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The Status of Slaves in Igbo and Ibibio of Nigeria

1985; Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center; Volume: 46; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/274945

2325-7199

Daniel A. Offiong,

Religion and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Nigeria

IN THE INTRODUCTION to their seminal publication on social stratification in 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.