in a caste is hereditary. In Igbo an individual is born either a diala or an osu, the ohu having been absorbed into the family or lineage of the master. A child inherits the social status of his parents, or of the osu parent, in case of mixed marriages, which are rare indeed. 2. Membership in a caste is fixed for life. The only way an osu can fully avoid discriminations and the social stigma inherent in caste membership is to "pass" for a diala. However, an osu who "passes" for a diala loses his diala status, if he is discovered -just as in the U.S. a nonwhite who "passes" for a white remains a white so long as he or she is not discovered. 3. Choice of a matrimonial partner is endogamous. Custom and tradition forbid diala from marrying osu. Like must marry like and many marriages, as already noted in this paper, have been broken up after the discovery that either of the partners was an osu. 4. Consciousness of caste membership is emphasized by identification of individuals by caste name. Thus the Igbo identify the osu by their community or the deity served by the osu, for example, Nwori Igbo, Amadioha Igbo or Umuajala Igbo. They also have names with which they identify wealthy and politically powerful osu. 5. The caste may be united by a common traditional occupation or profession. In India, members of a particular caste tend to have the same occupation or profession. Among the Igbo, most of the harlots are osu, apparently because female osu far out number men and the diala are not interested in marrying, except for sexual exploitation. In addition, the osu, before colonial activities had serious impact on the Igbo, were concentrated in petty farming. 6. The relative prestige of different castes in a locality is well established and quite jealously guarded. Prestige is measured by a variety of status symbols - the "right" label in the suit of clothes, the "famous" restaurant, the "exclusive" neighborhood. Relative prestige is a function of availability. The diala use residential restrictions to maintain supposed "prestige" of a given neighborhood and rationalize such restrictions in religious terms. The osu must stay out of such neighborhoods in order not to offend the deities, the ultimate result of which would be plague and death for the impiety. The community must be safeguarded from ritual contamination.

and E. And F. Mead,Man Among Men(Englewood 22K. Davis, Human Society (New York, 1949),pp. 378-79; Cliffs, 1965),pp. 289-92.

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7. Contact between the castes is limited. Segregation with all its contact taboos is a version of the ritual avoidance typical of caste. Contact between osu and diala is socially sanctioned as long as the status difference holds. Even today, when diala and osu can eat together and share many things in common, the diala do not forget their superior status. There are still many in Igbo who religiously avoid the osu as much as their grandfathers did; these are the ultra-traditionalists and conservatives. A predatory diala may take advantage of an osu woman, but he is never willing to take her for a wife. Conclusion The contention of this essay has been that Arthur Tuden and Leonard Plotnicov are wrong in their unverified declaration that like the Igbo, the Ibibio had slaves devoted to the religious cult of their owners; that the descendants of these slaves were despised and could not shed the stigma of their ancestry; that they could never be redeemed, no free person would marry them, and that they were feared and shunned. The above characteristics suit the osu caste system of the Igbo which still operates today in a somewhat mild form. Slaves (ifn) in Ibibio enjoyed the same status as ohu in Igbo. They could marry the master's daughter, and some slave women were married by their masters. They also joined title societies and in the particular case of the Old Calabar where slaves far out numbered the freeborn, they even took over governmental control and organized what was tantamount to a police force. In conclusion, therefore, there is nowhere in Ibibio where there ever existed a slave system resembling the osu system of the Igbo.

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