Trades and Commerce from Ancient Times in West Africa

Trades and Professions

The principal occupations of men are: --- Agricultural, commerce, weaving, iron-smelting, smithing, tanning and leather working, carving on wood and on calabashes, music, medicine, barbing, and other minor employments.

Agriculture. --- This is the most general occupation of the bulk of the people. It is carried on with simple and primitive instruments, viz. A hoe and a cutlass, and nothing more, both of home manufacture. Ploughing is unknown, and it is very doubtful indeed whether a plough would be of much service to them under present conditions; experiments with that instrument by those who understand the use of it have not proved successful.

The principal articles of food and of commerce grown are: - Corn (guinea corn in the North and maize in the South), beans of several varieties, ground nuts (arachis hypogea), yams of various species, sweet potatoes, koko (colocasia antiquorum), pepper, piper, calabashes and other kinds of gourds, coffee, cocoa, kola nuts, vegetables of all sorts for home consumptio, cotton for weaving, etc.

When a plot has been worked with rotation of crops for a few years, it is left to lie fallow for some years whilst contiguous plots are put under cultivation, and so on alternately; manuring is unknown. The soil is remarkably fertile under present system.

Women and children assist in reaping and in bringing harvest home. No beasts of burden are employed in agricultural operations.

All farmers and men of any importance have generally smaller farms nearer home “Oko Etile” and a more distant one generally smaller in the forest “Oko Egan.” When engaged in the nearer one, they work form 6 or 7 a.m. To 5 p.m., with intervals for meals, and remain there for weeks and months before returning home. Regular farmers do so only at the annual festivals. In these farms, not only are fruits of the Earth cultivated but also poultry and and smaller cattle are reared for the market. Fairs are held periodically in some central farm markets where these products are disposed of to market women from surrounding towns and villages.

Although the soil is well adapted for raising fruits, yet fruit trees are rarely cultivated for the supply of the markets.

• Commerce. --- Commerce comes next in the order of importance. Yorubas are keen traders, they are to be found in every part of neighbouring countries for that purpose. A large trade is carried on by barter. Cowry shells, the medium of exchange, being too clumsy for large transactions, are used by travellers. Costly beads are used by many on distant journeys for trade, they are valued as precious stones. Thus the products of the North are given for those of neighbouring states always by barter. Both sexes are engaged in trade but each in his own line.

• Currency. --- Metallic currency was unknown previously to the arrival of European traders, and even as lately as 1897 in places far off from the coast coins were regarded more or less as a curiosity. Silver was better appreciated than gold and copper, because it can be converted to ornaments. Silversmiths abound in the country whilst there were no goldsmiths. Shells then stood for money and are thus calculated:

• 40 cowries = 1 string

• 50 strings = 1 head

• 10 heads = 1 bag

The value of a cowry was never fixed. Countries nearer the coast can obtain them with greater facility than those inland, and therefore they are higher value in the interior; but since the British Occupation of Lagos the principal port of the Yoruba country, and English coins began to circulate in the country, the rate of exchange became practically fixed at 6d. For a “head” (the usual standard of calculation) i.e. 2,000 cowries; hence 3d. = 3,000 cowries. Cowries are an absolute necessity at the present stage of the country, and should be used pari passu with coins for purchases below one penny. Fruits, herbs, and small articles of food may purchases for a few cowries, beggars collect them by two's and three's from passers by, and thereby earn enough to keep life going; to what extent they are rare, to that extent the hardships of life are felt in the land.

The custom of stringing cowries was for the facility of counting large sums; they were usually strung by 200 in 5 strings of 40 each, three of 66 of 100 each and with a discount of one per cent.

Esusu is a universal custom for the clubbing together of a number of persons monetary aid. A fixed sum agreed upon is given by each at a fixed time (usually every week) and place, under a president; the total amount is paid over to each member in rotation. This enables a poor man to do something worth while where a lump sum is required. There are laws regulating this system.

Weaving. --- This is also carried on by both sexes but in different styles of manufacture. Men weave cloths of narrow breadths about 51/2 inches wide called Alawe. The loom is operated upon with both hands and feet; the threads of the warps are so arranged that they open and close by a mechanical contrivance worked by both feet moving alternately as the pedals of an harmonium, whilst the shuttle about 8 by 2 inches carrying the woof is tossed and caught by the right and left hand alternately through the opening, the disengaged hand being rapidly used in ramming in the thread. The cloth is woven in one long strip and then cut to the required lengths and tacked together.

Tailoring is done mostly by men only as it is only men's dress which requires a tailor. It includes embroidery made in the neck and breast of men's gowns. Women being wrapped in plain cloths hardly require tailoring. The stiches are made the contrary way to that of Europeans tailors, the needle being pushed away from the seamsters, and not toward himself.

Iron Smelting was carried on more largely in earlier than in modern times. Certains districts are rich in iron ores, its iron production gave its name to the City of Ilorin, from Ilo Irin, iron grinding, also to Eleta a district of Ibadan “Eta” being the term for iron ore. Certain districts in the Ekiti province are also famous for their iron ores from which good steel was made , such as OKE MESI. Charcoal from hard wood, and the shells of palm nuts are the materials generally used for generating the great heat required for the furnace(called Ileru) which is kept going all the year round. Iron rods and bars of European commerce being cheaper are fast displacing home-made products, and here and there all over the country the furnaces are being closed, and soon will doubts begin to be expressed as to whether Yorubas ever knew the art of smelting iron from the ores.

Other products of the mines e.g. gold, silver, tin, etc., are not known among the Yorubas.

Smithery is carried on largely. Before the period of intercourse with Europeans, all articles made of iron and steel, from weapons of war to pins and needles were of home manufacture; but the cheaper and more finised articles of Europeans make, especially cutlery though less durable are fast displacing home-made wares.

There are also brass and copper smiths who make ornaments from these materials; for this purpose brass and copper bars are imported from foreign parts.

Workers in leather were formely their own tanners, each one learns to prepare for himself, whatever leather he wants to use; black, white, green, yellow, and brown are the prevailing colours given to the leather.

The Law of the Land

Principles of Land Law

The Land Laws of the Yoruba country are simple and effective, there being no need of any complicated or elaborate laws, as there is enough land for all the members of the various tribes. Whatever land for all the members of the various tribes. Whatever land is not effecively occupied is for the common benefit of all; no one need own any land which he cannot utilize, except farm land left fallow for a short period.

Theoretically and traditionally we have seen above that Yoruba land belongs to the Alafin of Oyo as the supreme head of the race. “The land belongs to the King” has passed into a proverb. But it must be understood, that it is not meant that the land is the private property of the King, it is only his as representing the race, in other words, Yoruba land belongs to the Yoruba people and to the no other, hence as the Yorubas are split into so many tribes, the head of each tribe, and even he has no power to alienate it permantely of his own accord to an alien. All lands, therefore, including forests and the plain are owned by some tribe or other, and no one belonging to another race or another tribe can make use of the land without the permission of the King and chiefs who hold the land for their tribe. Members of the tribe have no difficulty at present in obtainings as much land as each requires for agricultural purposes in which every one is supposed to be engaged; with the increase of population however , it is felt that some difficulties will arise in future, but the chiefs can cope with such cases.

Lands are never sold, but may be granted to outsiders for life, and to their heirs in perpetuity; but where the land so granted had been under cultivation, it is understood in every case that the fruit bearing trees, especially the palm trees, and kola-nut trees, etc., on the land are not included in the grant; hence the common expression “The grantee is to look down not up,” i.e. he is to confine his attention to plants he has cultivated and not on fruit-bearing trees he met on the spot.

Land once given is never taken back except under special circumstances as treason to the State which renders the grantee an outlaw, and he is driven altogether from that State or tribe, and his land confiscated. Even when left unutilized, if there are marks of occupation on it, such as trees planted, or a wall built, etc., it cannot be taken back without the consent of the owner.

There is no subject in which the Yoruba man is more sensitive than in that of land. This normally quiet and submissive people of their land forms one of the main conditions of their admitting an European officer among them by the Ibadans at the beginning of the British Protectorate.

The forests are under the direct guardianship of the hunters who form among themselves a fraternity recognized all over the land, subject of course to the town authorities. Any laws, rules, or regulations relating to forests that are to be made, must recognize the rights, privileges and services of the hunters, especially, as it is by them effect can be given to those laws. It is their duty to apprize the chiefs of any town, of any spies, expeditions, or raids that have that town or its farms for their objective. Crimes commited in the forest must be traced, and the authors tracked and unearthed by them. Any animal bearing traces or marks of their bullets or arrow-wounds must be restored to them. All information relating to forests must be given by the hunters to the chiefs of the town.

The forests are free to every member of the tribe for procuring building materials, medicinal herbs, firewood, etc.

Inheritance. --- When a man die, his farms are inherited by his children, and so from father to son in perpetuity, and, like the house are not subject to sale. If this children are females, they will pass on to the males relatives, unless the daughters are capable of seeing the farm kept up for their males relatives until the boys are of age to take up the keep of the farms.

No portion of such farms can be alienated from the family without the unanimous consent of all the members thereof.

These are the simple, fundamental and universal laws applicable to all the tribes in general, but subject to modifications and development according to the local exigencies of each place. These exigencies may be due to the proximity of large populations, and consequently higher value of land, the nature of the land, whether forests with economic plants in them or pasture land, and the locality whether near the coast where foreign intercourse affects local habits, or far inland where the tribes remain in their simplicity. But in every case the ruling of the local chiefs, and their councillors must necessarily be the law for that tribe since the fundamental laws are not-violated.

None but citizens born or naturalized can own land permanently in this country. Land granted to foreigners for a specific purpose reverts to the owner or the State on the grantee leaving the country. These are the general laws, to be observed rather in the spirit that in the letter.