PREFACE
Reading edition
The facts collected here are almost exclusively such as came to my notice in the course of the ordinary administrative work in Degama Division, to which I was posted in June, 1914.
The region is mainly inhabited by sections of the two great tribes of Ibo and Ijaw. A full description of these will be given later, but it appeared best to issue without further delay this little monograph, dealing with a certain aspect of their religion, the publication of which has already been long postponed owing in the first place to the war and then to pressure of other work.
As regards the remaining tribes, the subject will be found discussed in other books, especially the Ethnological Sketch, comprising the second and third volumes of The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, published by the Clarendon Press. The descriptive parts in the following pages were written by my first wife.
P. A. T.
June, 1925.