ABSTRACT
The first great event in the life of an Ibibio girl is her entrance into the “Fatting-house,” on the occasion of Mbobi—i.e. “The Coming of Small Breasts.” There is a beautiful appropriateness in a choice of the spirits of streams and pools as the special guardians of maidenhood. Among most Ibibio tribes all such rites are undergone in order to draw down the blessing of Eka Mbopo, the “Mother of the Fatting-house.” By native law the whole question turned upon the point as to whether the deceased was free born, or a “member” of the first claimant’s family. The excellent parti with whom the new alliance had been all but arranged, at a higher rate than ever before, had to be abandoned, and the pair disappeared in the direction of Mbukpo, where they were lost sight of, but are still in all probability, pursuing their profitable career amid “fresh woods and pastures new.”.
