Nsibidi
Encyclopedia
Nsibidi is a system of symbols indigenous to what is now southeastern Nigeria
that is apparently ideographic
, though there have been suggestions that it includes logographic
elements. The symbols are at least several centuries old: Early forms appeared on excavated pottery from the Calabar
region dating between 400 and 1400 CE. Nsibidi's origin is generally attributed to the Ekoi people
of southern Nigeria. Alternatively J. K. Macgregor claimed in 1909 that it is traditionally said to have come from the Uguakima, Ebe or Uyanga tribes of the Igbo people
, which legend says were taught the script by baboons, although one writer believes Macgregor had been misled by his informants.
There are thousands of nsibidi symbols, of which over 500 have been recorded. They were once taught in a school to children. Many of the signs deal with love affairs; those that deal with warfare and the sacred are kept secret. Nsibidi is used on wall designs, calabash
es, metals (such as bronze), leaves, swords, and tattoo
s. It is primarily used by the Ekpe leopard secret society
(also known as Ngbe or Egbo), which is found across Cross River
among the Ekoi
, Efik, Igbo people, and related peoples.
Outside knowledge of nsibidi came in 1904 when T.D. Maxwell noticed the symbols. Before the British colonisation of the area
, nsibidi was divided into a sacred version and a public, more decorative version which could be used by women. Aspects of colonisation such as Western education and Christian doctrine drastically reduced the number of nsibidi-literate people, leaving the secret society members as some of the last literate in the symbols. Nsibidi was and is still a means of transmitting Ekpe symbolism. Nsibidi was transported to Cuba
and Haiti
via the Atlantic slave trade
, where it developed into the anaforuana and veve
symbols.
, where it means "cruel letters", reflecting the harsh laws of the secret societies that hold nsibidi knowledge. In Calabar
, nsibidi is mostly associated with men's leopard societies such as Ekpe. The leopard societies were a legislative, judicial, and executive power before colonisation, especially among the Efik who exerted much influence over the Cross River.
.
, and then they are designed by male nsibidi artists in the Igbo-speaking towns of Abiriba
, Arochukwu
and Ohafia
to be worn by members of the Ekpe society. Symbols including lovers, metal rods, trees, feathers, hands in friendship war and work, masks, moons, and stars are dyed onto ukara cloths. The cloth is dyed by post-menopausal women in secret, and young males in public. Ukara was a symbol of wealth and power only handled by titled men and post-menopausal women.
Ukara can be worn as a wrapper (a piece of clothing) on formal occasions, and larger version are hung in society meeting houses and on formal occasions. Ukara motifs are designed in white and are placed on grids set against an indigo background. Some of the designs include abstract symbols representing the Ekpe society such as repeating triangles representing the leopard's claws and therefore Ekpe's power. Ukara includes naturalistic designs representing objects such as gongs, feathers and manilla currency, a symbol of wealth. Powerful animals are included, specifically the leopard and crocodile.
. Both of the writers used informants to retrieve nsibidi that were regarded as secret and visited several Cross River communities.
: "Nsibidi"
: "Welcome"
: "Two men talking"
: "Door"
: "Gun"
: "Crossbow"
: "Calabash"
: "Big drum"
: "Etak Ntaña Nsibidi — Nsibidi's bunch of plantains. When the head of the house wants plantains he sends this sign to the head boy on the farm."
: "Umbrella"
: "Toilet soap"
: "Matchet"
: "Woman"
: "Man"
: "Moon"
: "Tortoise"
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
that is apparently ideographic
Ideogram
An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.Examples of...
, though there have been suggestions that it includes logographic
Logogram
A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...
elements. The symbols are at least several centuries old: Early forms appeared on excavated pottery from the Calabar
Calabar
Calabar is a city in Cross River State, southeastern Nigeria. The original name for Calabar was Atakpa, from the Jukun language....
region dating between 400 and 1400 CE. Nsibidi's origin is generally attributed to the Ekoi people
Ekoi people
Ekoi people, also known as Ejagham, are an ethnic group in the extreme southeast of Nigeria and extending eastward into Northern Cameroon. Ekoid Bantu languages are spoken by many groups, including the Atam, Boki, Mbembe, Ufia, and Yako...
of southern Nigeria. Alternatively J. K. Macgregor claimed in 1909 that it is traditionally said to have come from the Uguakima, Ebe or Uyanga tribes of the Igbo people
Igbo people
Igbo people, also referred to as the Ibo, Ebo, Eboans or Heebo are an ethnic group living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects; today, a majority of them speak English alongside Igbo as a result of British colonialism...
, which legend says were taught the script by baboons, although one writer believes Macgregor had been misled by his informants.
There are thousands of nsibidi symbols, of which over 500 have been recorded. They were once taught in a school to children. Many of the signs deal with love affairs; those that deal with warfare and the sacred are kept secret. Nsibidi is used on wall designs, calabash
Calabash
Lagenaria siceraria , bottle gourd, opo squash or long melon is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable, or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. For this reason, the calabash is widely known as the bottle gourd...
es, metals (such as bronze), leaves, swords, and tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
s. It is primarily used by the Ekpe leopard secret society
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
(also known as Ngbe or Egbo), which is found across Cross River
Cross River
Cross River may refer to:In Nigeria*Cross River *Cross River State, in southeastern Nigeria, named after the above river*Cross River languages, a branch of the Benue-Congo languages subgroup of the Niger-Congo languagesIn Canada...
among the Ekoi
Ekoi people
Ekoi people, also known as Ejagham, are an ethnic group in the extreme southeast of Nigeria and extending eastward into Northern Cameroon. Ekoid Bantu languages are spoken by many groups, including the Atam, Boki, Mbembe, Ufia, and Yako...
, Efik, Igbo people, and related peoples.
Outside knowledge of nsibidi came in 1904 when T.D. Maxwell noticed the symbols. Before the British colonisation of the area
Colonial Nigeria
Colonial Nigeria ran from 1800 till October 1, 1960 when it gained independence. Up until the amalgamation of 1914, the country's constituting parts existed as separate British protectorates.-Abolition of the Slave Trade:...
, nsibidi was divided into a sacred version and a public, more decorative version which could be used by women. Aspects of colonisation such as Western education and Christian doctrine drastically reduced the number of nsibidi-literate people, leaving the secret society members as some of the last literate in the symbols. Nsibidi was and is still a means of transmitting Ekpe symbolism. Nsibidi was transported to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
and Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
via the Atlantic slave trade
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
, where it developed into the anaforuana and veve
Veve
A Veve or Vévé is a religious symbol commonly used in Haitian Vodou. It acts as a "beacon" for the loa - a type of spirit, and will serve as a loa's representation during rituals...
symbols.
History
The origin of the word nsibidi is not known. One theory traces the word to the Ekoid languagesEkoid languages
The Ekoid languages are a dialect cluster, such as Ekajuk and Ejagham , spoken principally in southeastern Nigeria and in adjacent regions of Cameroon. They have long been associated with the Bantu languages, without their status being precisely defined...
, where it means "cruel letters", reflecting the harsh laws of the secret societies that hold nsibidi knowledge. In Calabar
Calabar
Calabar is a city in Cross River State, southeastern Nigeria. The original name for Calabar was Atakpa, from the Jukun language....
, nsibidi is mostly associated with men's leopard societies such as Ekpe. The leopard societies were a legislative, judicial, and executive power before colonisation, especially among the Efik who exerted much influence over the Cross River.
Origin
The origin of nsibidi is most commonly attributed to the Ejagham people of the northern Cross River region, mostly because colonial administrators found the largest and most diverse nsibidi among them. Nsibidi spread throughout the region over time and mixed with other cultures and art forms such as the Igbo uli graphic designUli (design)
Uli is the name given to the traditional designs drawn by the Igbo people of Nigeria. Uli drawings are strongly linear and do not have deep perspective; they do, however, balance positive and negative space. Designs are frequently asymmetrical, and are often painted spontaneously...
.
Status
Nsibidi has a wide vocabulary of signs usually imprinted on calabashes, brass ware, textiles, wood sculptures, masquerade costumes, buildings and on human skin. Nsibidi has been described as a "fluid system" of communication consisting of hundreds of abstract and pictographic signs. Nsibidi was described in the colonial era by P.A. Talbot as a "a kind of primitive secret writing", Talbot explained that nsibidi was used for messages "cut or painted on split palm stems". J.K. Macgregor's view was that "The use of nsibidi is that of ordinary writing. I have in my possession a copy of the record of a court case from a town of Enion [Enyong] taken down in it, and every detail ... is most graphically described". Nsibidi crossed ethnic lines and was a uniting factor among ethnic groups in the Cross River region.Court Cases - "Ikpe"
Nsibidi was used in judgement cases known as 'Ikpe' in some Cross River communities. Macgregor was able to retrieve and translate an nsibidi record from Enyong of an ikpe judgement.The record is of an Ikpe or judgement case. (a) The court was held under a tree as is the custom, (b) the parties in the case, (c) the chief who judged it, (d) his staff (these are enclosed in a circle), (e) is a man whispering into the ear of another just outside the circle of those concerned, (f) denotes all the members of the party who won the case. Two of them (g) are embracing, (h) is a man who holds a cloth between his finger and thumbs as a sign of contempt. He does not care for the words spoken. The lines round and twisting mean that the case was a difficult one which the people of the town could not judge for themselves. So they sent to the surrounding towns to call the wise men from them and the case was tried bv then (j) and decided; (k) denotes that the case was one of adultery or No. 20.
Ukara Ekpe
Nsibidi is used to design the 'ukara ekpe' woven material which is usually dyed blue (but also green and red) and is covered in nsibidi symbols and motifs. Ukara ekpe cloths are woven in AbakalikiAbakaliki
Abakaliki is the capital city of the present-day Ebonyi State in southeastern Nigeria. The inhabitants are primarily members of the Igbo nation. It used to be the headquarters of the old Abakaliki zone in the Old Anambra and Enugu state before the creation of Ebonyi State in 1996. Abakaliki is made...
, and then they are designed by male nsibidi artists in the Igbo-speaking towns of Abiriba
Abiriba
Abiriba is a town in Abia State, in southeastern Nigeria, traditionally an Igbo land. Abiriba is in Ohafia Local Government Area.- History :...
, Arochukwu
Arochukwu
Arochukwu, sometimes referred to as Arochuku, or Aro-Okigbo, is the third largest city in Abia State in southeastern Nigeria and homeland of the Igbo subgroup, Aro people....
and Ohafia
Ohafia
Ohafia is a town and local government area in Abia State, Nigeria. It is an Igbo speaking region. The ancestral capital of Ohafia is the centrally located village of Elu. The Ohafia Local Government Area also includes the towns of Abiriba and Nkporo....
to be worn by members of the Ekpe society. Symbols including lovers, metal rods, trees, feathers, hands in friendship war and work, masks, moons, and stars are dyed onto ukara cloths. The cloth is dyed by post-menopausal women in secret, and young males in public. Ukara was a symbol of wealth and power only handled by titled men and post-menopausal women.
Ukara can be worn as a wrapper (a piece of clothing) on formal occasions, and larger version are hung in society meeting houses and on formal occasions. Ukara motifs are designed in white and are placed on grids set against an indigo background. Some of the designs include abstract symbols representing the Ekpe society such as repeating triangles representing the leopard's claws and therefore Ekpe's power. Ukara includes naturalistic designs representing objects such as gongs, feathers and manilla currency, a symbol of wealth. Powerful animals are included, specifically the leopard and crocodile.
Examples of Nsibidi
Here are some examples of nsibidi recorded by J. K. Macgregor (1909) and Elphinstone Dayrell (1910 and 1911) for The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and Man. Both of them recorded symbols from a variety of locations around the Cross River, and especially the Ikom district in what is now Cross River StateCross River State
Cross River State is a coastal state in southeastern Nigeria, bordering Cameroon to the east. Its capital is at Calabar, and it is named for the Cross River , which passes through the state...
. Both of the writers used informants to retrieve nsibidi that were regarded as secret and visited several Cross River communities.
: "Nsibidi"
: "Welcome"
: "Two men talking"
: "Door"
: "Gun"
: "Crossbow"
: "Calabash"
: "Big drum"
: "Etak Ntaña Nsibidi — Nsibidi's bunch of plantains. When the head of the house wants plantains he sends this sign to the head boy on the farm."
: "Umbrella"
: "Toilet soap"
: "Matchet"
: "Woman"
: "Man"
: "Moon"
: "Tortoise"