source of excellent functionaries and subaltern employees, as also
among their eastern neighbours the Gan of Accra.
In continuing towards the east, we again find peoples astonish-
ingly gifted from the intellectual, artistic and political point of
view. These are the Ewe of the lower Togo, the Mina and the Fon
or Jeji of lower Dahomey^12 , then in an ethnic group who are
different although rather near neighbours, the Yoruba or Nago,
the Benin or Edo and the Nupe of southern Nigeria. Everyone in
France knows about the kingdom of Dahomey, which, founded
before the 16thcentury with Abomey as its capital, was annexed
by the French in 1894 at the end of a famous campaign; the
kings of Dahomey were great warriors and slave-traders and
became celebrated for their human sacrifices, but on the other
hand it must be said that they had known how to organise their
State and their army and administer their kingdom in a fashion
which did them honour; it must also be added that the talents of
the Dahomeans as farmers and artisans, joined to their
undeniable intellectual capacities, place them among the first
ranks of the Negro peoples of Africa. Unlike all the peoples
beyond the mouth of the Senegal whom I have just enumerated,
with the exception of the Wolofs, the Susu, the Vai and the inhab-
itants of the Futa-Jallon, and also unlike the West African peoples
who remain to be cited, the Yoruba are largely Islamised. They
are divided into several States provided with legislative assem-
blies and sometimes with journals – official and private – edited
in English. The capital of one of these States is Abeokuta, an
extremely populous and very industrious city.
As for Benin, it has formed, without doubt, since the 15thcentury
and perhaps since a more remote epoch, a powerful and
redoubtable State, where the industrial arts and notably the art of
bronze working and that of ivory have flourished in a remarkable
fashion; certain bronzes of Benin of the 15thand 16thcenturies,
that may be seen today in the museums of Holland, Germany and
England and in private collections, are worthy rivals of analogous
products of several renowned civilisations.TThhee PPeeoopplleess ooff tthhee BBeenndd ooff tthhee NNiiggeerr
The necessity of following the coasts of the ocean has
constrained us to leave provisionally at one side a number of
other interesting peoples scattered in the interior of the bend of
the Niger: the Tombo or Habe, who live to the north of the
Yatenga, in habitations dug out of the rocky cliffs of Bandiagara
and Hombori; the Sarno, their neighbours to the southwest; the
Fulse, Nioniosse, Kipirsi, Nuruma, Sissala, and others commonly
included in the generic name of Gurunsi; the Dagari, Birifo or
Birifor, Gbanian or Gonja, Dagomba, Nankana, and other
groups ethnically very closely related to the Mossi; the Bobo, the
Lobi, Dian, and other more or less barbarian peoples; the
Kulango of the upper eastern Ivory Coast, the Sumba of upper
Togo and of upper Dahomey, etc.It may be said of all these peoples that, in their totality, they have
remained very primitive; aside from a few exceptions, they have
not known how to arrive at a somewhat elevated political level
and most of the time they have not progressed beyond a family
unity. Although neighbours to well organised and powerful States,
like the Mossi empires and the kingdoms of the Gurma and the
Bergo, inhabited by populations of the same ethnic group, in
general they have not profited by this proximity; some of them
were included as subjects or vassals within these States, others
remained outside of them, seeming to have only one aim: to
safeguard by force of savagery their wild but sterile independ-
ence. By a singular contradiction, nearly all are marvellous farmers
and the attachment to the land seems to be the only solid and
fecund institution in their chaotic society.It would be proper to treat separately the important population
of the Senufo or Siena, distributed from the region of San and
Kutiala on the right bank of the Bani as far as that of Bonduku
and the elbow of the Black Volta, where it attains the northern
limit of the great forest. In part thinned out by the Jula who had
settled among them and who, as at Sikasso and Kong, have
often exercised a durable hegemony over the country, many
Senufo groups have succeeded in constituting little States of
restricted area but offering cohesion and vitality. The iron
industry and that of pottery, as well as agriculture and the art of
music have attained among certain Senufo a development
which merits attention.Mask (Idoma or Igbo).
Nigeria.
Wood, 24 x 15 cm.
Musée du quai Branly, Paris.
For the Idoma from Nigeria, the masked ancestors are real spirits who returned
among the mortals - and not masked human actors. The resurrection of the
dead is an element of their religion and their spiritual cult.