Omu Ngwaw is literally ‘the children (or young leaves) of the tombo palm tree,’ _raphia vinifera_. Now, when a woman has given birth to a first or second babe, the days which she spends in seclusion are often called by the same name, while the word for fruitfulness itself, or giving birth, is Omumu. The connection thought to exist in primitive minds is the probable reason why young palm-leaves are in such evidence before the shrines of all beneficent Jujus; the half-unfolded frond stands as type and symbol of fruitful motherhood. On floor and walls, serpents twine and twist; hippopotami hold men half devoured in their mouths, leopards stand over new-slain goats, elephants wave long trunks or fall to the guns of hunters, apes climb or swing, and fabulous creatures disport themselves on every hand. A clerk counts his money on a little table. Two wrestlers may be seen locked in one another’s arms[8] and a native doctor anoints the womb of a woman patient with a feather dipped in oil. In short, so far as in them lies, the whole life-history of the people is here reproduced with infinite pains and care. As in the Owerri Mbari houses, the head-dresses of the women are most elaborately rendered, while the modelling of a ram’s head and of one small monkey which sat devouring a corn-cob were extraordinary samples of artistic skill. Again, a peculiar feature of several of these were figures obviously modelled with the intention of expressing the feeling of joy. It is probably only a coincidence that so many of the figures of Ale show much enlarged navels--the ὀμφάλος of the Earth Goddess. In all these shrines the mural decoration is not painted, but applied to the walls like a gigantic piece of Cloisonné--clay, tinted with various dyes, being filled in between strips of raphia palm which serve to outline the design exactly as does the brass edging the enamelled leaves and flowers of the above-mentioned ware. One of the most interesting of the temples visited lay some two and a half miles off the main road near Ibodo and was approached first by a narrow bush-path and later by a broad way over-arched by great trees, the branches of which interlaced overhead to form a clear translucent twilight even at noonday. As we passed beneath the fern-fringed, orchid-decked boles, the sky was overcast and the sun already low in the west, while the voice of the Thunder God might be heard in the distance--a low, threatening note in the twilight.