‘Formerly it was very hard for us to get children. Nearly all our women were barren, so we raised the two Ibudu, one male and the other female. Since then we got plenty piccans in our town.’ He added that the ‘leopard spirit’ helps the Juju to prevent the deaths of children. The small cone in the foreground and the headless animal lying in front of this were the work of the few children then existing. [Illustration: FIG. 33. Ibudu at Akpani] With regard to the figure of a leopard, it is perhaps worth remarking that the ancient kings of Benin were wedded, in mystic spousals, with a leopard bride. Also, among those Ibo dwelling in the group of towns round Igrita, the spirits of the righteous dead often take up their abode in leopard form while awaiting a new term of earth life, but those who enter into crocodile, ape, or bush cat, are regarded as for ever accursed. Amid a branch of Kalahari settled at Oguta in Owerri District, a type of Ibudu is to be found, not, so far as our knowledge goes, to be met with in other parts. Each of these emblems consists of two sphinx-like figures, one male and the other female, facing different ways but joined together by a ridge of clay, which forms, as it were, the back of the sphinx. At the Ibo town on the far side of the beautiful Oguta lake, we came across another phallic pillar combining the figures of the dual personality, male and female, of the Ibudu Ezum Mezum. As in the case of the Ale shrine, described on page 74, the consort was nameless, bearing no designation save that of husband of Ezum Mezum. The figure representing him held the place of honour at the base of the column which symbolises the joint attributes of the Juju; while, at a height almost double that of the husband, towers the face of the wife. On either side of the pillar, out-topping the male figure from the neck upwards, climb two great crocodiles; while placed here and there, at irregular intervals, human heads stand out in high relief. Chief Onomonu, the owner of the shrine, told us: The Ibudu Ezum Mezum is mostly worshipped at Amaii in Abaw District and priests came thence to build this shrine for us. It was made at a time when a great sickness was raging in our town, in the hope of staying this scourge, granting protection and prosperity in general and especially to help our people in the bearing of piccans.