Christmas in 1960s Igarra

By Niyi Egbe 

One of my fond memories of Igarra, my rocky hometown situated afoot the Kukuruku hills in Edo North, is the celebration of Christmas Day in the late 1960s. I will ever relish recalling those priviledged pre-teen years spent in the place before the city of Lagos had a hold on me. 

As far back then, Christmas the king of festivals was celebrated in high spirits. For Christian homes like mine, Christmas day started with services held in churches. At the time, Igarra had an admixture of churches. There were orthodox churches like the Catholic and the Anglican Communion and indigenous The Apostolic Church and Christ Apostolic Church. The now more popular Pentecostal churches as we know them now, were absent. 

Expectedly, on the D-Day, members of the choir were at their best. They rehearsed well ahead. Although Carols were absent from the renditions of The Apostolic Church Choir back then, the Christmas message sung in Yoruba and Etuno, the native language of Igarra succinctly told the story of a Saviour who came to the rescue of mankind. It was a day to exhibit the native talent in the singing collectives as they praised Jesus who loves us so. They impressed not only the local audience, but as well visitors and indigenes who had come home for Christmas. 

On Christmas days, Pastors were careful not to overstretch sermons. Notwithstanding, there was careful reminder about the mission of the loving Jesus the Son of God who arrived the world with a mission to rescue mankind from the grip of sin. Ironically, the same people He came for, confined Him to a manger amidst smelly animals. For relief, Angels heralded his arrival as the Maggi found and gave Him gifts. Sermons over, everyone went to his tent to savour the fun of the day. 

Thanks to our sacrificial parents, at Christmas, children displayed eye-catching myriad-coloured new clothes. So beautiful, as they paraded the streets, everyone in town immediately recognized that celebration was in the air. Most children complemented their dresses with sunglasses which had beautiful plastics rims. A lot also donned assorted shapes of decorated caps that were adorned with shinny green and red Aluminum foils. 

Also, there could be no Christmas without fireworks. The now familiar “knock outs” were absent. In their place, older boys invented “explosives”. Pressure produced from chemical reaction in sealed tins  forced lids open.  Those explosions instead of scaring implied much joy to us. Of course, our mothers were concerned, but they also recognized that it was an they could not dissuade us from. They gave up battles they couldn’t win. 

Upon hearing each explosion, the boys sang assuring ourselves via a song in Yoruba:  Olopa ko le mu wa… Odun to de lanshe meaning the Police can’t arrest us. We are merely celebrating Christmas! Not to miss out the girls and young ladies had some dark coated rods which sparked flickers of lights on lighting. How women “enjoyed” such unchallenging exercise simply amazed boys. Girls would always be girls! 

From hindsight, much as it was going to be great joy, Christmas day implied some burden for some of our parents. Burden? For us kids and indeed all in the quiet little town, Christmas represented much fun, family reunion, enjoying spoils, splash of colours, shoes for those in the societal upper rung and of course, plenty of eating. In the unlikelihood of our parents not providing enough for the fun, we could also place a bet that our big brothers and sisters pulled by near or far away cities would be up to task. They either sent gifts or came visiting. How then could Christmas ever be associated with being burdensome?  

Like the sage Jimmy Cliff sang: I can see clearly now. The rain is gone… The principal predicament was economic. How would our largely agrarian economy sustain the disruption of our modest economy? How do parents fund the demands especially of children for new clothes and shoes? How would they cope with temporary abdication of our then food culture for a new kid on the block – the increasingly popular and relatively more expensive Oryza sativa alias rice? The popularity of these white grains was becoming dangerously and emotionally inconveniencing. There was evolving a quiescent acceptance that there could be no Christmas without rice on the table! What the hell about this disruptive rice? Whoever indoctrinated children back in the 1960s Igarra, that Christmas couldn’t be tasty without those strange little grains? 

Obviously, some northern and eastern Nigerian communities had cultivated rice for centuries. This is evident as there were local nomenclatures for the crop as “Shinkafa” in the North and “Osikapa” in Eastern Nigeria. Rice was a creeping addition to our diets – locals simply called Rice the names given by city dwellers who more familiar with them. Yorubas for instance called it “Iresi”, Igarras called it “iricei”. The crux was that beyond local sources, rice was imported and was expensive. It was curious the grip of this stranger rice and condiments which accompanied it. The pull was mere emotions. How would they ever compare with the culinary wonders which our dutiful and brilliant Igarra mothers brewed from their firewood energized kitchens? 

Being an agrarian society, food availability was no issue to the Igarra community. Readied in season and off season, our fathers being skilled farmers, always had enough for their households. Yam, the King of crops as in most Southern and Middle belt Nigerian cultures was staple. Harvest of yams peaked before Christmas. So there was always much of pounded yam as food around Christmas. Beyond yams, were cassavas and grains like maize and millet. The major legumes were cowpea and groundnuts. Of course, vegetables were there to complement – mostly raised by our women. 

Foods brought to table were mostly determined by availability. Pounded yam was of course the food of choice. Its consumption was a sine qua non in most of our cultural festivals. The consumption of pounded yam spanned over half of the year. Off yam seasons, we turned to a combination of corn and cassava flour stirred in hot water to a paste we call “Uka”. The brittleness of corn flour in the mix was masked by cassavas, which had the paste gelatinized. A visit to Igarra any day, would be incomplete if you are not treated to pounded yam or Uka delicacies.    

Christmas, was a time for visiting city dwellers to showcase their supposedly better livelihoods. The way they spent gave an impression that there was gold to be picked out there on the streets of bigger towns and cities. They had us going green with envy and dreaming of the days to come when we also would check out. How gullible! We were oblivious that cities also had their challenges. 

Festive periods like Christmas was also time when bachelors returned home to pick our girls. Some had tried in vain placing hopes on city ladies. Some  of them discovered early enough that they were either too tough to handle or disappointing. In the event. The  option which appeased was to simply return home. 

Often too, lure of city daughters or sons pulled “strangers” into our town. Whether it was a male or female folk going outside the fold, those Igarra counterparts were sure to get in-depth cross examination by concerned parents and family members. Their worry: why wouldn’t a young man or woman source a soulmate among his or her own people whose language and families were known? 

There were either cogent or frivolous answers. What was clear to all concerned was submission to the strange realities in loving relationships. For my Dad, the major concern was his daughters. He would argue that it is futile attempting to fathom where love would take a woman? For him, only God the creator of bonds knows! If it were his boys bringing damsels home, he warned them against illtreating another person’s daughter.

Our town had room for different cultures – Hausas, Igbos, Yorubas, other minority tribes and of course other Akoko Edo or Edo citizens. Being close to the north and with our ancestral roots linked to middle belt Nigeria, Hausa – Fulanis brought into town the Islam faith. They must have brought with them cloth dyeing – the uncommon occupation of my maternal Grand mum. Most women farmed or traded in Agro Produce. Most probably, she afforded the deviation because of her love for the dyeing trade and support from her children especially her first son, a politician who made the Federal House in Lagos in the 1950s cum 1960s

My maternal grandfather was obviously a good adopter of innovation. Being the first of the two faiths to arrive our town, he embraced Islam. Naturally, some members of his household joined in the embrace of his newfound Muslim faith.

Then, in the 1930s, Apostolic Church Missionaries evangelised the town. For my mum, the attraction was the gas lamps and the smart dressing of the evangelists. According to her, the women folks were dressed in immaculate white. The lure disrupted the grip of my maternal Grandpa on his household. All his wives and children respected his choice of Islam but preferred the newfound Christianity. My Grandmum, my mum, siblings and close relatives went on to build the first Apostolic Church in Utua, Igarra. Till date, it is one of the oldest established churches in the town which is largely Christian. Also, a number of Igarra men, were non-committal to any religion. They sustained their native religions.    

An unforgettable part of our childhood was masquerade plays. Unlike those frightening and terrorizing adult masquerades who featured in our several cultural plays, terrorising, pursuing and scaring children stiff, these ones sang. These masked Christmas masquerades may have gotten the hint that Christ came to preach love and not to instill fear. They were also mostly pre-teen kids merely drumming and dancing to impress and receipt of gifts. Their songs were melodious, accompanied by praise singing and drumming children. Their drums were invented by stretching soft rubber tubes over empty tin cans. They went from house to house impressing adults who graciously tossed coins in appreciation of each collective. Such rewards spurred on for most of the Christmas day and sustained the festivity. 

Which kid would ever forget Christmas day? It was a day our stomachs took in way beyond available capacity. For regret, there was always limit to what could get in. Naturally there was always great discomfort from the weight of food ingested. Trust nature for rooms for balancing things. After digestion and assimilation of whatever had been devoured or drank, the rest had to be forced off our visceral that way, restoring our physiological equilibrium.

Niyi Egbe, a Priest and Agronutritionist lives in Lagos. He can be reach via niyiegbe@yahoo.com