A great deal has been written about the colonial conquest of Africa, from the perspectives of both the conquerors and the conquered. Primary resistance has come and gone as an ‘in’ topic in African Studies. Yet to the extent that such literature deals with the colonial conquest, it has been within a structural-functional framework, focusing on social, political, and economic factors. Possible cultural and psychological aspects have been relegated to the occasional vague comment. More often, these latter elements have tended to be assumed, rather than demonstrated, and then generally in the hindsight of nationalist manipulation of oral traditions in the process of decolonization. Only through the elucidation of meaning to participants of events can we transform them from the status of ‘objects of study’ to ‘subjects in action.’
This paper examines the impact of colonial conquest of the Eggon of central Nigeria in terms of a reconstruction of indigenous institutions of warfare, in particular, Eggon concepts of ritual warfare and its functions. What met in the Mada Hills were not merely two disproportionately armed fighting forces, but two different military ideologies (for want of a more apt phrase), representing two quite different perceived, experienced, and constructed realities. The impact of that confrontation was such that it has been transformed into a prototype myth encompassing the colonial experience of all Eggon, not just those directly involved in the Wulko hills campaign.