Fires, Tricksters and Poisoned Medicines: Popular Cultures of Rumor in Onitsha, Nigeria and Its Markets Author(s): Misty L. Bastian Source: Etnofoor, Vol. 11, No. 2, GOSSIP, RUMOR, SLANDER! (1998), pp. 111-132 Published by: Stichting Etnofoor Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25757942 Accessed: 19-12-2015 13:21 UTC

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Fires, Tricksters and Poisoned Medicines

Popular Cultures ofRumor inOnitsha, Nigeria and Its Markets Misty L. Bastian, Harvard University

Introduction In contemporary southeastern Nigerian life, themarkets play many roles and offer an arena formany different types of practice. Some of these practices appear to be 'strictly economic', as westerners might say.That is, theyare directed towards the accumulation of - rather than a localized capital, the exchange of goods, and participation in a globalized set of productive and consumptive relations. These 'strictlyeconomic' practices may point

to southeasternNigeria's connection to a wider world culture of capitalism, but they do not - by anymeans - tell thewhole storyofwhat markets mean to southeasternNigerians. Nor do these globalized, capitalist practices begin to encompass all practice in thevarious

marketplaces thatdot the southeasternNigerian land and cityscapes, for not all market practice is 'strictlyeconomic' practice. As I have argued at great lengthelsewhere (Bastian 1992), much of thework ofmarkets in the southeastern region of Nigeria could be said to be cosmological work: thework of constructing and reconstructing the (not always material) everyday worlds that Igbo-speaking peoples inhabit.And because of this fact, markets are locations for the circulation ofmany thingsbesides ordinary commodities. Indeed, within Onitsha, Nigeria's markets, where I did fieldwork for fifteenmonths in 1987-88, themarketplace facilitated themovement of bodies, ideas, substances and - talk.1Onitsha itself is a city of approximately one million people on the eastern always

bank of theNiger River, with a long history of trade and marketing. A center of colonial administration andmissionization for the entire southeastern region ofNigeria in the early years of this century,Onitsha's wealth developed because of its favorable location on the Niger and openness to thedevelopment ofmarkets along thewaterfront.However, today it would be difficult to find any part of theurban area completely divorced from trade, since even private compounds often contain a tenantwho sells softdrinks or prepared foods to her neighbors and almost every building with a street front also attracts small traders in cigarettes, soap and grocery staples. Only within Onitsha's Inland Town section, thehome ofOnitsha's indigenous population, are there streetswhich are not filledwith commercial enterprise, and even therepoorer ndi onicha (indigenes) may place traysor folding tables covered with vegetables or other goods available forpurchase outside theirwalls. ETNOFOOR,XI(2) 1998,pp. 111-132

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111

official market system in the late 1980s was a complex constellation of spaces, moving from the enormous, covered enclosure of thewholesale Main Market, a marketplace with over three thousand documented traders,to itsmain rival,Ochanja Relief, Onitsha's

which had a smaller number of registered traders (still probably more than a thousand), to theuncovered locations ofOse foodmarket and various smallermarketplaces around town,

with theirmuch more fluid and unofficially sanctioned tradingpopulations. Within these market spaces, almost any commodity could be purchased, whether locally or globally

produced, and as single items or in bulk. These markets were also the scene of a bustling street culture, since they fronted some of Onitsha's most hectic thoroughfares and were always connected to themotorparks where taxis,molue vans, lorries and buses transported passengers and goods within and beyond the city.

Roving streetvendors, carrying traysof cold Coca-Cola or Fanta on theirheads, boxes of snacks, or pushing barrows filled with socks or pirated cassette tapes, added to the streethubbub and to the jostling experienced by any onye afia (market person, meaning whoever participates in themarket, whether as buyer or seller). Close to themotorparks,

touts yelled out the superiorities of theirvehicles and tried to pull potential passengers into the area where those vehicles were parked. Music boomed from vendor's carts, the

soft drink sellers ran theirmetal openers across the cold bottles perched on theirheads, making a ringing sound as theywalked, people gesticulated and haggled intensely, some tradersread aloud or translated from the local newspapers to theircolleagues, and beggars plied their trade along themotorparks andmarkets' edges. Long-time 'customers' (buyers

and sellers who consider themselves partners in themarket enterprise)might sit quietly together in the shade of amarket stall, sharing jokes or confidences on theway tomaking a deal, and everyone exchanged stories along with theirmoney and goods. To returnfrom

themarket without some token purchase or without learning the latest gossip or scandal was seen by my Onitsha acquaintances as tantamount to not having trulyexperienced the market. Although people might disparage news learned at themarket as mere 'market talk' not even themost high minded seemed able to resist hearing what was being said there.

The

generally perceived nature of the market in late 1980s Onitsha, from my observations, was as a space that embraced profound contradictions and used those contradictions to generate power: themarket was both a place thatmoved and stayed still; thathad known boundaries yet was dangerously open to all comers, alive, dead or nonhuman; thatgained at the expense of its denizens; and thatwas set firmly at the very

center of what appeared, to its inhabitants, to be an anti-community. In short, itwas a liminal space - a space where anything could, and should, happen, but especially a space where transformationwas the expected norm. The potential good that came out of this inherentlydifficult, 'hot' space was thatwealth and famewere generated. The market was considered 'hot', both by those who worked there and by those who observed it from

outside, because of its perpetual movement and the sheer amount of trade taking place there. Igbo humoral notions do not categorize either heat or coolness as intrinsicallybad,

but an excess of either condition is generally held to signal wrongness or inappropriate

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behavior. Onitsha's markets, as we will see below, sometimes were believed to go beyond theboundaries of appropriate heat into dangerous overheatedness. This article will explore the connections between a set of rumors, or scandals, and what we might call the 'dark side' of the transformativeOnitsha market.2 Even more to

the point, the paper will concern itselfwith 'popular cultures' of rumor in theOnitsha market system - that is to say, differentcultural reactions to the same rumors or scandals

or differentdiscursive practices around sets of rumor/scandal narratives. By emphasizing theplurality of these cultural practices, Iwish to suggest something about themultiplicity

of 'the popular'; that there is never one popular culture (a point also recentlymade by - at Fabian (1997: 32), even within what might first) seem to be the large but seemingly limited space of an urbanmarketplace inAfrica.3 The set of scandalous rumors examined

here, then,will be used to illustratehow such popular discourses are socially constituted - of the - and marketplace. Let me opinions representations of the diverse population

emphasize again, however, that the rumors below relatemainly towhat is dangerous and problematic in themarketplace, towhat is deceptive and frighteningabout the anonymity and mobility inherent inmarket relations. Three potentially related thingswere generally seen as themost deceptive and frighteningof all rumored activities in themarketplace and its environs: arson, poison and magical

We will begin our investigationwith trickery.

arson.

Arson and Rumors of Arson

in theOnitsha Marketsystem

- one Before going to the field in early 1987,1 received a letterfromRichard Henderson of the lastNorth American ethnographers towork inmy field area fillingme in on recent Onitsha history.Knowing my particular interestinOnitsha's market system,he mentioned

thathis Onitsha friendswere still speculating about twomarket fires that took place in 1984. Onitsha Main Market had sustained heavy firedamage, causing the collapse of part - which Henderson of its roof, and had never been fully renovated.Ochanja Relief Market referred to, inwhat I would come to know as classic ndi onicha (Onitsha indigene) style, as 'the inferiormarket' - had suffered from a fire soon afterwards. The provenance of both fireswas suspicious, and therewas much talk of arson (or some other, even more sinister practice). Henderson was alertingme to a theme which I would hear over and over again, once I actually took up residence in the city and began work in themarkets.

The fact that this, of all possible market news, was themost important information that Henderson's Onitsha friends could think to relate to him was significant.Two years after thefiredamage, Onitsha people were stilldiscussing and speculating about thefires' cause. Throughout 1987, theywould have more to speculate about. Popular Igbo consciousness of market fires encompassed the lack of preparedness of local fire-fightersand private security firms, the flaunting of long-held rules about fire hazards, the certainty that trade generates 'enemies' as well as cash, and a general sense

ofmalaise within all themarkets of the southeast. Connections were made between the

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various fires,sometimes with the help of the local press and othermedia, and similarities between differentmarket firecircumstances aided in the gradual elaboration of a set of

included all the above. These theories were based on a suspicion that and 'public safety' in themost conventional, western sense were of problems fire-fighting - thatthe truecauses ofmarket fires nature in lay in another direction. That epiphenomenal were as a more seen national dis-ease - a dis-ease thatgave free is, the fires symptomatic of rein to evil conspiracies and thedestruction associated with arson, but towardswhich fire theories which

as an element stood in an exceedingly ambiguous position. These interpretationsofmarket fireswere based in thediscourse of difference inOnitsha's market system, a discourse that was more important inOnitsha's markets than I knew before doing fieldwork. To unpack

some of the reasons why Onitsha people distrusted a strictlyempirical interpretationof market fires, Iwill brieflyoutline how stories about these fires speak to deep, cosmological constructions in contemporary Igbo-speaking society as well as to thehistorical divisions between Igbo-speaking peoples who must live and trade together inOnitsha, but who are unreconciled to the prospect. 'Those Fires'

inOnitsha and Beyond

Not only have markets burned, but such recently constructed architectural icons of Nigeria's oil boom (and subsequent bust) as theNigerian National Petroleum Corporation headquarters and the Lagos NITEL (Nigerian Telephone Company) offices have also suspiciously gone up in flames.4 'Those fires', according toNigerians, demonstrate how arson has become part of contemporary Nigerian political economy. In an economy totteringunder the recently implemented structural adjustment program, no one was

surprised thatbuildings and public spaces associated with economic 'development' went up in flames. These fires only substantiated what Nigerians already felt to be true about

Nigeria's (many) governments and their economic policies. As one academic told me about theNNPC fire, 'The profits from theoil went up in smoke long before thebuilding.' Through archival research, I was able to trace a number of earliermarket fires and to

see that associations were already being made, in the 1930s, between the fires and the behavior of people in themarket spaces.5 Prior to 1937, when mention ismade of a major fire in Otu Nkwo (the old market), Onitsha's town administrators - both colonials and Igbo-speakers expressed concern over people spending the night in themarkets, lack of access towater in themarket spaces, cooking in themarkets, and the flammability

of market construction materials. Night-time access to themarkets and cooking in the market environs have been particularly singled out as culprits inmarket fires, and these two issues are interestingbecause they speak to Igbo concerns about appropriate market behavior. That is, one should go to themarket in order to trade,while cooking and sleeping are seen as more appropriately taking place within themore domesticated and, indeed, controlled space of the patrilineal compound. All elements of this fiery narrative have something to do with problems of control in themarket space; notably, control over

bodies, genders, and the very parameters ofmarket space and time themselves.Whereas

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the compound was a controlled space, themarket was meant tobe somewhat out of control and

open.

Igbo-speaking peoples would trytomaintain theirmarkets' openness during theperiod of high colonialism and would struggle against British attempts to enclose market spaces.

see evidence of such a struggle, for example, in the famous 'Women's War' of 1929 when women burned marketplaces thathad been roofed or walled in.One reason for the resistance to the enclosure ofmarkets was that enclosure constituted a serious breach of

We

Igbo spatial canons. These canons suggested thatmarkets, as sites of peace and sociability, needed to be ocha (white/transparent/permeable)and unbounded. The accumulation of goods and persons within fences and walls was the cosmographic province of privatized,

patrilineal compounds, not of public and open marketplaces. The potentially dangerous heat of market activities, including themeeting of unregulated strangers and the act of trade itself, could not disperse when enclosed. As far as many Igbo-speakers are still concerned, proper market behavior has to do with the opening up of relations between people and the unenforced circulation of goods, bodies, and words, literally allowing freemovement in themarket so as to cool the space. Onitsha markets, after committing to enclosure during the period of high colonialism, have seldom had a chance to cool

down.

For various reasons, including fires, the reconstruction of Onitsha's Main Market was not fully completed until 1956. The new, roofed structurewas the pride of the region

in this period immediately before independence, although not of the town's indigenes. Ndi onicha were unhappy that local people, particularly women, were displaced from the town'smarkets in favor of nonindigenous Igbo-speakers from the south.The consequence, forwomen, ofmissionization, western professionalization formen and a movement out of themarkets was a new gender regime copied from the British, including women's enforced domesticity in the 'home'.Women's ritual space inOnitsha, before the advent of mission Christianity,was themarket space, and theirduties to themarket were believed to be central to themaintenance of order in the town.6The 'new traders' (male, nonindigene) could not be expected to carry out the necessary purifications and other ritual practices

which were said tobringmma (beauty/goodness/communal wealth) to themarket. Onitsha people in 1987-88, when talking about the changes in themarketplace before theBiafran civil war, spoke of it 'heating up' with the dangerous, unpurifiable forces brought by

strangers and money of unknown provenance. Non-indigene traderswho worked in the pre-warmarketplace agreed thatOnitsha was 'hot' then,but suggested that theproblem lay with indigene disinterest in the town's welfare and even indigene greed (for rents and the

money spent inOnitsha-owned palm wine bars). As if to concur with the interpretations, the reconstructedmarket was destroyed utterlyduring theBiafran civil war by bombs and incendiary devices. These were seen as a reminder of just how destructive and dangerous strangers, even if former countrymen, could be to ana onicha (the land of Onitsha, both a place and a spiritual force) and a caution about thepower of (northern Igbo) politicians

over the lives of ordinary (read southern Igbo) people. Both Onitsha Igbo and non-indigene traders lost their lives and their livelihoods in themarket system's wartime destruction.

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One of theFederal Government's firstgestures of reconciliation to erstwhile Biafra was a plan to reconstruct theOnitsha marketplace. More traders than ever before had come toOnitsha after thewar, partially because a number of Igbo-speakers were reluctant to

return to their residences in other parts of the country.There was a clear need for the

government to oversee and control thismass of former 'rebels', as well as for it to bring the shattered southeast back intoNigeria's economic mainstream. Onitsha indigenes,who

sufferedgreatly during thewar, withdrew even furtherfrom activemarket participation but became embroiled in legal action to ensure that theywould 'own' themarket, i.e. control

the allocation of stalls and become a rentier class within themarketplace. This distance from but attempted control over themarket spaces caused more of a disjunction between the interestsof ndi afia (people of themarketplace, mostly non-indigene) and ndi ani (the 'sons of the soil').

Popular Cultures ofArson in the 1980s theOnitsha market(s) burned again in 1984 (amere eight years after the completion of postwar reconstruction) indigene/non-indigene tensions reached theirheight.7 Traders covertly accused ndi onicha ofwishing themharm, going so far as to suggest thatOnitsha

When

arsonists wanted to 'kill traders'. The Onitsha indigene reputation forwitchcraft (glossed as a decidedly 'unlgbo' form of behavior) and jealousy over their sometimes disputed

ownership of the land played into these accusations. For theirown part,Onitsha indigenes said that the traders 'brought trouble' with them to the town and discussed how the traders from various markets were 'rough' and probably fought among themselves over 'bush matters'. The subtext here was that traders, frommany different towns in rural Igboland,

supposedly carried their old feuds and land skirmishes into Onitsha along with their persons. Itwas also known in Inland Town that traders in one ofOnitsha's major markets,

Ochanja Relief, blamed Main Market traders for an earlier firedisaster (in 1980) that caused them to be moved to theircurrent,undesirable location. Fighting between traders offends theOnitsha Igbo sense of appropriate market action - particularly the notion of udo afia (market peace), where traders are supposed to put aside theirdifferences once in themarket space and concentrate on the serious business of establishing beneficial relations through trade.This sort of internecine battling is potentially nso ani (an abomination, or offense, to the earth deity). When italso became clear thattraders' immense losses in the 1984 firewere partially due

to the storingof extra stock and money inside stall lock-ups, ndi onicha took the position that tradersreceived what theydeserved. Improper accumulation in themarket space was cited as a possible culprit: the traderswere seen by Onitsha indigenes as tempting fate asking for robbery (anothermarket abomination) or an interventionof the land divinity

against their ill-gottengoods. In 1987, when more money burned inMain Market, Onitsha friendsquestioned why the tradersdid not, 'after the last time', put theircash in thebank. The indigene consensus was that traders did not want to pay their legal taxes, which

would benefitOnitsha in general, or were hiding illicit funds. In Igbo popular discourses

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- for instance, money given to an during the late 1980s, wrongly accumulated money a was seen as that which 'does not stay'. The very fragile, unworthy person by spirit off of illicit cash in and in 1984, 1987, was seen by Onitsha burning supposed again

indigenes as an instantiation of this principle, and as a form of purification within the marketplace. For those who suffered the losses, faultwas necessarily placed elsewhere,

and the 'bloodsucking' Onitsha indigenes were among the prime candidates. AfterMain Market's April 29, 1987 fire,a series of familiar recriminations set in.At first, tradersblamed unknown arsonists for theirmisfortune, suggesting darkly that there was a good deal of envy and malice in the city of Onitsha. Onitsha indigenes claimed

that traderswere once again fightingamong themselves, or bringing 'enemies' from their unknown homes in the rural south or theirtrade throughoutthecountry into thenow ritually underprotected Onitsha. Interestingly,accusations did not remain on this stalemated level for long. There was next a highly public outcry,much of itcarried on in thepress, about the ineffectualquality of fire-fightingequipment and securitywithin themarkets. People were also extremely critical of the behavior of local police and the army during and directly after the fire, giving personal anecdotes of police brutality and alleged looting. During this secondary period of accusations, blame was placed on governmental corruption,

suggesting thatmarket fireswere 'another of those fires', pointing to a national problem of lax economic regulation conjoined with no punishment for highly placed offenders. When yet another board of inquirywas unable to find a cause or a definite culprit for the

fire, some even went so far as to suggest that the government itselfwas behind the fires. In thispublic rumor discourse, theNigerian political idiom of arson and concealment (via destruction) of economic incompetence was used to speak to themarket as a public space where activities were observable, taxable, and thus liable to fraud and corruption. privately, however, other, internalmarket and town fissureswere recognized locally by stories about the fires that never found space in the national or regional press. Onitsha indigenes, for example, began to talk about how traderswere involved More

in nighttime,money-making rituals. (As in other fires, theApril 29th firebegan in the early evening). The proposed incendiaries, in these stories, supposedly bribed themarket security guards and wandered throughout themarket space with lighted candles, tryingto 'take' themarket luck or profit of their fellows. Non-indigene traders suggested instead

that powerful Onitsha witches prowled the deserted nighttimemarket, seeking to feed upon the unwary traderby gaining access to his stall and account books (a very intimate space and set of objects). Within the non-indigene community itself, rumors circulated that evangelical Christians - as opposed to the predominantly Catholic population of traders- were the culprits, lighting candles to Jesus and engaging in late-night prayer vigils inside themarket. Evangelical Christian traders, in turn,declared their innocence and blamed 'pagans' fornighttimerituals within themarket space thatmade use of candles,

torches, and even small, charcoal braziers. As a veritable conflagration swept through the markets of the southeastern Igbo-speaking regions throughout the remainder of 1987, the fingerof arson (or, at least ill-will thatmight harbor arson) was pointed by Imo State indigenes at Anambra State residents, by Igbo-speaking traders at the various 'minority'

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traders inPort Harcourt's markets, and by non-Igbo towards their 'envious' northern Igbo neighbors. What was particularly interesting in the fire rumor process was how very specific accusations gradually diffused and moved back towards the more general level of

discourse; in the end, therewas consensus only that 'troublemakers' or 'evil people' were at thebottom of thefires.Traders inOnitsha, exhausted by theyear's disasters (both inOnitsha's markets and in theirhome towns), remained dissatisfied by the lack of a clear

culprit or even of a recognized conspiracy, but they confessed that they simply were not sure anymore who could have caused the fires. The only thing that remained constant in

these rumors and speculations was that the fires were not 'natural'. No group saw the fires only as coincidence or an accident.When thefires came up in a market conversation in early 1988, I was told that theywere symptomatic of 'thisNigeria' - a phrase that generally was accompanied with a sigh or a shrug, denoting an inability to change the Market fires national status quo and a disinclination, aftermany disappointments, to try.8 did not seem topurify the land, since nomaterial transformationoccurred by theirburnings.

The fires, however, did (and do) enable people to talk about the difficulties of living in what I, standing Benedict Anderson (1983) on his head, wish to call the 'unimaginable community' of Onitsha (probably better expressed, inNigerian English, by the futility implicit in 'thisNigeria'). The popular discourses of resisting localisms have not caused theNigerian state to crumble, although ithas crumbled at various times in the recent past, only to be shored up or hollowed out, depending on your point of view by military intervention.Nonetheless, these types of discourse do show how negatively people relate to the nation-state in southeastern Nigeria and how the 'postcolony' (Mbembe 1992), - to finally, is only given themost tawdry roles arsonist/extortionist/clumsyconspirator play in southeasternNigerian popular imaginations.

False Prophets and Wayo Men:

Tricksters inMarkets

and Motorparks

Fires and rumors of arson, although certainly themost sensational of scandals in the marketplaces of southeasternNigeria during 1987-88, were not the onlymarket scandals that afforded Igbo-speaking people an opportunity to make moral judgments about behavior in and around the region's markets. In this section, I will examine a set of more ephemeral rumors that swept out of themarkets and motorparks of the southeast during the fall of 1987, thenquietly above, however, contained a quite local fears about (young) women's is no longer afia (themarketplace)

faded away.9 These rumors, unlike the arson scandals explicit gender component and seemed to speak to increased mobility and safetywithin theworld that

in itsmost positive sense, but which sees people as for and commodification sale. Although the themes of the overheated market and objects its cosmological consequences sound as a persistent undertone in this set of scandals as

well, the problem of who is 'native' to themarket is not as readily apparent here. This may, perhaps, be because motorparks are, by definition,more what Marc Auge (1995)

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calls 'non-places', spaces that,although in this case are connected to themarketplace on the ground, seem to float, inpeople's experience of them, in a perpetual liminality.No one

is indigenous to themotorpark in the same sense he might be to a particularmarketplace. Everyone is inmotion and thatmotion has only one direction: 'out'. Nonetheless, the ideological construction of trader-as-stranger,in these rumors, could be said to reappear

in theguise of stranger-as-trickster,since these rumors also mark the location of chicanery as being in and around markets.10 The particular chicanery in question had to do with young men luringwomen they

met in themotorparks into their cars and tricking themwith stories about sexuality and reproduction. The status of this rumor is somewhat differentfrom themarket fire rumors above, because I initiallyheard a version of itduring June, 1987 as a firsthandexperience, as something thathappened tomy young, female research assistant 'Mary'. However, I also subsequently heard various versions within theOnitsha marketsystem and eventually saw the rumor reported in the local newspapers as fact and the grounds for a local law case. When we discuss rumor-discourse, the veracity of the narrativemust ultimately be

of less interest than its content, so I am going to treat ithere only as another example of thisdiscursive practice, not tryto understand whether it 'really' happened or not. Both at the time and since, however, I saw no reason why Mary would tellme such an elaborate tale if ithad not, indeed, happened as she said.

Mary's storywas fairlyrepresentativeof the rumors thatbegan to circulate in the summer of 1987. She took a taxi toEnugu (then the capital ofAnambra State) fromOnitsha to sit for a teacher's certification examination, in hopes of finding employment in the career for

which she was trained. In theEnugu Ogbete Market motorpark, Mary stepped out of her taxi and into anotherworld, theworld of' wayo men' and 'confidence tricksters'.A young

man approached her and asked, in English, for directions to some location in the town. Although Mary had once lived inEnugu, she was not familiarwith the address he gave, but shewas flattered thathe realized, fromher modern appearance, that she could speak

English. They then struckup a conversation, inwhich he quickly discovered thatMary was not being met at themotorpark, that shewas notmarried and that she was interested in the new wave of Christian evangelism then sweeping the southeast. The wayo man claimed to be a stranger in town and a representative of an evangelical group who was beginning to gain popularity, partially through theuse of television.Mary was impressed

by his own neat, western style and his supposed credentials as a televangelist. The young man suddenly claimed thathe 'had a vision' forher and suggested that this vision could only be shared if she would go with him to a 'wilderness' where her 'enemies' could

not see or hear them.Mary was later convinced that thewayo man placed a charm on her at this point, because she agreed to enter a vehicle with him and drive away to a secluded location. Certainly Mary was always adamantly against me doing such a thing, even refusing to enter taxiswith me at times if therewere 'suspicious' passengers already inside, so her ready acceptance of this ridewas unusual forher. Once in the 'wilderness' (an open space outside of thecity), theman and his accomplices

in the taxi convinced her that she harbored something likewitchcraft substance, and that

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this evil medicine prevented her frommarrying well or conceiving a child for her then boyfriend. The original wayo man took her away from the taxi and into thebrush, where

he asked her to examine her genitals privately for any signs of thismedicine. When she reported that she did not find anything, he volunteered to do his own inspection. Again, Mary, a relativelymodest Catholic woman, submitted to this intimate operation without

any protest. The tricksterthenproduced a 'hair something' which he claimed was one of a twinpair ofmedicines, and told his victim that the rest of themagical object could only be obtained from her body by a rigorous course of prayer and Christian medicines which

would be very expensive toprepare. Using this threatto her fertilityand futurewell-being as a lever, thewayo man soon convinced Mary to open her purse and give him the40 naira

(then about tenU. S. dollars, a significant sum) she carried with her. who thenwanted Mary togo home toOnitsha This, of course, did not satisfy the trickster, and fetchher savings (some 100 naira or 25 U. S. dollars) and borrowmore cash fromher boyfriend and relations inEnugu in order to pay for the entire course of treatment.Mary,

remembering her examination the next day, refused to leave Enugu but did agree to go to her boyfriend and see if she could borrowmoney fromhim for thispurpose. Before leaving the taxi, thewayo men did relieve her of her small, gold necklace as insurance. Fortunately,

when she arrived at her boyfriend's office, he refused to give up anymoney and was able to break the charm.Mary lost her spendingmoney, her necklace and some of her dignity, but she was not robbed of everything she owned. The wayo men, naturally,were never caught, even thoughMary and her boyfriend reported the incident to theEnugu police. By August, stories like thatofMary's were commonplace within and around themarkets

and not only around themarkets, because reports of the 'dupers' also showed up in the popular press. The basic elements of all these duping rumors followed a similar pattern: a young woman, alone in a motorpark, a market or waiting for transportalong the side of a busy street,would be picked up by young men in a taxi or a private car. These men were afternot only her cash but also any wealth she could elicit from her credulous relations. Once in the car, the young woman would be exposed to a charm thatwould

cause her to lose her senses or to behave irresponsibly.The market or motorpark-based tricksterswould then convince her that something was wrong with her fertilityor that she had unnamed 'enemies' who were standing in theway of her prosperity.This would usually be followed by an inspection or some other type of bodily operation, focused on the young women's genitalia. An object, or 'poison', would be found inside her body, but shewould be told that thisonly represented part of her problem. The rest of the 'poison' or

substance could only be eradicated by giving money or other, portable wealth to themen who proposed to save her.Mary's evangelical Christian elaboration was not present in all versions. In some, the duped woman was told that sorcerers or witches were explicitly the cause of her poisoning/problems. These women did not mention prayer so much as counter-medicines to be prepared. Of course, Mary's version also implies medicines were needed, but evangelical Christian practices frame the Mary, of course, trickery.11 succeeded in escaping with a payment of no more than 40 naira; more generally, women (ormarket raconteurs) reported losses of hundreds and even thousands of naira.

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'False Prophets' and Mobile Girls The duping craze lasted until at least intoNovember, when I ran across a finalnewspaper piece on it.However, by then I had ceased to hear itmentioned in casual conversation around themarkets. The last newspaper article, entitled 'False prophets jailed' (Weekly

Star, Nov. 8, 1987), appeared on the bottom frontpage of the Sunday edition and told the storyof how a formervictim recognized her dupers and brought police to arrest them while in the act of tricking yet another young woman. According to theWeekly Star's reporter,Nnamdi Chukwujindu, in Ihiala (a town to the south ofOnitsha and Enugu), the 'false prophets' were 'convicted for indecently assaulting one Philomena Chukwulota by putting fingers inside her private part and also stealing her 86 naira.' In an echo ofMary's narrative, we also learn that the dupers took away Miss Chukwulota's ring, telling her itwas 'part of the poison'. But what most interestedme in the article was the (female)

magistrate's reported commentary during sentencing: 'Mrs.W. C. Muoneke observed that some youths were increasingly becoming decadent, and advised people to be very careful in order not to fall victims to these type of tricksters.' statement is important, because it touches on certain questions that lie Muoneke's at the heart of these rumors' popularity. In focusing on the 'decadence of youth', the magistrate was not only chiding theperpetrators of the crime, but also itsreal and potential victims, young women who need 'to be very careful' when they travel outside theirnatal compounds, whether to themarkets or the even more perilous motorparks. A major - and a theme that continues to popular theme all throughoutmy fieldwork in 1987-88 be potent in the 1990s by all reports was the perceived danger of transport,especially for young people.12 These stories of inappropriate or wrongful transportwere generally also stories about inappropriate or wrongful (social and sexual) reproduction.Within

contemporary southeasternNigerian urban folklore, at least, transportseems tobe equated with eroticism: unproductive, if temporarilypleasurable, sexuality. As we see inMary's andMiss Chukwulota's tales, young women's mobility can also lead to sexualized fraud or exploitation. No real pleasure is involved for the victims; they are duped and taken away from places of relative safety into the place of danger, par excellence, for Igbo speaking peoples, the 'wilderness' or 'bush'. Once removed from thepublic, social space

ofmarkets, streets ormotorparks into thisnonsocial, inappropriate space by strangers in an unknown conveyance, often filledwith strangers, the 'false prophets' may do anything with them. In 'thisNigeria', where transportshould signal familiar pleasures ofmodernity, notably speed and the transcendence of local boundaries and institutions,we find instead in these rumors a sense that- for one gender, at least - rapidly going beyond spatial boundaries who marking lineage or familial control is a dangerous proposition. It is the (male) trickster emerges as the person best able to inhabit the 'non-spaces' of transport, likemotorparks or the itinerate taxis thatoffer indiscriminatemovement formoney, working his charms

on thosewho are most vulnerable and taking from them the fruitsof theirmodern labors in the cities. Historically, Igbo-speaking towns in the southeast depended on women's

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movement across the landscape, but thesewere movements of exogamous marriage that allied patrilineages and patrilineal men, or theywere directed movements of mature women from one marketplace

to another,making wealth thatwould bring fame to and enable the circulation of goods between the towns where women had married. More randommovements ofwomen in the cities, based upon their individual desires formoney or professional attainment in response to emerging, urban commodity cultures, were

perceived as subversive of older, gendered canons of cosmography (that is, behavior coded in spatial and moral terms).

Among other things, the new women's movements in the cities were a direct inversion of the type of wealth transaction that should accompany a young woman's reproductive sexual activities: bridewealth payments at her marriage. Igbo bridewealth - or, in some - is cases, brideservice generally supposed to be paid to the bride's patrilineage by the groom's, as a token of the loss of the bride's productive and reproductive capacities. And marriage is one of the reasons for a young woman's proper business in themarketplace, since it is there that she may meet a mate or hear about potential partners. It is also to themarketplace thather older, female relatives will go to uncover information about

theirprospective in-laws. Freedom of young female movement does not, in these stories, equate to the appropriate relations that should be established through themarket. Using

their 'decadent' tricks, thedupers ensure a reverse flow ofwealth and a very inappropriate relation with their youthful victims. The young, duped woman herself, with personal moneys throughwork in the urban sector,must yield up her savings in order to 'protect' her fertility,and her kin group can be required to pay as well. The young dupers thus gain access towomen's bodies and to large amounts of cash that theywould more regularly be expected to pay for the privilege. It is also probably significant that some of the stories

mentioned extortions in the thousands of naira, since bridewealth payments outside of Onitsha were rumored to be in just this range, and junior Onitsha traders (of the same age

group as the alleged wayo men) often felt that these amounts were tantamount to extortion of their substance by seniormen.

The spatial location ofmoneymaking is crucial in the rumors about market/motorpark tricksters,both for the trick itself and for these stories' temporary, late 1980s centrality in

what we might call the 'rumor economy' of Onitsha's markets. These are stories directly tied to themarketplace and its transportationneeds. The dupes cannot take place without the availability of this space of transportfor the tricksters;a space that is open, that invites

anonymity by the sheer volume of people passing in and out of it at any given time and that gives the opportunity and leisure for victim selection. Motorparks are also spaces where rumor thrives and, indeed, where it is considered a valuable currency.13 In this case, the fruit of rumored action does not drop very far from the site of its planting. People within themotorpark are quintessentially actors ofmodernity, people in a hurry ; people 'going somewhere', both literally and figuratively.And ithas been mainly in the second half of this century, after the intrusion of western values thatwe associate with modernity, thatyoung Igbo women have takenpart in theunrestrictedbustle of commercial transport.

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Prior to thatperiod, young women were kept closer to theirhomes, except for approved tripswith agemates toneighboring villagegroups fordances and other social events (which

often took place in themarket spaces of those villages). Such tripswere historically an important part of Igbo matchmaking as well as a local form of leisure entertainment. As we know from the public complaints of senior, Igbo-speaking women from the late 1920s onwards, young women were discouraged from seeking gainful employment in southeastern Nigeria's growing urban centers, and those who did find this type of employment were often stigmatized as prostitutes or 'loose women'. These strictureshave changed, however, because of thevarious pressures ofmodernity on Igbo family groups not the least ofwhich is for all members of the family towork in order tomake itpossible for the family as a whole to live a reasonably good lifewithin the city. The 'good life' of the city is shown to have its price in these rumors, and it is a price extracted directly from the largely unsupervised young women who make up a growing section of theurban population. Since theyoung women have disposable income, theyare

made the targetsof wayo men, who might have disdained to bother them in earlier times because theywould have had little to steal. Like the traders in some of the rumors about market fires above, young, 'modern' women have accumulated wealth outside the official channels once available to them; theyhave become strangers in theirnatal patrilineages, not easily controllable and no longer as useful for solidifying the ties between men. Their

What is threatening, spatial andmoral mobility, in these stories, isperceived as threatening. inpopular cultures of rumor, is often sanctioned - sometimes violently - within the frame

of the rumor narrative. In this case, women are robbed not only ofmoney but of control over theirbodies and are oppressed by a sense of failing fertilityand lost domesticity. In the next section of the article, we will see another vulnerable group associated with fertilityand the potency of patrilineages supposedly targeted for 'poison' and another group associated directly with a powerful sign of western modernity biomedicine

presented as malefactors.

'The Atrocity of the Drug Markets

Sellers':

Rumors

about Poison Medicine

in Onitsha

During April and May of 1987, while Onitsha's markets were reeling from the blow dealt to them in the form of fire and before I became aware of the growing plague of wayo men, a new set of rumors swept throughout southeasternNigeria. This scandal first arose outside themarketsystem, although within the urban areas of Onitsha and Enugu, where a number of people were supposed to have fallen ill and even died after taking routinemalaria medications. The Enugu scandal was, by far, theworst, since the victims were said to be very young children who had been dosed by theirparents with medicine bought in the local marketplace, Ogbete. (This was themarket whose motorpark would prove so dangerous toMary in June). Even thoughEnugu was the home of the poisoned children, Onitsha's reputationwas impugned, because the city's Bridgehead Market was

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the wholesale supplier of medications for the entire region. Nontraders immediately blamed theOnitsha Bridgehead 'pharmacy section', saying that traders therehad allowed malaria medicines to go bad due to a lack of refrigerationor throughcontamination while diluting and rebottling the syrups and pills. Accusations escalated beyond this,however, when newspapers reported thatdoctors at theUniversity of Nsukka teaching hospital in Enugu were suspicious thatthe fatalmalaria medicines had been deliberately contaminated or even poisoned. (It is not clear if thiswas ever any physician's stated suspicion, but it was reported as fact, and not only in thenewspapers). Feelings ran very high against ndi afia (traders) inBridgehead who hoped to escape the opprobrium being heaped upon the heads of putatively arsonous traders elsewhere in the system.One of theirmore charitable criticswrote a letter to the editor in the state news 'Asmoney is the root of all evils, they say, daily thatonly accused them ofmalfeasance:

the root of adulteration is a blend of both money and pharmacists.'14 In other areas, and by other, less charitable people, theBridgehead pharmacy section was bluntly accused of murder. Some people, incensed by the spectacle of infants and toddlers being mourned by grieving parents on the daily front-pages, actually marched on theBridgehead market and demanded that thepharmacists be handed over for summary judgment and execution.

This did not happen, but thepharmacy section remained under a cloud of suspicion for the rest ofmy stay in the field, and traders there refused to be interviewed, partially because theywere afraid I really represented theparents of thedead children (who did put together a lawsuit,without much success) or themedia. The scandal about Bridgehead took a fairly predictable form, at least at first. Stories circulated within the other parts of themarketsystem suggesting thatBridgehead 'patent medicine' Onitsha's

traders regularly adulterated theirwares. This, according to my friends in indigenous population, was laughable since theywere sure that all products

available in themarket were adulterated or faked in one way or another.15Complete denial reigned inBridgehead itself,meanwhile, and Bridgehead traders toldme darkly that the

enemies of themarket were obviously at work. After autopsies were performed on some of thedead children inEnugu, rumors of poison became rampant, as did rumors that soon

the government would make arrests among the traders of the pharmacy section.When asked why the traders inBridgehead would poison theirconstituency, Iwas rewardedwith incredulous looks. 'It's all profit', one trader inOchanja Relief toldme. 'They just fill the

medicine bottles with whatever theyhave at hand, whatever is less costly.And thenwe all suffer.'

This statementabout theprice of pure profit, takenout in thebodily sufferingof theentire group, was not the only such statement I heard over the next several months. However, I also heard rumor versions of the 'poison medicine' story that spoke to the same theme in a differentregister. Some ofmy market 'customers' eventually felt that the poisoning

had been more malevolently directed than theOchanja Relief trader's analysis. They told me that the pharmacy section had targeted children, and that the poisoning was part of a conspiratorial plot that involved 'traditional herbalists' as well. As a woman trader at General (an open air fruitmarket located across from one of Onitsha's

several hospitals)

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pointed out tome, while selling bananas, the traders at Bridgehead are all men, and the pharmacy section contains many herbalists as well as purveyors of patent medicines: 'What do men care about the lives of children? They think they can make any number of them. But we women sufferfor it.' Her theorywas that the herbalists agreed to supply thepharmacists with deadly, local ingredients - in effect, transformingthe taintedmalaria medicines into powerful 'traditionalmedicines' - meant to take the lives of the young. These medicines, inmy 'customer's' estimation,would thenmystically send the life-force or essence from the dead children back to the greedy men inBridgehead, where itwould be converted into enhanced trading skills and money.16 Such accusations were never publicly made towards theBridgehead traders,but they were certainly aware that thiswas being said among their colleagues and outside the market system. Inmost Igbo-speaking groups, death is always perceived as intentional always at the behest of some agent or agents and in the sensational deaths of young

children, traced to taintedmedication, those agents could be easily discerned. In an effort to represent themselves as largely innocent of thiswrongdoing, the traders took action against theirown. WTiat Mr. Nze, another traderfromOchanja Relief, described tome as a 'commando troop' of pharmacy traderswas sent, duringMay, throughout the section

to find and destroy taintedmedicines and 'imitation drugs'. This radical operation on themarket's poisonous body took place in secrecy, with no warning given to any of

the targeted traders or to the press, but its results were publicized in themedia during June.The then-general secretary of theOnitsha Patent and ProprietaryMedicine Dealers'

Union, Mr. Eddy O. Emedosi, called on the newspapers to let them know of the action and to denounce 'these people [who] brought the fakemedicines intoOnitsha only to give Onitsha bad name and kill the reputation.'17Unfortunately, the very secrecy of the drug

destruction played against the pharmacy section in the court of Onitsha scandal; itwas a general consensus that the destruction had been cosmetic only something in the light of a witch ordeal run by witches. Some traders and their evil practices were no doubt

uncovered, butMr. Nze and his friendswere sure that themost egregious perpetrators were the richest andmost powerfulmembers of theunion - in effect, its executive branch. These were the very people who had ordered and gave instructions for the 'commando raid' in the firstplace. Individual, or elite group, profitwas guarded, but themany courts of rumorwithin Onitsha's marketplaces withheld judgment as to their realmoral verdict on

the case.

The court of public opinion did not have long to wait before it received new and damning evidence. Only a few days afterMr. Emedosi made his pronouncement about

the 'commando raid', one of thePatentMedicine Dealers' Association's most prominent members was foundmurdered in Ihiala (which, inNovember, would host the last public sightings of the dupers discussed above). This murder became a cause celebre, because

themurderers were found to be a cabal consisting of an evangelical Christian pastor, the pastor's wife and a number of othermembers of theCovenant Sabbath Mission. According

topublished reports, InnocentNwaru had gone to theCovenant Sabbath Mission to request prayers forhis business and was killed in a scheme to relieve him of a great deal ofmoney.

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The police foundMr. Nwaru's body inside the church building, but the guilty church members had escaped inNwaru's Mercedes during the interim. This, at least, was the story reported in the press for the consumption of urban elites literate inEnglish. In Onitsha market scandal, Mr. Nwaru did not figure as quite such an

innocent victim. The opinion ofmany traders outside the pharmacy section was thatMr. Nwaru had reaped what he had sown; that theMission and its communicants were part of theplot to poison medicines, and that they took revenge onMr. Nwaru for the union's In effect, these rumors conflated the evangelical Christians with the 'traditional herbalists' who my trader connection at General blamed. Both sets of religious practitioners were seen as culpable and prepared decision to destroy tainted goods still at Bridgehead.

to engage inmoney magic, under the guise of healing people.18 According toMr. Nze and his colleagues, Mr. Nwaru had lived and died by the sword; the newspapers could say what they liked. Now the poison medicine scandal had a fittingend, and the various

market cultures could turn theirattentions elsewhere.

Conclusions:

Rumor and Scandalmongering

as a Trade

In her ethnography of verbal communication inPapua New Guinea, Karen J.Brison notes thatrumors are an accepted part of thediscourse of dispute among inhabitantsofEast Sepik Province: 'almost everyone in the community preferred to avoid open confrontation and

criticism and to cast theircomplaints about theirneighbors and kin in veiled, ambiguous language. In thisway, people could mobilize public opinion against those they did not like, or could try to get people to behave better' (Brison 1992:78). This was certainly

the case in Onitsha as well, and not only in those organized arenas of dispute that are of particular interest to Brison. Although rumor and scandal could be, and often were, utilized to bring people together at public meetings inOnitsha, I would suggest that they could be an even more powerful tool when used in the seemingly private conversations that take place in 'public' spaces like themarketplace and themotorpark. These rumors or scandalous productions were everyday oratorial forms thathad their conventions but

thatalso required an ability on thepart of the rumormonger (a term inEnglish thatmakes a direct connection between making rumor and market trading) to improvise, tomove quickly with themarket, themotorpark or some more general, prevailing sentiment. In

this sense, themaking and spreading of rumor/scandal is a recognized verbal, rhetorical and social practice, integrally connected to the largerpraxis of being ndi afia (a person of themarketplace) in southeasternNigeria.

Part of the practice of spreading scandal inOnitsha's markets depended on choosing the correct auditor, at the correctmoment, and this appears to be consistent with other descriptions of scandal we have. Besides the sheer, sensuous pleasure of spreading rumor, the scandal practitioner tends tohave action inmind, and he or shewishes todirect popular consciousness along certain avenues through the use of narrative. As Carlo Ginzberg (1991:12) points out inEcstasies, his work on the ideological and folkloric construction

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of theWitches'

Sabbath inmedieval and earlymodern Europe, propagating scandal also on depends propagating conspiracy, which is itself 'only an extreme, almost caricatured instance of a much more complex phenomenon: the attempt to transform (ormanipulate) society'. In the cases I have very brieflybegun tounpack above, we can see some gestures towards the type of social transformation,or manipulation, thatmost interestOnitsha's

rumormongers. The rumors thatwere most popular were the rumors that spoke toperceived social ills, even if in a veiled fashion. Indeed, itcould be argued that some of the excitement

of hearing rumor and scandal was in tryingto engage in an analytic exercise of discovering what was 'really' behind any given tale. The more arcane the rumor, themore discussion

was provoked in themarketplace (and outside of it) about how best to decode, or make familiar, its contents. For instance, in each set of stories above, themoral character of people engaged in the

individualistic pursuit of money is presented as questionable, at best. We might say, in the case of the constantly burningmarketplace, there is even a sense that the earth deity who may be overtly rejected by some Christians but who continues to hold powerful - is shown in revolt sway in various parts of the Igbo imaginary nonetheless against this self-orientedpursuit.Market burning is not only the source of scandal in these tellings but a cosmographic rendering of themoral dis-ease behind the scandal. (That is, a mapping out ofmoral questions upon physical space; in this instance, themarketplaces of Onitsha physically burn in response to the indignation of the earth).

In the case of thewayo men and their too-mobile, female victims, general Nigerian anxieties about women's transforming roles in the urban economy are clearly being expressed. However, it is also possible to think, since women spread these stories and figure centrally in them, thatwomen's experience of sexual exploitation at the hands

of 'stranger' men is also being represented and socially examined. Certainly I heard these stories told among young women as cautionary tales that seemed to have quite a different valence thanwhen senior men or senior women were the storytellers.Where elders emphasized the irresponsibility and heedlessness of the victim, as well as the cunning of the dupers, young women, talking among themselves, emphasized theirown vulnerability in going about the town, often interjecting incidentswhere theywere almost

enticed into entering strange vehicles but saved at the last second by some instinct for flight. In these tellings, dupers became almost indistinguishable from young men driving about in flashy automobiles, displaying wealth that could only come from inappropriate

sources (like the emerging culture of Nigerian drug smuggling), or predatory seniormen inMercedes Benz 'Z-Boots' who made promises to personable young coeds about new wardrobes, trips abroad and apartments in the fashionable sections of the city. Rumors

about poisoned medicines spoke most obviously to a sense of infrastructuralcollapse in the country, and an understanding of how human greed for 'easymoney' played a role in that cascading collapse. They also spoke to themoral outrage thatmany ordinary people felt about the diminution of their own trust in the institutionsof modernity; the failure

not only of western medical practices but the possibility that, like the diluted and altered a drugs,modernity itself could be penetrated, changed and made into sham by thosewho

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present it to the public. The cynical targetingof children, themselves a sign of futurity, was understood bymany as themost horrificpart of the rumored crime, since it suggested - in thatcorruptNigerians were not only destroying the nation's present butmortgaging - its future. the term's oldest sense ofmaking a pledge dependent on someone's death We might think,then,of these scandals as purposeful pieces of an intentionalwhole, with specificmeanings adhering to thepatterns of the scandalous stories,but specificmeanings thatneed to be seen in the larger social context of not only themarket but Igbo-speaking

Onitsha (and maybe Nigeria or global capitalism) as a whole. Here we must necessarily agree with Mbembe (1992:3), who notes that the 'postcolony is chaotically pluralistic, yet... has nonetheless an internal coherence'. People's experience of Onitsha was often

couched inwhat might appear to be chaotic terms, yet certain spatially encoded, moral markers, like themarketplace, helped them to represent theperceived chaos in a logically coherent and judgmental fashion. In the late 1980s, Onitsha residents and indigenes sensed somethingwrong with theircity and placed theburden of thatwrongness squarely within theboundaries of the town'smarkets, but by definition thatmeant that thewrongness was

diffuse and spreading. Everything in themarket (or themotorpark) circulates, and it is not really possible to stop the course of thatcirculation once ithas begun. But that is not to say

thatmoral commentaries are impossible tomake, in a climate of constant transformation.It is, perhaps, to say thatmoral commentaries in such a climate must necessarily be oblique, metaphoric, pointing to the general ambiance rather than naming specific names and trying too hard to reify specific categories. Scandal and rumor in a climate of continual transformationmay well represent an attempt tomove the transformation in particular

directions or, at least, tomake a human intervention in the relentlessly ongoing social discussion.

The relative success of thesemoral interventionsprobably cannot be measured in some empirical fashion. Scandals, like popular cultures themselves, have no real endings. They simply transmute into another form,maintaining traces of theirpasts. Markets are still and, we should note, elsewhere in theworld, as we watch the price burning inNigeria of 'futures' drop globally - new sets of wayo men ply the highways, motorparks and

electronicmedia of the country,and people are now scrutinizing one of theirstarch staples, gari (processed cassava), for signs of poison, along with theirmedicines. Anthropologists

and otherswho are interested in questions of popular consciousness and popular memory can record and attempt to fix and analyze, in our texts,only a fraction of these discourses. Meanwhile, rumormongers throughout theworld, inevery society,proceed with theirtrade, using theirunderstanding of everyday experiences to reinvent and exchange glimpses of social life,as well as tohighlight itspitfalls and rewards, inword colors richer and stranger thanmere description can allow.

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Notes months in 1987-88, by an IIE Fulbright 1. My fieldworkwas generouslysupported,duringfifteen Scholarship.

2. Here I am using 'scandal' as it is used byMerry (1984:275): 'Scandal occurs when gossip is elevated

into the public

arena, when

knows

everyone

what

everyone

knows.'

It is often

or by theviolation of such a basic normor tabu thatthe precipitatedby a public confrontation information

the alleged

about

incident can circulate

without

an accompanying

evaluation.

3. Fabian (1997:32) very rightlysuggeststhat 'theconcept of popular cultureenables us to think about

not only

culture

in the plural

but as

in itself plural. Moral

authority

and

constraints,

rationalconsistencyand purpose (all of thissupportedby clearlydefinedroles and institutions)

once projected onto culture as a system. Such a view must give way to considering culture a praxis that also entails contradiction, in short, negativity and experimentation; contestation, and freedom.'

were

4.

I do not have the space here to go at length into the painful historyof arson and fire in Nigerian

public

1992).

In order

spaces

since

the colonial

Instead

period.

I recommend

the reader

to C. Onyeka

Nwanunobi's 1990Africa article on this subject or to chapter7 inmy dissertation(Bastian Nigeria 5.

has

to put Onitsha's market fires suffered a spate of public burnings in the population. and suspicion

unhappiness Church Missionary to burn arsonists

larger context, we should note that in its recent history that causes a great deal of

into some

Society (Anglican) missionaries, close the factories, or warehouses,

however,

attempts by unknown in 1879, so the market

recorded

to the waterside

historyofmysteriousfires inOnitsha's markets reachesback at leastfiftyyears earlier.(A brief account of the 1879 firecan be found in theCMS archives for theNigerMission, document CA3/04/630, a letterfrommissionaryPerry toBishop Crowtherdated February7, 1879). 6.

See, for example,

H. K. Henderson

(1969:279)

for a brief discussion

of women's

ritual associated

with thewatery shrinesnext toOtu Nkwo/MainMarket, and (291-95) foramuch more lengthy in Onitsha the major ceremony purification other activities, carried firebrands through the market,

of osekwulo,

discussion Mothers,

among

town, when burning

the Town

away

nso ani

(abominationson the land).This ritualwas witnessed as early as 1857 but seems tohave been

curtailed

by the 1930s, when

the arsonous

market

burnings

began

to be recorded.

7. Although thisoccurred threeyearsbefore I arrivedinOnitsha, feelings stillranhigh inboth the for Onitsha the 'village' indigenes, over the events of 1984. The these old feelings and stories to resurface. in the face of grave events has not only survived but flourishes national pessimism This Nigerian to the abuses of the Abacha in the 1990s. It was a hallmark of Nigerian regime, public response activists in 1995 and the subsequent after the execution of the Ogoni repression of particularly and most media all public demonstration reporters made much of response. North American

market

and

in Inland Town,

fires of 1987 caused

8.

thishopeless pessimism earlier in 1998when theyfinallyenteredNigeria to cover thecrisis over thedeaths of bothGeneral Abacha and political prisonerMoshood Abiola. 9. These rumorsalso, no doubt,have a longhistorythat might be tracedwith thekind of archival research research,

this I have not undertaken of Onitsha market fires above. that informs my discussion so will not be able to represent their history here. I am grateful for comments made

about thisproblem in an earlierdraftof thepaper by PeterGeschiere andwish I could satisfy his (andmy own) curiosityabout this.However, I do note thatAndreski (1970:98-103) took an oral historyfroma coastal southeastern Nigerian woman in the late 1960s inwhich the of a 'money doubler'. readily idenitifed herself as the widow to make cash grow tricksters' who propose still are, 'confidence

woman and

Money

doublers

through magical

were, means.

Andreski's (1970:99) intervieweewas quite candid about the reasons her husband turnedto

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and doubling in his former business

or 1930s:

in the 1920s

'occultism'

money

[being an herbalist

and

there was

'he realized

not much money

She also makes

'native doctor'].'

little difference

betweenher latehusband's skillsatmoney doubling and his abilitytoraise thedead formystical discussions.Colonial anthropologist NorthcoteThomas (1913:42) also says thatnorthernIgbo 'nativedoctors' in 1911 confided inhim thattheyactually saw nothingwhen theyclaimed to sense thepresence of spiritsbut thattheirsupposed visionswere good forextortingcash from them. It is thus clear that the commodification of magical services and to that effect have a history in southeastern Nigeria that stretches at least to the early of this century.

those who rumors decades

retained

a stranger of what constitutes question number of anthropologists. See, for example,

10. The

in African Shack

is one

societies

and Skinner

that has

a

concerned

(1979).

11.We might say thatthepoint ismoot, since evangelicalChristianityincontemporary West Africa often addresses

the same

concerns

and partakes

of many

of the same practices

as

indigenous

religions.See, forexample,BirgitMeyer's (1992) wonderfulpiece on evangelicals inGhana: a Devil,

'IfYou Are 12. See

Bastian The

Nigeria.

aWitch

You Are

chapter is also encouraged

reader

aWitch,

and, If You Are

3 for more

1992,

on

You Are

a Devil.'

the theme

of dangerous transport to look at Nigerian fiction formore poetic

in southeastern representations

of thisdanger,notablyBen Okri's 1991 novel The Famished Road. There is a growing literature

on

as

roads

transgressive

spaces

throughout

Africa

as well.

for example,

See,

Auslander

andMasquelier's pieces inComaroff and Comaroff (1993), Devisch's (1995) notion of 'the 1997 begins with predatory economy of the street', and Giles-Vernick (forthcoming). Geschiere a very evocative tale having a similar theme, drawing on a personal in early 1970s experience southeastern Cameroon. 13. See

Bastian

1995

for a more

argument is basically within the motorpark,

detailed

that rumor and

of motorparks and rumor as currency. My a means offers motorpark denizens of exchange the park while they themselves are not inmotion.

discussion scandal

a way of 'moving' C. in a letter to the editor in theMay from Inland Town, Onitsha, Chukwudi, 18, 1987 Ifeanyi was very probably an onye onicha as I Star. Mr. Chukwudi who, Daily (Onitsha indigene) have noted already, were notoriously antitrader during this period. 15. Labels for instance, were routinely pasted into locally produced giving an Italian provenance, friends footwear, and designer knockoff labels could be seen in ready-made clothing. My Onitsha 14.

were

also concerned that even locally produced laundry detergent was somehow tampered with, was periodically in the marketplace. unavailable they swore that 'real Coca-Cola' (This to the owners of Coca-Cola's last, of course, would be very distressing copyright and patents, as the epitome of 'the real who like to tout the soft drink in North America thing'.) Traders and

even while I watched sometimes them paste in the shoe labels. routinely denied this practice, 16. This interpretation was in the spirit of much rumor discourse current in about 'money magic'

the late 1980s. See, fora comparativeNigerian example,Matory (1994:67-8).

17. Quoted

in 'Patent Medicine

Union

Declares

War

against

Fake

Drugs',

a front-page

article

in

theDaily Star, 6/9/87. 18. On September28, 1996 theconnectionbetweenpentecostal religiousgroups andmoneymagic would when

once again erupt into consciousness, popular the Overcomers Christian Church in Owerri,

this time with Imo State was

force, greater destructive to house two human

found

skulls. In the so-calledOtokoto Riots thatfollowed,a good deal ofOwerriMain Market was torched, along with the houses of several of Owerri's were rumored to take part in the stealing

of whom

most wealthy and prominent citizens, all of children for 'ritual murder'. This was

widely reportedin both the internaland immigrant Nigerian press, and a group of Owerri's richest young men was

eventually

executed

for the crime. See

Ige (1996).

130 This content downloaded from 208.95.48.254 on Sat, 19 Dec 2015 13:21:06 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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