Nana vs Tsanomi

An Encounter With Gov. Chinomi and Gov. Nana Olomu.

Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939), Thursday 31 May 1928, page 5

CITIZEN DE
PRISONER IN BENIN.

(Being a true narrative of the Adventure of a West African Trader)
An Encounter With Chinomi And Nana

C. W. BARTON.
West Coast of Africa from Sierra Leone for 2000 miles down
the coast has backwater ways, and cross and
river to another, so that one can cut
through, say, 100 miles up the Niger to
Brass, from there to Bonny, and so on to
Opobo, &c, without coming out of the mouth of any one of these rivers into the Atlantic Ocean.

Tne palm oil and palm nuts come from the Jackri country, and on the passage down to the English factories on the various rivers duties are levied by every chief through whose
territory you are travelling
I loaded her trade and foodstuffs, for I getting right away to the Jackri & country. We left Nimbe, the capital of Brags River, at midnight, with all best wishes and "doe eboes" ("good-bye")
well up intended
of 14 paddle boys, my head man, Jacko, and
from the natives. My crew consisted Cess, from the Kroo Coast, who acted as "look- out" forward, always armed, and always
ready. Our arms were six Winchesters, a giant of a savage named Grand, three hand grenades, and lights. coloured signal
revolvers, and tomahawks

We made the Forcados River the lowing night. This river was then neither charted, nor navigated by white men.

Here at Wari lived Chief Essedi, who was indebted to us to the extent of six puncheons of oil. We lay off until daybreak. My boys were very timorous about getting close in, so I hailed a canoe and got ashore, where I received a very hearty welcome from Essedi and his wives and family. The whole place was in holiday mood, the occasion being the launching of a new war canoe. On the understanding that my sigup de-
the noise was formidable. Pre-the ju-ju man appeared; he had and
would not be molested, I nalled to Jacko to come along close and camp on the shore.
The war canoe people
to be christened was gaily corated with flowers and shells, and with conch shells blowing, and horns and tom about
toms, a young goat whose throat was cut "the blood allowed to trickle all over
the bows of the cane. Then a fowl was
despatched and thrown overboard after that a goat; fish of some
dimensions was offered to the gods, and finally, much to horror, a new-born piccaninny was brought along, and, with many ejacula- tions of delight, thrown after the rest ofthe offerings.

This was propitiate the river gods and Essedi sorely wanted me to stay the night, as also did his many wives, who had of course accepted our hospitality to the full when visiting Brass River. They were anxious to return it. Jacko, how
to continue my journey.
restless, and the canoe boys were in a strange country, and naturally
ever, got timorous, so I decided, much against my will, I LEFT Wari (Forcados) and the pitable with six in two canoes manned by Essedi's boys,
with instructions to deliver to Mr.
Townsend at Brass River.

I had pre-viously made arrangements with him to
sell clear, I left Wari and struck the main river as far as Forcados Creek, through that into Nana Creek into Deli Town
and by the evening of the second day I arrived at Chief Chinomie's place,
and from him I had some oil
The old chief was seated smoking amidst
near him, dozens of his wives, two or three girls around the age of 15 completely nude standing near him and two boys with large skin fans, fanning him.

Preparations
for supper were made. I produced some good whisky, some dozen bottles of which I had had the caution to bottle from the cask and bring with me. It was very, very late before I retired to rest in the next room to the
chief. Upon awakening in the morning I thought at first there had been a heavy fall of snow. It was the bolls of wild cotton that had fallen from the giant cotton trees. Here the natives spin and weave on their native-made looms—their mat-
tresses stuffed with wild cotton.

Chinomie have a very large double brass bed presented to him by Queen Victoria In recognition Of his
suppress the slave trade in his dominions.

I was shown the idol
house; the
with idols of all sizes
of ivory, brass,
were 6ft high, and clay. Some and
wires. The store house
shelves were and stacked
wood, with two faces
and four hands, eyes and tongues always rolling
moving, being cunningly fixed on was a wonder.
It was full of lot of lumber I heads from old sailing ships, the most had ever
miscellaneous
mostly anchors, and ships' gear, old sea chests, brasswork
Spanish and Portuguese,
all parts of the world, china bowls, filled with gold and gilt ornaments, brass bowls beautifully
...tened and
engraved, and skulls decorated much after the
shapes, seen—figure
style of General McCarthy's skull that I saw at Coomaasie, fitted with gold handles, and used as a kind of stirrup cup. There were crucifixes, damaged statues of saints, sailcloths, &c. Altogether, I put in a very happy time here, and finished with native dance.

I dispensed trade gin free- ly, received from Chinomie the oil due to me, and, with his canoes and boys to Mr. Townsend. I now overhauled store, and made ready to call upon Chief Nana Of Brohemie Town.
Nana was the head chief of the Benin River natives, a Jackri, and an ex-tremely powerful and rich man.

His father, Alluma, was a wonderful sight, the
town, Brohemie, made by
it
the mangrove swamp by millions of canoe loads of sand poured on it. The
whole place was kept extremely clean, and the houses were built in streets run- ning at right angles to the main road - broad as Piccadilly, London—which con-
nected Nana's own part of the town with his father's, Alluma, which lay some half-mile distant. Brohemie was ap-proached by a narrow, winding creek,
from the Benin River.

Nana was the
greatest and most powerful of all the
trading chiefs in Benin River, and, as
a consequence, his name, and prestige
were well known to the King of Benin.
Still,
Nana always paid the King of Benin yearly tribute.
his
Chester rifles. In 1894, after terrible
fighting men were armed with Win- losses, he was captured with six wives and £809 and deported to St. Helena.
Over £4000 in gold was found buried, in iron pots.,

I told him the altered state of things, the latest and the general unrest that was felt about Benin City. I said I was curious to see Benin itself, as so few white men had ever been allowed to enter and depart in safety.
On leaving, gave me a
large ivory bracelet with his name inside as some security for my safety
upon presentation at Benin.
I now had a long journey
hemie to Ologbo, where I intended to for some little time. Late on the third day after leaving Nana Creek we were paddling along chanting of the boys; "Alumbah," "Alumbah," with each stroke of the paddle.

Note- This is an account from a very old newspaper. I tried as much as possible to conserved the words as used without make any changes.

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