Efik

The Efik people live in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the western part of Cameroon. They number about 500,000. The traditional religion of the Efik people begins with the idea of Abasi, the Creator, as the Supreme Being. According to the oral traditions of the Efik, Abasi's wife, Atai, convinced him to permit two of their children, a female and a male, to settle on the Earth. They were told they could not reproduce because Abasi did not want humans to challenge his wisdom and authority. The children violated the rule that was set down by the Supreme Being.

Another narrative has Abasi creating two humans and then prohibiting them from living on the Earth. Atai persuaded him to allow them to live on the Earth. Abasi agreed on the condition that the settlers eat all of their meals with him. This meant that they could not grow or hunt for food. They were totally dependent on Abasi. They were prohibited from procreation as well. Of course, the humans refused these conditions, and the woman planted food and the man joined her in the fields. Soon they had children, and then Abasi and his wife sent death to the Earth and abandoned humans to their own resources. Abasi became a distant creator God.

Because the Efik are a branch of the Ibibio people, they share some of the same values and traditions. The Efik migrated along the Cross River and founded the Calabar settlements of Creek Town and Duke Town in the 1600s, about the time the Europeans started coming in increasing numbers to the coasts. Actually, many of the Ibibio customs were soon distorted by the acceptance of the styles and cultures of the Europeans coming to the Nigerian coast and influencing the way the Efiks saw themselves. They became Christians, wore European clothes, and engaged in practices they discovered among the European traders, such as patriarchy.

Despite the presence of the European culture along the coast and its influence on the Efiks, many of them retained the powerful system of the Egbo society. As in other African communities, this society of secrets assisted the leaders in maintaining stability by insisting on initiation and education of the youth in the traditional manner. This meant that elders had to teach about the valor and honor of the ancestors, and the priests and kings had to insist on the Efik people recognizing the annual festivals in reverence to their ancestral spirits.

Thus, while undergoing transformation, the Efik still retain many aspects of the traditional religious expressions of the ancestors. One might say that the presence of European culture did not completely destroy the emphasis that the Efiks place on their past, although the 1884 signing of a treaty with the British by the Obong of Calabar precipitated much distortion in the religious unity of the people. Things did fall apart, to paraphrase the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe; when the Efik Monarch, the Obong, essentially delivered his people to the control of the British, he also unintentionally perhaps delivered them from many of their own traditions.

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