CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE

Section IV: Africa Missions

Part 8:   Nigeria - Yoruba Mission, 1880-1934

Part 9:   Nigeria - Yoruba Mission, 1880-1934

Part 10: Nigeria - Niger Mission, 1880-1934

Part 11: Nigeria - Niger Mission, 1880-1934 and Nigeria - Northern Nigeria, 1900-1934

Part 12: West Africa (Sierra Leone) Mission, 1881-1934

Part 13: West Africa (Sierra Leone) Mission, 1935-1949 and Nigeria Missions, 1935-1949

Introduction to Part 8

Part 8 continues the Nigeria – Yoruba papers started in Part 3 which covered papers from 1844-1880. It consists of Letter Books, 1880-1934 and Original Papers, 1880-1903.

The Letter Books for 1880-1934 contain private and confidential letters from the Secretary in London to individual missionaries. Material includes: reports on training at Fourah Bay and at the mission schools; domestic slavery; employment of native agents; regulations for native church committees; general instructions to missionaries; letters concerning topics such as Bible translations, liquor traffic amongst the native races and the constitution of the synod for Western Equatorial Africa.

The Original Papers, 1880-1903 are the incoming papers sent by the missions to London. They contain letters regarding all manner of subjects; missionaries describing their first impressions, requesting furloughs, increases in salary, permission to marry, illness and retirement and vivid descriptions of their travels in the countryside around the missions contained in the missionaries’ letters, journals and annual reports. There are many journals to be found in the papers and the missionaries give very detailed accounts of their daily life and the relationships they formed with the local people.

Reports, Minutes and Pamphlets of all kinds are to be found and items related to finance such as salaries; diocesan statistics; educational statistics; minutes of the Standing and Finance Committee; statistics of staff and churches.

Miscellaneous items include: notices of examinations; certificates of good health of missionaries; requests for more missionaries to be sent out; probation reports of missionaries; photographs of missionaries. Also included are copies of The Yoruba CMS Gleaner the issues of which contain interesting articles and photographs of the missionaries and the people they worked among.

The quotations below give an idea of the type of material to be found in the papers. The following quote is taken from a report for the year 1883 by David Agusola Williams:

…. This year as it is always the case we experienced many encouragements and also disappointments…. The respect for the Gods is greatly on the wane…. The attitude of the heathen populations of Oto changes now a great deal for good. The Chief Olota himself is very steadfast. About the middle of this year he was very ill and almost succumbed under the illness but he was again restored through the goodness of God. The discouragements of this station lie with the younger men of this congregation. Some of them living in open polygamy and private concubinage and some are nothing else but stumbling blocks in the way of the heathen and new enquirers. One, a Communicant, who would excel every one in boasting and talking whenever we have any meeting in the church, one night went with the heathen to the grove, beat drum, danced and drank a great quantity of gin in honour of Agba and was the means of leading two others, one a candidate for the Lord Supper and the other a Candidate for Baptism into the boldness to join the play in honour of vanity and senseless block of stones…. Ido town is still the same, some would go to Church for fear of being poisoned and at the same time they poison each other mercilessly. Ijoza is still hopeful. Recently there is a revival of idolatry just after we have put up a small School church and were gathering good numbers of children…. But when they began to initiate some Candidates into the mysteries of the god Ara it became very difficult to get them together…. The Sunday services can only be had when they have no funeral or clan gathering else rum and gin would have taken away their senses…. There are two men in the place, one a Roman Catholic; whose only qualification in religious matters is ignorance, the mother of devotion in all Roman Catholic churches; and the other, a relapsed member of the Breadfruit Church, both assume the name of Daddy and are very great obstacles in the way of the heathen to embrace the Gospel; they look at them and take them for the standards of most Christians…. The Ijora people are more addicted to idolatry than the other people of this island.. I shall give a faint description of the worship of the god Ara. This worship is a peculiar system of idolatry imported from Porto Novo. It has its devotees who must speak in another form of speech, which can only be understood by the initiated few: they are not to work but they live on the alms, in most cases extorted from the people…. Their prayers consist merely in howling every morning and evening before the shrine and around the town to avert the displeasure and supplicate the protection of the god.

The shrine has a consulting priest and people come from various places, Lagos etc to consult the oracle promising wealth, children and preservation from death. The man has a kind of whistle which he blows and the people call that the very voice of the god. Great healing powers are attributed to it and the sick are sometimes washed with consecrated water to effect a cure….

The second quote consists of extracts from the Journal of Francis Lowestoft Akiele for the half year ending June 1892:

January 27 None of our labourers were seen at work today. Death is raging fearfully in the town. Some of them had lost either a brother, father or a near relation by death and for which reason the building work is in a standstill.

April 12 The Bale, the principal Chiefs and nearly all the men in the town went on a hunting expedition this day according to the yearly custom: and every animal that is shot dead in this hunting game is to be dedicated to the god Orisapopo, But on the next day these dead animals are to be taken away from the god to be eaten by the people.

Orisapopo (ie god of the highway) is the chief god in Ogbolmoso. It is worshipped and esteemed as a deity. There is a common belief among the people that this god had delivered their town from the several invasions of the Ilorins. The people are very superstitious and like Athens of old, the whole town is given to Idolatry.

May 24 Went out this morning to preach. Made a stand in a street where I got about 10 persons. Told them my object in coming to them which is to tell them of one who loved us and gave himself for our sins…. Repeated to them the first and second commandments. And as I was explaining it to them, 2 of them were so displeased that they left us at the stand and angrily went away.

June 29 The messengers from Ilorin arrived this morning with a message of peace. All the Ibadan captives together with those of Ogbomoso taken by the Ilorins were released and are sent to their homes on horseback. Among them was Enimowu an Ibadan warchief who was captured in 1887. There is a universal joy all over the town today. We hope that there is nothing like deception in the present effort to bring an end to the long standing war….

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