Monday, February 08, 2016

Some Early Tiv history.. ''The Munshi People''



Found this article on my timeline,couldn't help but share ,especially for my followers who have no idea about Tiv early History,enjoy this article.
We have next to consider a portrait of a magnificent specimen of the Munshi people, who are notorious for the deadly-poisoned arrows with which they are armed. No antidote has ever been discovered for this poison, which proves fatal to Europeans in about five minutes. During a former expedition on the Benue we lost six Europeans from this cause, all of them dying in convulsions within a few minutes of being hit. continue to read more.
The individual who forms the subject of the picture had been captured by the Mohammedans and employed as a herdsman. He was released by the British and taken on as a carrier. The Munshi country extends from a hundred miles above Lokoja to near Ibi, covering an area of twenty thousand square miles on both banks of the Benue. It has not yet been entirely pacified, for the Munshis are a most intractable tribe, each man being his own master and responsible to no one for his actions. They are agriculturists and expert hunters, and, after killing their prey with their poisoned arrows, eat the flesh, after first carefully cutting away the infected portion round the wound.

The group of Munshis on the next page was taken this year, while on an expedition towards Lake Tchad. This tribe possesses the skull of an old friend of mine, whom they killed some twelve years ago. He was an employee of the Niger Company, and was treacherously murdered. I have many times tried to obtain possession of this skull, but without success, as the people keep it as a "Ju-ju."

Wide World Magazine Vol X
October 1902 to March 1903

source
https://archive.org/details/wideworldmagazin10londuoft

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