ABSTRACT
The child cult is by no means so much in evidence among Ibibios as with the gentler natured Ekoi of the Oban District, where unkindness to little ones is practically unknown, and parents vie with one another in tender care of these small atoms of humanity. The relatives of the murdered lad came to the Commissioner demanding a life for a life, and the question as to the fate of the aggressor became a somewhat difficult one. Ibibio babies are almost always well nourished, and roll and creep contentedly enough in the warm sand, playing together like a happy litter of little bush cubs. At the beginning of the dry season, after the feast of the new yams, a great ‘play’ is given by this society, to which boys and girls of the town come robed in their best.
