Otobo is among the most celebrated of the Kalabari water-people, a spirit conceived as part man and part hippopotamus, the great river-horse of the Delta creeks. In masquerade song he is hailed as the beast who holds up even the flowing tide, an image of overwhelming force. His is a fierce and dangerous play: the masker charges through the dancing ground and may injure others, his cap-crest fusing human and hippopotamus features and his display sometimes ringed with palm stalks and monkey skulls. As one of the owuamapu he embodies the wild power of the waters that the Ekine society draws into the town for his festival.