Ibeno Tee · Plate VIII · The Atlantic Shore · Pre-Order (Ships ASAP)

Ibeno holds one of the longest beaches on the Gulf of Guinea — a fishing people of the open Atlantic shore. The plate gives the ocean two-thirds of the field: a masted canoe riding the wave rules. Navy shirt carries cream ink; white shirt carries deep survey navy.

Hero cut of Plate VIII from the Three Waters Collection. NINE PEOPLES · THREE WATERS.

History

The Ibeno face the open Atlantic along one of the longest natural beaches on the Gulf of Guinea, a people whose whole history was written in surf: deep-water fishermen launching masted canoes through the breakers where estuary peoples dared not go. Their shore entered mission history in 1887, when Samuel Bill of the Qua Iboe Mission made his landing among the Ibeno and built his first station there. A century later the same coast became the base of Nigeria's offshore oil industry — but before the terminals, and beneath them still, Ibeno's claim is the oldest one: the people of the open shore.