Without some superhuman aid to help to keep the feminine
portion of it within bounds.
Grave councils were held, and it was decided that the
woman at whose house these treasonable meetings were held
should be sent away early one morning on a trading mission
to the nearest factory, a job she readily undertook ; and while
the other women were away in the plantation or at the
spring, certain men entered her house secretly and dug a big
chamber out in the floor of the hut, and one of them, dressed
as_ Ikun, and provided with refreshments for the day, got into
this chamber, and the whole affair was covered over carefully
and the floor re-sanded. That afternoon there was a big
manifestation of Ikun. He came in the most terrible form,
his howls were awful, and he finally went dancing away into
the bush as the night came down. The ladies had just taken
the common-sense precaution of removing all goats, sheep,
fowls, &c., into enclosed premises, for, like all his kind, he
seizes and holds any property he may come across in the
street, but there was evidently no emotional thrill in the
female mind regarding him, and when the leading lady
returned home in the evening the other ladies strolled into
their leader’s hut to hear about what new cotton prints,
beads, and things Mr. {had got at his factory by the last
steamer from Europe, and interesting kindred subjects bearing
on Mr.- . When they had threshed these matters out,
the conversation turned on to religion, and what fools those
men had been making of themselves all the afternoon with
their Ikun. No sooner was his name uttered than a venomous '
howl, terminating in squeals of rage and impatience, came
from the ground beneath them. They stared at each other
for one second, and then, feeling that something was tearing
its way up through the floor, they left for the interior of Africa
with one accord. Ikun gave chase as soon as he got free, but
what with being half-stifled and a bit cramped in the legs,'and
much encumbered with his vegetable decorations, the ladies
got clear away and no arrests were made— but society was
saved. Scepticism became in the twinkling of an eye a thing
of the past; and, although no names were taken, the men
observed that certain ladies were particularly anxious, and
regardless of expense, in buying immunity from Ikun, and
they fancied that these ladies were probably in that hut on
that particular evening, but they took no further action
against them, save making Ikun particularly expensive.
There ought to be a moral to an improving tale of this order,
I know, but the only one I can think of just now is that it
takes a priest to get round a woman ; and I always feel
inclined to jump on to the table myself when I think of those
poor dear creatures sitting on the floor and feeling that awful
thing clapper-clawing its way up right under them.
Ikun has the peculiar habit of coming in from the sea in a
canoe. The heads of his society always see him first, and go
out to meet him in their canoes, and bring him in his Jack-in-
the-Green dress ashore ; meanwhile all the women dash about
driving into enclosures ducks, chickens, children, sheep, and
goats, and then conceal themselves. He is the only member
of his class I have ever heard of that comes in from the sea ;
they usually come out of the bush like Egbo and Yasi, and
his dress is bush anyhow. There is another peculiarity of
Ikun, whieh is that he has a peculiar way of taking payment
for a thing which all his fellow secret societies and spirits also
supply, namely, the power of becoming rich.
For example, a man desires this power, so he goes to some
one known to possess Ikun, and inquires of him if he will let
him have a certain quantity of his power, say, enough to
ensure his becoming a thousand-pound-a-yearer. The man
who possesses the power says that for this quantity of the
power the applicant must pay the lives o f’ fifty of his blood
relations. All these lives the man must take himself, from
time to time, secretly, as occasion offers ; and the spirits
of the murdered go to Ikun in the under-world and work
for him as slaves, and as they go down, so every undertaking
of the murderer turns out profitably, and he gradually
grows richer and richer.
It is a dangerous practice in this world, because when your
neighbours notice how your relatives are going off, and how
you are getting on, they are apt to say you are making Ikun ;
whereupon they descend on you and kill you, and collar your
hard-earned wealth, and have a dance in the evening; but I
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