When the village of Omako was reached and we approached the shrine, the sun was just setting. Blue smoke rose from amid the strange figures, over which flames flickered and danced from a little fire tended by an old, old woman, who among such uncanny surroundings was quietly cooking her evening meal. She was the ‘slave of the Juju’ who had sought his protection as a refuge from oppression untold moons ago. Her whole life is spent amid the weird figures which she guards and serves, lighting fires during the rains that the soft clay may not be melted nor the roof and wood-work rotted by damp and mould--though, strangely enough, it is strictly forbidden to make the slightest attempt at repairing when cracks appear in figure or wall, however much care was expended on the building of the shrine. So near to one another are the figures that the little sleeping mat of the attendant could hardly find space to be stretched out in between. Their eyes were set with fragments of looking-glass, which twinkled and gleamed in the most life-like way, as the flames rose and fell. How many years the gentle old slave, with her soft voice and deprecatory gestures, had served the Juju, none could tell. She herself seemed to have lost all memory of any other life; but the dim eyes brightened at the gift of tobacco leaves and the gentle voice followed us, still calling Ndeawo--the common word both for ‘thanks’ and for ‘greeting’--as we went away. In every case which we have seen as yet, the Thunder God wears a sharply pointed black beard. In many instances little rattles hang from his neck or are attached to a spear or staff held in his hand, while a cluster of bells is slung from a rope usually passing over the right shoulder and resting on the left hip. In one place his feet were set upon a curved bar of iron which had once been gaily painted and was said to represent the rainbow. It is with the rattles that he produces the roll of his thunder, while the bells strike together to form the clash and bang of each separate peal. The type of figure was identical with that of the so-called deified ancestor Njokko, seated at the top of his sky ladder upon each rung of which ‘air people,’ _i.e._ birds, were perched. It is perhaps not without significance that, upon either hand of his throne, two slender pillars the shape of an elongated torch and each bearing a bird, are set.[9] These are small and vaguely modelled, but it is possible that they once represented the eagles of Zeus--which, among Ibibio, are still sacred to Obumo, the Thunderer.[10] At Ibodo, on either side of the door of the central shrine--the ‘holy of holies’ which only the priest can enter unscathed--we first noticed the two strangely-shaped figures which are also to be seen guarding the inner sanctuary of the Owerri Mbari houses. They were thus explained to us: