Nigerian cultures have had more than their fair share of erasure, from little-known works of artistic excellence, completely disappearing languages (fulfulde as a case study) to disappearing indigenous technologies. This erasure sometimes become so intense that entire knowledge bases vanish with no survivor to relate their profound meaningfulness to us, the newbies in the cultural milieu. One such forgotten relic of precolonial Nigerian history is Nsibidi, a writing system that once held sway in what is now south-east and south-south Nigeria. Anyone familiar with precolonial Nigeria’s non-verbal communication systems might be misled into thinking it was limited only to symbolic and gesture-based communications such as the Àrokò system among the Yorubas.
This might even mislead one into thinking less of sub-saharan African cultures, as cultures that could not crystalise their own rich vocabulary well enough to devise a way of writing it down. However, in the lands that later became southeast and south-south Nigeria, a hieroglyphics-like writing system called Nsibidi existed and held sway.
NSIBIDI: The Unknown Characters
Contrary to the popular belief that precolonial Nigeria’s first taste of writing was with the Arabic and the Latin scripts, Nsibidi existed among the Igbo, Efik, Ekoi and Ibibio speaking areas of southern Nigeria as far back as the 6th-11th century. It is a pictographic system of writing which uses drawings and shapes for the representation of events, ideas, people, and stories. It has a flexible characterisation with over 300 known characters. The syntax was quite malleable unlike in most writing systems and while many of the signs were mutually understandable, various groups and societies added their own custom signs that could not be understood by non-members. Nsibidi also featured largely in a manner that was decorative, for instance there are records of some Nsibidi characters being found on calabashes, ceramics and musical instruments as well as in the form of tattoos. This designative characterisation misled a number of British colonialists into the wrong presumption that it was a purely decorative design. During the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Nsibidi was transported to Cuba and Haiti where it ultimately morphed into the Anaforuana and Veve symbols which became a key part of their traditional religious characterisations.
The Tragedy of Nsibidi: How Secrecy Hinders Meaningful Progress
It is understandably bothersome to the intelligent mind why Nsibidi never quite fully took off as a writing system and why the existing knowledge of it has become so disturbingly sparse. The answer lies in the usage of the writing system itself. Nsibidi was primarily used as a means of communication between members of certain secret societies such as the Ekpe, Mgbe, and Ekumeku societies and thus had limited exposure to ordinary members of the public. It was somewhat advantageous in this regard as it helped to preserve secrecy in places where it really mattered such as during battles. A good example was the use of certain auditory signals of Nsibidi by members of the Ekumeku secret society in the resistance fight against British troops. As is commonplace, these secret societies were bound by an oath of allegiance and secrecy to one another.
This ultimately led to a dichotomy in the vocabulary, a public-facing syntax which was conveyed to members of the public as warnings, public signals, events, dates and times, and a more secretive component which was known only to members of this societies. Needless to say, this secrecy seriously hampered the public adoption of this writing system.
Asides writing, Nsibidi also incorporated the use of auditory signals such as trumpeting and the shaking of bullet containers, signals that were used to convey battle information during the armed resistance against British troops. It also incorporated the use of sign languages which to some extent mirrored the symbols used in the syntax. For instance, symbol for friendship or alliance often represented by two intertwined lines could be performed by intertwining the fingers or crossing the hands. This has earned it a designation as a multi-sensory means of communication. Nsibidi stands not only as a forgotten writing system but as a pictorial representation of the tombstone of much of Africa’s indigenous knowledge, buried under the rubble of colonisation.
