"Sitting on a Man": Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women

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Judith Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man”: Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women (with added comment)

In the conventional wisdom, Western influence has"emancipated" African women-- through the weakeningof kinship bonds and the provision of "free choice"in Christian monogamous marriage, the suppressionof "barbarous" practices, the opening of schools,the introduction of modern medicine and hygiene,and, sometimes, of female suffrage.

But Westernization is not an unmixedblessing. The experience of Igbo womenunder British colonialism shows that Westerninfluence can sometimes weaken or destroy women'straditional autonomy and power without providingmodern forms of autonomy or power in exchange.lgbo women had a significant role in traditionalpolitical life. As individuals, they participatedin village meetings with men. But their realpolitical power was based on the solidarityof women, as expressed in their own politicalinstitutions - their "meetings" (mikiri), theirmarket networks, their kinship groups, and theirright to use strikes, boycotts and force toeffect their decisions.

British colonial officers and missionaries,both men and women, generally failed to see thepolitical roles and the political power oflgbo women. The actions of administratorsweakened and in some cases destroyed women'sbases of strength. Since they did not appreciatewomen's political institutions, they made noefforts to ensure women's participation in themodern institutions they were trying to foster.

Igbo women haven't taken leadership roles in


modern local government, nationalist movements andnational government and what roles they have playedhave not been investigated by scholars. Thepurpose in describing their traditional politicalinstitutions and source of power is to raise thequestion of why these women have been"invisible" historically, even though they forcedthe colonial authorities to pay attention to thembriefly.

We suggest that the dominant and unexaminedview among British colonial officers andmissionaries was that politics was properly aman’s

**Published in the Canadian Journal of African Studies VI,ii(1972). An earlier version of this paper was presented atthe Annual Meeting of The African Studies Association,Denver, Colorado, November, 1971. Copied here from author’scopy. A revised account of the Women’s War and itsaftermath, updated from the rich work done on it over theyears and putting greater emphasis on both economic andspiritual aspects of women’s power and actions, will appearin my forthcoming textbook, African Women, Politics and Power(Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).

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concern. Socialized in Victorian England, theyhad internalized a set of values andattitudes about what they considered to be thenatural and proper role of women thatsupported this belief. We suggest further thatthis assumption about men and politics has had agreat deal to do with the fact that no one haseven asked, "Whatever happened to Igbowomen's organizations ?" even though all theevidence needed to justify the question has beenavailable for 30 years.

Igbo Traditional Political Institutions 2

Political power in Igbo society was diffuse. Therewere no specialized bodies or offices in whichlegitimate power was vested, and no person,regardless of his status or ritual position, hadthe authority to issue commands which othershad an obligation to obey. In line with thisdiffusion of authority, the right to enforcedecisions was also diffuse : there was no "state"that held a monopoly of legitimate force, and theuse of force to protect one's interests or tosee that a group decision was carried outwas considered legitimate for individuals andgroups. In the simplest terms, the British triedto create specialized political institutionswhich commanded authority and monopolized force.In doing so they took into account, eventually,Igbo political institutions dominated by men butignored those of the women. Thus, women were shutout from political power.

The Igbo lived traditionally in semi-


autonomous villages, which consisted of thescattered compounds of 75 or so patri-kinsmen;related villages formed "village-groups" whichcame together for limited ritual and juralpurposes. Villages commonly contained severalhundred people ; but size varied, and in themore densely populated areas there were"village-groups" with more than

1. The Igbo-speaking peoples areheterogeneous and can only be termed a"tribe" on the basis of a common languageand a contiguous territory. They were thedominant group in southeastern Nigeria, duringthe colonial period numbering more thanthree million ac cording to the 1931 census.The Jgbo in Owerri and Calabar Provinces, thetwo southernmost provinces, were relativelyhomogeneous politically, and it is theirpolitical institutions which are discussedhere. Studies in depth were done of the Igboonly in the 1930s, but traditional politicalinstitutions survived "underneath" thenative administration, although weakenedmore in some areas than in others. Therewere also many informants who rememberedlife in the pre-colonial days. The picture ofIgbo society drawn here is based on reports bytwo Englishwomen, Leith-Ross and Green, whohad a particular interest in lgbo women ;the work of a government anthropologicalofficer, Meek ; a brief report by Harris, andthe work of educated lgbo describing theirown society, Uchendu and Onwuteaka. See M. M.GREEN, Igbo Village Affairs (London : Frank Cass &Co., Ltd., 1947 ; page citations to


paperback edition, New York: Frederick A.Praeger, 1964); J. S. HARRIS, "The Position ofWomen in a Nigerian Society", Transactions of theNew York Academy of Sciences, Series II, Vol. 2, No.5, 1940; Sylvia LE1111-Ross, African Women(London: Faber and Faber, 1939); C. K.MEEK, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe (London :Oxford University Press, 1957, orig. publ.1937);1. C. ONWUTEAKA, "The Aba Riot of 1929 and itsRelation to the System of Indirect Rule",The Nigerian Journal of Ecorwmic and Social Studies,November 1965; Victor C. UcHENDU, The lgbo ofSoutheast Nigeria (New York: Holt, Rinehart andWinston, 1965).

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5,000 members 3• Disputes at all thelevels above the compound were settled bygroup discussion until mutual agreement wasreached.4

The main lgbo political institution seems tohave been the village assembly, a gathering ofall adults in the village who chose to attend. Anyadult who had something to say on the matterunder discussion was entitled to speak - aslong as he or she said something the othersconsidered worth listening to ; as the Igbo say," a case forbids no one." 5

Matters dealt with in the village assemblywere those of concern to all - either commonproblems for which collective action wasappropriate ("How can we make our market'bigger' than the other villages' markets ?")or conflicts which threatened the unity of thevillage.6

Decisions agreed on by the village assemblydid not have the force of law in our terms,however. Even after decisions had been reached,social pressure based on consensus and theability of individuals and groups to enforcedecisions in their favour played a major part ingiving the force of law to decisions. As Green7 put it :

(O)ne had the impression . . . that laws onlyestablish themselves by degrees and then onlyin so far as they gain general acceptance. Alaw does not either exist or not exist :rather it goes through a process of


establishing itself by common consent or ofbeing shelved by a series of quiet evasions.

Persuasion about the rightness of a particularcourse of action in terms of tradition was ofprimary importance in assuring its acceptanceand the leaders were people who had the abilityto persuade.

The mode of political discourse was that ofproverb, parable and metaphor drawn from the bodyof lgbo tradition.8 The needed political knowledgewas accessible to the average man or woman ,sinceall Igbo were reared with these proverbs andparables. Influential speech was the creative andskillful use of tradition to assure others that acertain course of action was both a wiseand right thing to do. The accessibility of thisknowledge is indicated by an lgbo proverb : "Ifyou tell a proverb to a fool, he will ask you itsmeaning."

The leaders of lgbo society were men andwomen who combined wealth and generosity with"mouth" - the ability to speak well. Age combinedwith

3. Daryll FORDE and G. I. JoNES, The Ibo- andIbibio-Speaking Peoples of South-Eastern Nigeria (London :International African Institute, 1950), p. 39 ; J.S. HARRIS, op. cit., p. 141.

4. Victor C. UcHENDU, op. cit., pp. 41-44.5. Ibid., p. 41 ; M. M. GREEN, o p. cit., pp. 78-79.

6. I. S. HARRIS, op. cit., pp. 142-43 ; Victor C. UCHENDU, op. cit., pp. 34, 42-43.

7. M. M. GREEN, op. cit., p. 137.8. The sources for this description


are Uchendu and personal conversationswith an lgbo born in Umu-Domi village ofOnicha clan in Afikpo division who,however, went to mission schools from the ageof seven and speaks Union lgbo rather than hisvillage dialect.

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wisdom brought respect but age alone carriedlittle influence. The senior elders who wereritual heads of their lineages were very likely tohave considerable influence, but they would nothave achieved these positions in the firstplace if they had not been considered tohave good sense and good character.9 Wealthin itself was no guarantee of influence : a "bigman" or "big woman" was not necessarily a wealthyperson, but one who had shown skill andgenerosity in helping other individuals and,especially, the community.10

Men owned the most profitable crops such aspalm oil, received the bulk of the money frombridewealth, and, if compound heads, presents fromthe members. Through the patrilineage, theycontrolled the land, which they could lease tonon-kinsmen or to women for a good profit. Menalso did most of the long-distance trading whichgave higher profit than local and regionaltrading which was almost entirely in women'shands.11

Women were entitled to sell the surplus oftheir own crops and the palm kernels which weretheir share of the palm produce. They mightalso sell prepared foods or the products ofspecial skills, for instance, processed salt,pots and baskets. They pocketed the entireprofit, but their relatively lower profitlevels kept them disadvantaged relative to the menin acquiring titles and prestige1.2

For women as well as for men, status waslargely achieved, not ascribed. A woman's


status was determined more by her own achievements thanby the achievements of her husband. The resourcesavailable to men were greater, however ; sothat while a woman might rank higher among womenthan her husband did among men, very few womencould acquire the highest titles, a majorsource of prestige1.3

At village assemblies men were more likely tospeak than were women ; women more often spokeonly on matters of direct concern to them.14Title-holders took leading parts in discussion,and were more likely to take part in "consultation." After a case had been thoroughlydiscussed, a few men retired in order tocome to a decision. A spokesman then announced thedecision, which could be accepted or rejectedby the assembly1.5

Apparently no rule forbade women to participatein consultations but they were invited to do soonly rarely. The invited women were olderwomen, for while younger men might have thewealth to acquire the higher titles and thus

9. Victor C. UcHENDU, op. cit., p. 41.10. Ibid., p. 34 ; C. K. MEEK, op. cit., p. 111.11. M. M. GREEN, op. cit., pp. 32-42.12. Sylvia LEITH-Ross, op. cit., pp. 90--92, 138-39, 143.13. C. K. MEEK, op. cit., p. 203 ; Victor C. UCHENDU, op. cit., p. 86.

14. M. M. GREEN, op. cit., p. 169.15. Victor C. UCHENDU, op. cit., p. 41.

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make up in talent what they lacked in age,younger women could not acquire the needed wealthquickly enough to be eligible.16

Women, therefore, came second to men inpower and influence. While status and thepolitical influence it could bring wereachieved and there were no formal limits towomen's political power, men through theirascriptive status (members of the patrilineage)acquired wealth which gave them a head startand a life-long advantage over women. The lgbo saythat "a child who washes his hands cleandeserves to eat with his elders." 17 But at birthsome children were given water and some werenot.

Women's Political Institutions

Since political authority was diffuse, thesettling of disputes, discussions about how toimprove the village or its market, or any otherproblems of general concern were brought up atvarious gatherings such as funerals, meetings ofkinsmen to discuss burial rituals, and themarketplace, gatherings whose ostensible purposewas not political discussion1.6

The women's base of political power lay intheir own gatherings. Since Igbo society waspatrilocal and villages were exogamous, adultwomen resident in a village would almost all bewives, and others were divorced or widowed"daughters of the village" who had returned hometo live. Women generally attended age-set


gatherings (ogbo) in their natal villages,performed various ritual functions, and helped tosettle disputes among their "brothers." 19 But thegatherings which performed the major role in self-rule among women and which articulated women'sinterests as opposed to those of men were thevillage-wide gatherings of all adult womenresident in a village which under colonialism cameto be called mikiri or mitiri (from " meeting"). 20

Mikiri were held whenever there was a need.21 In mikiri the same processes of discussion and consultation were used as in the village assembly. There were no official leaders ; as in the village, women of wealth and generosity who could speak well took leading roles. Decisions appear often to have been announced informally by wives telling their husbands. If the need arose, spokeswomen - to contact the men, or women in other villages -were chosen through general discussion. If the announcement of decisions and persuasion were not sufficient for their implementation, women could take direct action to enforce their decisions and protect their interests2.2

16. C. K. MEEK, op. cit., p. 203.17. Victor C. UcHENDU, op. cit., p. 19.18. C. K. MEEK, op. cit., p. 125; M. M. GREEN, op. cit., pp. 132-38.19. M. M. GREEN, op. cit., pp. 217-32.

20. Sylvia LEITH-Ross, op . cit., pp. 106--08.21. M. M. GREEN, op. cit., pp. 178-216.22.Ibid., p. 180; Sylvia LEITH-Ross, op. cit., pp.

106-107.

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Mikiri provided women with a forum in which todevelop their political talents among a moreegalitarian group than the village assembly.In mikiri, women could discuss their particularinterests as traders, farmers, wives andmothers. These interests often were opposed tothose of the men, and where individually womencouldn't compete with men, collectively theycould often hold their own.

One of the mikiri's most important functions wasthat of a market association, to promote andregulate the major activity of women : trading.At these dis cussions prices were set, rulesestablished about market attendance, andfines fixed for those who violated the rules orwho didn't contribute to market rituals. Ruleswere also made which applied to men. For instance,rowdy behavior on the part of young men wasforbidden. Husbands and elders were asked tocontrol the young men. If their requests wereignored, the women would handle the matterby launching a boycott or a strike to force themen to police themselves-0r they might decide to "sit on" the individual offender.23

"Sitting on a man" or a woman, boycotts andstrikes were the women's main weapons. To "siton" or "make war on" a man involved gathering athis compound, sometimes late at night, dancing,singing scurrilous songs which detailed thewomen's grievances against him and often calledhis manhood into question, banging on his hut withthe pestles women used for pounding yams,


and perhaps demolishing his hut or plasteringit with mud and roughing him up a bit. A manmight be sanctioned in this way formistreating his wife, for violating the women'smarket rules, or for letting his cows eat thewomen's crops. The women would stay at hishut throughout the day, and late into thenight, if necessary, until he repented andpromised to mend his ways. 24 Although thiscould hardly have been a pleasant experience forthe offending man, it was,considered legitimateand no man would consider intervening.

In tackling men as a group, women used boycottsand strikes. Harris

describes a case in which, after repeated requestsby the women for the paths to the market to becleared (a male responsibility), all the womenrefused to cook for their husbands until therequest was carried out.25 For this boycott tobe effective, all women had to cooperate so that mencould not go and eat with their brothers. Anothertime the men of a village decided that the womenshould stop trading at the more distant marketsfrom which they did not return until late atnight because the men feared that the women werehaving sexual relations with men in thosetowns. The women, however, refused to complysince opportunity to buy in one market and sellin another was basic to profit-making. Threats ofcollective retaliation were enough to make the mencapitulate.

23.J. S. HARRIS, op. cit., pp. 146-47.24. Ibid., pp. 146--48 ; M . M. GREEN, op. cit., pp. 196-

97 ; Sylvia LEITH-Ross, op. cit.,p. 109.25. J. S. HARRIS, op. cit., pp. 146-147.


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As farmers, women's interests conflicted withthose of the men as owners of much of thelarger livestock - cows, pigs, goats and sheep.The men's crop, yams, had a short season and wasthen dug up and stored, after which the mentended to be careless about keeping theirlivestock out of the women's crops. Greenreports a case in which the women of a villageswore an oath that if any woman killed a cow orother domestic animal on her farm theothers would stand by her.26

A woman could also bring complaints abouther husband to the mikiri. If most of thewomen agreed that the husband was at fault,they would collectively support her. They mightsend spokeswomen to tell the husband to apologizeand to give her a present, and, if he wasrecalcitrant they might " sit on" him. They mightalso act to protect a right of wives. Harrisdescribes a case of women's solidarity to maintainsexual freedom :

The men . . . were very angry because theirwives were openly having relations withtheir lovers. The men ... met and passeda law to the effect that every woman . . .should renounce her lover and present a goat toher husband as a token of repentance . . . Thewomen held . . . secret meetings and, afew mornings later, they went to aneighboring [village], leaving all butsuckling children behind them . . . [The men]endured it for a day and a half and thenthey went to the women and begged theirreturn . . . [T]he men gave [the women] onegoat and apologized informally and formally.27


Thus through mikiri women acted to force aresolution of their individual and collectivegrievances.

Colonial Penetration

Into this system of diffuse authority, fluid andinformal leadership, shared rights ofenforcement, and a more or Jess stable balance ofmale and female power; the British tried tointroduce ideas of "native administration" derivedfrom colonial experience with chiefs and emirs innorthern Nigeria. Southern Nigeria wasdeclared a protectorate in 1900, but it was tenyears before the conquest was effective. Ascolonial power was established in what theBritish perceived as a situa tion of "orderedanarchy," lgboland was divided into Native CourtAreas which violated the autonomy of villages bylumping many unrelated villages into each courtarea. British District Officers were to presideover the courts, but were not always present asthere were more courts than officers. The Igbomembership was formed by choosing from eachvillage a " repr esentative" who was given awarrant of office. These Warrant Chiefs were alsoconstituted the Native Authority. They wererequired to see that the orders of the DistrictOfficers. were executed

26. M. M'. GREEN, op. ci t., pp. .210-11.27. J. s. HARRIS, op. cit., pp. 146-47.

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in their own villages and were the only linkbetween the colonial power and the people.28

It was a violation of Igbo concepts tohave one man represent the village in thefirst place and more of a violation that heshould give orders to everyone else. Thepeople obeyed the Warrant Chief when they hadto, since British power backed him up. In someplaces Warrant Chiefs were lineage headsor wealthy men who were already ,leaders inthe village. But in many places they weresimply ambitious, opportunistic young men whoput themselves forward as friends of theconquerors. Even the relatively less corruptWarrant Chief was still, more than anythingelse, an agent of the British.29

The people avoided using Native Courts whenthey could do so. But Warrant Chiefs couldforce cases into the Native Courts and couldfine people for infractions of rules. By havingthe ear of the British, the Warrant Chief couldhimself violate traditions and even Britishrules, and get away with it since his versionwould be believed.30

Women suffered particularly under thearbitrary rule of Warrant Chiefs, who werereported as having taken women to marry withoutconforming to the custom ary process, whichincluded the woman's right to refuse aparticular suitor. They also helped themselves


to the women's agricultural produce, and totheir domestic animals.31

Recommendations for reform of the systemwere made almost from its inception both byjunior officers in the field and by seniorofficers sent out from headquarters toinvestigate. But no real improvements weremade. 32

Aba and The Women's War

The Native Administration in the years before1929 took little account of either men's orwomen's political institutions. In 1929, womenin southern Igboland became convinced thatthey were to be taxed by the British.This fear on top of their resentment of theWarrant Chiefs led to what the British calledthe Aba Riots, and the lgbo, the Women's War.The rebellion provides perhaps the moststriking example of British blindness to thepolitical institutions of Igbo women. Thewomen, "invisible" to the British as they laidtheir plans for Native Ad-

28. Daryll FORDE, "Justice and Judgmentamong the Southern Ibo under Colonial Rule",unpublished paper prepared forInterdisciplinary Colloquium in AfricanStudies, University of California, LosAngeles, pp. 9-13.

29. Ibid., pp. 9-13 ; J.C. ANENE, SouthernNigeria in Transition, 1885-1906 (New York : TheCambridge University Press, 1967), p. 259 ;C. K. MEEK, op. cit., pp. 328-30.


30. Daryll FORDE, op. cit., p. 12.31. J.C. ONWUTEAKA, op. cit., p. 274.32. C. K. MEEK, op. cit., pp. 329-30; Harry

A. GAILEY, The Road to Aba (New York: New YorkUniversity Press, 1970), pp. 66-74.

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ministration, suddenly became highly visible for afew months, but as soon as they quieted down,they were once again ignored, and the reforms madein Native Administration took no account of thempolitically.33

In 1925 Igbo men paid taxes, although duringthe sensus count on which the tax was basedthe British had denied that there was to beany taxation. Taxes were collected without toomuch trouble. By 1929, the prices for palmproducts had fallen, however, and the taxes, setat 1925 levels, were an in creasingly resentedburden.34 In the midst of this resentment, anoverzealous Assistant District Officer in OwerriProvince decided to update the censusregisters by recounting households and householdproperty, which belonged to women. Understandably,the women did not believe his assurances that newtaxes were not to be invoked. They sent messagesthrough the market and kinship networks to othervillages and called a mikiri to decide what to do.

In the Oloko Native Court area of OwerriProvince, the women decided that as long as onlymen were approached in a compound and asked forinformation, the women would do nothing. Theywanted clear evidence that they were to be taxedbefore they acted.35 If any woman was approached,she was to raise the alarm and they would meetto discuss retaliation.

On November 23, the agent of the OlokoWarrant Chief, Okugo, entered a compound andtold a married women, Nwanyeruwa, to count her


goats and sheep. She retorted angrily, "Wasyour mother counted?" Thereupon "they closed,seizing each other by the throat." 36 Nwanyeruwa'sreport to the Oloko women convinced them thatthey were to be taxed. Messengers were sent toneighboring areas. Women streamed into Oloko fromall over Owerri Province. They massed in protestat the district office and after several days ofprotest meetings succeeded in obtaining writtenassurances that they were not to be taxed,and in getting Okugo arrested. Subsequently he wastried and convicted of physically assaulting womenand of spreading news likely to cause alarm.He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.3 7

33. Information on the Women's War isderived mainly from Gailey and Perham, whobased their descriptions on the reports of thetwo Commissions of Enquiry, issued as SessionalPapers of the Nigerian Legislative Council,Nos. 12 and 28 of 1930, and the Minutesof Evidence issued with the latter. Gailey alsoused the early 1930's Intelligence Reportsof political officers. Meek and Afigbo alsoprovide quotations from the reports, which werenot, unfortunately, available to me in full.See Margery PERHAM, Native Administration in Nigeria(London: Oxford University Press, 1937);Idem, Lugard: The Years of Adventure, 1858- 1898(London: Collins, 1956); Idem, Lugard: The Years ofAuthority, 1898-1945 (London: Collins, 1960); A. E.AFIGBO, "Igbo Village Affairs", Journal of theHistorical Society of Nigeria, 4: 1, December 1967.

34. Harry A. GAILEY, op. cit., pp. 94-95 ; C. K.MEEK, op. cit., pp. 330-31.

35. Harry A. GAILEY, op. cit., pp. 107-08.


36. Margery PERHAM, Native Administration in Nigeria, op. cit., p. 207.

37. Harry A. GAILEY, op. cit., pp. 108-13.

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News of this victory spread rapidly throughthe market mikiri network, and women in 16 NativeCourt areas attempted to get rid of theirWarrant Chiefs as well as the NativeAdministration itself. Tens of thousands ofwomen became involved, generally using the sametraditional tactics, though not with thesame results as in Oloko. In each NativeCourt area, the women marched on NativeAdministration centers and demanded the WarrantChiefs' caps of office and assurances that theywould not be taxed. In some areas the DistrictOfficers assured the women to theirsatisfaction that they were not to be taxed andthe women dispersed without further incident.But the Briish in general stood behind theWarrant Chiefs ; at that point theyinterpreted the women's rebellion as motivatedsolely by fear of taxation, and Oloko was theonly area in which a Warrant Chief had directlyprovoked the women's fears of taxation bycounting their property.

Women in most areas did not get fullsatisfaction from the British, and, further,some British district officers simply panickedwhen faced by masses of angry women and actedin ways which made negotiation impossible.

In most of the to Native Court areas affected, women took matters into their own hands - they "sat on" Warrant Chiefs and burned Native Court buildings, and, in some


cases, released prisoners from jail. Among the buildings burned were those at Aha, a major administrative center from which the British name for the rebellion is derived. Large numbers of police and soldiers, and on one occasion Boy Scounts, were called in toquell the "disturbances." On two occasions, clashes between the women and the troops left more than 50 women dead and 50 wounded from gunfire. The lives taken were those of women only - no men, Igbo or British, were even seriously injured. The cost of property damage - estimated at more than £

60,000, was paid for by the Igbo, who were heavily taxed to pay for rebuilding the Native Administration centers.38

The rebellion lasted about a month. By lateDecember, "order" was somewhat restored butsporadic disturbances and occupation bygovernment troops continued into 1930. In all,the rebellion extended over an area of sixthousand square miles, all of Owerri andCalabar Provinces, containing about two millionpeople.39

The British generally saw the rebellion as"irrational" and called it a series of"riots." They discovered that the marketnetwork had been used to spread the rumorof taxation, but they did not inquirefurther into the concerted action of thewomen, the grassroots leadership, the agreementon demands, or even into the fact thatthousands of women showed up at native


administration centers dressed in the sameunusual way : wearing short loincloths, theirfaces smeared

38. S. 0. Esurn, "The Aba Riots of 1929",African Historian, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1965): 13 ;J. S. HARRIS, op. cit., p. 143 ; MargeryPERHAM, Native Administration in Nigeria, op. cit.,pp. 209-12.

39. Harry A. GAILEY, op. cit., p. 137 ;Margey PERHAM, Native Administration in Nigeria, op. cit.,pp. 209-12.

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with charcoal or ashes, their heads bound with young ferns, and in their hands carrying sticks wreathed with young palms.40

In exonerating the soldiers who fired on thewomen, a Commission of Enquiry spoke of the"savage passions" of the "mobs," and onemilitary officer told the Commission that "he hadnever seen crowds in such a state offrenzy." Yet these "frenzied mobs" injured no oneseriously, which the British found "surprising."41

It is not surprising if the Women's War is seen as the traditional practice of "sitting on a man," only on a larger scale. Decisions were made in mikiri to respond to a situation in which women were acutely wronged bythe Warrant Chiefs' corruption and by the taxes they believed to be forthcoming. Spokeswomen werechosen to present their demands for the removal of the Warrant Chiefs and women followed their leadership, on several occasions sitting down to wait for negotiations or agreeing to disperse or to turn in Warrant Chiefs' caps.42 Traditional dress, rituals and "weapons" for "sitting on" were used : the head wreathed with young ferns symbolized war, and sticks, bound with ferns or young palms, were used to invoke the powersof the female ancestors.43 The women's behavior also followed traditional patterns : much noise, stamping, preposterous threats and a general raucous atmosphere were all part ofthe institution of "sitting on a man ." Destroying an offender's hut - in this case


the Native Court buildings - was clearly within the bounds of this sanctioning process.

The Women's War was coordinated throughout thetwo provinces by in formation sent through themarket mikiri network. Delegates travelled from onearea to another and the costs were paid bydonations from the women's market profits.44Traditional rules were followed in that theparticipants were women - only a few menwere involved in the demonstrations - andleadership was clearly in the hands of women.

The absence of men from the riots doesnot indicate lack of support. Men generallyapproved, and only a few older men criticized thewomen for not being more respectful toward thegovernment. It is reported that both men and womenshared the mistaken belief that the women, havingobserved certain rituals, would not be fired upon.The men had no illusions of immunity forthemselves, having vivid memories of the slaughterof Igbo men during the conquest.45 Finally,

40. J. S. HARRIS, op. cit., pp. 147-48 ; Margery PERHAM, Native Administration in Nigeria,op, cit., pp. 207ff. ; C. K. MEEK, op. cit., p. IX.

41. Margery PERHAM, Native Administration in Nigeria. op. cit., pp. 212-19.

42. Ibid., pp. 212ff.43. Harris reports a curse sworn by the

women on the pestles : "lt is I who gavebirth to you. It is I who cook for you toeat. This is the pestle I use to poundyams and coco yams for you to eat. May yousoon die!" See J. S. H ARRIS, op . cit., pp. 143-45.

44. Harry A. GAILEY, op. cit., p. 112.


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the name given the rebellion by the Igbo -the Women's War - indicates that the women sawthemselves following their traditional sanctioningmethods of "sitting on" or "making war on" a man.

Since the British failed to recognize theWomen's War as a collective response to theabrogation of rights, they did not inquire intothe kinds of structures the women had thatprepared them for such action. They failedto ask, "How do the women make group decisions? How do they choose their leaders ?" Sincethey saw only a "riot," they explained the factthat the women injured no one seriously as "luck,"never even contemplating that perhaps thewomen's actions had traditional limits.

Because the women - and the men -regarded the inquiries as attempts to discoverwhom to punish, they did not volunteer anyinformation about the women's organizations. Butthere is at least some question as to whetherthe British would have understood them if theyhad. The market network was discovered, butsuggested no further lines of inquiry to theBritish. The majority of District Officersthought that the men organized the women's actionsand were secretly directing them. The BendeDistrict Officer and the Secretary of theSouthern Province believed that there was asecret "Ogbo Society" which exercised controlover women and was responsible for fomenting therebellion.46 And the women's demands that they didnot want the Native Court to hear cases anylonger and that all white men should go totheir own country, or, at least, that women


should serve on the Native Courts and one beappointed District Officer - demands in line withthe power of women in traditional society - wereignored. 47

All these responses fall into a coherentpattern : ,wt of purposeful discrimina tion againstwomen with the intent of keeping them from playingtheir traditional political roles, but of aprevailing blindness to the possibility thatwomen had had a significant role in traditionalpolitics and should participate in the newsystem of local government. A few politicalofficers were "o fthe opinion that, if thebalance of society is to be kept, the women'sorganizations should be encouraged alongside thoseof the men." 48 Some commissioners even recognized"the remark able character of organization andleadership which some of the women displayed" andrecommended that "more attention be paid to thepolitical influence of women." 49 But these menwere the exception : their views did not prevail.Even

45. Margery PERHAM, Native Administration in Nigeria, op. cit., pp. 212ff; J.C. ANENE,

op. cit., pp. 207-24 ; S. 0. Esnrn, op. cit., p. 11 ; C. K. MEEK, op. cit., p. x.

46. Harry A. GAILEY, op .cit., pp. 130ff.47. Sylvia LEITH-Ross, op. cit., p. 165;

Margery PERHAM, Native Administration in Nigeria, op.cit., pp. 165ff.

48. Margery PERHAM, Native Administration in Nigeria, op. cit., p. 246.

49. A. E. AFIGBO, op. cit., p. 187.

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in the late 1930's when the investigations ofLeith-Ross and Green revealed the decreasingvitality of women's organizations undercolonialism, the British still did not includewomen in the reformed Native Administration. Whenpolitical officers warned that young men werebeing excluded, however, steps were taken toreturn their traditional political status.50

"Reforms" and Women's Loss of Power

In 1933 reforms were enacted to redress many Igbogrievances against the Native Administration. Thenumber of Native Court Areas was greatly increasedand their boundaries arranged to conform roughlyto traditional divisions. Warrant Chiefs werereplaced by "massed benches" - allowing largenumbers of judges to sit at one time. In mostcases it was left up to the villages to decidewhom and how many to send.51 This benefitted thewomen by eliminating the corruption of the WarrantChiefs, and it made their persons and propertymore secure. But it provided no outlet forcollective action, their real base of power.

As in the village assembly, the women could notcompete with the men for leadership in thereformed Native Administration because asindividuals theylacked the resources of the men.52 In thevarious studies done on the Igbo in the1930's, there i,s only one report of a womanbeing sent to the Native Court and herpatrilineage had put up the money for her to takeher titles.53


Since the reformed Native Administrationactually took over many functions of the villageassemblies, women's political participation wasseriously affected. Discussions on policy nolonger included any adult who wished to takepart but only members of the native courts. Menwho were not members were also excluded, butmen's interests and point of view wererepresented, and, at one time or another, manymen had some chance to become members; veryfew women ever did.54

The political participation and power of womenhad depended on the diffuse ness of politicalpower and authority within Igbo society. Inattempting to create specialized politicalinstitutions on the Western model withparticipation on the basis of individualachievement, the British created a system in whichthere was

50. C. K. MEEK, op. cit., p. 336.51. Margery PERHAM, Native Administration in

Nigeria, op. cit., pp. 365ff.52. C. K. MEEK, op. cit., p. 203.53. Ibid. , pp. 158-159. She was divorced

and had to remain unmarried as acondition of her family's paying for her titleas they wanted to be sure to get theirinvestment back when future initiates paidtheir fees to the established members. H sheremarried, her husband's family, and not herown, would inherit her property.

54. Sylvia LEITH-Ross, op. cit., pp. 171-72;Lord HAILEY, Native Administration in the British AfricanTerritories, Part Ill, West Africa (London: H. M.


Stationary Office, 1951), pp. 160--65.

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no place for group solidarity, no place forwhat thereby became "extra-legal" or simply illegal forms of group coercion, and thus very little place for women.

The British reforms undermined and weakened thepower of the women by removing many politicalfunctions from mikiri and from villageassemblies. In 1901 the British had declared alljural institutions except the Native Courtsillegitimate, but it was only in the yearsfollowing the 1933 reforms that NativeAdministration local government became effectiveenough to make that declaration meaningful. Whenthis happened, the mikiri lost vitality,55 althoughwhat has happened to them since has not beenreported in detail. The reports that do existmention the functioning of market women'sorganizations but only as pressure groups fornarrow economic interest 56 and women'sparticipation in Igbo unions as very low in twotowns.57

The British also weakened women's power byoutlawing "self-help" - the use of force byindividuals or groups to protect their owninterests by punishing wrongdoers. This action -in accord with the idea that only the state maylegitimately use force - made "sitting on"anyone illegal, thereby depriving women of oneof their best weapons to protect wives fromhusbands, markets from rowdies, or coco yams fromcows.58

The British didn't know, of course, that they


were banning "sitting on a man" ; they weresimply banning the "illegitimate" use of force. Intheory, this didn't hurt the women, as wife-beaters, rowdies and owners of marauding cowscould be taken to court. But courts wereexpensive, and the men who sat in them werelikely to have different views from the women'son wife-beating, market "fun" and men's cows. Byinterfering with the traditional balance ofpower, the British effectively eliminated thewomen's ability to protect their own interests andmade them dependent upon men for protectionagainst men.

Since the British did not understand this, theydid nothing to help women develop new ways ofprotecting their interests within the politicalsystem. (What the women did do to try to protecttheir interests in this situation should be afruitful subject for study.) What women did not dowas to participate to any significant extent inlocal government or, much later, in nationalgovernment, and a large part of theresponsibility must rest on the British, whoremoved legitimacy from women's traditionalpolitical institutions and did nothing to helpwomen move into modern political institutions.

55. Sylvia LEITH-Ross, op. cit., pp. 110, 163, 214.

56. Henry L. BRETTON, "PoliticalInfluence in Southern Nigeria", in Herbert J.SPIRO (ed.), Africa: The Primacy of Politics (New York:Random House, 1966), p. 61.

57. Audrey C. SMOCK, Ibo Politics: The Role of Ethnic Unions in Eastern Nigeria(Cambridge : The Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 65, 137.

58. Sylvia LE1111-Ross, op. cit., p. 109.


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Missionary Influence

The effect of the colonial administration wasreinforced by the m1ss10naries and missionschools. Christian missions were established inIgboland in the late 19th century. They had fewconverts at first, but their influence by the1930's was considered significant, generally amongthe young.59 A majority of Igbo eventually "becameChristians" - they had to profess Christianity inorder to attend mission schools, and education washighly valued. But regardless of how nominal theirmembership was, they had to obey the rules toremain in good standing, and one rule was toavoid "pagan" rituals. Women were discouraged fromattending mikiri where traditional rituals wereperformed or money collected for the rituals,which in effect meant all mikiri.60

Probably mor,e significant, since mikiri were in the process of losing some of their politica!functions anyway, was mission education. English and Western education came to be seen as increasingly necessary for political leadership - needed to deal with the British and their law - and women had less access to this new knowledge than men. Boys were more often sent toschool, for a variety of reasons generally related to their favored position in the patrilineage.61 But even when girls did go, they tended not to receive the same type ofeducation. In mission schools, and increasingly inspecial "training homes" which dispensed with mostacademic courses, the girls were taught European


domestic skills and the Bible, often in the vernacular. The missionaries' avowed purpose in educating girls was to train them to be Christian wives and mothers, not for jobs or for citizenship6.2 Missionaries were not necessarily against women's participa tion in politics - clergy in England, as in America, could be found supporting women's suffrage. But inAfrica their concern was the church, and for the church

59. Ibid., pp. 109-18 ; C. K. MEEK, op. cit., p.xv. Maxwell states that by 1925 therewere 26 mission stations and 63 missionaries(twelve of them missionary wives) inlgboland. The earliest station was establishedin 1857, but all but three were founded after1900. Fifteen mission stations and 30missionaries were among lgbo in Owerriand Calabar Provinces. See J. LowryMAXWELL, Nigeria: The Land, the People and ChristianProgress (London: World Dominion Press, 1926),pp. 150-52.

60. Sylvia LEITH-Ross, op. cit., p. 110; J. F.Ade AJAYI, Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891: TheMaking of a New Elite (Evanston, Ill. : TheNorthwestern University Press, 1965), pp.108-09.

61. Sylvia LEITH-Ross, op. cit., pp. 133, 196-97, 316.

62. Ibid., pp. 189-90. According to Leith-Ross, in the "girls' training homes ...the scholastic education given was limited, insome of the smaller homes opened at a laterdate almost negligible, but the domestictraining and the general civilizing effect


were good." Evidence of these views amongmissionaries can be found in J. F. Ade AJAYI,op. cit., pp. 65, 142-44; G. T. BASDEN, Edith Warner ofthe Niger (London: Seeley, Service and Co.,Ltd., 1927), pp. 13, 16, 33, 55, 77, 86;Josephine C. BULIFANT, Forty Years in the African Bush(Grand Rapids, Mich. : Zondervan PublishingHouse, 1950), pp. 163 and passim; W. P. Lrv!NGSTONE, Mary S/essor of Calabar (New York: George H.Doran Co., n.d.), pp. iii-vi;J. Lowry MAXWELL, op. cit., pp. 55, 118.

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they needed Christian families. Therefore,Christian wives and mothers, not female politicalleaders, was the missions' aim. As Mary Slessor,the influential Calabar missionary, said : "God-like motherhood is the finest sphere for women,and the way to the redemption of the world." 63

Victorianism and Women's Invisibility

The missionaries' beliefs about woman's naturaland proper role being that of a Christianhelpmate, and the administration's refusal to takethe lgbo women seriously when they demandedpolitical participation, are understandable inlight of the colonialists having been socializedin a society dominated by Victorian values. Itwas during Queen Victoria's reign that thewoman's-place-is-in-the-home ideology hardenedinto its most recent highly rigid form.64Although attacked by feminists, it remained thedominant mode of thought through that partof the colonial period discussed here ; andit is, in fact, far from dead today, when awoman's primary identity is most often seen asthat of wife and mother even when she works 40hours a week outside the home.65

We are concerned here primarily with theVictorian view of women and politics whichproduced the expectation that men would beactive in politics, but women would not. Theideal of Victorian womanhood - attainable, ofcourse, by only the middle class, but widelybelieved in throughout society - was of a


sensitive, morally superior being who was thehearthside guardian of Christian virtues andsentiments absent in the outside world. Her mindwas not strong enough for the appropriatelymasculine subjects : science, business, andpolitics.66 A woman who showed talent in theseareas did not challenge any ideas about

63. w. P. LIVINGSTONE, op. cit., p. 328.64. Page SMITH, Daughters of the Promised Land

(Boston : Little, Brown and Co., 1970), pp.58-76; Doris STENTON, The English Woman in History(London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1957),pp. 312-44.

65. Eva FmEs, Patriarchal Attitudes (New York:Stein and Day, 1970); Ruth E. HARTLEY, "Children'sConcepts of Male and Female Roles", Merrill-PalmerQuarterly, January 1960.

66. Walter E. HOUGHTON, The Victorian Frame ofMind, 1830-1870 (New Haven: Yhe Yale UniversityPress, 1957), pp. 349-53. Numerous studies ofVictorian and post-Victorian ideas about womenand politics describe these patterns. In additionto Houghton, Smith and Stenton, see, for example,Kirsten AMUNDSEN, The Silenced Majority (Prentice-Hall,1971); Jessie BERNARD, Women and the Public Interest(Aldine-Atherton, 1971); John Stuart MILL andHarriet TAYLOR MILL, Essays on Sex Equality(University of Chicago Press, 1970); MarthaV1cmus (ed.), Suffer and Be Still: Women in the VictorianAge (Indiana University Press, 1972); CecilWOODHAM-SMITH, Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910 (McGraw-Hill, 1951). It was not until 1929 that allEnglish women could vote ; women over 30 who metrestrictive property qualifications got the votein 1918.


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typical women : the exceptional woman simply "had the brain of aman," asSir George Goldie said of Mary Kingsley.67

A thorough investigation of the diaries, journals, reports,and letters of colonial officers and missionaries would beneeded to prove that most of them held these Victorianvalues. But preliminary reading of biographies, autobiographies, journals and "reminiscences," and the evidence oftheir own state ments about lgbo women at the time of theWomen's War, strongly suggest the plausibility of thehypothesis that they were deflected from any attempt todiscover and protect lgbo women's political role by theirassumption that politics isn't a proper, normal place forwomen. 68

When lgbo women with their Women's War forced the colonial administrators to recognize their presesce, their brief "visibility" was insufficient to shake these assumptions. Their behavior was simply seen as aberrant. When they returned to "normal," they were once again invisible. Although there was a feminist movement in England during that time, it had not successfully challenged basic ideas about women nor made the absence of women from public life seem to be a problem which requiredremedy. The movement had not succeeded in creating a "feminist" consciousness in any but a few "deviants," and such a consciousness is far from widespread today ; for to have a "feminist" consciousness means that one notices the "invisibility" of women. One wonders where the women are- in life and in print.

Understanding the assumptions about women's roles prevalentin Victorian society - and still common today - helps toexplain how the introduction of supposedly modern politicalstructures and values could reduce rather than expand thepolitical lives of lgbo women. As long as politics is presumedto be a male realm, no one wonders where the women went. Theloss of Igbo women's political institutions - in life and inprint - shows the need for more Western scholars to develop


enough of a feminist consciousness to start wondering.

67. Stephen GWYNN, The Life of M:ary Kingsley (London:Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1932), p. 252. Mary Kingsley alongwith other elite female "exceptions" like Flora ShawLugard and Margery Perham, all of whom influenced Africancolonial policy, held the same values as men, at least inregard to women's roles. They did not expect ordinarywomen to have political power any more than the mendid, and they showed no particular concern for Africanwomen.

68. See, for non-missionary examples, J.C. ANENE, op. cit.,pp. 222-34; W.R. CROCKER, Nigeria: A Critique of British ColonialAdministration (London : George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1936);C. K. MEEK, op. cit.; Mary H. KINGSLEY, Travels in West Africa (London:Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1897); Idem, West African Studies(London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1899); Margery PERHAM, op.cit.,; A.H. St. John Wooo, "Nigeria: Fifty Years ofPolitical Development among the lbos", in Raymond APTHORPE(ed.), From Tribal Rule to Modern Government (Lusaka, NorthernRhodesia : Rhodes-Livingstone Institute for Social Research,1960).

"Sitting on a Man": Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women

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