03/09/2026
THE KALABARI BEKINBO: THE WHITE MAN WHO BECAME A KEEPER OF KALABARI MEMORY
What would make a British scholar leave Britain, settle in Buguma, marry into a Kalabari family, and become so deeply involved in Kalabari culture that he was eventually accepted into one of its most respected traditional societies? What would make a man born thousands of miles away from the Niger Delta devote decades of his life to understanding not merely the academic dimensions of a people, but their history, language, traditions, religion, masquerades, music, stories and way of life?
This is the remarkable story of Professor Robin Gray Hutton, the British scholar whom many Kalabari came to affectionately know as “Kalabari Bekinbo” — the Kalabari white man.
Hutton was not born Kalabari. He came from Britain, carrying with him the background and education of a British scholar. Yet his story reminds us that the place where a person is born is not necessarily the only place that can become home. Sometimes, a person's deepest connection to a place is created through years of living among its people, learning their ways, earning their trust and developing a genuine affection for their culture.
Hutton's Nigerian journey began in the 1950s. Over time, he chose the Kalabari-Ijo people as a major field of study and eventually made Buguma, the traditional and cultural centre of the Kalabari Kingdom, his home. But what distinguished his experience from that of a scholar who merely visits a community to conduct research was the depth of his involvement.
He did not simply observe the Kalabari from the outside. He lived among them. He listened to their elders. He learned from their chiefs, traditional practitioners, drummers and storytellers. He married into the community and raised a family there. Gradually, the people he had originally come to study became part of his own life, and the culture he had approached as a subject of academic inquiry became a world in which he himself participated.
That is what makes the story of Professor Robin Gray Hutton so fascinating.
FROM SCHOLAR TO “KALABARI BEKINBO”
To understand the significance of the name Kalabari Bekinbo, one has to appreciate the extraordinary depth of Hutton's engagement with Kalabari society. Imagine a British scholar becoming so knowledgeable about Kalabari history, traditional religion, masquerades, drums, stories and customs that members of the community themselves began to regard him as a repository of knowledge about their own past.
That was Hutton's remarkable journey.
For decades, Buguma became his great classroom. His education did not come only from books, archives or university lectures. Much of it came directly from the people who carried Kalabari knowledge in their memories — the elders who remembered old events, chiefs who understood traditional institutions, practitioners who preserved religious knowledge, drummers who understood the language of rhythm, and storytellers who carried generations of history through oral tradition.
His greatest classroom, therefore, was not a university lecture hall in Ife, Ibadan or Port Harcourt. It was Buguma itself.
In that environment, knowledge was not always written down. It was spoken, performed, sung, danced and transmitted from one generation to another. Hutton understood the importance of this form of knowledge and devoted himself to learning from those who possessed it.
Perhaps one of the most remarkable expressions of this cultural relationship was his membership of the Kalabari Ekine Sekiapu Society.
For those unfamiliar with Kalabari culture, Ekine Sekiapu is far more than a dancing group. It is an institution deeply connected with the preservation, performance and transmission of Kalabari traditional culture. Through its masquerades, dances, drums, rituals and social practices, the institution has historically played an important role in the traditional and social life of the Kalabari people.
For a foreign scholar to become deeply associated with such an institution was therefore no ordinary achievement.
THE BRITON WHO ENTERED EKINE
This is where Hutton's story becomes even more extraordinary.
The Ekine Sekiapu was traditionally an exclusively male institution deeply rooted in Kalabari tradition. Yet this British scholar was given the rare opportunity to become a member. His acceptance into that cultural world speaks not merely to the knowledge he accumulated, but to the level of trust and respect he developed within the community.
Why would a traditional institution allow an outsider to become part of its world?
Perhaps the answer lies in the way Hutton approached the people whose culture he wanted to understand.
He did not simply arrive, collect information and return to Britain. He stayed. He listened. He asked questions. He learned from those who knew. And, perhaps most importantly, he kept asking questions.
His curiosity appears to have become one of the defining characteristics of his relationship with Kalabari traditional knowledge.
His traditional drum name was reportedly “Tubo Ebeji Wula Wula Okolobiobi.” The name has been associated with his extraordinary appetite for knowledge and his persistent habit of seeking out people who possessed information about old stories, traditions, folklore and community history.
There is something profound about that.
In many traditional African societies, knowledge of the past was preserved primarily through human memory. An elder could carry within his or her memory the history of a family, a community, a traditional institution or an important event that might never have been recorded in a written document.
Hutton appeared to understand the vulnerability of such knowledge. If the people who carried those memories died without passing them on, generations of knowledge could disappear with them.
His persistent questioning was therefore not simply academic curiosity. It became part of his effort to understand and document a cultural world whose knowledge was often preserved through oral tradition.
HE KNEW THE LANGUAGE OF THE DRUMS
One of the most fascinating aspects of Hutton's relationship with Kalabari culture was his knowledge of its masquerade traditions and the musical systems associated with them.
He became familiar with the masquerades, their performances and the drums that accompanied them. He was said to know the drumbeats and names associated with different communities and villages within the Kalabari Kingdom.
Think about what that means.
A man born in Britain, thousands of miles away from the Niger Delta, had spent so much time immersed in Kalabari society that he became familiar with aspects of its cultural expression that many ordinary members of the community might never have taken the time to study deeply.
That goes beyond ordinary scholarship.
That is cultural immersion.
During the 1991 and 2009 Owu-Aru-Sun cultural celebrations, as well as some major Sekiapu masquerade displays in Buguma City, Hutton was visibly present as a member of the Kalabari Ekine Sekiapu. He was not simply a detached observer standing at a distance with a notebook.
He participated.
He danced. He observed the movements and steps associated with the different performances. He listened carefully to the drumbeats and paid attention to the paraphernalia associated with the different masquerades. In such moments, the distinction between the foreign scholar and the community he was studying appeared to become increasingly blurred.
He was a Briton by birth, but he had become deeply identified with the Kalabari cultural environment in which he had spent so much of his life.
WHY EKINE SEKIAPU MATTERS
To fully appreciate Hutton's connection with Ekine, it is important to understand that the Kalabari Ekine Sekiapu Society cannot simply be reduced to colourful masquerades, elaborate costumes and dancing.
Behind the drums, masks, movements and performances are layers of history, spirituality, social organisation, identity and collective memory.
The masquerades are connected with the Kalabari understanding of the water world and with traditional religious beliefs. Their performances are therefore not merely entertainment. They represent a cultural language through which history, belief, identity and social values can be expressed.
The famous Owu-Aru-Sun masquerade festival, for example, brings together many of the masquerade traditions associated with the society in a major cultural celebration.
Historical accounts have also described the Ekine Sekiapu Society as having played important roles in traditional governance and the preservation of customs. Consequently, Hutton's entry into Ekine should not be viewed simply as a foreigner being invited to participate in a social or cultural club.
He was entering a living institution of knowledge.
Indeed, one might describe Ekine as a living library — a library without shelves, where knowledge is preserved through performance and memory.
In that library, the drum can become a book, the masquerade can become a story, the dance can become history, and the elder can become an archive.
This is perhaps one of the most important lessons that can be drawn from Hutton's life.
WHAT CAN THE WORLD LEARN FROM HUTTON?
Modern society often associates knowledge with universities, laboratories, libraries, archives and written books. These institutions are undoubtedly important, but the story of Robin Hutton reminds us that knowledge can also live in people.
Communities themselves are repositories of knowledge.
Every community carries stories about where it came from. Every culture has traditions that explain its understanding of the world. Every traditional institution has memories, practices and values that may not exist in written form.
The danger is that such knowledge can disappear when the people who carry it pass away.
An elder may carry the memory of an event that happened decades ago. A traditional drummer may know the meaning of rhythms that cannot easily be explained in writing. A storyteller may remember genealogies, legends and community histories passed down through generations. A masquerade performer may understand the significance of movements and symbols that an outsider could easily mistake for simple entertainment.
Hutton appears to have understood this world of knowledge and the importance of recording, studying and preserving it.
He spent decades trying to understand the Kalabari world from within rather than merely looking at it from the outside. His scholarship therefore became more than an academic exercise. It became part of the wider body of knowledge through which the world came to understand aspects of African culture and society.
That is why his contribution should not be remembered simply as the story of a British cultural anthropologist who became fascinated by the Kalabari-Ijo.
It is the story of a scholar who gradually crossed the boundary between observer and participant.
He came as an outsider.
But he stayed long enough to become an insider.
He learned the traditions, listened to the people, participated in their cultural institutions and eventually earned a place within the cultural world he had spent his life trying to understand.
And perhaps that is one of the most remarkable aspects of the story: the people he studied eventually became the people among whom he lived, built relationships and found a home.
THE KALABARI BEKINBO
Professor Robin Hutton died in 2019 at the age of 87 and was buried in Abbi Ama, in the cemetery reserved for royalty.
There could hardly be a more powerful symbol of the relationship he developed with the people and culture to which he devoted so much of his life.
He arrived as a Briton.
But over the decades, he became Kalabari Bekinbo.
The name represented more than his physical presence among the Kalabari. It reflected a relationship that had developed through years of learning, participation, respect and cultural engagement.
And what he left behind was more valuable than a collection of academic papers.
He left memory.
He helped preserve stories, traditions, observations and knowledge that might otherwise have remained locked inside the memories of elders and gradually disappeared with the passing of generations.
Perhaps that is the greatest tribute that can be paid to his life.
He did not simply study the Kalabari people.
He helped the world listen to them.
His story is therefore not merely about a British scholar who came to Nigeria and became fascinated by the culture of the Kalabari-Ijo. It is the story of Professor Robin Gray Hutton — “The Kalabari Bekinbo” — the white man who found a second home on the banks of the Niger Delta.
And perhaps there is a deeper lesson in his journey.
Sometimes, the most beautiful history is not written only by those who were born inside a culture. Sometimes, it is also preserved by those who came from outside, cared enough to listen, stayed long enough to understand, and respected the people enough to help preserve what they had inherited from their ancestors.
That may ultimately be the enduring legacy of Kalabari Bekinbo.
He came to study a people.
He remained to understand them.
And in the process, he became part of the memory of the people he had come to study.
© Eleiyi Taylor-Harry, 2026