The Nigerian Field Society

Lagos Branch

Trips & Talks 2005
Hadeja - 02-2005	Imota - 03-2005
Argungu - 03-2005	Omo - 05-2005
Jos Plateau - 08-2005	Idanre-Akure - 09-2005
Cross River - 10-2005
Trips & Talks

March 6th, 2005

Hunting Impressions

A nice crowd of Nigerian Field Society members left sharp at 8 a.m. on Sunday from our meeting point in Ikoyi. After meeting the rest of the convoy in Ikeja, bringing our total to 9 cars with 43 members on board, we turned off in a northern direction guided by our leader for the day, Romeo Barberopoulos. It was a wonderful trip through bush and forest. Even the road was excellent after leaving the Expressway. The first photo stop was on the IGBO KOTA Bridge (also known as Romeo’s favorite bridge). Here we enjoyed the view down to a small jungle river and village.

Romeo had organized a visit to the local `African` church, which was described as being a mix of Christianity and local culture, and the priest and his family presented some songs, dances and a prayer for our trip. A small donation helped him building a “cathedral”. But before we entered the church, the little daughter of the priest burst out in tears, apparently overwhelmed by the `NFS-invasion`! 

But now we had to rush, the appointment with His Royal Highness Oba Ajibade Bakare-Agoro, The Ranodu of Imota State, was planned for 10 a.m. Veronica gave us a few short instructions on how to behave, and to address the king either as KABIYESI or YOUR EXCELLENCY. Romeo informed us that the Oba is well educated and runs a business in Lagos. And we shouldn’t be scared to ask some questions.

A few minutes later we arrived in IMOTA. What a clean and pretty looking small town with such a friendly population. It also seemed like the Oba has a good control over his community. We stepped respectfully into the Palace and took many pictures till we quietly sat down in the big audience hall. Before the King came, a small “accident” brought laughter when one of us collapsed in his broken, plastic chair. Then His Excellency arrived; what an appearance, what a dignity! We received a warm welcome and he gave us some interesting details about the history of his family and his community. After some respectful questions and polite small talk, Veronica presented our donations, gifts and the fee for the hunting. Accompanied by noisy and colorful drummers the audience came to an end.

And we drove into the bush. The hunt should start at high noon and we could watch all the preparations of the guns, the dogs, the blessings and prayers for the success of the hunt. The dogs looked very tiny and had bells round their necks to be located during the hunt. The temperature had also climbed: it was extremely hot. 

Nigerian hunters are equipped with very basic weapons such as the dane-guns, old front loaded hand made rifles, most in some state of repair. The dane-guns are small, but quite dangerous as there is no safety-catch. Only one shot at a time is possible. At midday the hunters got their last instructions, had their guns blessed with a series of actions including being touched by a kola nut and being washed with a potion mixed up on the spot. The hunters also prayed for the success of the hunt and ate some gunpowder for invulnerability. This is not a hunting celebration like in the Western Hemisphere, when the dead animals are even decorated after the shooting. Here the battle is done for traditional reasons, such as honoring someone who had died (there was a hunt two weeks earlier for this reason), sometimes Juju for the ghosts, but it also serves basic needs, mostly food for the stomach. It was an especially dense and adventurous atmosphere to observe all these preparations.

Our group followed about 20 hunters on a forest path. After a short walk they split into groups while we stood around, talking and not realizing that four of our group had disappeared with the hunters deep in the jungle and were not seen for hours. 

The hunting is done with a good deal of teamwork – groups of boys, dogs and some of the men went out as beaters to circle an area and drive the game to the shooters. No stealth involved in this, you could hear the beaters for miles, especially when something of interest was scared up. The beaters kept to a reasonable sized area, so after an area was swept, they checked strategies and fanned out again, after a drink and a snack from the pineapple or coconuts they found. The small dogs were not very active in doing the basic scaring up of the game in the first place, but once something was found, they went into action and made sure that the animal was kept on the move. 

Those of us who missed heading to the bush with the hunters settled down in a small bush hut near the car park. For us it became now definitely picnic time, but our driver had unfortunately followed the hunters. All of our food and drinks were locked in the car. Even this was not a real problem with Veronica’s survival sandwiches.

The first group of hunters came out around 2 p.m. with an unexpected prey, a fair sized antelope, probably a Bushbuck. Nothing happened during the next two hours. We sat in the bush hut, had a good talk, but missed some music instruments. This tranquil atmosphere was really enjoyable, although the weather was quite hot.

Thing were a bit more hectic for those out with the hunters, outside of just walking with the hunters for many kilometers. On one of the hunts, there was a great cloud of smoke from the gun of a shooter nearby us, but he missed and the animal headed our way. Not having eaten gunpowder at the ceremony for invincibility, we decided that finding a tree was the next best thing. We did get a front row seat to see the beaters, dogs and hunters close in on the ‘grasscutter’ they had scared up. It nearly escaped the team by settling into a very dense bit of undergrowth and the dogs missed it the first time, but the hunting team’s persistence did pay off. All in, the hunters caught the bushbuck, one Dik Dik and three grascutters – a successful day (far more than any of us expected them to find).

After ‘negotiating’ with the hunting party who was to get the catches of the day (one grasscutter went home with one of our drivers), those who had stayed the full day hopped into the cars and disappeared. Marion jumped voluntarily into the back of Bob’s full, brand-new 4WD Nippon SUV (Japanese Sport Utility Vehicle) with an amazing AC and took on the onboard catering services offering a variety of cold drinks and some peanuts. An hour later we were safely back home, dirty, tired and very satisfied.

Thanks to Veronica and Romeo for organizing this great experience of a Nigerian local hunting event.

Marion Handrick (Germany)
with hunting notes by Bob Griffith (Australia)