Councils and Courts Among The Tiv—Traditional Concepts and Alien Institutions in a Non-Moslem Tribe of Northern Nigeria

Abstract

The early reports which Northern Nigeria's first High Commissioner, Sir Frederick Lugard, made to Mr. Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, contain several unflattering references to “the hostility of the Munshi tribe” (1900–1 report) “who occupy about 4,000 square miles south of the Benue” (1904), “use poisoned arrows of a very deadly kind, and are a constant source of trouble, firing at canoes proceeding up the river” (1900–1), and arresting the construction of the important 200-mile telegraph line from Lokoja, the first capital, to the Niger Company's station up river at Ibi. Their physical dispersion in small groups over wide areas of thick bush, combined with the dispersal of authority over a number of petty “chiefs”, no doubt presented in some ways a more difficult problem than the centralised Emirates further north, the submission or capture of whose capital, combined with the appointment of a friendly-disposed Emir, could be the key to the immediate pacification of a wide area. It was not until 1907–8 that Lugard's successor could report “the inauguration of peaceful penetration and occupation of … the hitherto impenetrable Munshi country”.