The Student-Smith: Apprenticeship and Graduation:

An Awka boy would start very early to learn the art of smithing – at about the age of seven or eight. He would come under the tutelage of a master and follow him on his travels. At first he learnt how to work the bellows; then he learnt how to make chains by beating out old bits of brass into fine wire and fashioning them into links; then he learnt to make the needles called ụmụmụ, formerly used as currency before the introduction of cowries. Then he went on to learn how to make razors (ọkwa isi), native pen-knives, finger rings, etc. Then larger objects like hoes and axes.

In the final stage of his education, he learnt how to make a gun. Making guns weren’t easy because the smiths didn’t know the technique for fashioning the hollow pipes that served as barrels. Mostly, they obtained old flint-locks, and re-fashioned them into cap-guns.

Revd Basden (earlier noted) visited Awka in 1904 and left us this account of an Awka smith:

‘In another shop I saw a smith make all the essential parts of the lock of a gun. He manufactured his own taps and dies from pieces of cutlass. In this instance, the man had made every part of the gun except the barrel, the stocks and fittings being so well executed that one could scarcely distinguish the result from a European-made article. I inquired whether he could construct a gun completely, and he replied that he could as far as the forging was concerned, but he knew no method for tampering the barrel, and therefore there was no use his making that.’

Writing in 1992, Amanke Okafor added:

‘It was gun-smithing, however, that enabled Oka [Awka] to penetrate Yorubaland. While Yoruba used nails and riveted their gun parts, Oka used screws. Oka guns could be taken to pieces and re-assembled.’

So, when a student-smith was able to manufacture guns (or more accurately, re-fashion flint-locks into cap-guns), he was qualified and a ‘graduation’ ceremony was organized for him. By this time, he was usually in his late twenties, having been an apprentice for the better part of two decades! Master smiths from different places assembled and were feasted by the new graduate for a day or two. Jointly, the assembled maestros produced the basic tools of blacksmithing for the new entrant into their order. This ceremony was known as Mma Òtùtù.