Makera's Holiday Bonfire

Random finds by archaeologists—and later special scientific research—helped revive the tragic picture of the fall of the Benin kingdom. And now the pages of life, everyday habits, and the morals of a hardworking people come alive before us, the people who created their own distinctive culture.

Makera—in the Hausa language, “blacksmith.” The boy got his name “Makera” on the day it was still difficult to say whether he would be a blacksmith, a weaver, or a hunter. And whether he would live at all in the world. After all, very few children of the Hausa survived to such an age when you could already say that the spirits of the ancestors protected them and granted them life. The little ones often died long before they had even started walking and saying the word “mama.”

However, the boy’s father, the blacksmith Bakhago, prayed before the clay altar where a wooden head of his grandfather stood, and offered a sacrifice to the spirits of the ancestors. He believed—he was sure—that his son would grow up and become a good blacksmith.

Bakhago was considered lucky. Of his six children, only three died when they were still very tiny; and the other three sons grew up and began helping their father. Now, when the fourth son was crying in the hut, Bakhago was diligently working over a wooden vessel filled with earth, palm oil, the bones of a young antelope, and the feathers of colorful parrots. Then he called his wife and ordered that the baby be given some fura—liquid millet porridge, which adults drink with cow’s milk, and children with their mother’s milk…