Excerpt from Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria

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Printed pages from Northcote Thomas's 1914 anthropological report showing Igbo folktales and English translations.

Pages from Northcote Thomas's Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria; Part IV: Proverbs, Stories, Tones in Ibo (London, 1914).

A photograph depicting three sequential pages (81, 82, and 83) from Northcote Thomas's 1914 publication, Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria, Part IV: Proverbs, Stories, Tones in Ibo. The pages feature a dual-script format with a primary language using a modified Latin alphabet with extensive diacritics, accompanied by English translations. Page 81 includes the story of the blind man, cripple, poor man, thief and the king (Record 613), and page 83 begins the story of the poor man's son and the rich man's son (Record 614). The document exhibits age-related yellowing of the paper and utilizes a serif typeface.

Community Notes

Onyeka Nwokike

Oct 13, 2026

These pages originate from Part VI of Northcote Thomas's 1914 publication, Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria: Proverbs, Stories, Tones in Ibo. While some archival metadata labels this document as Part IV, bibliographic records confirm Part IV specifically addressed the law and customs of the Asaba District, whereas Part VI served as a dedicated volume for linguistic specimens, including folklore and narratives.

Source: [Re:]Entanglements

Onyeka Nwokike

Oct 13, 2026

Record 613, titled The Story of the Blind Man, the Cripple, the Poor Man, the Thief and the King, was recorded on a wax cylinder in Asaba in 1913 (British Library C51/2930). The narrative follows the distribution of food by a king and the subsequent revelation of his secret, leading the king to direct a thief to rob the blind man and the cripple while sparing the poor man. The [Re:]Entanglements project has provided contemporary Standard Igbo re-transcriptions and translations of this folktale.

Onyeka Nwokike

Oct 13, 2026

The story on page 83, Akiko maka swobwei na swa qgalainya, is titled Akụkọ maka nwa ogbenye na nwa ọgaranya (The Story of the Poor Man's Son and the Rich Man's Son) in contemporary Igbo. Like Record 613, this narrative was also collected by Northcote Thomas in Asaba during his 1913 field research.

Onyeka Nwokike

Oct 13, 2026

Northcote Thomas employed a specialized phonetic transcription system for these reports, developed through his friendship with the noted phonetician Daniel Jones. This system utilized a modified Latin alphabet with extensive diacritics, such as sub-dots and accent marks, to represent the tonal qualities of the Igbo language. While modern linguists like Betram Okolo have criticized these early transcription efforts as inadequate, the records remain essential documentation for the study of early 20th-century Igbo dialects.

Source: [Re:]Entanglements