The Kalabari World-View: An Outline and Interpretation

Abstract

IntroductionThe Kalabari people live in twenty-two villages and three small towns in the tidal mangrove swamps of the eastern Niger Delta. Linguistically, they are part of the great bloc of Ijo-speaking peoples who fill the Delta; but they form a distinct subgroup both in dialect and in culture. The traditional economy of most of these communities is based on fishing, with surplus fish exported to the hinterland markets and vegetables brought down on the return trip. Over a long period, contact with the hinterland markets seems to have been more frequent than contact between any one village and its Kalabari neighbours; and as a result of this isolation, each village tended to develop certain distinctive variants of fishing technique and of culture generally. Although the general economic pattern was one of fishing, one community with a fortunate geographical position at the mouth of the Rio Real abandoned this occupation about 400 years ago for trade with European merchants, first in slaves and later in palm-oil brought down from the hinterland. Today, however, this trade has collapsed; and the descendants of those who developed it have largely returned to fishing and fish-trading.