EMERGENT MASCULINITIES: THE GENDERED STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN
SOUTHEASTERN NIGERIA, 1850-1920
By
Leonard Ndubueze Mbah

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
History – Doctor of Philosophy
2013

ABSTRACT
EMERGENT MASCULINITIES: THE GENDERED STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN
SOUTHEASTERN NIGERIA, 1850-1920
By
Leonard Ndubueze Mbah
This dissertation uses oral history, written sources, and emic interpretations of material
culture and rituals to explore the impact of changes in gender constructions on the historical
processes of socio-political transformation among the Ohafia-Igbo of southeastern Nigeria
between 1850 and 1920. Centering Ohafia-Igbo men and women as innovative historical actors,
this dissertation examines the gendered impact of Ohafia-Igbo engagements with the Atlantic
and domestic slave trade, legitimate commerce, British colonialism, Scottish Christian
missionary evangelism, and Western education in the 19th and 20th centuries. It argues that the
struggles for social mobility, economic and political power between and among men and women
shaped dynamic constructions of gender identities in this West African society, and defined
changes in lineage ideologies, and the borrowing and adaptation of new political institutions. It
concludes that competitive performances of masculinity and political power by Ohafia men and
women underlines the dramatic shift from a pre-colonial period characterized by female breadwinners and more powerful and effective female socio-political institutions, to a colonial period
of male socio-political domination in southeastern Nigeria.

DEDICATION
To the memory of my father, late Chief Ndubueze C. Mbah, my mother, Mrs. Janet Mbah, my
teachers and Ohafia-Igbo men and women, whose forbearance made this study a reality.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my profound gratitude to Professor Nwando Achebe, for providing me
the opportunity to pursue a doctoral degree in African History at Michigan State University. She
recruited me from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, upon the completion of my B.A. in History
in 2007. Thank you Professor Achebe and Professor Folu Ogundimu for providing me a home
away from home at Michigan State University, and supporting me in every manner possible
throughout my career as a graduate student at MSU.
I could not have gone to college in Nigeria, following the passing of my beloved father,
had not my dear sister, Chinyere Okpalugo, stepped in to bear all of the costs for my college, as
well as those of my siblings. I wish to use this medium to thank my sister for her steadfast love
and kindness. In the same vein, I thank my family for all their moral support and prayers,
particularly my mother, Janet Mbah, whose night vigil prayers at the alter of our Holy Mother,
and whose unceasing Holy Mass bookings, provided me a formidable source of strength. I thank
Menna Baumann for all her love, support and understanding. I also thank Joseph Davey for his
friendship, and for being a brother I could always rely upon.
My academic journey thus far has been made possible by a number of mentors. I heartily
thank Prof. Onwuka Njoku, for his intellectual support and guidance, for introducing me to the
Ohafia community and facilitating my ethnographic research, and for our numerous international
phone calls during which he provided me profound clarity and emic perspectives to make better
sense of my ethnographic material. I also thank Professors Uchenna Anyanwu, Okoro Ijeoma,
Egodi Uchendu, Esedebe, and J.O. Ahazuem, who provided the bedrock of my professional
training as a historian, at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. I want to thank my dissertation

iv

committee: Professors Nwando Achebe, Peter Alegi, James Pritchett, and Gordon Stewart. I
benefitted immensely from my classes and intellectual exchanges with Professors David
Robinson and Walter Hawthorne.
The research and writing of this dissertation was made possible by a number of good
people. Funding came from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, MSU’s
College of Social Sciences, and the Department of History. I wish to thank my cousins, Chinelo
Igbokwe and Bernard Mbah, without whose support the London leg of my research would have
been impossible. I hereby express my profound gratitude to all of the Ohafia women and men,
who gave freely of their time and energy to provide the rich ethnographic material upon which
this dissertation is based. I thank my three research assistants, Chief Ndukwe Otta, Elder Uduma
Uka, and Mr. Ifeanyi Ukoha, who guided me through every inch of the rough and tumble field.
I thank Peter Limb, MSU Africana bibliographer, for finding several rare publications for
me. I wish to thank Robbie Mitchell, Kenneth Dunn and Alison Metcalfe, special materials
manuscript curators at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Their wonderful assistance
made my research on the Church of Scotland Mission archives most fruitful and efficient. I thank
the staff of the British National Archives, who made my two-month archival research very
productive and stress-free. I also thank the under-paid but cheerful staff of the Nigerian National
Archives Enugu and Ibadan, for patiently working with me, to mine as much as possible from the
endangered archives of my beloved country. I wish to use this medium to solicit the support of
scholars of Nigerian history and academic and cultural heritage agencies, in preserving these
Nigerian archives. Last but not least, I thank Dr. Hedda Baumann for painstakingly proofreading
this dissertation.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES

ix

INTRODUCTION
The Periodization of Ohafia-Igbo History: A Window into Changes in Gender
Construction and Gendered Power
Gendered Memories and the Periodization of Ohafia-Igbo History
Sources
Written Sources
Men’s Words, Women’s Worldview:
Oral Sources, Historical Ethnography, and Positionality
Literature Review
Writings on Ohafia and Igboland
Literature on Gender and Masculinities in Africa
Discourses of African Matriliny: A Brief Survey of Literature
A Brief Note on How this Dissertation Engages with the Scholarship on the
Atlantic Slave Trade and African Slavery
Summary of Chapters

1

CHAPTER ONE: ORIGIN STORIES: HISTORICIZING THE SOCIAL
CONFIGURATION OF OHAFIA-IGBO SOCIETY
Traditions of Origin, Migration and Settlement
Matriliny and Gendered Power: A Historical Background
Anyi Eri Ala a Nne - We Eat Through the Mother: Matriliny, Economy
and the Breadwinner Concept
Ancestral Worship and Ududu Veneration: The Construction and
Maintenance of a Matriarchy
The Matrifocal Definition of Ohafia-Igbo Citizenship
Ikwu Nwe Ali - The Matrilineage Owns the Land: Gendered Implications of Changes in
Property Ownership and Inheritance Among the Ohafia-Igbo, 1850-1920
Ohafia: A Matrilineal Igbo Society?
Conclusion
CHAPTER TWO: THE GENDERED SOCIO-POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF
THE OHAFIA-IGBO, 1850-1900
Defining the Problem: The Notion of Invisible and Docile Women
Uke (the Age Grade): A Distinct Ohafia-Igbo Socio-Political System
Uke: A Mechanism of Gendered Socialization
Uke Ji Ogo: The Age Grade System of Gendered Political Organization
Ezie Ogo, Nde-Ichin and Akpan: The Men’s Court, 1850-1900
The Men’s Court and Its Power Limits

vi

5
18
21
22
31
43
43
51
73
81
85

89
89
101
108
117
123
132
143
149

150
151
155
157
163
169
173

Ezie Nwami, Ndi-Ichin and Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom: An Outline of the Socio-Political
Make-Up and Prerogatives of the Women’s Court, 1850-1900
Ikpirikpe Political Enforcement Strategies between 1850 and 1900
Rituals as Institutions of Government
The Fallacy of Women’s Invisibility: The Publicity of Female Political Organization
Conclusion

176
191
204
214
221

CHAPTER THREE: PERFORMING UFIEM: THE SOCIO-CULTURAL CONSTITUTION
OF NDI IKIKE (WARRIOR) MASCULINITIES, 1850-1900
209
Igba Nnunu (To Kill a Bird): Gendering through Games
225
Post-Igba Nnunu Man Making Games
234
How Ndi Ikike (Warriors) Became Ndi Ikom (the Real Men)
239
O Chi Udo Eje Ogu [He That Goes To War With A Rope]: The Transformation of
Igbu Ishi [To Cut A Head] from a Defense Mechanism to Ufiem Habitus
242
The Organization of Warfare
255
Ohafia Inter-Group Relations: Beyond Warfare
263
A Celebration of the Head Was a Celebration of Masculinity: The Ite-Odo Society and the
Construction of Ndi Ikike Social Hegemony in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries. 270
The Myth of Cannibalism
280
The Geography of Masculinity
286
Iri-Aha: The Reproduction and Performance of “Tradition,”
Hegemony, and Identity, 1850-1920
297
Conclusion
303
CHAPTER FOUR: INSTITUTIONS OF MASCULINITY, 1850-1900
Secret Societies as Institutions of Masculinities
Theorizing Gender Construction through the Lens of Ohafia Secret Societies
Men of Spirits: An Overview of Ohafia Dibia Institution, 1850-1900
Dibia Hierarchies and Conceptions of Dibia Masculinity, 1850-1900
The Initiation Process and the Performance of Dibia Masculinity
Theorizing Dibia Masculinity and Dibia Power Through Umerogwu Performance
Di Nta: The Gendering of an Economic Activity, 1850-1900
Historicizing Nde Ofia (Hunters’) Narratives as a Lens into Socio-Political Change
and Ogaranya Masculinity Performance among the Ohafia-Igbo
Igwa Nnu: The Masculinity of Yam Production
Conclusion

304
305
320
322
329
332
342
352
363
369
381

CHAPTER FIVE: TRADERS, CONVERTS, WAGE LABORERS, COLONIZED:
EMERGENT MASCULINITIES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF OGARANYA
MASCULINITY, 1900-1920
383
Ogaranya Masculinity and the Making of Spiritual Slaves, 1900-1920: An Introductory
Background to Changing Constructions of Ufiem in the Early 20th Century
385
Ohafia Material Culture and the Memorialization of Historical Change: A Conceptual
Background to Changing Constructions of Ufiem in the Early 20th Century
391

vii

Upstarts and Warrant-Chiefs: Kalu Ezelu Uwaoma and the Redefinitions of Ufiem
in the Early 20th Century
Christianity and Missionary Education: The Making of Presbyterian Masculinities,
Male Breadwinners and “Good Christian Wives”
Women Reconfiguring Ufiem: Long Distance Trade and Ogaranya Masculinity
in the Early 20th Century
Conclusion

393
412
436
451

CONCLUSION

453

APPENDIX: GLOSSARY OF TERMS

461

BIBLIOGRAPHY

465

viii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Map of Igboland

90

Figure 2: Map of Ohafia-Igbo and their Neighbors

91

Figure 3: Murral Painting at Obu Ndi Idika, Mgbaga, Elu Village, Ohafia,
Photographed by Author.

288

Figure 4: Murral Painting at Obu Ndi Idika, Mgbaga, Elu Village, Ohafia,
Photographed by Author.

288

Figure 5: Murral Painting at Obu Ndi Ezera, Asaga Village, Ohafia,
Photographed by Author.

289

Figure 6: Obon Preparation, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

307

Figure 7: Obon Preparation, Asaga Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

308

Figure 8: Site of iwa anya/itu ogwu ritual and umerogwu burial and ressurrection
performance, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

338

Figure 9: Umerogwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author

343

Figure 10: Umerogwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author

343

Figure 11: Nde Apupa, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

347

Figure 12: Nde ughara mmonwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

348

Figure 13: Onye ughara mmonwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

348

Figure 14: Chief Torti Kalu of Amuma Village, Ohafia: Wild Animal Skulls Trophy
on the wall of his living room. Photographed by Author.

357

Figure 15: Ite Nde Ofia (Hunters’ Pot) at Amuma, Ohafia. Photographed by Author.

358

Figure 16: Trophies of Ogbuka Ogbuka Abaa of Isigwu: Buffalo Horn, Rotax Bullet,
Traditional Hunter’s Night Head-Light and Modern Head-Lamp.
Photographed by Author.

358

Figure 17: Chief Torti Kalu’s Performance of Igwa Nnu at Amuma, Ohafia, 1952.

380

Figure 18: Family Tree Sketch of Unyang Uka

446

ix

INTRODUCTION
th

This dissertation is a study of gendered identity formation and social change in 19 and
th

20 century Ohafia, the only matrilineal society among the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria.
Comprised of twenty-six villages (two of which are now almost extinct), Ohafia has a current
population estimate of 125,000. It covers about 110 square miles of territory in the western part
of the middle Cross River region, and marks the eastern limit of Igboland. Various non-Igbo
1

ethnic communities bound Ohafia in the north, south, and west. Between the 16th and 18th
centuries, the Ohafia-Igbo people borrowed and adapted institutions and practices such as secret
societies, an age-grade system of political administration, and a matrilineal kinship system from
2

their non-Igbo neighbors. The adaptation of these institutions and their roles in the dynamic
constructions of gender identities between the 19th and 20th centuries, center Ohafia-Igbo
individuals in complex processes of social change in southeastern Nigeria. As this study will
show, Ohafia pioneered the expansion of the Igbo ethnic group into the Cross River region
between the 1500s and 1650s, and were at the center of militant slave production in the Bight of
3

Biafra, between the 1650s and 1850s. As a frontier Igbo community, the Ohafia-Igbo evidence
the social changes that followed British colonial and European missionary penetration of

1

NAI CSO 26/3 File 29196. C.J. Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 58;
Philip Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 1,
10; Onwuka Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo Society (Nigeria: Whytam Press, 2000), vi. Mayne’s
estimate of Ohafia population in the 1930s was 24, 556. Nsugbe’s 1960s estimate was 69,000.
Ohafia Local Government website shows 125,000 for 1999.
2
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 15; Chukwuma Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs of the
Ohafia Igbo: A Critical Analysis of their Characteristic Features in Relation to their Social
Functions” Ph.D. Thesis, (London, 1979), 22; Monday Abasiattai, Akwa Ibom and Cross River
States: the Land, the People and their Culture (Calabar: Wusen Press, 1987), 50.
3
See chapters 1 and 3.
1

Igboland at the turn of the 20th century. They thus provide a window into the major sociopolitical changes that took place in southeastern Nigeria before and after the 20th century.
“Emergent Masculinities” is a pioneer study of the constructions and transformations of
masculinities in pre-colonial Africa, and the first study of masculinities in southeastern Nigeria.
Locating masculinity (ufiem) as a concept within the cultural logic, norms, practices, and
institutions of Ohafia-Igbo society, this dissertation argues that the struggles for social mobility
and power between and among men and women shaped dynamic constructions of gender
identities in the society. By bringing the literature on female power and authority in West Africa
into dialogue with the nascent field of African masculinity studies, this dissertation argues that
4

masculinities and femininities were mutually constitutive (women’s actions shaped men’s lives
and vice versa), and defines the African gender system as one of power relations among men and
women and between men and women.
In theorizing masculinity as a historically constructed gender identity, this study
deconstructs assumptions of male power and patriarchy in the accepted narratives of African
5

lives, and examines the gendering of identities as a historical process that entailed the
negotiation of power. “Emergent Masculinities” argues that ufiem (masculinity) was a historical
definition of power, in the sense that ufiem accomplishment vested social power in some men,
denied social privileges to other men, and did not enable men to exercise power over women
until the early colonial period (1900-1920). The few Ohafia men who accomplished ufiem did so

4

Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

5

Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,” 165-171; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo Society, 24; Mba,
Nigerian Women Mobilized, 27, 29, 37, 62; Lebeuf, “The Role of Women in the Political
Organization of African Societies,” 109, 113; Ifeka-Moller, “Female Militancy and Colonial
Revolt: The Women’s War of 1929, Eastern Nigeria,” in Ardener, ed., Perceiving Women, 134.
2

through hard work, and not because they were biologically male. In fact, many Ohafia men did
not accomplish ufiem, and were as such, ridiculed and victimized by both men and women.
In addition to playing key roles in defining the gender identities of men, Ohafia-Igbo
6

women also performed various forms of masculinity between 1850 and 1920. This study
contends that the changes in constructions of masculinities, and the changing performances of
female power and authority among the Ohafia-Igbo were correspondent. Before 1900, women’s
occasional and incidental performances of masculinity through military distinction were not
informed by a profound quest for political and economic power (chapter 3). However, as OhafiaIgbo women became increasingly marginalized from the dominant socio-political positions of
power in their society between 1900 and 1920 (chapter 5), they sought through their struggles, to
redefine existing conceptions of gendered spaces, roles and opportunities. During this period,
their performances of masculinity increased substantially, became a primary means of social
mobility, and constituted resistance to emergent European and African patriarchies.
7

Whereas existing scholarship argues that Igbo women occupied a subservient, or at best,
8

complementary position vis-à-vis men until colonialism led to the deterioration of their status,
6

See chapters 3 and 5.

7

For this view, see Nina Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized: Women's Political Activity in
Southern Nigeria, 1900-1965 (Berkeley, California: Institute of International Studies, University
of California, 1982), 37, 67, 87-89; Karen. Sacks, "An Overview of Women and Power in
Africa" in Jean F. O'Barr, ed., Perspectives On Power: Women in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Center for International Studies, 1982), 5-9;
Annie Lebeuf, “The Role of Women in the Political Organization of African Societies,” in D.
Paulme, ed., Women of Tropical Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 93-120;
Jean O'Barr, “African Women in Politics,” in Margaret Jean Hay and Sharon Sticher (eds.),
African Women South of the Sahara (London: Longman, 1984), 140-144.
8
For this view, see Nwando Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings: Female Power and
Authority in Northern Igboland, 1900-1960 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005); Kamene
Okonjo, “The Dual Sex Political System in Operation: Igbo Women and Community Politics in
Midwestern Nigeria” in Nancy Hafkin and Edna Bay (eds.), Women in Africa (Stanford,
3

this dissertation argues that Ohafia female socio-political institutional practices, rooted in the
power-base of a matrilineal kinship system, were until 1900, more powerful and more effective
than their male counterparts. Between 1850 and 1900, Ohafia-Igbo women were the major
9

breadwinners of their families, and they were central to the distribution of land and capital. The
gradual disempowerment of women is inseparable from the processes through which men
themselves came to dominate significant spheres of authority between 1900 and 1920.
Challenging the notion that pre-colonial Africa was comprised of social groups confined
within abiding structures and lacking in individualism until Western capitalist intervention,

10

this work argues that constructing new individual and collective identities for political purposes
was a real and immediate necessity in both pre-colonial and colonial Africa. The gendered
character of this identity formation underlines the dramatic shift from a pre-colonial period
characterized by more powerful and more effective female socio-political institutions, to a
colonial period of male socio-political domination in southeastern Nigeria.

California: Stanford University Press, 1976), 46-56; Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female
Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society (London: Zed Books Limited, 1989), 119-123;
Sylvia Leith-Ross, African Women: A Study of the Ibo of Nigeria (London: Faber & Faber,
1938), 19-21; Audrey Wipper, “Women's Voluntary Associations,” in Hay and Sticher (eds.),
African Women South of the Sahara, 70 and 86.
9
See chapters 1 and 2.
10

This is the dilemma at the heart of debates about the degree of the of impact of Atlantic
slavery on Africa (Eltis and Richardson 2008, Thornton 1998, Hawthorne 2008), whether
indigenous African slave systems were mild compared to New World slavery (Lovejoy 2000),
whether significant systems of knowledge were transferred from Africa to the New World
through the Atlantic slave trade (Matory 2005, Carney 2001, Sweet 2003, Hawthorne 2008),
whether Foucault’s notion of power/knowledge regime (Foucault 2002) is applicable to African
colonial contexts (Moore 1991, Hartsock 1990, Comaroff 1985, Sawicki 1986), whether private
property ownership existed in Africa pre-Western capital intervention, whether modernization
led to the disintegration of African cultures (Moore and Vaughan 1994, Holy 1986, Poewe 1980,
Vuyk 1991, Mahir 1992, Lovett 1997), and feminists preoccupation with the Western world’s
“Other-ing” of Africans as objects of knowledge (Nnaemeka 2005, Nnaemeka 1998, Oyewunmi
1997, Arnfred et al. 2004).
4

Lastly, the shifts in gendered power and identity performance among the Ohafia-Igbo
were shaped by both external and internal historical forces, and informed by preexisting
indigenous gender ideologies and historical gendered power contestation.

11

Thus, in theorizing

social change, this study interrogates the dialectics of individualism, subjectivity and
consciousness in the face of internal influences such as socio-political organization, migrations
and warfare, slave raiding and headhunting; and external influences such as the Atlantic slave
trade, British colonialism, Christian missionary evangelism, and Western education.
The Periodization of Ohafia-Igbo History: A Window into Changes in Gender
Construction and Gendered Power
The periodization of African history shapes the kind of history produced. A Eurocentric
periodization generates at best, a history of European agency and innovation and African
adaptation and resistance. An African-centered periodization emphasizes a history of African
identity making, which incorporated Europeans when they came into the picture. Thus, Ade
Ajayi noted in the 1960s, “Colonialism must be seen not as a complete departure from the

11

This study’s view that historical gender ideologies and internal historical processes informed
individuals’ engagements with new notions of masculinity introduced through the Atlantic slave
trade, Christian missionary evangelism and British colonialism, is informed by Prasenjit Duara’s
observation that new representations of social identity are informed by pre-existing historical
forms of identity. See Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning
Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 9. This view
challenges the notion that the spread of European empires and ideologies brought a global gender
order and a prospect of all indigenous gender regimes floundering under the institutional and
cultural pressure of colonialism and capitalism. As Stephen Miescher observed, while
colonialism led to a masculinization of African political systems, it did not lead to a collapse of
the indigenous gender system, which was fluid. See Stephan F. Miescher, Making Men in Ghana
(Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2005), 199. For the oppositional view, see R.W. Connell,
Masculinities (California: University of California Press, 1995), 199-200; Robert Morrell, “Of
Boys and Men: Masculinity and Gender in Southern Africa,” Journal of Southern African
Studies 24, 4 (1998), 612-619.
5

African past, but as one episode in the continuous flow of African history.”

12

This study

privileges an Ohafia-centered periodization, as it seeks to destabilize the sharp break with the
past, often found in historical and anthropological studies that define the 20th century as an
ethnographic baseline.
This study focuses primarily on the historical period from 1850 to 1920. The 1850s was a
period of intense socio-political change among the Ohafia-Igbo. While the Atlantic slave trade
was abolished in 1807, the British colonial government legalized domestic slave trade in
southeastern Nigeria until 1916.

13

Forging an alliance with the Aro, the Ohafia-Igbo played a

dominant role in militant slave production in the Biafran hinterland in the mid-19th century,

14

and the nascent legitimate commerce in palm produce occasioned widespread socio-political

12

J. F. A. Ajayi, “The Continuity of African Institutions under Colonialism,” In T. O. Ranger,
ed. Emerging Themes of African History (Dar es Salaam: East African Pub. House, 1968), 194.
13
British National Archives (BNA), CO (Colonial Office: Southern Nigeria Protectorate
Original Correspondence) 520/38, Dec. 1906 [88-91]; CO520/107, Nov. 23, 1911; CO520/123,
Mar. 1913; CO520/124, May 1913; CO520/126, July 1913; CO583/8, Dec. 1913; CO583/12,
April 1914; CO583/30, Feb. 1915; CO583/49, Nov. 1916. The British colonial government was
reluctant to acknowledge that the House Rule System was a slave system. After decades of
public outcry against the system, the government passed laws enabling slaves to purchase their
freedom. However, it soon discovered that this amendment generated “greater evils,” because of
the power it vested in slave owners, who increasingly made it impossible for slaves to gain their
freedom. Realizing that the petition of the governor of southern Nigeria to transform the Native
Houses into Trading Houses was a pretext to continue the slave system, the secretary of state for
the colonies called for its repeal. Increasing pressure from the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines
Protection Society mounted, and the Native House Rule System was repealed in January 1915.
The following year, the “Slavery Bill, 1916” abolished further enslavements in the region.
14
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 69-89; Arthur Glyn Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,”
The Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society, XIV (1898), 196-197; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A
Matrilineal Ibo, 13-15; Elizabeth Isichei, A History of the Igbo People (London: Macmillan
Press, 1976), 82; K.O. Dike and F.I. Ekejiuba, The Aro of South-eastern Nigeria, 1650-1980: A
study of Socio-Economic Formation and Transformation in Nigeria (Ibadan: University Press,
1990); J.N. Oriji, “Slave Trade, Warfare and Aro Expansion in the Igbo Hinterland,” GeneveAfrique 24, 2 (1986), 107-114.
6

transformations in the society. The 1920s witnessed the consolidation of colonial rule and
reflects the impact of Christian missionary evangelism in the society.

15

Between the two major time periods of this study, 1850-1920, Ohafia-Igbo people mostly
do not recall specific dates; rather, they recall specific events, social upheavals, and calamities,
as historical moments.

16

Thus, the first and second smallpox epidemics of the 1890s and 1918-

1919 respectively, are popularly recalled as mgbe ogarelu mbu (in the time of the first smallpox
epidemic) and mgbe ogarelu abuo (in the time of the second smallpox epidemic). Through the
records of Christian missionaries in the Cross River region, British colonial documents, and
secondary literature on southeastern Nigeria history, one is able to identify the specific time
periods referenced by the local time markers.

17

This mode of recalling the past is more useful in

shedding light on the impact of macro processes on local communities, because it captures
Africans’ historical experiences, as well as their innovation, adaptation, and resistance.

15

Both the Church of Scotland Mission and the British colonial government consolidated their
hold on Ohafia in the 1920s. Geoffrey Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns: Presbyterianism in
Nigeria, 1846-1966 (Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1988), 4, 39. The 1920s also
witnessed women’s economic backlash against men through revolutionary cassava production,
and invasion of hitherto exclusively male pursuits such as yam cultivation. See chapter 4.
16
Nwando Achebe made a similar observation in her study of Nsukka women. See Nwando
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings: Female Power and Authority in Northern
Igboland, 1900-1960 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005), 23-26.
17
“Collins, Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letters of: Letter from Collins Robert to Mr.
Ashcroft,” dated 7th May 1920, West Africa (National Library of Scotland, MS.7793); Dibia
Agwu Arua, oral interview by author; Elizabeth Isichei, Igbo Worlds: An Anthology of Oral
Histories and Historical Descriptions (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues,
1978), 231-232; Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 197; Ohadike, “The Influenza Pandemic of
1918-1919,” 179-191. The social malaise, which plagued the Ohafia-Igbo in the late 19th and
early 20th century, provided a fertile ground for the eager embrace of Presbyterian missionaries.
The Ohafia-Igbo had it so bad that following the second epidemic; British officials (Mr. Chubb
and Mr. A.I Weir) described them as “the poorest in the division” and recommended a 20-50%
reduction in taxes on the community. See NAE OW 342/27, ABADIST 8/11/2. L.T. Chubb,
“Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929,” 2-6.
7

In order to further ground the period, 1850-1920 within Ohafia-Igbo sense of historical
time, this dissertation delineates the Ohafia-Igbo concept of mgbe ichin (the olden days), by
which they refer to the entire period between the 16th and 20th centuries. The historical
memories within which the Ohafia-Igbo situate mgbe ichin fall within four successive time
periods: a period of migration and settlement — c. 1500-1650;

18

a period of slave production for

the Atlantic market — 1650-1820s; a period of slave production for domestic markets and long
distance trade mostly in palm produce — 1820-1880s;

18

19

and a period of European missionary

See G.I. Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, South Eastern Nigeria, 1905-1912
(Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1986), 1-2; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 1-15, 67;
Chukwuma Azuonye, “The Heroic Age of the Ohafia Igbo,” Geneve-Afrique 28, 1 (1990), 9;
A.O. Arua, A Short History of Ohafia (Enugu: Omnibus Press, 1951), 2; David Iyam, The
Broken Hoe: Cultural Reconfiguration in Biase Southeastern Nigeria (Illinois: The University of
Chicago Press, 1995), 4, 29-32; Monday Abasiattai, Akwa Ibom and Cross River States: the
Land, the People and their Culture (Calabar: Wusen Press, 1987), 8-11, 27-40, 48; Sandy O.
Onor, The Ejagham Nation in the Cross River Region of Nigeria (Ibadan: Kraft Books Limited,
1994), 13-31; Kannan K. Nair, Politics and Society in South Eastern Nigeria, 1841-1906
(London: Frank Cass, 1972), 3-4; David Northrup, Trade Without Rulers: Pre-Colonial
Economic Development in South-Eastern Nigeria (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 31-36, 119;
Kenneth O. Dike and Felicia Ekejiuba, “The Aro State: A Case-Study of State-Formation in
Southeastern Nigeria,” Journal of African Studies 5, 1 (1978), 273; John N. Oriji, Traditions of
Igbo Origin: A Study of Pre-Colonial Population Movements in Africa, Rvd. Ed. (New York:
Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 1994), 11.
19
Indeed, illegal slave trade across the Atlantic continued into the 1850s. While anti-slave
British squadrons patrolled the coasts of West Africa, several European and American slavers
still managed to load and ship slaves, sometimes using trade in palm oil as a cover for carrying
off slaves. For a long time, the British government could not sign any anti-slave treaty with New
Calabar (under King Amacree), and Spanish, Portuguese, and American ships continued to load
their cargo with slaves from the port of New Calabar. See BNA, FO84/858: “Slave Trade:
Africa, West Coast (Consular) – Mr. Beecroft, Mr. Fraser, and Mr. Hanson – Jan.-Dec. 1851,”
218-223; FO84/920: “Slave Trade: West Coast of Africa (Consular); January to December
1853,” 59-69; FO84/950: “Slave Trade: West Coast of Africa (Consular); January to December
1854,” 175-178. However, trade in palm oil and kernel peaked between 1820 and 1880, as the
coastal societies reorganized themselves into trading, as opposed to slaving houses, and
increasingly relied on the Igbo and Ibibio interior communities for their supplies. See FO84/950:
“Slave Trade: West Coast of Africa (Consular), January to December 1854,” 141-144. African
ex-slaves in the coastal communities of Calabar also joined the extensive trade in palm produce
between Europeans at the coast and Africans in the interior. See FO84/1001: “Slave Trade: West
8

evangelism and British colonial rule — 1890s-1960. It is necessary to understand Ohafia-Igbo
experiences of these pre-colonial socio-political processes couched within mgbe ichin reference,
to better comprehend the subsequent 20th century socio-political transformations.
The major changes in constructions of masculinities among the Ohafia-Igbo fit into this
indigenous mental map of historical change over distinctive time periods. Thus, between 1500
and 1650, as the Ohafia-Igbo sought to pacify a bellicose environment and defend their newly
acquired territories, warriors who went to war and brought back human heads were awarded the
title of ufiem, which meant the attainment of respectable manhood status in the society, hence
masculinity.

20

Men who failed to perform igbu ishi (“to cut a head”) were defined as ujo

(weak/coward/one who embodied fear). The word ujo in Igbo general usage means “fear.”
However, Ohafia people employ the term, as a noun in reference to an individual who embodies
fear; that is a coward. They also equate the ujo with onye ngolongo (a weak person). The ujo
were subjected to various social handicaps and discriminations (see chapter 3).

Coast of Africa (Consular); Bight of Biafra (Consul Hutchinson); January to December 1856,”
68-72, 156-176, 204-317. The palm produce trade inspired British intensified efforts to “open up
the interior” to “free trade.” In this regard, King Jaja of Opobo, Pepple of Bonny, and later, the
Aro people constituted obstacles, which the British government had to remove in order to reach
the “palm belt” of the Cross River peoples. See FO84/1001, 365-372; FO84/2020: “Africa (Slave
Trade), West Coast: “Africa (Slave Trade), West Coast: Consuls for the Oil Rivers– Hewett,
Munro, and Annesley; 1890,” 120-132. Also, the British Royal Niger Company was formed in
1885 to ensure effective extraction of surplus palm produce from the region. See FO84/1750:
“Africa (Slave Trade) West Coast – Consul for the Gold Coast: Griffith; Vice-Consuls for the
Oil Rivers: Johnston and White; January to December 1886,” 32-37, 43-54. The Ohafia-Igbo
belong to the Bende District of the Cross River Division of the Eastern Province, identified as
th
contributing the highest quota of palm produce in southeastern Nigeria in the 19 century. See
CO520/47: “Colonial Office: Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence; Governor,
th
nd
12 June to 22 July 1907,” 743-777.
20

See chapter 3 for detailed discussion.
9

Between 1650 and the 1820s, in the course of the Atlantic slave trade, live slave captives
came to symbolize “heads” cut by warriors to attain ufiem (masculinity).

21

Between the 1820s and 1880s, individuals who acquired wealth through trade, hunting
and yam cultivation, were said to have “cut heads,” and their masculinity performance took the
form of building hitherto non-existing modern story buildings with zinc roofs, marrying many
wives, and possessing many slaves.

22

Reflecting on this change among the Cross River peoples,

the Scottish missionary Mary Slessor observed in 1886, that “The people . . . are becoming quite
civilized and decent. They are getting houses of a better stamp, they have candles and paraffin
lamps, clocks, pictures, etc. and have begun to wear hats and boots and nice things.”
such individuals were said to have accomplished ogaranya (wealth) masculinity.

23

In Ohafia,

24

21

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, August 4,
2010; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem, Aug. 3,
2010; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu, Aug. 10, 2010;
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Aug. 5, 2010; Mr. Arunsi Kalu,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village, Aug. 15, 2011; Kalu Awa,
ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Dec. 12, 2011; Chief
Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ufiele Village. Oct. 27, 2011.
22
See chapter 4. Also see Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan,” p. 5.
23

The Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church, November 1886.

24

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group
Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral
interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo,
oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ufiele Village, Oct. 27, 2011; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author. Also see Felix K.
Ekechi, Tradition and Transformation in Eastern Nigeria: A Sociopolitical History of Owerri
and its Hinterland, 1902-1947 (Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1989), 145-146; Raphael C.
Njoku, African Cultural Values: Igbo Political Leadership in Colonial Nigeria, 1900-1966 (New
York: Routledge, 2006), 19-21. In his study of Igbo colonial society as a product of dialogue and
negotiations between “indigenous” and “Western” cultures, Njoku posits ogaranya as a
“syndrome,” bred by the slave trade, the increasing circulation of wealth, and the obsession with
foreign goods. He defines ogaranya as absolute patriarchs, emergent robber barons,
10

In the same logic, between the 1890s and 1920s, the academic degree became “heads”
that when brought home, established the passage to full manhood.

25

However, these changes in signification of masculinity achievement did not entail clean
breaks with the past. Thus, in the course of the Atlantic slave trade, warriors still cut heads to
perform ufiem in addition to capturing live captives defined as heads. This was similar to some
Ohafia-Igbo men who fought in the Nigerian-Biafran war (1967-1970) and saw the war as an
opportunity to decapitate enemy warriors and be celebrated as ufiem, sixty years after the
abolition of headhunting.

26

Also, hunters, dibia (medicine men and spirit-medium priests), and

yam farmers continued to perform the masculinity of their professions in the 20th century, as
they did in the pre-colonial period (see chapter 4). Moreover, some individual men and women

unscrupulous rogues, and corrupters of British colonial principles. This view was logical for the
author, who examines the historical roots of elite political corruption in modern Nigeria.
25
John McCall, Dancing Histories: Heuristic Ethnography with the Ohafia Igbo (Ann Arbor:
The University of Michigan Press, 2000), 73. In articulation of this accomplishment, the OhafiaIgbo say, “E gbughi m nke mma; mana e gbu m nke a fu anya” - “I did not cut a head with a
knife; but I cut that which is synonymous with a head.” Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by
author; Ezie-ogo Vasco U. Iro of Nkwebi Village, in council with elders of Nkwebi Village,
Group Interview with author, at Obu-Nta Kwebi, dig. voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011. For
Nwando Achebe’s concept of “full manhood,” see Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and
Kings, 206-215; Nwando Achebe, “And She Became a Man”: King Ahebi Ugbabe in the History
of Enugu-Ezike, Northern Igboland, 1880-1948,” in Lisa A. Lindsay and Stephan F. Miescher,
eds. Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003), 52-68;
Achebe, The Female King, 97-223.
26
OW 342/27, ABADIST 8/11/2. L.T. Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 19271929”; Onwuka Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia, 1900-1979,” University of Nigeria
Nsukka Press, Aug. 1981, 29; Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Amuke Village, Nov. 24, 2011; Ezie Uka Uduma Uka (Okpere Oha 1 of AkanuUkwu Autonomous Community), oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 2, 2011.
11

exploited these pre-colonial forms of gendered identities (dibia, yam farmer, and hunter) to
redefine the performance of ogaranya (wealth) masculinity in the 20th century.

27

Others incorporated 20th century material culture (such as cars and modern houses) into
the performance of ufiem. Before the 1820s, yam ownership was a major measure of wealth
among the Ohafia-Igbo and men, who produced over 8000 tubers of yam per year, were
celebrated as ogaranya.

28

th

Guns came into use in Ohafia in the 18 century, and by the 19

th

century, they had become the hunter’s chief weapon. Because guns were very expensive, the few
men who acquired them employed them as a symbol of social prestige and ogaranya
performance. Between the 1820s and the 1880s, ogaranya performance placed a premium on the
acquisition of palm plantations, massive use of slave labor in trade and agriculture, possession of
numerous wives and concubines, and the burial of deceased ogaranya with male slaves.
Similarly, individuals who acquired wealth in scarce European commodities such as kerosene
th

lanterns, and later, in the 20 century, bicycles and automobiles, were perceived as ogaranya.
While these various forms of ufiem coexisted, some enjoyed prominence in certain
periods of Ohafia-Igbo history, and this reflected the major socio-political transformations taking
place, not just in the society, but also in the region. These changes fall within the four major
time-periods of Ohafia-Igbo history thus established. In the changing constructions and
performances of ufiem, emphasis shifted from physical acquisition of heads (1500-1650), to the
capturing of slaves in warfare (1650-1820); and from trading wealth (1820-1880), to educational

27

The case-studies of Chief Otuwe Agwu and Unyang Uka, two of the few women, who
performed ogaranya masculinity and became female husbands, by exploiting membership of the
all-male dibia guild and long-distance trade, are discussed in chapter five.
28
Emea O. Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” Africa: Journal of the
International African Institute 51, 2 (1981), 694-705; Oriji, Traditions of Igbo Origin, 6.
12

accomplishments (1890-1920). Throughout these periods, the persistent and dominant idiom of
expressing masculinity, igbu ishi (to cut a head) was that of warrior masculinities. This reflected
the social hegemony that warrior masculinities held over other forms of ufiem (until 1900),
which this dissertation theorizes as subordinate and sometimes, subversive.
The persistent articulation of ufiem accomplishment in the form of wealth accumulation
and education as igbu ishi, into the 20th century was not so much a reflection of the continued
socio-political importance of warriors in the society during this period. Rather, by this time, the
idiom had gained a life of its own. It had become what Pierre Bourdieu defines as a habitus —
unconscious practices of social reproduction, continually shaped by individuals’ social
encounters and agency, and sustained through symbolic representation.

29

This habitus is evident

in the continued celebration of ufiem accomplishment today, through the Ohafia war dance,
historic praise singing, the celebration of secret societies, the beating of the ikoro war drum, and
the physical demarcations of gendered spaces within the landcape itself. In the same vein,
women’s rituals and political resistance strategies, which are still performed today, evidence
habitus, as much as consciousness, because they challenge emergent patriarchies in their society.
Indeed, the two broad time periods of Ohafia-Igbo history, 1820-1880 and 1890-1920,
underline the broad transition from a pre-colonial period of pronounced female economic and
political autonomy to a colonial period of declining female power and authority.

30

Between the

1820s and 1880s, the British colonial government sought to replace the slave trade with

29

Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1977), 79. Bourdieu has also defined the habitus as “a system of choices which no one makes.”
See Pierre Bourdieu and Alan C. M. Ross, The Algerians (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), 111.
30
The contrast in pre-colonial and colonial gendered power is examined in chapters 1, 2, and 5.
13

legitimate commerce.

31

However, the new “legitimate trade” relied upon indigenous slave labor

for palm produce, cocoa and rubber production until 1916.

32

Ohafia men’s dominant role in

militant slave production vested them with a new form of wealth, which few women possessed
— slaves.

33

The changing exploitation of slave labor was manifest in new oil palm, palm wine,

kola-nut and cocoa plantations,

34

which redefined indigenous practices of land tenure, and

threatened women’s position as primary transmitters of land in the society (see chapter 1).
Similarly, the gender-discriminatory nature of the European credit trust system, and the dangers
associated with long distance trade in legitimate commodities, enabled men to dominate this
trade, as opposed to women. The few women who acquired wealth in slaves and performed
ogaranya masculinity were perceived as men.

35

31

In addition to footnote 17 above, see Adiele E. Afigbo, Ropes of Sand: Studies in Igbo History
and Culture (Oxford, 1981), 241-242.
32
Ibid.
33

See chapter 3.

34

Individuals such as Nna Ekea discussed in chapter 4 and Kalu Ezelu discussed in chapter 5
established such plantations in Ohafia in the 1890s and in 1915, respectively. Mayne,
“Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41-44; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 122;
Eke Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography: The Autobiography of Mr. Eke Kalu, Ohaffia’s Wellhonored Son,” The Nigerian Field, Journal of the Nigerian Field Society, 7, 4 (October, 1938),
166; Mberi Ndukwe, “From Slavery to the Order of British Empire: A Biography of Chief Eke
Kalu Uwaoma of Ohafia” (B.A thesis, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, October 1998), 54; Chief
Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010; Elders of Umu-Anya Family, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu, Aug. 14, 2011; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo
of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice
recording, Aug. 18, 2011; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011.
35
For the case-study of one such woman, Unyang Uka (a.k.a Unyang Okpu Agu) discussed in
chapter 5, see Tessy Uzoma Odum, oral interview with author, digital voice recording, Ohafia
Local Government Council Office, Ebem Village, Sept. 5, 2011; Mr. E.I. Udensi, oral interview
by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village. Sept. 5, 2011.
14

Ohafia-Igbo men’s slave production also enabled them to introduce new secret societies
that excluded women and redefined the performances of masculinity and power in their society.
Ohafia-Igbo women’s resistance to these secret societies such as okonko limited its sociopolitical power and influence locally; unlike in Calabar and other parts of Igboland, where
okonko was gender-inclusive, and enjoyed preeminent socio-political influence (see chapter 4).
By the 19th century, okonko had become an important avenue for the performance of ogaranya
masculinity, and had spread to various parts of Igboland, whereas J.G.C. Allen observed, okonko
members “began to take over many duties which hitherto had been regarded as the prerogative of
the village council.”

36

Elizabeth Isichei confirms that during this period, the rule of the elders

was increasingly undermined by the rule of the wealthy and powerful.

37

Yet, in the Ohafia case, okonko never gained significant political influence, and women
maintained superior political authority until 1900 (see chapters 2 and 4). By examining
expressions of female power and authority between 1850 and 1900, this dissertation challenges
the prevailing view of Igbo women as subordinate to men in the pre-colonial period.

38

This

study also shows that Ohafia women maintained their enviable position as chief breadwinners of
their families until the first two decades of the 20th century (see chapters 1 and 5).
Women lost significant socio-political power between 1900 and 1920 — a fact
documented by several scholars of Igbo history.

39

Colonialism, Christianity, and Western

education became new frontiers for gendered contestation of power. The incursion of

36

NAE, E7021. J.G.C. Allen, “Intelligence Report on the Ngwa Clan, Vol. 1, 1933,” 41.

37

Elizabeth Isichei, A History of the Igbo People (London: Macmillan Press, 1976), 105.

38
39

For this view, see footnote 8 above.
See footnotes 8 and 9.
15

Presbyterian missionaries and British colonial forces

40

into Ohafia between 1897 and 1920

weakened the structure of Ohafia matrilineage in such a way that indigenous female religious
and political institutions declined while male-dominated institutions remained vibrant (see
chapter 5). Between 1901 and 1920, British colonial reforms of Ohafia-Igbo political systems
entailed the substitution of indigenous gendered political organizations with exclusively male
political institutions. Thus, the okonko gained legitimacy under British colonial rule, and the new
exclusively male warrant-chief system became the only recognized form of government within
the society (see chapter 5). In contrast, the office of the ezie-nwami (female ruler) appears as a
footnote in the colonial Intelligence Report on Ohafia society — a report upon which pro-male
and anti-female colonial reform of the society’s political administration was based. Also, the
Christian mission-run “Normal Schools” that emerged in the region between 1895 and 1919 did
not admit girls until the 1940s; and female-exclusive educational institutions, when they became
established, focused on domestic science and marriage training.

41

As a result, Ohafia-Igbo men,

not women, emerged as the new colonial elite who filled the ranks of teachers, pastors, clerks,
interpreters, and accountants in the colonial economy.
These politically powerful male breadwinners of the colonial period, who I call
“emergent masculinities,” because of the unprecedented socio-political power and privileges
they suddenly came to enjoy (see chapter 5), used their new wealth and position to redefine
gendered access to socio-political opportunities in society. Thus, the society’s public welfare
institutions, such as the age grade institution and the development unions, which hitherto
provided gender-inclusive assistance to Ohafia citizens, were galvanized in this period to sponsor
40

The British subdued Ohafia in the course of the 1901 Aro expedition. See Donald MacAlister,
“Aro Country, Southern Nigeria,” Scottish Geographical Magazine 18 (1902), 634.
41
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 224-228.
16

only male persons in pursuit of higher education (see chapter 5). As men consequently came to
replace women as the breadwinners of their families and increasingly performed ogaranya
masculinity during this period, the redefinition of gendered political power moved from the
public to the intimate spaces of the home.

42

In re-establishing their economic and political autonomy, Ohafia-Igbo women utilized
various indigenous institutions to resist disempowerment and negotiate new forms of privilege
and power. In this sense, women’s rituals and political negotiating strategies such as boycotts,
strike actions, deserting their homes en masse, and making war upon men, represent a conscious
effort to reclaim their place in society.

43

This revolution against emergent masculinities is also

borne out in the collective decision of Ohafia women to begin yam cultivation (the only food
crop which Ohafia men produced in the pre-colonial period) in 1919, against historic gender
practices, whereby men exclusively produced yam.

44

Through the life histories of Ohafia
th

women, who performed ogaranya masculinity in the first two decades of the 20 century, this
study shows that women, who found themselves on the margins of the colonial-cum-missionary
decision-making apparatuses, sought through their struggles to negotiate and transcend gendered

42

For instance, as chapter 5 shows, these emergent masculinities expressed their social status
through the practice of elite polygyny, and constantly denied women divorce petitions, by virtue
of their membership in the Prebyterian church councils and the colonial native court.
43
For similar arguments on Igbo women’s resistance, agency and power in the colonial period,
see footnotes 8 and 9. What is unique about my dissertation is that it seeks to establish the preeminent socio-political power that Ohafia-Igbo women enjoyed in the pre-colonial period, and
also links the devolution of femle power to changing constructions of masculinities.
44
The gendered power implication of yam production and its role in masculinity performance is
explored in chapter 4. Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga
Village. September 16, 2011; Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera of Ebem village, Group
Interview by author; Nmia Nnaya Agbai of Elu village, oral interview by author; Ikpirikpe Ndi
Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview; Chief Olua Iro Kalu of Ebem village, oral interview
by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author.
17

spaces, roles and opportunities. In so doing, they opened up the rules governing inclusion, and
redefined dominant culture. Thus, women who lacked access to western education and
employment in Christian churches and colonial service, took up long distance trade and dibia
practice — social positions hitherto monopolized by men — and performed ogaranya
masculinity like the warrant chiefs and western-educated elite of their day (see chapter 5).
Gendered Memories and the Periodization of Ohafia-Igbo History
The periodization of Ohafia-Igbo history is gendered in the manner in which men and
women recall the past. Ohafia-Igbo men and women’s historical memories privilege distinctive
historical periods. In recounting the central role of men in the consolidation of new territories
upon migration and settlement, as well as in slave production, Ohafia men’s oral traditions
emphasize the mgbe ichin periods, 1500-1650, and 1650-1820. However, Ohafia women’s oral
traditions situated within this period emphasize a different phenomenon, namely, the dominant
matrilineage system that they borrowed from their non-Igbo Cross River neighbors in the 17th
45

century

and the centrality of the matrilineage to female power and authority in their society.

The historical memories of Ohafia-Igbo people are also gendered, because they are
shaped by the relative experiences of men and women. For instance, women’s memory of what
has come to be known as the yam revolution

46

(c.1920), which occurred at the end of mgbe

ogarelu abuo, is centered upon blaming the male age-grade leadership at the time for the
women’s protest. This age-grade was called Emeago. In recalling this event, Ohafia women from
Ebem village (where this revolution began) always said, “mgbe uke Emeago” (in the time of
45

Chukwuma Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” Geneve-Afrique 28, 1 (1990), 9; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A
Matrilineal Ibo, 90-115; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 67.
46
The “yam revolution,” which refers to Ohafia-Igbo women’s popular decision to begin yam
cultivation in 1920, is discussed in Chapter 4.
18

Emeago age-grade), or they began their narrative with the assertion, “Emeago taught us a lesson,
which made us stop depending on men for yams.”

47

Thus, “in the time of Emeago” (1918-

1920s) is the historical time period for the yam revolution. Indeed, the existence of a wellorganized age-grade system among the Ohafia-Igbo facilitates dating and chronology, and
enables individuals to identify their age and specific events.

48

Similarly, the women of Elu

village recall mgbe ochichi Nna Kalu (during the time of Warrant Chief Kalu Ezelu’s rulership:
1911-1927), as the historical period for the emergence of men in dominant socio-political
positions, which also generated various women’s protest movements against these emergent
masculinities.

49

Similarly, men’s recalling and sensory map of historical time is relative to women’s
historical experiences. Ohafia women marked dynamic social changes on their bodies, through
changes in dress habits and fashion.

50

This in turn shaped men’s views of historical time, in the

sense that they identify women as embodying historical change. Thus, some of my male

47
48

Mama Mary Ezera, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem. August 3, 2010.
For a similar case, see Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 183-186.

49

This referenec came up in two instances. The first was in reference to Elu women’s mass
strike action (ibo ezi) against the men of their community, when the latter refused to make
financial contributions for a communal project initiated by women. In what amounted to a
critique of emerging male domination under colonial rule (discussed in chapter 5), Elu women
said, “Since you say you own and control this land, here is your land, take it! When you have
changed your mind, come and call on us!” The second was in reference to the tendency of
ogaranya masculinities to thwart women’s divorce petitions through the auspices of the
Presbyterian council. Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of
Elu and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Oct. 25, 2011; Mama
Orie Emeh and Chief Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. Aug.
18, 2011.
50
Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma
Ukwu Village. November 17, 2011; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor Village, oral interview
by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace
Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village. August 18, 2011.
19

collaborators referred to the period before the 1920s as a time “when young unmarried girls who
had reached puberty still wore ejigido.”

51

This time marker refers to a period before European

clothing became widespread in Ohafia — before 1920.
period, “when young girls started putting on clothes.”

52

53

They contrast this with a post-1920

In the view of Ohafia men, in the former

period, women were chaste and “uncorrupted” by money.

54

During this period, Ohafia-Igbo

women were able to exercise control over the sexuality and moral precepts of young men and
women, through their political organ, ikprikpe ndi inyom (see chapter 2).
According to Nna Agbai Ndukwe, during the post-1920s period of effective British
colonization however, “the world turned upside down,” because of increasing rural-urban
migration, the weakening of female political institutions, and the inability of male-dominated

51

Ejigido (also called jigida) is a string of beads, which pre-colonial Igbo women wore around
their waist to cover their nakedness, define their waistline, and signify their chastity. Nna Agbai
Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. August 10, 2010; Chief Olua Iro
Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village, Ohafia. August 3, 2010;
Elders of Umu-Anya Family, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Ohafia, Group Interview by author,
digital voice recording, Elu Village. August 14, 2011; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Amanguw Village. August 15, 2011.
52
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan,” 5. This gendered recalling situates the
Ohafia-Igbo at the center of wider social processes. The increase in legitimate commerce was
marked at the local level by mundane practices. The ejigido that young and unmarried OhafiaIgbo women wore before the 19th century originally came from Calabar, where they were locally
made. However, by the 1850s, the importation of European beads into the Bight of Biafra
increased. Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 208-211 shows that trade in goods between Europe
and the Bight of Biafra increased exponentially between 1820 and 1850, just as the slave trade
declined in the 1830s and palm oil trade increased until the 1860s. Many of the increased imports
such as iron bars, salt, cloth, clothing, and beads, were goods that the hinterland had once
furnished itself. Similarly, Miescher, Making Men in Ghana, 11 noted that in the mid-19th
century, Akan traders traded hides, metal craft, and slaves for kola nuts, imported fabric, and
glass beads. Thus, Nna Agbai recalls that in the 1920s, in addition to wearing ejigido, women
also wore beads of various colors
53
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. August 10, 2010.
54

Ibid.
20

colonial political institutions to control social comportments of sexuality.

55

Donna Perry

observed in the case of Wolof farmers in rural Senegal that as patriarchal control of household
dependents diminished as a result of economic liberalization, there was a “crisis of masculinity,”
and this was evident in men’s discourses which criticized women for their individualism,
selfishness and open sexuality.

56

However, unlike the Wolof case, there is no evidence of

patriarchal control over female sexuality in pre-colonial Ohafia-Igbo society. Rather, as female
political organizations weakened in the early 20th century, the emergent colonial patriarchal
institutions lacked the power to control female sexuality. Ohafia-Igbo men articulate this
devolution of female power through discourses of changes in girls’ dress habits and promiscuity.
Sources
“Emergent Masculinities” combines archival records, oral history, and life history, emic
interpretations of material culture, and gendered rituals and memorialization ceremonies, to
examine gendered power, slavery, religion, and colonialism in southeastern Nigeria in the 19

th

th

and 20 centuries. This study is borne out of two pre-dissertation summer research trips to
Nigeria in 2009 and 2010, and a one-year dissertation research trip from July 2011 to July 2012,
to Nigeria and the United Kingdom, funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and by the
Michigan State University (MSU) History Department. The research includes oral history
projects and ethnographic fieldwork in Ohafia, southeastern Nigeria, and archival research at the

55

Nna Agbai Ndukwe stated, during this latter period, “it became difficult to tell when young
girls were pregnant, so teenage pregnancy increased. In the days when they wore ejigido, girls
shielded themselves from sexual contacts with men. With the introduction of full-body female
dresses, the world turned upside down!” See chapters 2 and 5.
56
See Donna L. Perry, “Wolof Women, Economic Liberalization, and the Crisis of Masculinity
in Rural Senegal,” Ethnology 44, 3 (Summer 2005), 207-226.
21

Nigerian National Archives Lagos, the Nigerian National Archives Ibadan, the Nigerian National
Archives Enugu, the British National Archives, Kew, and the National Library of Scotland,
Edinburgh. The archival sources include correspondence between British consuls, European
shipmasters, and African peoples in the Bight of Biafra spanning the period, 1840s to 1900; the
reports of British colonial officials on Ohafia institutions and cultural practices between 1900
and 1930s; native court case records between 1908 and 1919; and the journals of Church of
Scotland missionaries active in the Ohafia region between the 1890s and 1940s. The
ethnographic materials include 170 oral interviews with Ohafia women and men, and
documentary evidence from Ohafia-Igbo cultural artifacts and rituals that embody the historical
experiences of the people.
Written Sources
Unlike West African empires and centralized states, where non-European written sources
(scripts, king lists, Arabic scripts, biographies, chronicles, hagiographies, and personal letters)

57

abound for the pre-colonial period, there are very few indigenous written sources for
reconstructing the history of the peoples of southeastern Nigeria. As several scholars have
pointed out, unlike the area west of the Niger where European travelers, traders and missionaries
left records of historical conditions, the Cross River hinterland remained closed to literate
visitors until towards the end of the nineteenth century.

58

This dissertation relies upon

autobiographies and novels written by Africans, as well as European colonial and missionary

57

John Hunwick, “Arabic Sources for African History,” In John Edward Philips, ed., Writing
African History (New York: University of Rochester Press, 2005), 218, 233-235.
58
S.J.S Cookey, “An Igbo Slave Story of the Late Nineteenth Century and Its Implications,”
Ikenga: Journal of African Studies 1, 2, (July, 1972), 1; Felicia Ekejiuba, “The Aro System of
Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” Ikenga: Journal of African Studies 1, 1 (January, 1972), 11.
22

records. For a study of Igbo masculinities and gendered power, novels such as Chinua Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart, and Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine, are, in spite of being works of fiction,
crucial to an imaginative reconstruction of the past. This genre of literature has shaped popular
knowledge of Igbo masculinities, and has also been used to perpetuate myths and stereotypes
about West African peoples.

59

Against this background, African literature is indispensable to

post-colonial writings on African history.
The reminiscences of Igbo peoples such as Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative
of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1798), Eke Kalu’s “An Ibo Autobiography: The Autobiography
of Mr. Eke Kalu, Ohaffia’s Well-Honored Son,” and the autobiography of Nnochiri Oriaku of
Uzuakoli,

60

afford first-hand accounts of the experiences of indigenous and trans-Atlantic

slavery, and British colonialism. The very idea of an autobiography as a historical source raises
problematic questions for a historian; questions anchored significantly on constructionism and
political agenda.

61

Kalu wrote his autobiography between the 1920s and 1930s, and it was

published in 1938 in The Nigerian Field, a journal of the British-run Nigeria Fields Society. His
autobiography was partly an effort to bolster his image as a legitimate warrant-chief and ruler of
the Ohafia-Igbo, against political contestations of his non-Ohafia origin. The publication of
59

Chinua Achebe, “Africa’s Tarnished Name,” in Hal Wylie and Bernth Lindfors,
Multiculturalism and Hybirdity in African Literatures (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2000), 1324; Robert Lyons and Chinua Achebe, Another Africa (New York: Anchor Books 1998), 103177; Joseph E. Harris, Africans and Their History (Meridan, 1998), 13-29; Dorothy Hammond
and Alta Jablow, The Myth of Africa (Library of Social Science, 2012), 7-48.
60
Eke Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography: The Autobiography of Mr. Eke Kalu, Ohaffia’s Wellhonored Son,” The Nigerian Field, Journal of the Nigerian Field Society, 7, 4 (October, 1938);
Isichei, Igbo Worlds, 295-299.
61
This has been the most notable limitation of African autobiography writing. See Mamphela
Ramphele, Accross Boundaries: The Journey of a South African Woman Leader (New York: The
Feminist Press, 1996); Wambui Waiyaki Oteieno, Mau Mauʼs Daughter: A Life History
(Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998).
23

Kalu’s autobiography by the British-run journal, with a popular audience based in England
seemed to have fulfilled his objective, as British colonial officials in the region came to see him
as “a loyal servant of the Government.”

62

His writing was also a literary critique of slavery and a

mockery of the indigenous religious institution of dibia (spirit-mediumship and healing), in an
effort to define himself as a Presbyterian masculinity. Kalu was not unlike many West African
writers, who exaggerated their people’s past and turned history into anti-colonial propaganda.

63

However, rather than dismiss Kalu’s autobiography as a mere political construct, this
dissertation critically embraces the biases, exaggerations and tensions in Kalu’s self-serving
account as part of the historical process to construct his identity. Reconciling the autobiography
with extensive oral interviews, records of court cases involving Kalu, and British colonial
reports, this dissertation provides a double-reading of the autobiographical account; first, as a
conscious act, and second, for its historical details. On the one hand, it is an intriguing story of a
self-made ufiem (masculinity), and a deliberate attempt to socially construct that image. On the
other hand, it is a rich first-hand account of the various mechanisms of enslavement not just in
the Igbo hinterland, but also in the coastal communities of Bonny and Opobo. There are hardly
any ethnographic accounts of the capture and transportation of slaves from the Igbo hinterland to
the coast.

62

64

Kalu’s account is one of two known exceptions.

65

Moreover, perhaps for its political

N.A.E, OW 342/27, ABADIST 8/11/2, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929.”

63

Toyin Falola, “Mission and Colonial Documents,” In Philips, ed., Writing African History,
276-280; Daniel McCall, “Introduction,” In Philips, ed., Writing African History, 17.
64
See Akuma-Kalu Njoku, “Before the Middle Passage: Igbo Slave Journeys to Old Calabar and
Bonny,” In Carolyn Brown and Paul Lovejoy, eds. Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade:
The Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora (Eritrea: AWP, 2010), 57-69.
65
The second is Equiano’s Travels: His Autobiography. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African, abr. and ed. by Paul Edwards (New York:
Frederick A. Praeger, 1967).
24

tone, Kalu’s autobiography provides a lacking perspective of African agency in socio-political
change in the 19th and 20th centuries.
While they are few and require critical assessments as political narratives, African
writings are an antidote to 18th and 19th century European written sources (the records of
explorers, traders and early missionaries) for the history of West Africa. These early European
records relied on hearsay and interpreters for their descriptions of the lives of Africans beyond
the coastal communities. As John Thornton and Toyin Falola have argued respectively, these
descriptions are sometimes outright inventions, and represent the work of outsiders, who were
more interested in trade than in the societies they describe.

66

European observers recorded

events from their own points of view, neglected the subjective experiences of African peoples,
and often attributed aspects of African civilization to outsiders — the Hamitic hypothesis.

67

For the Bight of Biafra, these sources include correspondence between British consuls
and African chiefs, as well as journals of British high commissioners and reports of European
merchants and shipmasters, spanning the period, 1840s-1900, and classified FO 84 and FO 2, at
the British National Archives, Kew, and the Nigerian National Archives, Lagos.

68

These records

are particularly relevant for the same reason they are problematic: their focus on commercial
interactions between Europeans and African peoples in the coasts of Calabar, Bonny and Opobo.
Located nine miles east of the Cross River, and significantly cut off from most Igbo societies to
66

John Thornton, “European Documents and African History,” In Philips, ed., Writing African
History, 255.
67
Falola, “Mission and Colonial Documents,” 277-280.
68

FO84: Slave Trade and General Correspondence Before 1906, Bight of Biafra (Files 775,
816, 858, 886, 920, 950, 975, 1001, 1030, 1061, 1087, 1117, 1278, 1377, 1634, 1659-1661,
1701-1702, 1749, 1750, 1881, 1882, 1940, 1941, 2020, 2109-2111, 2194); FO881: Confidential
Prints; FO541: Confidential Print, Slave Trade Abolition; and FO2: General Correspondence
Before 1906, Niger Coast Protectorate.
25

their west, by dense forests and the Oban Hills until the late 19th century, the Ohafia-Igbo were
actively engaged in trade up the Cross River to Calabar and Bonny in the 18th and 19th
centuries.

69

The Foreign Office records provide insight into the nature of, and changes in the

economic activities of interior Igbo societies such as the Ohafia-Igbo. They speak to whether and
when slave production ceased in spite of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade; what types of
commodities were made available at the coast, how, and by whom; and the impact and
repercussions of British imperial policies on the socio-economic conditions of Igbo societies.

70

In combination with evidence from oral interviews and analysis of material culture, these
sources show that whereas the trans-Atlantic slave trade had ushered Ohafia-Igbo society into a
slave mode of production, the glut of slaves on the local markets transformed the society’s mode
of exploitation of slave labor, and significantly informed the changes in the constructions and
performance of masculinities, between 1850 and 1920. Moreover, these records highlight British
economic policies on inland trade in the Bight of Biafra in the 19th century, and show that the
environment in which Africans participated in the emerging “legitimate commerce” was one of
piracy, bullying, draconian capitalism, British gun-boat diplomacy, an unreliable “trust system,”
ever-increasing taxes, fluctuations in the value and price of European commodities, monetization
schemes that forced Africans into losing accrued wealth, and British consulate bigotry. As such,

69

Ogbu U. Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” In Ogbu U. Kalu, ed., A
Century and Half of Presbyterian Witness in Nigeria, 1846-1996 (Lagos, Nigeria: Ida-Ivory
Press, 1996), 50; Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia, 1900-1979,” 11; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 47-52; Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs;” Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 9;
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 1-20; Oriji, Traditions of Igbo Origin, 32.
70
Also helpful are secondary literature such as Daryll Forde and G.I. Jones, The Ibo and IbibioSpeaking Peoples of South-Eastern Nigeria (London: International African Institute, 1950);
Northrup, Trade Without Rulers. Most studies on the economic history of southeastern Nigeria
had until the 1970s, focused on the coastal communities, and overlooked the Ibibio and Igbo
communities in the hinterland.
26

those Africans who attained success in the trade, and performed ogaranya masculinity, did so,
only with the greatest ingenuity, tenacity of purpose, and agency.
Missionaries, more than trader-authors, left more informative records, because their
desire to convert Africans made them interested in African culture, and their hostility to African
religions did not prevent them from making detailed descriptions of those customs and traditions.
Many of them were also African converts, who spoke the languages of the societies they
documented, and their journals, magazines and newspapers are indispensable to reconstructing
the history of southeastern Nigeria.

71

However, most missionaries believed that Africans were

inferior to them and many set out to demonstrate a theory of racial inferiority.

72

The writings of

pioneer African missionaries were also self-congratulatory. Nonetheless, the correspondences of
missionaries of the Roman Catholic Mission, the Niger Delta Pastorate, the Primitive Methodist
Mission, and the Church of Scotland Mission, active in the Cross River region in the late 19th
century, shed light on the gradual spread of Christianity from Calabar through Ibibio land, to the
Cross River Igbo territories of Arochukwu and Ohafia.

73

For the Ohafia-Igbo, where the Church

71

See Samuel A. Crowther and Christopher J. Taylor, The Gospel on the Banks of the Niger:
Journals and Notices of the Native Missionaries Accompanying the Niger Expedition of 18571859 (London: Dawsons, 1868); Hope Masterton Waddell, Twenty-Nine Years in the West Indies
and Central Africa (London: Thomas Nelson, 1863); Hope Masterton Waddell, “Journal of the
Old Calabar Mission (1846-58),” United Presbyterian Church papers, NLS, MSSS. 7739-7743
and 8953; Thornton, “European Documents and African History,” 260, 272.
72
Falola, “Mission and Colonial Documents,” 278-279.
73

CMS Archives, G8/A/0. Crowther to Baylis, 5/10/1903; PMM Archives, S/R Box 1, Christie
to Guttery, 1709; N.A.E, UMDIV 3/1/98. Church of Scotland Mission Abiriba; N.A.I, ESO 1/13.
Southern Nigeria Despatches No. 238. Conf. Report, 24/5/1905; N.A.E, Presbynig 1/1/6. Calabar
Mission Council Minutes, Items 84, 153 of 23/10/1913, and 186 of 7/5/1914; Church Missionary
Society, Letters from the Front: Being a Selection from the Annual Letters from the Missions
(London: CMS, 1912), 25-42; C.M.S. Niger Mission Minutes and Reports of Executive
Committee, February 1929; Samuel A. Crowther and Christopher J. Taylor, The Gospel on the
Banks of the Niger: Journals and Notices of the Native Missionaries Accompanying the Niger
Expedition of 1857-1859 (London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, [1859] 1868).
27

of Scotland mission was the only Christian mission active between 1890 and 1940, the journals
and letters of Rev. Robert Collins and Rev. A.K. Mincher provide information on Ohafia-Igbo
gendered responses to Christianity and Western education.
They highlight the impact of Christian missionary evangelism on indigenous institutions
such as dibia (spirit-mediumship and medicare), and changes in matrilineage practices. They
capture the chronology and details of Ohafia social experiences such as the epidemics of the
1890s and 1919, the Aro expedition of 1901-02, and the adaptation of the age-grade institutions
to modernization schemes between 1902 and 1917. Since the missionaries often intervened
directly in domestic and public disputes, which were often gendered, their journals and letters
highlight the anxieties of Ohafia men and women to the socio-political changes taking place in
their society during this period. The records and registers of the Ohafia Girls Training School
established in 1922 to train “good Christian wives” for the new Ohafia male elite elucidate the
domesticity focus of missionary education for Ohafia women, in contrast to the technical and
literary education provided to men.

74

74

See United Presbyterian Church, No. 26, MS. 7715. “Collins Elizabeth Stewart, Wife of
Robert, Missionary in Calabar, nee Glen; Letters to, 1900-1916;” UPC, “Collins Robert,
Missionary in Calabar, Letters to, 1898-1929;” Acc. 7548/A13-14, “Copies of Out-going Letters
from Mission Committee to Collins;” Acc. 7548/D44, “Copies of Out-going Letters from
Mission Committee to Mincher;” Dep.298/127-137, “Minutes Relating to Calabar, Robert
Collins and Mincher, United Free Church of Scotland;” Acc.7548/D44, “Calabar
Correspondence and Papers, 1913-1945;” Dep.298/127-137. “Minutes Relating to Calabar,
Robert Collins and Mincher, United Free Church of Scotland;” Dep.298/157-167. “Minutes
relating to Calabar, Robert Collins and Mincher, the Church of Scotland;” UPC, Shelfmark
Q.124. “Journals of News on Women’s Missions, 1904-1926;” UPC, Shelfmark Q.124.
“Journals of Woman’s Work in the Church;” The Missionary Record of the United Free Church
of Scotland, No. 1 (Jan. 1901) – No. 164 (Aug. 1914); The Record of the Home and Foreign
Mission Work of the United Free Church of Scotland, New Ser., No. 165 (Sept. 1914) – Apr.
1928); The Record of the United Free Church of Scotland, May 1928 – Sept. 1929; The Record
of the Church of Scotland, Oct. 1929 – Dec. 1929; UPC. Acc. 7548, Foreign Mission Records of
the Church of Scotland Since 1929 with some earlier records (Outgoing Letters, 1-186, and Files
Relating to Mission Fields, 1938-1964); and “Scottish Missionary Journals, 1850-1950: Church
28

At the turn of the 20th century, British colonial officials and ethnographers generated
field notes providing extensive documentation of the peoples of southeastern Nigeria, their
cultures, and the changes occasioned by European colonial rule.

75

As part of the consolidation of

colonial rule, colonial officials and missionaries were instructed to collect genealogical records
and ethnographic data on the peoples of southeastern Nigeria. The call for more data was
answered in the form of gazetteers, census reports, and annual reports, as well as ethnographies
by colonial anthropologists such as Amaury Talbot, Northcote Thomas, G.T. Basden, and C.K.
Meek.

76

These colonial ethnographies represented the African past as static, and espoused a

biased view of Igbo peoples as docile and unproductive, particularly women. However, they are
first-hand accounts of the cultural practices of the peoples of southeastern Nigeria in the early
20th century. Moreover, some colonial anthropologists disagreed with British colonial officials,
not just in principle, but also over their account of Igbo political institutions and cultural
practices.

77

Their accounts provide alternative perspectives to those of British colonial officials.

Following the Igbo Women’s War of 1929, British colonial officials also began to collect
Intelligence Reports on the socio-political organizations and cultural practices of the peoples of
of Scotland (1-10), United Presbyterian Church (11-15), and Free Church of Scotland (16-23).”
Also see Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 197, 221-239.
75
Falola, “Mission and Colonial Documents,” 273.
76

Percy A. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London: William Heinemann, 1912); Percy A.
Talbot, Life in Southern Nigeria (London: Macmillan, 1923); Percy A. Talbot, The Peoples of
Southern Nigeria (London: Oxford University Press, 1926); Northcote Thomas, Anthroological
Report on the Ibo-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria, 4 vols. (London: Harrison, 1913-14); G.T.
Basden, Among the Ibos of Nigeria (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1921 [1966]); G.T. Basden,
Niger Ibos (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1938 [1966]); C.K. Meek, Law and Authority in a
Nigerian Tribe: A Study in Indirect Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1937 [1950]).
77
Northcote Thomas’s anthropological survey of Igboland began in the Awka region. He did
not see eye to eye with various British officials particularly, Mr. Sproston, the district
commissioner, famed for his extensive knowledge of the Awka region. BNA, CO520/105,
Dispatch No. 493, Aug. 23, 1911; CO520/115, Dispatch No. 398, May 1912.
29

southeastern Nigeria.

78

Expressing the frustration with the biased tone of the Intelligence

Reports on Ohafia, Ogbu Kalu declared, “It would appear that the effort to collate reliable data
after the Women’s Riot failed in this culture zone.”

79

However, like other European sources, the

Intelligence Reports are some of the few available sources for reconstructing Igbo history.
These Intelligence Reports, Annual Reports, and courts records, available at the Nigerian
National Archives Enugu and the Nigerian National Archives Ibadan, provide historical and
ethnographic descriptions of Ohafia-Igbo socio-political institutions, economic activities, and
customary practices, as they existed before and during the first three decades of the 20th century.
They contain critical European commentaries on the Ohafia kinship system and residential
arrangements, Ohafia slave production, illicit headhunting and the activities of exclusively-male
secret societies. They account for the establishment of colonial courts, the institution of forced
labor and taxation, the introduction of the warrant chief system, and the establishment of
Christian missions and schools, during this period. The court records indicate a preponderance of
gendered disputes especially between 1908 and 1919, over land and property inheritance,
matrilocal versus patrilocal residence, and divorce proceedings.
78

Falola, “Mission and Colonial Documents,” 274-276.

79

80

Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 69.

80

See G.I Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, South Eastern Nigeria, 1905-1912
(Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1986); N.A.E, CSE 12/1: Annual Reports on Owerri
Province, 1918-1934; N.A.E, MINLOC 17/1: Secret Societies; N.A.E, AD/495/B49 Arodist
1/1/7: Okonko Sceret Society; N.A.E RIVPROF. 8/8/443: Okonko Club: Activity of; N.A.E,
UMDIV 3/1/656: Ukekwe Society and Okonko: Proclamation as Unlawful; N.A.I, CSO 26/3-97:
Assessment Reports on Bende Division, 1919-1926; N.A.E, CSO 26/3, ABADIST 8/11/2, File
OW 342/27: Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1927; N.A.I, CSO 26/3 File 29196:
Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan by Mr. C.J. Mayne, ADO; N.A.E, UMDIV 7/1/70-100:
Native Court Records; N.A.E Calprof. 14/4/951: Annual Report Bende District, 1909; N.A.E
C/40/21 Calprof 4/10/31, N.A.E Calprof 5/16/46, N.A.E C145/7 Calprof 5/8/97, N.A.E C277/18
Calprof 5/8/228, N.A.E Calprof 14/756, N.A.E, Calprof 5/14/85, and N.A.E Calprof 5/16/46 (On
the aftermath of the Aro Expedition and Christian Missionaries); N.A.E, C22/1927 ABADIST
30

These sources, in combination with colonial office (CO) records from the British
National Archives Kew,

81

show that the 20th century ushered a significant transformation in

Ohafia gendered distribution of power. They show that the actions of Ohafia-Igbo men often
corresponded with the patriarchal ideologies of European officials and missionaries, and
facilitated the subjugation of women, between 1890 and 1920.
Men’s Words, Women’s Worldview:
Oral Sources, Historical Ethnography, and Positionality
To ‘live’ a culture demands more than knowledge of its events’ system and
institutions; it requires growing up with these events and being emotionally involved
82
with cultural values and biases.
In order to present the historical experiences of pre-literate societies and social groups
such as women and the working class, who had been marginalized in academic studies,

83

as well

as to provide alternative voices to European written records, Africanist scholars have since the
1960s, popularized the use of oral history. Whereas David Henige defines oral history as a
methodology by which peoples’ traditions and memories of the past are understood as valid
84

historical texts,

Paul Thompson insists that “Neither oral nor written evidence can be said to

2/1/11: Palm Produce Development; N.A.E, UMDIV 7/1/84: Bende District - Selection of H.Q.
for; N.A.E, CSE 12/1/332: Owerri Prof. Annual Report, 1931; N.A.E, ABADIST 14/1/267:
Report on Political and Social Organization in the Owerri Division; N.A.E, SCE 12/1/334, File
EP1308A: Annual Report Owerri Province, 1932. Also see D.A. Macalister, “The Aro Country,
Southern Nigeria,” Scottish Geographical Magazine, xviii (Dec. 1902).
81
BNA CO 444, 520, 591, 592, 583, 445, and 554. See bibliography for full citation.
82

Victor Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria (New York, Chicago, San Francisco,
Toronto, London: Holt, Reinehart and Winston, 1965), 9.
83
Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History (Oxford: OUP, 1978), 1-64, 165-185.
84

David Henige, “Oral Tradition as a Means of Reconstructing the Past,” in John Edward
Philips, ed., Writing African History (New York: University of Rochester Press, 2005), 169;
Felix Ekechi, “An African View of the Legendary Vansina,” in Robert Harms, Joseph Miller,
David Newbury, and Michele Wagner, eds., Paths Toward the Past: African Historical Essays in
31

be generally superior; it depends on the context.”

85

Since the 1990s, many Africanist scholars

have come to insist that oral testimonies could stand by themselves as authoritative accounts of
lived experience, unmediated,

86

and that varied forms of oral communication including rumor,

gossip, proverbs, folklore, and jokes are valid historical sources, for they evince how Africans
represent their historical experiences of being African, beyond the framework of colonial
87

institutions.

The oral sources used here include personal and group interviews with men and women,
conducted between 2010 and 2012, in twenty-four Ohafia-Igbo villages. Most of these interviews
were audio-recorded, and were conducted in the homes of collaborators. Some interviews were
video-recorded in the course of ceremonies such as new yam festivals, dibia (doctors and
diviners) celebrations, and women’s rituals. I interviewed farmers, hunters, dibia, and members
of secret societies to understand alternative forms of masculinities (ufiem), besides the warrior
masculinity. I interviewed female heads of matrilineage, female and male political leaders, and
members of women’s political organizations to examine changes in gendered political power.
Because oral histories are cumulative interpretations of the past, which capture the
subjective experiences of groups, not individuals, personal interviews began with life histories,
emphasizing socialization from childhood to adulthood, and social mobility. From this subjective

Honor of Jan Vansina (Atlanta: African Studies Association Press, 1994), 1-9; Jan Vansina,
Oral Tradition as History (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 27, 63-66.
85
Thompson, The Voice of the Past, 100.
86

Luise White, Stephan Miescher, and David William Cohen, eds. African Words, African
Voices: Critical Practices in Oral History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 2-3.
87
White, Miescher, and Cohen, eds. African Words, African Voices, 15-19; Luise White,
Speaking With Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (California: University of
California Press, 2000).
32

reflection about the past,

88

research collaborators

described as histories of social relations.
women to history.

91

90

89

then provided what Louise Tilley has

This methodology is particularly useful in restoring

Indeed, in using oral history to demonstrate how peoples of the past lived,

92

this study interrogates men’s words with women’s voices, and vice versa. As Nwando Achebe
has noted, “the best and sometimes the only way to uncover the history of women is to interview
both men and women [since] men were often able to recall institutions of female power.”
Doing oral history entails negotiation of access and meaning.

94

93

Born and raised in a

patrilineal Igbo society of southeastern Nigeria, my encounter with the Ohafia-Igbo was one of
strange familiarity. The Ohafia-Igbo dominant matrilineage principles,

95

their relative disregard

for kola nut culture (in preference for alcohol libation and application of nzu white chalk to

88

Stephan Miescher, “The Life Histories of Boakye Yiadom: Exploring the Subjectivity and
Voices of a Teacher-Catechist in Colonial Ghana,” In White, Miescher, and Cohen, eds., African
Words, African Voices: Critical Practices in Oral History, 163.
89
I use this term to denote the active role of my oral interview respondents in the interpretation
of Ohafia-Igbo history. Nwando Achebe uses this term to describe her Nsukka-Igbo respondents,
who forced her to abandon a predetermined agenda to prove that colonialism and Christianity
removed Igbo women from positions of power. It also reflects Achebe’s positionality as a
“relative outsider” and returned Igbo daughter relying upon her respondents to reintroduce her to
the realities of African life in the course of fieldwork. See Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors
and Kings, 5, 12-13; Nwando Achebe, “Nwando Achebe - Daughter, Wife, and Guest - A
Researcher at the Crossroads,” Journal of Womenʼs History 14, 3 (Autumn 2002), 14-22.
90
Louise A. Tilley, “People’s History and Social Science History,” Social Science History 7, 4
(1983), 457-474.
91
Berida Ndambuki and Claire C. Robertson, “We Only Come Here to Struggle:” Stories from
Berida’s Life (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), xi
92
Robert Perks and A. Thomson, The Oral History Reader (London: Routledge, 1998), 2-3.
93
94
95

Achebe, “Nwando Achebe - Daughter, Wife, and Guest,” 22.
See Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 13-15.
See chapter 1.
33

welcome visitors), a practice which Ugo Nwokeji has equated with pan-Igbo ethnicity,

96

as well

as the Cross-River Igbo dialect of the Ohafia-Igbo, which is unintelligible to the average Igbo
language native speaker,

97

were some of the immediate cultural differences that established my

outsider status within the society. Moreover, the preeminent socio-political power and autonomy
that Ohafia-Igbo women continue to enjoy in their society, their unparalleled consciousness of
past female power and authority, and their eagerness to comment on this historical awareness set
them apart from my previous understanding of Igbo socio-political life.

98

My native fluency in

the Igbo language facilitated quicker learning of the Ohafia-Igbo dialect, and I found many
Ohafia-Igbo cultural practices familiar and intelligible vis-a-vis my own lived culture.
Nonetheless, gaining access to the private worlds of Ohafia-Igbo men and women
involved a long process of building trust, through home visits, following women to farms, and
attending communal ceremonies.

99

In the months preceding my arrival in Ohafia, a number of

cultural artifacts including some nkwa (elaborately carved wooden beams) and ikoro (wooden
slit drum) had been stolen from Ohafia villages. This created a suspicious environment that made
it very difficult for the researcher to gain trust in each new village. At times, the presence and
assurances of my Ohafia research assistant was not sufficient to restore confidence. In such

96

Ugo G. Nwokeji, The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra: An African Society in
the Atlantic World (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
97
Isichei confirms. See Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 86.
98

My fieldwork experience in my own community between 2006 and 2007 as an undergraduate
student of the University of Nigeria Nigeria Nsukka, when I conducted ethnographic research for
my B.A. thesis, was a polar opposite to my encounter with Ohafia-Igbo women’s eagerness to
define their community’s history. Similarly, Nwando Achebe experienced “great
disillusionment” with Nsukka women, who outrightly confessed a lack of knowledge about their
community history, and sometimes a general apathy towards commenting on their own life
history. See Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 14-15. Ohafia women differed.
99
For a similar case, see Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 13-19.
34

instances, phone calls to familiar members of the particular village, or preliminary visits to the
ezie-ogo and ezie-nwami became prerequisite to gaining access to members of the community.
The greatest challenge at the onset of my dissertation research was the silence in both
published literature and archival sources of Ohafia female voices. Audrey Smedley has pointed
out that “it is an often unacknowledged reality that male scholars have been restricted in their
access to women’s private lives by the conventions of the societies they studied.”

100

I quickly

discovered that as a male, capturing Ohafia women’s perspectives required moving from the
familiar world of men — a reflection of my existing contacts and acquaintances — to the
unfamiliar world of women. After I was introduced to the male ezie-ogo (male ruler) of Elu
Village (the most senior Ohafia village), his cabinet members presented me with a list of names
of knowledgeable local historians from twenty-two Ohafia villages, all of which were male.
When I asked for the names of women, some of the elders said that women had no knowledge of
Ohafia history, but that if I insisted on talking to women, the ezie-nwami (female ruler) and her
cabinet may be invited to the ezie-ogo’s palace for me to interact with them.

101

I later gained access to women through informal referrals from elderly male
collaborators, who confessed their lack of knowledge about women’s socialization, political
organizations and worldview. The women, whose life histories I documented, later referred me
to the ezie-nwami of their villages, who provided me access to more women. The worldview of
women provides critical lenses to re-examine men’s historical narratives. What do men mean
when they say that: “Women played no role in the history of our community; women are to be
100

Audrey Smedley, Women Creating Patrilyny: Gender and Environment in West Africa
(California: AltaMira Press, 2004), 1.
101
Ohafia-Igbo women would later inform me that the ezie-ogo could not summon the ezienwami in council to answer to my interview questions. Tradition, politics, and deference required
that men and women be consulted separately, in the comfort of their gendered spaces.
35

seen, not to be heard”? And why did most male collaborators take this position despite affirming
the eminent socio-political power and independence of Ohafia women, historically? Most male
collaborators agreed that Ohafia-Igbo women possessed more powerful, more effective, and
more coercive socio-political institutions before the 20th century.

102

Yet, these men described a

history without women — a history of warfare and conquest, headhunting and bravery, slave
production, secret societies exclusive of women, and male socialization from igba nnunu (to kill
a hummingbird — the first “head” a boy-child “cuts”) to igbu ishi (to “cut a head” as an adult
masculinity). This history by men about men is the popular history of the Ohafia-Igbo, and is
preserved in the historical lore (abu aha) of the society that glorifies Ohafia’s heroic past.
Ohafia-Igbo women’s historical accounts are more gender-inclusive: they describe
women’s indispensability to men’s conducts of warfare and performance of ufiem, showing that
masculinities and femininities were mutually constitutive. Women described the superiority of
their political institutions and their ability to exercise judicial authority over both women and
men — a power which men lacked. They emphasized their superior position within the OhafiaIgbo matrilineage, which reflect their dominance of the agro-based economy, their control over
farmland, and their position as breadwinners of their families. Ohafia-Igbo women also account

102

Okorie Kalu, ezie-ogo of Isiugwu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu
Village. December 10, 2011; Elders of Umu-Anya Family, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Ohafia,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. August 14, 2011; Mecha Ukpai Akanu,
ezie-ogo of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital
voice recording, Amangwu. August 18, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku and
Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Ndea-Nku
Village. November 17, 2011; Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi Village, Members of the Men’s
Court and Nde-Ichin, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi Village.
November 17, 2011; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Ibina (Ihenta) Village. December 12, 2011. Nde-Ichin, Amuma Village, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. November 26, 2011; Godwin Nwankwo
Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members, Group Interview by author, digital
voice recording, Amankwu. October 25, 2011. Also, see Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 25.
36

for their ability to negotiate marriages and divorces, very easily, in contrast to the fate of their
sisters in the rest of patrilineal Igbo society, and attest that this facilitated their historical
negotiation of multiple ethnicities in a borderland region. In effect, both my male and female
collaborators concurred that Ohafia women were socio-politically more powerful than men in the
pre-colonial period. Yet, the historical narratives, which men and women emphasized, differed.
It is now well known that oral sources, like European written records, must be critically
evaluated. Chronology, telescoping and selectivity are some of the major limitations of oral
traditions.

103

In the course of my fieldwork in Ohafia, several lineages, and sometimes, villages

were engaged in legal disputes over political succession. Thus, oral interviews sometimes
became a platform for articulating a social charter, and to validate current political claims. It was
perhaps in view of this that G.I. Jones declared that traditions referring to the distant past “cannot
help us. They are no substitute for history and are best regarded as systems in which [a] very
limited number of items are manipulated to explain or justify existing institutions and social
groups.”

104

However, as Adiele Afigbo has cautioned, the implication of this viewpoint for

historians working among segmentary societies would be “complete paralysis.”

105

He contends

rather, that one should not ask of oral history, that which oral history cannot answer.

106

By incorporating other sources, such as linguistic evidence, analysis of material culture,
practices and rituals, this dissertation seeks to ensure a rigorous use of oral history, as opposed to
the view that oral testimonies have a transcendent status by which they could stand on their own,

103
104

Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, 186-201.
G.I. Jones, The Trading States of the Oil Rivers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 24

105

Adiele Afigbo, “Oral Tradition and the History of Segmentary Societies,” History in Africa
12 (1985), 3, 9.
106
Afigbo, “Oral Tradition and the History of Segmentary Societies,” 4-9.
37

as authoritative accounts of lived experience, unmediated.

107

This study shows that in

combination with other sources, oral history can be used to reconstruct the pre-colonial history of
the Ohafia-Igbo. My interdisciplinary methodology seeks to establish ‘what really happened’
(objectivity), as well as how the Ohafia-Igbo memorialize the past (subjectivity).
For instance, Ohafia-Igbo women force the researcher to focus not only on discourse, but
also on practices, which are equally evidence of agency, self-representation, and
consciousness.

108

Women embraced the interview to emphasize and re-enact their consciousness

of past female power and authority in their society. They often transformed the interview
sessions into public performances in front of awed audiences of younger women, children, and
men. They danced and mocked men, re-emphasizing their power to “teach men lessons” when
necessary. Whereas Ruth Finnegan noted that the performative nature of oral history before
participatory audiences impacts the meaning produced,

109

Barbara Cooper shows that because of

its performative nature, oral evidence enables us to explore the social production of memory, self
and subjectivity.

110

In view of the problem which memory has posed to the reconstruction of the

107

Luise White, Stephan Miescher, and David W. Cohen, eds., African Words, African Voices:
Critical Practices in Oral History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 2-10.
108
Anthony Giddens, New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative
Sociologies (London: Hutchinson, 1976); Anthony Giddens, Central problems in Social Theory:
Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis (London: Macmillan, 1979); Bourdieu,
Outline of a Theory of Practice; Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Cambridge: Polity,
1990), Pierre Bourdieu and John B. Thompson, Language and Symbolic Power (Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1991); Henrietta Moore and Meghan Vaughan, Cutting Down Trees:
Gender, Nutrition and Agricultural Change in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890-1990
(Portsmouth, 1994); Steven Loyal, The Sociology of Anthony Giddens (London: Pluto Press,
2003); Jeff Browitt and Brian Nelson (eds.), Practicing Theory: Pierre Bourdieu and the Field of
Cultural Production (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004).
109
Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 2-3.
110

Barbara Cooper, “Oral Sources and the Challenge of African History,” in Philips, ed.,
Writing African History, 202-207.
38

African past,

111

Ohafia-Igbo women’s re-enactments of the past through both discourses and

performances, capture Jan Vansina’s view that the performance and reproduction of tradition is
often inspired by the practical use of traditions (in the Ohafia-Igbo case, women lay claim to a
historical tradition of female power and authority in the fieldwork situation).
Women’s rituals

113

114

such as uzo-iyi

112

(virginity testing) and ije akpaka

115

(ritual

declaration of war); political resistance strategies such as ibo ezi (strike and boycott) and ikpo
mgbogho (social ostracism);

116

and material culture practices such as the raising of ancestral pot

monuments (ududu), are simultaneously, contemporary performances of female power and
authority, and gendered memorializations of the past. They center women in Ohafia-Igbo history,
in Janice Boddy’s words, as “culture producers and social actors.”

117

These practices elucidate

111

See Ralph A. Austen, “The Slave Trade as History and Memory: Confrontations of Slaving
Voyage Documents and Communal Traditions,” The William and Mary Quarterly 58, 1 (Jan.
2001); Donald R. Wright, “Requiem for the Use of Oral Tradition to Reconstruct the Precolonial
History of the Lower Gambia,” History in Africa 18 (1991), 401-402; Martin Klein, “Studying
the History of Those Who Would Rather Forget: Oral History and the Experience of Slavery,”
History in Africa 16 (1989), 209-217; Anne C. Bailey, African Voices of the Atlantic Slave
Trade: Beyond the Silence and the Shame (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005); Mariane Ferme, The
Underneath of Things: Violence, History, and the Everyday in Sierra Leone (Berkeley: The
University of California Press, 2001); Rosalind Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual
Imagination in Sierra Leone (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
112
Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, 40.
113

For detailed discussions of these practices, see chapter 1.

114

Ritual purification of the land and a court of public opinion, where young virgin-girls served
as judges. See chapter 2 for discussion.
115
Women’s ritual sanction of warfare, which authorized men to go to war.
116

Ibo ezi is women’s mass desertion of their homes in protest; and ikpo mgbogho is women’s
punitive death sentence — a physico-ritual desecration of an individual and his or her
homestead, as well as what Judith Van Allen has described as “sitting on a man.” See Judith Van
Allen, “Sitting on a Man:’ Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women,”
Canadian Journal of African Studies 6 (1972), 172-178.
117
Janice Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 4-5.
39

women’s vision of Ohafia-Igbo social identity. Through memorialization rituals, women portray
the Ohafia as a matrilineal Igbo society, dominated by powerful female political institutions, and
female breadwinners. This differed significantly from Ohafia-Igbo men’s vision of their society
as a land of noble warriors, a vision that they commemorate through performances such as the
war dance. Thus, Ohafia-Igbo women’s socio-cultural practices are not just re-enactments of
age-long rituals. They are sites for the definition of social identity, and the contestation of
gendered power. These practices, when compared to male performances of ufiem (masculinity),
emerge as contested gendered definitions of socio-political visibility, which shaped indigenous
notions of the political relevance and power of men and women.
This study also relies upon indigenous interpretations of material culture, idioms and
proverbs. In a bid to challenge a colonial historiography that denied Africans agency in their own
history,

118

Africanists had since the 1960s, turned to archaeology and linguistics to show that

African societies have undergone long-term processes of change before contact with Europeans.
Whereas archaeology helped to establish the chronology and sequences of change,
evidence helped to show the dispersal of West African cultural complexes.

120

119

linguistic

Both

methodologies define material culture as ideas, meanings and symbols that express hidden,
cognitive meanings.

118

121

This informs my analysis of the role of the Ohafia-Igbo material culture

John McCall, “Introduction,” in Philips, ed., Writing African History, 17.

119

Susan Keech McIntosh, “Archaeology and the Reconstruction of the African Past,” in
Philips, ed., Writing African History, 79.
120
Christopher Ehret, “Writing African History from Linguistic Evidence,” in Philips, ed.,
Writing African History, 86-111.
121
McIntosh, “Archaeology and the Reconstruction of the African Past,” 54-58, 79. Also see
Jan Vansina, Paths in the Rainforests (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990); David
Schoenbrun, A Green Place, A Good Place (London: Heinemann, 1998); Christopher Ehret, An
40

complex, such as ududu (ancestral pots), nkwa (wood carvings), ikoro (war drums), and the war
dance, in the changing constructions of gender identities between the 19th and 20th century. I
examine the dynamic social meanings, which Ohafia-Igbo people have given to these material
culture symbols between 1850 and 1920, and argue that they were used to articulate changing
ideas about masculinity (see chapters 3-5).
Also, my interrogation of Ohafia-Igbo proverbs and idioms (such as igbu ishi), as
expressing dynamic meanings of identity, is informed by Christopher Ehret’s idea that “word
122

histories”

that make up the languages of a people are “artifacts of the past.”

123

Indeed, by

using Ohafia-Igbo sayings such as “We eat through the mother,” “Father’s penis scatters,
mother’s womb gathers,” to examine ideologies of gendered power,

124

one can see as Fallou

Ngom noted, the social, political, ideological, and cultural forces that have once shaped or still
influence a given community.

125

Idioms and proverbs, as E.J. Alagoa has shown, are used to

validate historical memories and demonstrate the relevance of accounts of the past to present
concerns.

126

This dissertation argues that Ohafia-Igbo idioms and proverbs are mechanisms

through which men and women center themselves in the history of their community. For
instance, the idioms, “Anyi eri ala a nne” [“We eat through the mother”] and “Ohafia wu mba ji
African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 BCE to 400
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998).
122
Ehret, “Writing African History from Linguistic Evidence,” 93.
123

Ehret, “Writing African History from Linguistic Evidence,” 86, 91.

124

For a brilliant example, see Kwesi Yankah, Speaking for the Chief: Akyeame and the Politics
of Akan Royal Oratory (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).
125
Fallou Ngom, “Lexical Borrowings as Pathways to Senegal’s Past and Present,” In Toyin
Falola and Christian Jennings, eds., Africanizing Knowledge: African Studies Across the
Disciplines (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2002), 125.
126
E. J. Alagoa, “An African Philosophy of History in the Oral Tradition,” In Robert Harms,
Joseph Miller, David Newbury, and M. Wagner, eds., Paths Toward the Past: African Historical
Essays in Honor of Jan Vansina (Atlanta: African Studies Association Press, 1994), 15-24.
41

ishi, acho ishi” [“Ohafia is a community with insatiable appetite for human heads”], refer to two
gendered practices. The first refers to dominant matrilineage principles sustained by women, and
the second, invokes the warrior image of the society and the historical significance of male
warriors to the people’s survival in a bellicose frontier environment.
The centrality of Ohafia-Igbo worldview in the definition of concepts (such as ufiem and
igbu ishi) used in this study reflects the author’s preference for an emic (distinctions/meanings
perceived by local peoples themselves), rather than an etic (academic, external, imposed)
interpretation of the people’s historical experiences. Indeed, major concepts and theories, such as
“geography of masculinity” (chapter 3), and “institutions of masculinity” (chapter 4) emerged
from the fieldwork situation, where both researcher and collaborators jointly debated and
analyzed the meaning of historical practices. In this way, my interview respondents became
transformed into research collaborators. As Achebe, Bridget Teboh, Takyiwaa Manuh, Eileen
Boris, and Paula Ebron have argued, respondents’ stories and worldview are theoretical
interpretations in themselves, and should be centered, in order to make the research a
dialogue.

127

The local meanings and interpretations of rituals, ceremonies, material culture,

praise names, and idioms constitute the foundation of theories used in this dissertation. Major
social science theories are used primarily to translate the Ohafia case to the wider academic
audience and to enable comparative analysis with realities elsewhere.

127

Nwando Achebe and Bridget Teboh, “Dialoguing Women,” in Catherine Cole, Takyiwaa
Manuh, and Stephan Miescher, eds. Africa After Gender (Indiana: Indiana University Press,
2007), 63-81; Takyiwaa Manuh, “Doing Gender Work in Ghana,” in Cole, Manuh, and
Miescher, eds., Africa After Gender, 131; Eileen Boris, “Gender After Africa!” in Cole, Manuh,
and Miescher, eds., Africa After Gender, 191-204; Paula Ebron, “Constituting Subjects Through
Performative Acts,” in Cole, Manuh, and Miescher, eds., Africa After Gender, 171-187.
42

Literature Review
This study makes significant contributions to micro studies on Ohafia and Igboland
generally, gender and masculinity studies in Africa, anthropological and historical studies on
African matriliny, and slavery studies. The review is organized thematically, beginning with
writings on Ohafia and Igboland, which provide information that bears stongly on this
dissertation. Second, I situate the major arguments of this study within the literature on African
women’s economic and political power, as well as emerging studies on African masculinities.
Third, in order to introduce some of the major concepts such as matriliny, patriliny, matriarchy,
patriarchy, and matrifocal, which this dissertation engages with, I provide a broad outline of the
scholarship on African matrilineal societies. Lastly, this literature review shows how my
dissertation engages with the scholarship on African slavery and the Atlantic slave trade.
Writings on Ohafia and Igboland
There are two contrasting views of Ohafia-Igbo society as either a matrilineal society or a
land of noble warriors. Since 1974 when Philip Nsugbe titled his pioneer work on the society,
Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo People, subsequent scholars have emphasized the oppositional social
image of the society, beginning with Chukwuma Azuonye’s “The Heroic Age of the Ohafia
Igbo” and leading to Onwuka Njoku’s more counter-positional title, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo
Society.

128

The social traits, which these two frames of reference reify in their definition of

Ohafia-Igbo social identity are gendered, and reflect the politically contested forms of identity in
male and female performances of Ohafia-Igbo identity, as chapters 1-3 of this study will show.

128

Philip O. Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo People (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1974); Chukwuma Azuonye, “The Heroic Age of the Ohafia Igbo,” Geneve-Afrique 28, 1
(1990); Onwuka Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo Society (Nigeria: Whytam Press, 2000)
43

Whereas Nsugbe offers an anthropological survey of Ohafia-Igbo kinship system and
political organization, Njoku provides an introductory outline of Ohafia-Igbo history from the
pre-colonial period to the modern era. These two works are seminal, for they provide an indepth
insiders’ perspective on Ohafia-Igbo history and culture. Azuonye’s work on the Ohafia-Igbo,
based on his dissertation study of Ohafia war songs

129

affords significant source material for this

present study, including a time-scale for Ohafia migration and settlement, their participation in
th

th

the Atlantic slave trade during the “heroic age” (18 and 19 centuries), as well as
transcriptions of the folk-lores of pre-colonial female masculinities (such as Unyang Olugu and
Nne Mgbeafo).
Similar to Njoku and Azuonye, the anthropologist John McCall’s works on Ohafia have
focused primarily on Ohafia militancy (the Ohafia war dance).

130

He demonstrates that the

Ohafia war dance served as a very important medium for forging and expressing changing forms
of gender identities, which reflect the impact of the Atlantic slave trade and British colonial rule
on the society. While he does not focus on gender constructions per se, McCall points up some
of the changes in conceptions of masculinity in Ohafia especially as expressed through the
dynamic meanings of igbu ishi (“to cut a head”) from the pre-colonial to the colonial period.
In a particularly illuminating article titled “The Portrait of a Brave Woman,” McCall
provides the subjective life history of an Ohafia woman, Nne Uko, who transformed herself into
a man, by marrying two wives, constantly dressing as a man, joining exclusively-male secret
129

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age of the Ohafia Igbo;” Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs.”

130

John McCall, Dancing Histories: Heuristic Ethnography with the Ohafia Igbo (Ann Arbor:
The University of Michigan Press, 2000); John McCall, “The Ohafia War Dance as Lived
Experience: History and Identity in a Nigerian Community,” Ph.D. Thesis, Indiana University
(1992); John McCall, “Dancing the Past: Experiencing Historical Knowledge in Ohafia,
Nigeria,” Passages (1993); John McCall, “Making Peace with Agwu,” Anthropology and
Humanism Quarterly 18, 2 (1993).
44

societies, participating with men in the war dance, and performing ogaranya masculinity (what
th

McCall calls “big man” status) in the mid-20 century.

131

The story of Nne Uko reinforces my

argument that Ohafia women drew upon historical gender constructions in their society to
perform masculinity and negotiate social mobility during the colonial period (see chapter 5).

132

McCall also suggests that rituals of gender-role reversal such as uzo iyi (virginity testing), where
young virgin girls engaged in endeavors (such as wrestling matches) used to constitute
masculinity (discussed in chapter 2 of this study), did not evidence a temporary cathartic release
from male domination. Rather, both ritual and practical manipulation of gender roles by women
reflect a latent system of potential alternatives. In effect, Ohafia gender system was fluid, and
women’s performance of masculinity did not translate into an escape from male domination.
A few other publications on the Ohafia-Igbo have been very useful to this dissertation.
The work of Emea Arua on the practice of yam titles in Ohafia provides an insiders’ perspective
on Ohafia constructions of masculinity through yam cultivation, as well as on the premier
position of women as the backbone of the pre-colonial agrarian economy.

133

In an effort that

inspires the Africanist oral historian, Nnenna Obuba, an untrained historian of Ohafia origin,
131

John McCall, “Portrait of a Brave Woman,” American Anthropologist 98, 1 (1996), 127-136.

132

Hence McCall argues that Nne Uko employed the art of bodily presentation and the
symbolic potential of clothing to equate herself with Ohafia warrior masculinities of the precolonial period. Also, Nne Uko amassed wealth through farming and performed the masculinity
of yam cultivation, like other Ohafia women illustrated in chapter 4 of this study. Lastly, McCall
lends further credence to my argument in chapter 5 that while Ohafia women who became
female husbands performed masculinity, their primary motive was the attainment of Ohafia
feminity. Thus he writes that Nne Uko realized full womanhood by means other than biological
motherhood, and her position as female husband was as much a feminine as a masculine
prerogative. In the context of Ohafia matrilineal society, she sought a wife from outside Ohafia,
so that her children would not belong to two different Ohafia matrilineages; in effect to two
different mothers. See McCall “Portrait of a Brave Woman,” 129-130, 134.
133
Emea O. Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” Africa: The Journal of
the International African Institute 51, 2 (1981).
45

undertook the task of compiling over 500 oral interviews on Ohafia history and culture, spanning
the period, c.1500-2008.

134

This dissertation barely scratches the surface of the information

contained in Obuba’s compendium of oral sources, but it draws upon the emic perpsectives,
which it affords. Last but not the least is the work of G.I Jones on the Ohafia-Igbo, including his
photographic collection and descriptions of Ohafia-Igbo artefacts, his publications, which shed
light on Ohafia-Igbo migration and settlement, as well as his compilation of British colonial
135

Annual Reports on Bende Division.

A number of studies on southeastern Nigeria enable a comparative study of the Ohafiath

Igbo. Early 20 century descriptions of Igbo socio-poltical institutions (men’s and women’s
political organizations, secret societies, dibia institutions, yam titles, etc.) by British colonial
anthropologists such as Northcote Thomas, C.K. Meek and G.T. Basden, as well as Victor
Uchendu’s ethnographic study of patrilineal Igbo society, enable me to show the similarities and
differences between the matrilineal Ohafia-Igbo and the rest of patrilineal Igboland.

136

Also,

Simon Ottenberg’s ethnography of the double-descent Afikpo-Igbo society, who dwell in the

134

Nnenna E. Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia Covering from About 1432 to 2008: A
Collated Oral Tradition (Ebem Ohafia: Lintdsons Publications, 2008).
135
G.I. Jones, “Ohaffia Obu Houses,” The Nigerian Field: The Journal of the Nigerian Field
Society VI, 4 (1937); Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples of South-Eastern
Nigeria; G.I. Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, South Eastern Nigeria, 1905-1912
(Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1986).
136
Percy A. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London: William Heinemann, 1912); Percy A.
Talbot, Life in Southern Nigeria (London: Macmillan, 1923); Percy A. Talbot, The Peoples of
Southern Nigeria (London: Oxford University Press, 1926); Northcote Thomas, Anthroological
Report on the Ibo-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria, 4 vols. (London: Harrison, 1913-14); G.T.
Basden, Among the Ibos of Nigeria (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1921 [1966]); G.T. Basden,
Niger Ibos (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1938 [1966]); C.K. Meek, Law and Authority in a
Nigerian Tribe: A Study in Indirect Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1937 [1950]); Victor
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria (New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto,
London: Holt, Reinehart and Winston, 1965).
46

Cross-River territory with the Ohafia-Igbo, further set the Ohafia-Igbo apart from both doubledescent and patrilineal African societies, irrespective of significant similarities between Ohafia
and Afikpo (see chapter 1).

137

The works of Ugo Nwokeji, Elizabeth Isichei, David Northrup,

Richard Henderson, R.O. Igwebe, John Oriji, Felicia Ekejiuba and Kenneth Dike illuminate
Ohafia inter-group relations, especially their mutual pact with the Aro, and their role in militant
th

th

slave production in the Biafran hinterland in the 18 and 19 centuries.

138

This dissertation is also informed by studies on Igbo women’s economic and political
power. Writings on Igbo women in the colonial period were imbued with evolutionist and
racialized images of women’s bodies and sexualities, and Igbo women appear in colonial and
missionary writings as oppressed beasts of burden, subject to drudgery and degrading marriage
practices.

139

Where women’s words were captured, they were mediated through men,

140

with

the result that women’s voices were written out of orthodox historiography.
However, there are a number of studies and confirmations of the significant economic,
political, and social institutions and expressions of female power in Southeastern Nigeria. In his
1865 journal on the “Niger Expedition,” Rev. J.C. Taylor notes of the Onitsha Igbo, thus, “I must
137

Simon Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society: The Afikpo Village-Group (Seattle:
The University of Washington Press, 1968).
138
Ugo Nwokeji, The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra: An African Society in the
Atlantic World (Cambridge University Press, 2010); Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 50105; Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 31-34, 62-83, 116-121; Richard Henderson, The King in
Every Man: Evolutionary Trends in Onitsha Society and Culture (London: Yale University
Press, 1972), 502; K.O. Dike and F.I. Ekejiuba, The Aro of South-eastern Nigeria, 1650-1980: A
study of Socio-Economic Formation and Transformation in Nigeria (Ibadan: University Press,
1990); Ekejiuba, “The Aro System of Trade,” 11-19; R.O. Igwebe, The History of Arondizuogu
from 1635-1960 (Aba, 1962), 86-91; Oriji, “Slave Trade, Warfare,” 107-114.
139
Basden, Niger Ibos, 203; Basden, Among the Ibos of Nigeria, 88-96.
140

Josephine Beoku-Betts, “Western Perceptions of African Women in the 19th & Early 20th
Centuries,” in Andrea Cornwall, ed. Readings in Gender in Africa (Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2005), 20-24.
47

confess that women are not deprived of their rightful status in society, nor, as in other tribes
doomed to perpetual degradation.”
Igbo Women’s War,

142

141

In the first historical study of Igbo women, following the

Sylvia Leith-Ross writes that the Igbo women of Owerri Province

“economically and politically, are at least the equal of the men,”

143

and “because of their

economic importance both as mothers, farm cultivators, and traders, (they) have rather more
power than is generally thought.”

144

Subsequent works have shown that Igbo women enjoyed equal and complementary
socio-political power and positions vis-à-vis men until colonialism led to the deterioration of
their status.

141

145

Whereas Kamene Okonjo and Judith Van Allen argue that with the imposition of

Crowther and Taylor, The Gospel on the Banks of the Niger, 266.

142

See Margery Perham, Native Administration in Nigeria (London: Oxford University Press,
1937), 206-220; Leith-Ross, African Women, 23-39; H. A. Gailey, The Road to Aba (London:
London University Press, 1970), 97-155; Judith Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man:’ Colonialism and
the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 6 (1972),
172-178; Caroline Ifeka-Moller, “Female Militancy and Colonial Revolt: The Women's War of
1929, Eastern Nigeria,” in Shirley Ardener, ed., Perceiving Women (New York: John Wiley,
1975), 127-157; Judith Van Allen, "Aba Riots' or Igbo 'Women's War'? Ideology, Stratification,
and the Invisibility of Women," in Nancy Hafkin and Edna Bay (eds.), Women in Africa
(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1976), 59-85; Isichei, A History of the Igbo
People, 151-155; S. N. Nwabara, Iboland: A Century of Contact With Britain 1860-1960
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977), 181-201; Nina Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized:
Women's Political Activity in Southern Nigeria, 1900-1965 (Berkeley, California: Institute of
International Studies, University of California, 1982), 79-97; Audrey Wipper, “Riot and
Rebellion Among African Women: Three Examples of Women's Political Clout,” in Jean F.
O'Barr, ed., Perspectives On Power: Women in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Durham, NC:
Duke University Center for International Studies, 1982), 62-65.
143
Leith-Ross, African Women, 19.
144

Leith-Ross, African Women, 21.

145

Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 67; Karen. Sacks, "An Overview of Women and Power in
Africa" in O'Barr ed., Perspectives on Power, 5-9; Kamene Okonjo, “The Dual Sex Political
System in Operation: Igbo Women and Community Politics in Midwestern Nigeria” in Hafkin
and Bay (eds.) Women in Africa, 46-56; Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 37, 87-89; Ifi
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society (London:
48

colonial rule, women’s active participation in political life diminished,

146

Nina Mba contends

that Igbo women’s political authorities remained vibrant in the colonial period, and were the
pillars on which the Women’s War of 1929 was embarked upon.

147

However, up until the 1990s, studies on Igbo women offered generalized analyses of
women’s socio-political institutions and strategies. They describe Igbo societies primarily in
terms of a patrilineal kinship system, and the view of Christianity’s impact is mostly restricted to
the Roman Catholic Mission and the Church Missionary Society. In this vein, the different
historical experiences of the Ohafia and other neighboring Igbo communities, who had a doubledescent or dominant matrilineal kinship system, and where the Church of Scotland Mission
enjoyed a near-monopoly until the mid-20th century, is not accounted for.
Indeed, the micro studies that followed this scholarship pointed up some contradictions.
Caroline Ifeka-Moller opposed Van Allen’s argument that pre-colonial Igbo women possessed
substantial political power, and rather contends that colonialism delivered Igbo women from
male domination and ushered a change in gendered labor division, which enabled women to
achieve unprecedented commercial power.

148

Similarly, Phoebe Ottenberg argues that Afikpo

women relied upon their husbands for subsistence in the pre-colonial period, but were able to
Zed Books Limited, 1989), 119-123; Annie Lebeuf, “The Role of Women in the Political
Organization of African Societies,” in D. Paulme, ed., Women of Tropical Africa (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1971), 93-120; Jean O'Barr, “African Women in Politics,” in
Margaret Jean Hay and Sharon Sticher (eds.), African Women South of the Sahara (London:
Longman, 1984), 140-144; Audrey Wipper, “Women's Voluntary Associations,” in Hay and
Sticher (eds.), African Women South of the Sahara, 70 and 86.
146
Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,” 165; Van Allen, “Aba Riots' or Igbo 'Women's War'? 62-70;
and Okonjo, "The Dual-Sex Political System,” 55.
147
Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, ix, 67-68, 68-134.
148

Caroline Ifeka-Moller, “Female Militancy and Colonial Revolt: The Women’s War of 1929,
Eastern Nigeria,” in Ardener, ed., Perceiving Women, 132-135. For similar views on the OhafiaIgbo in particular, which this dissertation challenges, see chapter 2.
49

improve their economic power as a result of European contact and cassava production.

149

In

addition to the notion of women’s subservience to men in the pre-colonial period, Susan Martin
went further to argue that during the colonial era, with the increase in palm oil trade, Ngwa
women adopted cassava production, which afforded them more time to produce greater
quantities of palm oil for sale. However, women were still unable to escape male socio-political
domination, and men reaped the benefits of women’s economic innovation.

150

The works of a number of African scholars in turn challenge these views. Felix Ekechi
argues that pre-colonial Igbo women not only produced the bulk of locally consumed food, but
they also controlled their material resources, which enabled them to attain social mobility
through title-taking and the acquisition of property.

151

Chima Korieh’s argument that

colonialism marginalized Igbo women as insivible farmers and privileged men as real farmers,
resulting in a food crisis, contradicts the position of Ifeka-Moller, Ottenberg and Martin.
Also, whereas Adiele Afigbo

153

and Gloria Chuku

149

154

152

contend that pre-colonial Igbo women

Phoebe Ottenberg, “The Changing Economic Position of Women among the Afikpo Ibo,” in
W.T. Bascom and M.J. Herskovits, eds. Continuity and Change in African Cultures (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1959), 205-223.
150
Susan Martin, “Gender and Innovation: Farming, Cooking, and Palm Processing in the Ngwa
Region of Southeastern Nigeria, 1900-1930,” Journal of African History 25, 4 (1984), 411-427.
151
Felix K. Ekechi, “Gender and Economic Power: The Case of Igbo Market Women in
Southeastern Nigeria,” in Bessie House-Midamba and Felix K. Ekechi, eds. African Women and
Economic Power: The Role of Women in African Economic Development (Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1995), 41-57.
152
Chima Korieh, “The Invisible Farmer? Women, Gender, and Colonial Agricultural Policy in
the Igbo Region of Nigeria, c1913-1954,” African Economic History (29 (2001), 117-162.
153
Adiele E. Afigbo, “Women in Nigerian History,” in Martin O. Ijere, ed. Women in Nigeria
Economy (Enugu: Acena, 1991), 35-36.
154
Gloria Chukwu, “From Petty Traders to International Merchants: A Historical Account of
Three Igbo Women of Nigeria in Trade and Commerce, 1886-1970,” African Economic History
50

dominated agricultural production and monopolized local trade, Felicia Ekejiuba
Nwando Achebe

156

155

and

argue that they participated in long distance trade, amassed great wealth

there-from, and attained political power and high social status, beyond the capacity of most men
in their societies.
My dissertation builds upon these studies to argue that Ohafia women were neither
subservient nor complementary to men in the pre-colonial period; rather, they were economically
and politically more powerful. In the chapter 1 of this dissertation, I employ the concept of
breadwinner to bring into sharp focus, the realities of Ohafia-Igbo women’s dominance in food
production and distribution, and their prominent role in domestic and long distance trade, in a
way that none of these scholars have supposed. Ohafia people articulate pre-colonial women’s
position as breadwinners with the expressions: nde n’aku nde ife nri (those who feed the
community) and anyi eri ala a nne (we eat through the mother). The breadwinner concept is
rooted in the matrifocal ideologies of the Ohafia-Igbo kinship system, and reflects the
th

th

preoccupation of men with warfare and slave production in the 18 and 19 centuries.

Literature on Gender and Masculinities in Africa
Gender became transformed in its contact with West Africa

157

in three major ways: a

redefinition of the relationship between the “biological” and “social” in contrast to received

27 (1999), 1-22; Gloria Chuku, “Women in the Economy of Igboland, 1900-1970: A Survey,”
African Economic History 23 (1995), 37-50.
155
Felicia I. Ekejiuba, “Omu Okwei, the Merchant Queen of Ossomari: A Biographical
Sketch,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 3, 4 (1967), 633-646.
156
Achebe, Farmer, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 110-154.
157

This review focuses mostly on West Africa as a distinct geographical context. However, the
study incorporates in specific chapters, the literature from southern and east Africa, especially
Luise White, “Separating the Men from the Boys: Constructions of Gender, Sexuality, and
51

categories of the Western world,

158

a questioning of the privileging of gender over other social

attributes especially age, and wealth;

159

and a revelation that gender is an expression of power

struggles between and among men and women.

160

Ifi Amadiume pioneered the idea that gender

and sex were distinct in West African societies, when she argued that the flexibility of Igbo
gender system, mediated the “dual-sex” social organization, such that women were able to
occupy and perform male roles, and vice versa. Thus, gender categories of masculinity and
femininity were separate from biological sex.

161

However, writing in the 1980s, Amadiume

offered a structuralist analysis of gendered power and agency in Nnobi. She did not elucidate
Terrorism in Central Kenya, 1939-1959” The International Journal of African Historical Studies
23, 1 (1990), 1-25; Maria-Barbara Watson-Franke, “Masculinity and the ‘Matrilineal Puzzle’,”
Anthropos Bd. 87, H. 4./6. (1992), 475-488; Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfanne, eds.
Dislocating Masculinities: Comparative Ethnographies (London: Routledge, 1994); Robert
Morrell, “Of Boys and Men: Masculinity and Gender in Southern African Studies,” Journal of
Southern African Studies 24, 4 (Dec., 1998); John Colman Wood, When Men Are Women:
Manhood Among Gabra Nomads of East Africa (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press,
1999); Dorothy L. Hodgson, “‘Once Intrepid Warriors’: Modernity and the Production of Maasai
Masculinities,” Ethnology 38, 2 (Spring, 1999), 121-150; Robert Morrell, From Boys to
Gentlemen: Settler Masculinity in Colonial Natal, 1880-1920 (South Africa: Unisa Press, 2001);
Robert Morrell, ed., Changing Men in Southern Africa (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal
Press, 2001); Thembisa Waetjen, Workers and Warriors: Masculinity and the Struggle for
Nation in South Africa (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004).
158
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands; Oyeronke Oyewunmi, The Invention of
Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1997); Nwando Achebe, The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2011).
159
Andrea Cornwall, “To Be A Man Is More Than a Day’s Work: Shifting Ideals of
Masculinity in Ado-Odo, Southwestern Nigeria,” in Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and
Masculinities, 230-248; Lisa A. Lindsay, “Money, Marriage, and Masculinity on the Colonial
Nigerian Railway,” in Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and Masculinities, 138-155; Gregory
Mann, “Old Soldiers, Young Men: Masculinity, Islam, and Military Veterans in Late 1950s
Soudan Francais (Mali),” in Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and Masculinities, 69-86;
Pashington Obeng, “Gendered Nationalism: Forms of Masculinity in Modern Asante of Ghana,”
in Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and Masculinities, 192-208.
160
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 42-68, 119-143; Achebe, Farmers, Traders,
Warriors and Kings, 161-224.
161
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 15-17, 28.
52

gendered contestations especially at the individual level, and did not show how female political
activism shaped men’s lives. This dissertation demonstrates that the actions and inactions of
women shaped the historical processes of gendered identity formation for men (chapter 3). It also
provides case studies of individual men and women’s negotiation of social mobility and power
through successive gender transformations (chapter 5).
The emphasis on structures and institutions of female power and authority is also evident
in Edna G. Bay’s Wives of the Leopard. Bay examines the impact of cultural, economic, and
political institutions and practices between 1700 and 1894 on “patterns of female autonomy” —
“how power and authority were gained, were exercised, and were lost over the life of the
kingdom” of Dahomey.

162

She argues that as the monarchical culture that enabled Dahomean

women to exercise choice, influence, and autonomy weakened, and disappeared upon the
imposition of French colonial rule, women lost their socio-political power and influence in the
society.

163

Early attempts to locate women in African history took the form of the search for

queen mothers, and royal wives within institutional histories of old West African states. My
dissertation focuses on a non-centralized society, and examines both formal and informal
mechanisms of expressing female power and authority, in addition to how these changed over
time. Second, while accounting for the impact of larger historical processes such as the Atlantic
slave trade, British colonialism, and Christianity in shaping social identities and gendered power,

162

Edna G. Bay, Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of
Dahomey (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998), 5.
163
Up until the 1970s, West African history was primarily the history of men (African and
European) and political institutions. As a reaction against this male-centered historiography,
early works on ‘gender’ in West Africa were largely about women and by women.
53

this study argues that it was competitive quest for social mobility and ufiem performance that
defined Ohafia-Igbo engagements with socio-political institutions and macro historical forces.

164

Building on these studies, by the 1990s, a new wave of scholarship, with more complex
views of women’s work, socio-political organization, and the politics of gender sought to map
out women’s social history, with particular emphasis on women’s forms of work, their words,
worlds, consciousness, and questions of subjectivity and agency. They emphasized individual
adaptations, negotiation, and contestation of structures, against the background of pre-colonial
165

women’s socio-political institutions.

This contrasted sharply with the top-down approach

evident in the scholarship on women’s experience of patriarchal ideologies in East Africa, in the
sense that the scholarship focused more on the impact of domesticity, marital and sexual
ideologies, and discourses of development on women’s loss of power, and less on preexisting
mechanisms of female power and authority, and women’s negotiations of these colonial

164

Thus, in chapter 1, I argue that it was changes in individual interpretations of social
responsibility and inheritance practices that defined changes in Ohafia lineage system. In chapter
2, I argue that competitive performances of political power between men and women shaped the
emergence of ikpirikpe ndi inyom as the most powerful political institution in pre-colonial
Ohafia-Igbo society. In chapter 3, I argue that through ufiem performance, Ohafia men
transformed practices such as the war dance into a gendering institution and defined a
“geography of masculinity.” In chapter 4, I argue that the quest for social mobility shaped the
gendered adaptation of Ohafia secret societies and the limited political authority that the all-male
okonko gained locally. Similarly, in chapter 5, I acknowledge the impact of macro forces such as
British colonialism and Christianity, but also show that it was the competitive quest for ogaranya
masculinity status that determined the workings of colonialism and the spread of Christianity.
165
Barbara Cooper, Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in a Hausa Society in Niger,
1900-1989 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1997); Gracia Clark, Onions Are My Husband:
Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1994); Sandra E. Greene, Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Change on the Upper
Slave Coast: A History of the Anlo-Ewe (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996); Jean Davison,
Gender, Lineage, and Ethnicity in Southern Africa (Colorado: Westview Press, 1997).
54

processes.

166

Thus, Andrea Cornwall concludes that, “It is West African research that has given

rise to the most potent critiques of Western assumptions.”

167

As women’s studies came to embrace the study of gender relations, attention turned to
processes and structures through which women’s and men’s identities and relationships were
mediated. Thus, in a study of the politics of gender and the evolution of female power and
authority in Nsukka, Northern Igboland, between 1900 and 1960, Achebe examines the religious,
economic, and political structures that enabled women to exercise power. She emphasizes
individual women’s negotiation of spaces and institutions to empower themselves, in their
response to the challenges of colonial rule.

168

In a study of female subjective experiences,

Achebe relies on life histories of women to illustrate their roles as medicines and goddesses,
priestesses and prophetesses;

169

farmers, traders, potters, and weavers;

170

and king(s).

171

Nsukka women appropriated the economic gains acquired through their various forms of work to
negotiate social mobility and exercise political power. By comparing women’s resistance

166

Here, women in the pre-colonial period are presented to be absolutely powerless before men,
only to be rescued by colonialism and Christianity. See Grace B. Kyomunhendo and Marjorie K.
McIntosh, Women, Work and Domestic Virtue in Uganda, 1900-2003 (Athens: Ohio University
Press, 2006), 14-15, which offers a teleological narrative of how Ugandan women passively
became marginalized over time, first by Ugandan men, and later, by British colonial officials and
European missionaries. Also, see Tabitha Kanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya,
1900-1950 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005), 241, which explores the intertwined efforts of
colonial officials, missionaries, and indigenous authorities to define and control various
institutions that regulated womanhood, and argues that colonialism created a fluid environment
that afforded women opportunities to negotiate advantages. Kanogo does not discuss the status of
women in pre-colonial Kenya and presents colonization as “salvific” for women.
167
Cornwall, ed. Readings in Gender in Africa, 1.
168
169
170
171

Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings.
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 53-108.
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 109-160.
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 197-224.
55

strategies against indigenous and foreign patriarchies before and during the colonial period,
Achebe argues that women often transcended exclusive male socio-political positions to assert
and express their power and authority.

172

Moreover, Achebe shows that women’s exercise of

socio-political power and authority impacted men and shaped their gender identities.

173

My dissertation builds upon Achebe’s insight. Whereas she argues that King Ahebi
Ugbabe’s production of a masked spirit constituted a brash social insult against Nsukka men, I
examine how the constitution of a “geaography of masculinity” (see chapter 3) set cultural limits
that prevented female masculinities from realizing full manhood in Ohafia society. This study
also shows the role of women in the constitution of ufiem, the discrimination of ujo, and
th

redefinitions of (ogaranya) masculinity in the first two decades of the 20 century.
However, the foregoing scholarship on gender in West Africa largely assumed patriarchy,
rather than historicize male power, with the result that men served as a backdrop in the
examination of women’s experiences. With the exception of Amadiume, who attempted to
theorize “How They Made Them Men,”

174

African feminist writings on gender have largely

ignored the historical constitution of male power and privilege. For instance, scholars such as
Nina Mba and Annie Lebeuf merely assumed that the existence of male secret societies and
amali (village assembly), where Igbo women had limited or no access in the pre-colonial period,
represented evidence for women’s marginalization from total society and formal institutions of

172
173
174

Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 163, 165-171.
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 197-217.
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 94-95.
56

political power, without interrogating the limitations of these institutions.

175

Their views are still

unchallenged. Subsequent scholars have merely tried to show how women negotiated alternative
spaces for the exercise of political power, often casting men as a homogenous category. My
dissertation interrogates both the historical processes for the establishment of masculine
institutions, as well as the limitations that attended their gendered adaptations (see chapter 4). It
also shows that there were various categories of masculinities in Ohafia between 1850 and 1920.
It is also in this regard that Robert Morrell and Lahoucine Ouzgane pointed out that much
of African feminist scholarship has come to deal with masculinity, but ignores men, such that
while a great deal of attention is given to womanhood and motherhood, there is no equivalent
discussion of manhood and fatherhood.

176

Elsewhere, Morrell writes, “The dominance of men

in the public record has obscured the fact that little is known about masculinity. Men have
generally been treated in essentialist terms.”

177

In effect, the preexisting framework did not

allow for the theorization of the African gender system as one of power relations among men and
women and between men and women. It also did not posit masculinity and femininity as
mutually constitutive. New studies centering on masculinities primarily tried to bridge this gap.
In Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa, twelve prominent gender scholars provide
diverse perspectives to the construction of masculinities in the context of the socio-economic and
cultural transformations of colonial and post-colonial Africa. Opposing Robert Connell’s concept
of a single hegemonic masculinity, the authors argue that African gender relations were
175

Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,” 165-171; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 24; Mba, Nigerian
Women Mobilized, 27, 29, 37, 62; Lebeuf, “The Role of Women in the Political Organization of
African Societies,” 109, 113; Ifeka-Moller, “Female Militancy and Colonial Revolt: The
Women’s War of 1929, Eastern Nigeria,” in Ardener, ed., Perceiving Women, 134
176
Robert Morell and Lahoucine Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities: Men in Africa from the
late Nineteenth Century to the Present (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), 1, 6-7.
177
Morrell, “Of Boys and Men,” 605.
57

constitutive of a patchwork of patriarchies, some imposed through colonialism, and others
locally derived.

178

They contend that “there were multiple and at times conflicting notions of

masculinity, promoted by local and foreign institutions.”

179

Whereas Carolyn Brown and Lisa

Lindsay argue that African masculinities were “socially constructed” through dominant social
and political institutions, Dorothy Hodgson and Luise White show that masculinities were
“consciously constructed” by individual African men through subversive measures.

180

However, the construction of masculinity was not always a conscious endeavor. Thus,
Frederick Cooper shows that European officials conceived of their African labor policies in
masculine terms, while defining the work that women did as “something else.” Also, African
men found it in their best interests to support the colonial state on certain issues, even as their
patriarchal authority was undermined by the new opportunities that colonial structures and agents
provided to junior men and women.

181

Similarly, Brown examines how labor affected coal

miners’ construction of masculinity in southeastern Nigeria. She links the Enugu context to

178

Lisa A. Lindsay and Stephan F. Miescher, “Introduction: Men and Masculinities in Modern
African History,” in Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and Masculinities, 3.
179
Lisa and Miescher, “Introduction,” 13 Thus, Miescher shows that Presbyterian teachers did
not perceive some notions of masculinity as hegemonic and others as subordinate. Rather, they
created their own synthesis of different cultural practices that were determined by specific
contexts by negotiating between competing masculinities (Men and Masculinities, 89-104).
180
Caroline Brown, “A ‘Man’ in the Village Is a’Boy’ in the Workplace: Colonial Racism,
Worker Militance, and Igbo Notions of Masculinity in the Nigerian Coal Industry, 1930-1945,”
In Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and Masculinities, 156-174; Lindsay, “Money, Marriage, and
Masculinity,” 138-155; Dorothy Hodgson, “Being Maasai Men: Modernity and the Production of
Maasai Masculinities,” In Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and Masculinities, 211-229; Luise
White, “Matrimony and Rebellion: Masculinity in Mau Mau,” In Lindsay and Miescher, eds.
Men and Masculinities, 177-191.
181
Frederick Cooper, “Industrial Man Goes to Africa,” in Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and
Masculinities, 128-136.
58

England’s ideologies of miners as “a race apart, outcasts, isolated and primitive,”

182

and argues

that Igbo coal miners’ individual and collective resistance were defined against European
ideologies, while equally serving to fulfill indigenous expectations of manhood, since men had to
work to earn money for title-taking and fulfillment of village obligations.

183

The essays theorize gender as comprising of the history of men and women. Examining
the role of wealth creation in the definition of masculine identity, Andrea Cornwall shows that
the actions of both men and women enabled the constitution of particular visions of masculinity
in southwestern Nigeria.

184

Similarly, examining the relationship between wage labor, money

and gender, Lindsay argues that the British colonial government, western Nigerian railway men
and their wives initiated a new kind of masculine self-conception (men as breadwinners and
wage-earners) in negotiation of social mobility.

185

Men and Masculinities differentiates masculinity from manhood. It defines masculinity
as a cluster of norms, values, and behavioral patterns expressing explicit and implicit
expectations of how men should act and represent themselves to others; while manhood refers to
indigenous notions explicitly related to men’s physiology, often recognized in terms of male
adulthood.

186

Thus, Achebe argues that the woman Ahebi Ugbabe embraced a highly

masculinized form of colonial leadership, reinvented herself as “king” in a society that had no
kings and went as far as creating a masked spirit in an effort to realize full manhood.
182

Brown, “A ‘Man’ in the Village Is a ‘Boy’ in the Workplace,” 159.

183

Brown, “A ‘Man’ in the Village Is a ‘Boy’ in the Workplace,” 162.

184

Cornwall, “To Be A Man Is More Than a Day’s Work,” 230-245.

185

Lindsay, “Money, Marriage, and Masculinity,” 138-151.

186

Lisa and Miescher, “Introduction,” 4-5.

187

Achebe, “And She Became a Man,” 52-66.
59

187

Achebe

further elaborates on King Ahebi Ugbabe’s successive gender transformations in her
monograph,

188

and her conclusions enable me to draw important similarities and differences
th

between Ahebi and Ohafia women in the first two decades of the 20 century (chapter 5). Also,
the idea of female masculinities and the notion that women’s actions and inactions shaped the
historical constructions of ufiem is cardinal to “Emergent Masculinities.”
Men and Masculinities also challenges the dichotomy between the public and domestic
spheres, by arguing that men’s bodies, their domestic spaces, and their work and leisure places
were sites for the construction and contestation of masculinity. Thus, White contends that Mau
Mau men’s ideas of intimacy and domesticity were an integral part of their political struggles,
and McKittrick shows that “fatherhood” was a politicized gendered practice.

189

190

Lastly, the collection examines gender in view of other categories such as age and
seniority. Gregory Mann demonstrates that new opportunities afforded by colonial rule enabled
young men and women to challenge the political power and dominant masculinity of older
males.

191

Pashington Obeng on the other hand, argues that whereas young Asante male

nationalists (nkwankwaa) who relied on access to wealth, seniority, maleness and political clout,
failed in their effort to challenge senior men in the 1950s, Yaa Asantewaa successfully employed
188
189

Achebe, The Female King.
Luise White, “Afterword,” in Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and Masculinities, 177-189.

190

Meredith McKittrick, “Forsaking their Fathers? Colonialism, Christianity, and Coming of
Age in Ovamboland, Northern Namibia,” in Lindsay and Miescher, eds., Men and Masculinities,
33-47. The only contributor who examined changing conceptions of masculinity in the precolonial period, McKittrick shows that inter-generational tensions in Ovamboland were
enhanced by colonialism, when sons increasingly sought alternative avenues (Christianity and
labor migration) to side-step their fathers’ hegemonic (through cattle-inheritance) hold, thereby
creating an elite masculinity. However, “sons” still had to give gifts to “fathers”, whose authority
was increasingly subverted by colonial labor policies.
191
Mann, “Old Soldiers, Young Men,” 69-86.
60

the ideals of royal lineage, elder status, and personal courage to resist British colonial rule in
192

1900.

He thus demonstrates the limitations of age and sex in the attainment of “senior

masculinity.”

193

These essays inform this study’s examination of how the relationship between

fathers and sons shaped the construction and performance of ufiem in Ohafia-Igbo society, as
well as institutions and practices that enabled the transition from boyhood to adult masculinity.
Building upon this scholarship, Miescher studies the social construction of masculinities
th

in Ghana in the 20 century. Examining the life histories and constantly shifting
subjectivities

194

of eight senior men (a cocoa farmer, a policeman and driver, a trader and

businessman, two teachers, one pastor, and two shrine attendants), Miescher argues individuals
negotiated complex socio-political transformations and notions of masculinity shaped by
community expectations, and imported ideologies from missionaries and colonial officials. Thus,
structures of colonial rule like the police force, Christian mission, schools, wage labor, and new
material culture, introduced new regimes of understanding that tried to redefine manhood in
Ghana, and these structures further intersected, often in conflicting ways, with indigenous
structures like the matrilineage. However, the eight protagonists created their own synthesis of
different cultural practices as they navigated various hegemonic landcapes.

195

He makes three significant contributions to the field. First, he shows that understandings
of masculinities are linked to histories of institutions and structures of power, as much as men’s
private lives reveal intimate practices, contestations and transformations of gender relations.

192

Obeng, “Gendered Nationalism,” 202.

193

Lisa and Miescher, “Introduction,” 18.

194

Miescher, Making Men in Ghana, 13-16.

195

Miescher, Making Men in Ghana, 43-44, 54, 138.
61

Thus, he argues that while colonialism led to a “masculinization” of African political systems it
did not lead to a collapse of the indigenous gender system, which was fluid.

196

Second, he

complicates Cornell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity by demonstrating that it is not always
obvious which forms of masculinity were dominant since understandings of gender depended on
specific contexts and actors’ subject positions. Third, he demonstrates that the passage to
manhood was not always welcome or easy, and thus challenges feminist scholarship’s
assumption of patriarchy and male dominance as essential (a given).
The major limitation of Miescher’s work is the question of representativeness of the case
studies for the social experiences of most Ghanaian men in the 20th century. His focus on eight
men’s subjectivities clouds the structural impact of the exploitative British colonial rule on
Ghanaian society. Moreover in examining Ghanaian men’s subjective experiences, the power of
translation, arrangement, interpretation, and mediation, rested with Miescher.

197

Also, the focus

on the 20th century, did not allow for a detailed study of the changes in gender identity formation
in pre-colonial Ghanaian society.

198

Lastly, Miescher does not elucidate how men’s construction

196

Miescher, Making Men in Ghana, 199.

197

Miescher, Making Men in Ghana, xv-xix.

198

Miescher, Making Men in Ghana, 8-13. Miescher asserted that in the 18th century, the
hierarchical and patriarchal Asante mediated sexuality and gender relations, recognizing male
sexual needs but not those of women, and elite men accumulated women as a sign of wealth. The
emphasis on war as a male occupation altered relations between men and women, senior and
juniors. Women played a role in warfare and some became ritual men. In the late 19th century,
there existed the warrior ideal of masculinity, in addition to notions of adult masculinity (through
marriage and gun ownership), senior masculinity (elderhood), and big man masculinity (wealth).
British colonial conquest in the mid 19th century ended warfare as an activity for Akan men, and
men turned to fishing and trading in kola nuts, imported fabric, and glass beads, and later in the
20th century, to cash crops, erecting large cement buildings in demonstration of their wealth.
From the 1890s, the cocoa industry altered gender relations resulting in the feminization of
pawning, and women’s monopolization of the markets. In the 1920s, British indirect rule
strengthened male chiefly power, and enabled men to promote their ideas about gender. He made
passing mention of these complex transformations in gender identities taking place in Akan
62

and exercise of gendered power and women’s exercise of power was correspondent. My work
attempts to confront these challenges head-on (see chapters 3-5).
Lindsay makes a remarkable effort to confront this issue in Working with Gender: Wage
Labor and Social Change in Southwestern Nigeria. Focusing on railway workers, and relying on
oral interviews and written sources, Lindsay argues, “all sides of the colonial encounter were
bringing gender to their notions of work.”

199

She examines the impact of colonial wage

economy on the dynamics of family structure and gender ideology in southwestern Nigeria,
mostly between 1930 and the early 1960s. Positioning “gender” as a social tool, Lindsay argues
that colonial administrators and employers worked with gender in the sense that they based
policies on their assumptions about the ideal roles and attributes of men and women. They
equally defined local gender and domestic arrangements as index of “backwardness” in their bid
to justify racial discrimination in wage-fixing and other benefits. On the other hand, Africans
used gender in multiple ways. African men’s lives were bound up with social expectations about
how “real men” should conduct themselves, both in public and as sons, husbands, fathers, and
relatives at home, and women were involved in this definition of gendered expectations.
Second, Lindsay posits gender as discourse. She argues that labor differentiation,
domesticity, and gender were inseparable in working men’s negotiation of higher allowances and
wages through strike actions and in the process, masculinity and femininity were contested and
constructed. Defining themselves as “bread-winners,” male railway workers justified their
demands as financial supporters of their wives. Women equally lent their support to their men’s
societies in the 19th century, but moved on quickly to the 20th century, because “many of these
big events . . . seemed to touch the interviewed men only marginally . . . The focus here is more
on the personal and individual.”Making Men in Ghana, 12. These ideas touched upon by
Miescher are fully engaged with in this present study.
199
Lisa Lindsay, Working With Gender: Wage Labor and Social Change in Southwestern
Nigeria (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003), 3.
63

cause as “bread-winners,” thus participating in the construction of railway workers as “modern
men” and “big men.” At the same time, women exploited the discourse of “male bread-winners”
and “female housewives” to negotiate their entitlement to resources from their husbands.

200

However, some men used the status of family providers to appropriate their wives’ income, even
while supporting women’s access to wage labor against colonial government’s efforts to confine
women to home and markets. In this way, Lindsay shows that masculinity and femininity were
mutually constitutive as both men and women worked with gender.
However, Lindsay’s exploration of gender through subjectivities (how railway workers
thought about themselves as men) met with limited success. She does not show how the decline
in the earning ability of railway pensioners affected their status at home, how their wives and
children treated them, and why some wives divorced their husbands while others did not. By
reifying wage labor as the mono-causal factor for these variables, Lindsay overlooked other
equally important issues such as marriage types (polygamy or monogamy), religious affiliations,
age and seniority, etc. By virtue of her analysis, the structures of colonialism had an
overwhelming deterministic influence on men’s lives, with little room for negotiation, as seen in
her image of a homogenous group of suffering pensioners.

201

My work centers the idea that

competitive individual negotiation of social mobility defined the introduction, adaptation, and
gendered uses of socio-political institutions, as well as Ohafia engagements with colonialism.
The publication of African Masculinities excited a prospect of providing a comprehensive
theory of African masculinities from pre-colonial to post-colonial times. However, in its bid to
recenter African men in gender studies, and challenge their representations as oppressors of

200

Lindsay, Working With Gender, 105-132.

201

Lindsay, Working With Gender, 150-160.
64

women and victims of slavery, colonialism, and postcolonialism, African Masculinities posits
that to talk of masculinity as separate from men (as a social construct) is tautological. In effect,
Morrell and Ouzgane believed there was no distinction between manhood and masculinity,

202

which is problematic in view of the women/gender scholarship above, which has emphasized the
fluidity of the African gender system. Moreover, Morrell has emphasized the social
constructionism of South African masculinities elsewhere.

203

Also, the title of the book would

lead one to expect a study of pre-colonial African masculinities — a lacuna Miescher and
Lindsay had called attention to.

204

However, this is not the case. The gap remains. My

dissertation attempts to fill that gap by examining shifts in the construction, production,
contestation, and transformation of African masculinities in the pre-colonial period. The
construction of masculinity through institutionalization

205

and performance in Ohafia between

1850 and 1900, was part of a broader historical process — the gendered struggle for power.
Situated more within the field of critical men’s studies than history, and focusing
primarily on Southern Africa,

206

African Masculinities examines how boys were socialized to

become men in African societies, why men behave the way they do in order to be perceived as
masculine, and the impact of colonial racism on African masculine identities. As Morrell and
Ouzgance put it, the book examines “how African masculinities, African male bodies,

202

Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities, 4.

203

Morrell, “Of Boys and Men,” 605-630.

204

Lindsay and Miescher, eds. Men and Masculinities, 2.

205

Michael Kimmel, Jeff Hearn and R.W. Connell, eds., Handbook of Studies on Men and
Masculinities (London, 2005); Hearn, Jeff, “Theorizing Men and Men’s Theorizing: Varieties of
Discursive Practices on Men’s Theorizing of Men,” Theory and Society 27, 6 (1998), 781-816.
206
Of the 17 total chapters, 8 were on on southern Africa, 3 on Egypt, 1 on Kenya/Tanzania, 1
on Nigeria, and 1 on Guinee, 3 on Africa generally.
65

subjectivities, and experiences are constituted in specific historical, cultural, and social
207

contexts.”

Wilson Jacob and Frank Salamone analyze subversive masculinities. Salomone

applies the language of gender to queer practices in Hausa society, Northern Nigeria, and argues
that the yan dauda (men who talk and behave like women and have sex with each other)
reinforce and challenge Hausa notions of dominant male heterosexuality and femininity, through
public displays of homoeroticism.

208

His insights reinforce my argument that Ohafia men’s

masculinization of public spaces through ufiem performances (chapter 3), and Ohafia women’s
transformation of public spaces into the most effective platform for expressing political power
and authority (chapter 2), define public spaces as an arena of gendered power contestation.
Jacob, the only scholar that tried to highlight conceptions of African masculinity in Egypt before
European colonial rule, through an analysis of the two-volume work of Ibrahim Fawzi Pasha on
Sudan, argues that new ways of performing colonial masculinity and national identity emerged in
the context of Egyptian-Sudanese state relations, before British colonial rule.

209

Indeed, the four major concepts (interpretations, representations, constructions, and
contestations of masculinity) around which African Masculinities is organized are very
influential to my dissertation. Writing from a post-colonial perspective, Arthur Saint-Aubin, Beti
Ellerson, Lindsay Clowes, Meredith Goldsmith, Kathryn Holland, and Sally Hayward examine
the political representations and interpretations of African masculinities and male sexuality in

207

Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities, 8.

208

Frank A. Salamone, “Hausa Concepts of Masculinity and the ‘Yan Dauda,” in Morell and
Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities, 75-86.
209
WilsonChacko Jacob, “The Masculine Subject of Colonialism: The Egyptian Loss of the
Sudan,” in Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities, 153-170.
66

Western scientific and medical discourses,
212

magazine,

and fictional narratives.

213

210

pro-gay films,

211

the South African Drum

My dissertation examines Ohafia-Igbo changing

interpretations (meaning signification) of ufiem through discourses (how men and women
describe ufiem attributes) and performances (practices that socially legitimate or dramatize ufiem
accomplishment such as the war dance). It is in this sense that Paulla Ebron

214

described

performance as constituting gender through a stylized repetition of acts (like dancing) or
discourses (like igbu ishi). With respect to representations, I draw insights from the social
constructionism view of anthropologists and historians, and argue that the performances of ndi
ikike masculinity, in combination with the interpenetrative discourses

215

of colonial officials and

missionaries, and later, historical, and anthropological literature, resulted in the equation of
Ohafia ethnicity with warrior masculinity at the turn of the 20th century.

210

Arthur F. Saint-Aubin, “A Grammer of Black Masculinity: A Body of Science,” in Morell
and Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities, 23-42.
211
Beti Ellerson, “Visualizing Homosexualities in Africa – Dakan: An Interview with
Filmmaker Mohamed Camara,” in Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities, 61-74.
212
Lindsay Clowes, “To Be a Man: Changing Constructions of Manhood in Drum Magazine,
1951-1965,” Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities, 89-108.
213
Meredith Goldsmith, “Of Masks, Mimicry, Misogyny, and Miscegenation: Forging Black
South African Masculinity in Bloke Modisane’s Blame me on History,” in Morell and Ouzgane,
eds. African Masculinities, 109-120; Kathryn Holland, “The Troubled Masculinities in Tsitsi
Dangaremgba’s Nervous Conditions,” in Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities, 121136; Sally Hayward, “(Dis)Enabling Masculinities: The Word and the Body, Class Politics, and
Male Sexuality in El Saadawi’s God Dies by the Nile,” in Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African
Masculinities, 137-152.
214
Ebron, “Constituting Subjects Through Performative Acts,” 171-189.
215

Moore and Vaughan, Cutting Down Trees, xiv.
67

Whereas Glen Elder and Morrell argue that the policies of post-colonial South African
government conditioned constructions of masculinity and sexuality,

216

Margrethe Silberschmidt,

Deevia Bhana, and Rob Pattman contend that gender inequality in political and economic power
shaped constructions of masculinities in East and South Africa.

217

Their perspectives encourage

an interrogation of the relationship between militant conceptions of masculinity in pre-colonial
Ohafia society on the one hand, and the status of Ohafia women as breadwinners with powerful
political institutions and a matrifocal kinship system on the other. Unlike the cases in East and
South Africa, where socio-economic inequalities between men and women produced
masculinities (husbands and schoolboys) who expressed violence against women in the postth

colonial period, I suggest that the propensity of Ohafia men to fight wars in the 18 and 19

th

centuries provided a cathartic release from the realities of female socio-economic dominance. It
is in this sense that Victor Turner argued that Ndembu men transformed hunting into a distinct
masculine pursuit and elevated it onto a ritual plane, in order to create an idyllic sylvan unisexual
community, which enabled them to exercise control over young men and escape “the inexorable
reality of matrilineal descent and female control of the economic basis of survival.”

216

218

Glen S. Elder, “Somewhere over the Rainbow: Cape Town, South Africa, as a ‘Gay
Destination,’” in Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African Masculinities, 43-60; Robert Morrell, “Men,
Movements, and Gender Transformation in South Africa,” in Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African
Masculinities, 271-288.
217
Margrethe Silberschmidt, “Poverty, Male Disempowerment, and Male Sexuality: Rethinking
Men and Masculinities in Rural and Urban east Africa,” in Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African
Masculinities, 189-204; Deevia Bhana, “Violence and the Gendered Negotiation of Masculinity
Among Young Black School Boys in South Africa,” in Morell and Ouzgane, eds. African
Masculinities, 205-220; Rob Pattman, “Ugandanas,’ “Cats’ and Others: Constructing Student
Masculinities at the University of Botswana,” in African Masculinities, 221-236.
218
Victor Turner, Schism and Continuity in an African Society: A Study of Ndembu Village Life
(London: Manchester University Press 1957), 230, 242-243. I also employ this idea, which I call
masculinization, in discussing the gendered uses of hunting and yam cultivation in Ohafia.
68

Lastly, in this study, I draw upon Robert Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity (a
dominant form of masculinity that established the cultural ideal of how real men should behave),
his notion of masculinities (the idea that all men are not the same), and his theory of masculinity
as a social construct.

219

However, in order to overcome the structuralist limitations of Connell’s

approach premised on the idea that masculinity is socially constructed, I draw insights from the
works of Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfane,

220

and Lindsay and Miescher,

221

to show that

while gender identities were socially constructed, there were ceaseless contestations within and
between various forms of ufiem. My focus then is on everyday practices, individual
consciousness, and innovative manipulation of institutions and spaces, based on Jonathan
Glassman’s idea that conflict between multiple visions of society lies at the heart of any social
system, and individuals negotiate a “tangled web of ideological filaments, each filament spun
originally in a different time and place.”

222

These analytic categories enable the explication of

how various forms of masculinities coexisted in Ohafia in the 19th and 20th centuries, and how
individual Ohafia men and women constructed more than one form of ufiem in their life time.
One major issue arising from the foregoing literature review is whether masculinity is a
social construct or lived experience. Is masculinity performance removed from the realities of
African life? Is it a mask or a disguise, which limits our vision of alternative social realities? I
suggest that we may look to scholars who have successfully applied queer theory to African

219

Connell, Masculinities, ch. 1. Especially as situated in the African context by the
‘Colloquium on Masculinities in Southern Africa,’ articulated by Morrell, “Of Boys and Men,”
605-630.
220
Cornwall and Lindisfanne, eds., Dislocating Masculinities, 5.
221

Lindsay and Miescher, eds., Men and Masculinities, 1-29, 52-68, 89-108, 138-174.

222

Jonathan Glassman, “The Bondsman’s New Clothes: the Contradictory Consciousness of
Slave Resistance on the Swahili Coast,” The Journal of African History 32, 2 (1991), 280, 288.
69

historical contexts, in order to answer these questions.

223

Stephanie Newell studies the life

history of John Moray Stuart-Young (1881-1939) as an individual with multiple “queer”
identities (a homosexual, twice married to women, forger, “spirit rapper,” novelist, poet, and
palm oil trader in Onitsha under British colonial rule). Newell argues that Stuart-Young escaped
the homophobic environment of late 19th and early 20th century England for “Igbo cultural
openness,”

224

which provided “a more expansive ‘geography of desire’,” by accommodating his

“queer” identities.

225

Newell contends that Stuart-Young did not embody a single subjectivity,

but rather, multiple subjectivities, and concludes that “queer” fits well with Igbo gender
flexibility, and reflects the life of Stuart-Young, which revolved around forgeries (without
necessarily implying an originality) and complex mechanisms of “masking.”

226

The story of Stuart-Young suggests that his “queer” identities were both real (facilitated
his negotiation of social mobility in a homophobic British colonial environment) and social
constructs (the various masks he wore). Stuart-Young’s life reflected the challenges of
industrialization and colonization in England and facilitated the anti-colonial nationalist
movement in Nigeria and Ghana.

227

Yet, his sexual postures towards young African boys, which

223

We recall that McCall suggests that African people possessed a “latent system of potential
alternatives,” which enabled individuals to perform masculinity and feminity simultaneously,
and transform ritual gender-role reversals into mechanisms for exercising political authority and
gaining social mobility. McCall “Portrait of a Brave Woman,” 129-130, 134.
224
Stephanie Newell, The Forger’s Tale: The Search for Odeziaku (Athens: Ohio University
Press, 2006), 12-14. Newell describes him as a historical figure marginalized, silenced, and
disavowed by the British colonial administrative framework and by historians of British Empire.
225
Newell, The Forger’s Tale, 12, 166.
226

Newell, The Forger’s Tale, 130-132, 147, 160-163.

227

Newell, The Forger’s Tale, 119-137.
70

Newell describes as a celebration of the youthful body (“Uranian love”)

228

(what is in fact

pedophilia) show that sexual relationships across colonial boundaries were not on an equal basis.
These complex realities help to demonstrate that gender constructions in African societies were
based on socio-political realities, irrespective of how such gender identities were masked or
performed. Thus, this dissertation embraces the varied forms of ufiem construction in OhafiaIgbo society, and rather than posit them as conflicting, I theorize a complex relationship of
domination, complicity, subordination, and subversion among them (chapters 3 and 4).
West African gender studies are yet to show gendered social change and identity
formation in the pre-colonial period. It is yet to satisfactorily theorize the African gender system
as one of power relations between and among men. Yet, some scholars argue that gender is not
African, has no local meaning within African societies, and is evidence of historical
epistemological impositions of the West on Africa during colonial rule.

229

Oyeronke Oyewunmi

insists that there is no “power relations” inherent in the “productive/reproductive” relations
between African men and women, and that the organizing principle in Yorubaland was seniority,
not gender.

230

In contrast, Eileen Boris, Helen Mugambi, and Takyiwaa Manuh argue that

gender can and should be historicized in African contexts in spite of the concept’s Western
provenance, and that while there may not be an African linguistic equivalent for the word
‘gender,’ Africans had always appropriated gender since pre-colonial times in negotiating access

228

Newell, The Forger’s Tale, 76-78, 87. Stuart-Young suffered a trauma of fatherly abuse in
Engalnd, which influenced his sexual molestation of boys in Onitsha.
229
Oyewunmi, The Invention of Women, 22.
230

Oyewunmi, The Invention of Women, 50-55, 83. However, she fails to account for the very
historical processes through which the Yoruba engaged with gender under colonial rule.
71

to resources and power.

231

Gendered history they insist, must involve other analytic categories,

to capture the diversity and dynamism of Africans’ historical experiences.
Gender history emerged from challenging the colonial racialized portrayals of West
African women, to addressing processes and structures through which women’s and men’s
identities and relationships were mediated. Within West African historical context, it was
established that gender is separate from biological sex; gender is best understood in the light of
other analytic categories; and ‘gender’ derives its meaning from geo-cultural and socio-political
contexts. The feminist methodology that for a long time was at the heart of gender (albeit,
women-centered history) studies pioneered the life history approach, which has been extended to
the study of masculinities. The methodology of gender history as it evolved in West Africa
differed from its East African counterpart, where the focus on domesticity, marital and sexual
relationships, and women’s involvement in nationalist struggles and development, reified images
of subordinate and oppressed women.

232

The focus on agency, consciousness, and subjectivities,

in West African gender studies have steered the field of West African history towards a profound
social history. Gender has equally led to the study of material spaces and symbols, as sites for the
construction of identities, contestation of power, and negotiation of historical meanings/truths.

231

Eileen Boris, “Gender After Africa!” in Cole, Manuh, and Miescher, eds., Africa After
Gender, 191-192; Helen Mugambi, “The ‘Post-Gender’ Question in African Studies,” In Cole,
Manuh, and Miescher, eds., Africa After Gender, 285-302; Takyiwaa Manuh, “Doing Gender
Work in Ghana,” In Cole, Manuh, and Miescher, eds., Africa After Gender, 125-149. Ebron
argues that “gender” in West Africa is a performance of “difference,” and as such, both the ‘selfconscious’ and ‘unself-conscious’ aspects of gender performance should be equally studied, so
that “gender becomes a way into understanding other forms of social distinction.” Mugambi
contends that this reality of two tropes of gender, defeats any attempt to think of an Africa
without gender. Boris shows that West Africans have transformed women and gender studies, by
expanding the repertoire for intersectional analysis beyond gender, race, class, and nation.
232
Cornwall, ed. Readings in Gender in Africa, 1.
72

Discourses of African Matriliny: A Brief Survey of Literature
Largely abandoned since the 1990s, studies on African matrilineal societies have not
accounted for how changes in matrilineage practices, as a result of external and internal socioeconomic factors, affected the lives of both men and women. The post-1970s feminist era steered
the field towards challenging the portrayal of a kinship system centered on women, as
anomalous. However, the resultant categorization of “gender” as “women” in the context of
matriliny led to the gross neglect of the lived experiences of men. Jean Davison and Meredith
McKittrick called attention to this oversight in the late 20th and early 21st century,
respectively,

233

yet scholarship has remained the same. By centering masculinities within

matriliny, “Emergent Masculinities” offers a revisionist perspective on the subject.
In the view of structural-functionalist anthropologists, African matriliny had an
“unnatural” mode of inheritance.

234

First, within this system, sons could not inherit property

from their fathers, fathers had limited rights of labor requisition from their children, and agnatic
kin could not inherit from each other, whereas maternal relatives enjoyed these privileges.

235

Second, anthropologists insisted that African matrilineal societies were communalistic and that
individual property ownership was anomalous.

236

Others argued that any form of private

property ownership such as cattle, resulted in the breakdown of the matrilineage.

233

237

Similarly,

Jean Davison, Gender, Lineage, and Ethnicity in Southern Africa (Colorado, 1997);
McKittrick, “Forsaking their Fathers?” 33-51.
234
R.S. Rattray, Ashanti (London: Oxford University Press, 1923), 237-238, described matriliny
as limiting individualism because of its “unnatural” mode of inheritance.
235
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem Village. August 14,
2010; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010.
236
Schneider and Gough, eds., Matrilineal Kinship, xv
237

See Schneider and Gough, eds., Matrilineal Kinship, 668.
73

Kathleen Gough argued in the ‘Modern Disintegration of Matrilineage Groups’ that matriliny
was vulnerable in the face of economic change,

238

while Mary Douglas examined the factors

that naturally inhibited the spread of matriliny, in her essay, “Is Matriliny Doomed in
239

Africa?”

Elizabeth Colson also concluded after her examination of the impact of changing

economic conditions on Tonga family and marriage regulation, that customary matrilineage rules
created inequalities against women and stifled new opportunities afforded by Western
capitalism.

240

Revisions of the works of the structural-functionalist anthropologists, as early as the
1950s, unearthed various misconceptions of African matrilineal societies, beginning with the
notion of the absence of individualism, and the inability of the matrilineage to adapt to
change.

238

241

Among others, Igor Kopytoff criticized this structural-functionalist theoretical

Schneider and Gough, eds., Matrilineal Kinship, 652.

239

Mary Douglas and Phyllis M. Kaberry eds., Man in Africa (New York: Anchor Books,
1969), 123-137. Articulating popular disillusion with this scholarship, Edmund Leach,
Rethinking Anthropology (London: University of London Press, 1961), 4, noted “to create a class
labeled matrilineal societies is as irrelevant for our understanding of social structure as the
creation of blue butterflies is irrelevant for the understanding of the anatomical structure of
Lepidoptera.” Similarly, Saul Mahir, “Matrilineal Inheritance and Post-Colonial Prosperity in
Southern Bobo Country,” Man 27, 2 (1992), 346, stated that to ask whether matriliny is doomed
makes little sense because matriliny is “not a ... monad but a cluster of features.” Also
challenging the homeostatic vision of African matrilineal societies, T.O. Beidelman, The
Matrilineal Peoples of Eastern Tanzania (London: International African Institute, 1967) showed
that the matrilineal societies of Eastern Tanzania (Zaramo, Kwere, Luguru, Kutu, Kaguru,
Sagara, Vidunda, Ngulu, and Zigula) were becoming increasingly patrilineal as a result of Arab
incursion and Islam, and this was evident in changing practices of inheritance, succession,
residence, marriage, initiation, production, and political organization.
240
Elizabeth Colson, Marriage and the Family Among the Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia
(Oxford: Manchester University Press, 1958), 346-347.
241
Schneider and Gough, eds., Matrilineal Kinship, 270-286.
74

242

pessimism in the 1970s.

Later scholars showed that African matrilineal societies’ modes of

inheritance were logical, these societies adapted to change, and they did not necessarily become
patrilineal as a result of contact with Western capitalist culture. The revisionist scholarship
established that the historical transformations of African matrilineal societies were defined as
much by individualism and communalism, and by internal and external factors.

243

Feminist

scholars also argued that structural-functionalist anthropologists downplayed the different
implications of matriliny for women, by portraying a kinship system centered on women, as
anomalous.

244

By examining the changes in inheritance, residence and descent taking place in

African matrilineal societies, later scholars stressed the autonomy in local politics and ritual,
control of income, and decisions concerning child-bearing and family relations, enjoyed by

242

Igor Kopytoff, “Matrilineality, Residence, and Residential Zones,” American Ethnologist 4,
3 (1997), 539-58.
243
However, the new scholarship departed from the structural-functionalist paradigm very
slowly. See Karla Poewe, “Matriliny and Capitalism: The Development of Incipient Classes in
Luapala, Zambia,” Dialectical Anthropology 3 (1978), 331-347; Karla Poewe, “Matriliny in the
Throes of Change: Kinship, Descent and Marriage in Luapala Zambia Part One,” Africa 48, 3
(1978), 207; Karla Poewe, “Matriliny in the Throes of Change: Kinship, Descent and Marriage
in Luapala Zambia Part Two,” Africa 48, 4, (1978); Karla Poewe, “Matrilineal Ideology: The
Economic Activities of Women in Luapala Zambia,” in L.S. Cordell and S. Beckerman (eds.)
The Versatility of Kinship (London: Academic Press, 1980), 345; Karla Poewe, “Religion,
Matriliny, and Change: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists in Luapala, Zambia,”
American Ethnologist 5 2 (May 1978), 303-321; Karla Poewe, Matrilineal Ideology: MaleFemale Dynamics in Luapala, Zambia (London: Academic Press, 1981); Karla Poewe, Religion,
Kinship, and Economy in Luapala, Zambia (New York: The Edwin Meller Press, 1989), 1
Poewe’s logic was consistently premised on the structuralist binaries between modern and
primitive; capitalist and non-capitalist; patriliny and matriliny; productive individualism and
distributive communism. Poewe persistently argued that matriliny inhibited “productive
individualism” and economic development.
244
Peters, “Introduction,” 133-134.
75

women in these societies. They suggested that in all cases where there had been shifts away from
patterns associated with matriliny, women’s authority had declined.

245

Thus, in a comparative study of the matrilineal Ngwezi and Guta societies of the Toka
people of Zambia, Ladislov Holy argues that matrilineal traits remained resilient among the Toka
in spite of absorption into the capitalist market system. Holy shows, that while the introduction
of the ox-plough among the Ngwezi strengthened patrilineal or agnatic ties, the people did not
abandon matrilineal values. The Toka could at one and the same time, accept the desirability of
matrilineal descent and agnatic inheritance, because matriliny was a norm of strategic resource.
According to Holy, matriliny is an appropriable ideology – a cluster of norms, which groups and
individuals invoked and refuted under various circumstances to advance their interests.

246

This

view of matriliny informed Mariane Ferme’s argument that matriliny was used to conceal the
legacy of slavery among the Kpuawala of Sierra Leone, through matrilineal marriage practices

245

See Chet S. Lancaster, “Brideservice, Residence, and Authority Among the Goba (N. Shona)
of the Zambezi Valley,” Africa 44 (1974), 46-64; Chet S. Lancaster, “Battle of the Sexes in
Zambia: A Reply to Karla Poewe,” American Anthropologist 81 (1979), 117-119; Chet S.
Lancaster, “Women, Horticulture and Society in Sub-Saharan Africa,” American Anthropologist
81, (1976), 545; Chet S. Lancaster, The Goba of the Zambezi: Sex Roles, Economics and Change
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981), xii.
246
Holy, Strategies and Norms in a Changing Matrilineal Society. Holy’s distinction between
matrilineal ties (descent) and values (principles) were insights provided by Morgan as early as
1877, and later reinforced by Basehart (1950s) and Turner (1957). Basehart had noted that there
was a preponderance of female principles among the Ashanti, and that lineage hierarchies were
consciously concealed in an effort to enhance cohesiveness. Ashanti “concealment” entailed
discourses (taboos against discussing one’s lineage origins) and practices (cross-cousin
marriages) employed to resolve the matrilineal puzzle. See Schneider and Gough, eds.,
Matrilineal Kinship, 281. Similarly, Turner argued that the matrilineal principle constituted a
structured set of norms and values, which are held in common by members of Ndembu society.
However, while the Ndembu verbalize and ritualize the importance of marital ties, marriage
remained brittle for practical reasons. Turner, Schism and Continuity in an African Society, 89.
76

that transformed slaves (property) into cousins (kin).

247

It also led scholars to examine gendered

consciousness. Francesca Declich explores this in the gendered memorializations of descent
among the Zigula community of East Africa,

248

while Janice Boddy examines this in her study

of the Hofriyati people of Northern Sudan, where women relied upon a historical ideology of
matriliny to resist Islam and escape patrilineal/patriarchal ideologies.

249

Similarly, Kings Phiri examined the changes in matrilineal practices among the Chewa of
Malawi since the 19th century, and argued that men who found themselves in uxorilocal
residences utilized their membership in secret societies and cross-cousin marriages to escape “the
full consequences of uxorilocality.”

250

Phiri also noted that some patrilineal immigrants into

Malawi such as the Chikunda and the Ngoni became “matrilinealized” by the Chewa.

251

Phiri’s

work was a counter-narrative to the popular literature on the Yao, Nyanga and peoples of the
Shire River valley, which had championed the notion that the matrilineage would disappear as a
functional unit with the advance of Christianity, colonialism, and modern capitalist economy.

247

Mariane C. Ferme, The Underneath of Things: Violence, History, and the Everyday in Sierra
Leone (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 2001), 6, 18-19, 165, 226. Ferme argued
that the “domain of secrecy is essentially political at multiple levels,” that the play between
concealment and revelation constitute Kpuawala power dynamics, and that gender dynamics bear
a “history of violence” embedded in the inequalities and tensions of domestic relations expressed
through idioms of marriage and kinshiLike Rosalind Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual
and the Historical Imagination in Sierra Leone (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
2002), 2, Ferme argued that this “history of violence” must be understood in the context of
slavery and the modes of dependencies it produced.
248
Francesca Declich, “Gendered Narratives,’ History, and Identity: Two Centuries along the
Juba River among the Zigula and Shanbara,” History in Africa 22 (1995), 93-122.
249
Janice Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 26-27, 35, 82-84, 232-234, 241-242.
250
Kings M. Phiri, “Some Changes in the Matrilineal Family System among the Chewa of
Malawi Since the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of African History 24 (1983), 261.
251
Phiri, “Some Changes in the Matrilineal Family System,” 266.
77

The revisionist literature peaked in the 1990s,

252

and culminated in the collaborative

work of two historians and two anthropologists, who revisited the “matrilineal puzzle of the
structural-functionalists,” because it “seemed to be dealing with issues of gender while in reality
sidelining them.”

253

Pauline Peters, Cynthia Brantley, Margot Lovett, and Kate Crehan, argue

that matriliny was not a “puzzle;” rather, “the particular animus directed against matriliny is
because of its different gender patterns, especially its association with more social independence
252

It was during this period that historians expressed interest in a field monopolized by
anthropologists, and a number of scholars began to employ matriliny as an analytic category to
explain spirit possession rituals (Janice Boddy), memory (Francesca Declich) and concealment
(Victor Turner and Mariane Ferme), women’s market monopolies and informal economies
(Gracia Clark), and the impact of dominant knowledge systems on social practices (Gillian
Barber). Following historians, anthropologists began to revisit the works of their forebears. See
Henrietta Moore and Megan Vaughan, Cutting Down Trees: Gender, Nutrition and Agricultural
Change in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890-1990 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994).
Moore and Vaughan revisited the work of Audrey Richards, in a systematic study of the Bemba
to elucidate several misconceptions in Richards’ account. They challenged the “anthropological
tendency” towards over-systematization and the resultant failure to allow for multiple
dimensions. The Bemba they argue had both matrilineal and bilateral principles of organization.
The authors emphasized the inappropriateness of the concept of “breakdown” in describing
changes in matrilineal organization, and introduced such concepts as multiplicity, contingency,
indeterminacy, and contestation. Since the turn of the 21st century, interest in matriliny has
declined and the subject has rather been used to explain different (“anomalous”) situations. Thus,
Trudie Gerris describes the beliefs, experiences, and coping strategies of infertile Macua women
in the context of matrilineal kinship to argue that in matrilineal societies, “matrilineality” itself
may be somewhat protective of women who find themselves in the potentially stigmatizing
situation of infertility. Gerris contrasts this situation with the case in patrilineal societies. See
Trudie Gerrits, “Infertility and Matrilineality: The Exceptional Case of the Macua of
Mozambique” in Marcia C. Inhorn and Frank van Balen (eds.) Infertility Around the Globe
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 233-246. However, some of the new revisionist
literature have also sought to re-invigorate old myths, especially that of the cow being the enemy
of matriliny. Clare Janaki Holden and Ruth Mace especially, have reinvented the argument that
when matrilineal cultures acquire cattle, they become patrilineal. They focused their comparative
study on the matrilineal Chewa in Malawi and the patrilineal Gabbra in Kenya. For evidence,
they relied on evolutionist theories and Bantu language tree. See Clare Janaki Holden and Ruth
Mace, “Spread of Cattle Led to the Loss of Matrilineal Descent in Africa: A Coevolutionary
Analysis,” Proceedings: Biological Sciences 270, 1532 (2003), 2425-2433.
253
Stephen Nugeni, “Editorial,” Critique of Anthropology 17, 2 (London: Sage Publications,
1997), 123. These scholars concluded that matrilineal descent, succession and inheritance
constitute the definitive features of matriliny.
78

and political authority for women . . . The matrilineal puzzle was in fact . . . a gender puzzle.”

254

Focusing on South-Central Africa, they examined the relationship between matriliny and gender,
and whether matriliny is best depicted as a total system or a cluster of characteristics. The
structural-functionalist view of matriliny as a total system and a puzzle, they argue, was focused
on “group corporateness,” premised on the conjugal family and “male-biased.”

255

Matriliny they

contend is a set of values intentionally appropriated by different historically situated individuals.
Thus, rather than argue that matriliny determined how individuals lived their lives among the
Kaonde-speaking communities of Zambia's North-Western Province in the 1980s, Crehan argues
that kinship lays down what might be called “structures or moral expectation,” which could be
negotiated and subverted.

256

Moreover, Lovett and Brantley emphasized the need to situate studies of change in
257

matriliny within wider historical and socio-cultural contexts.

254

Peters, “Introduction,” 141.

255

Peters, “Introduction,” 126-130.

256

It was in this respect that Wyatt

Crehan, “Of Chickens and Guinea Fowl,” 211-213.

257

Margot L. Lovett, “From Sisters to Wives and ‘Slaves’: Redefining Matriliny and the Lives
of Lakeside Tonga Women, 1888-1955,” Critique of Anthropology 17, 2 (1997), 171-184;
Cynthia Brantley, “Through Ngoni Eyes: Margaret Read’s Matrilineal Interpretations From
Nyasaland,” Critique of Anthropology 17, 2 (1997), 147-164. Lovett re-examined the work of J.
van Velsen and argued that as Tonga people adopted practices such as virilocal residence and
bride-wealth, Lakeside Tonga women progressively lost power in their status as sisters and
mothers. However, the adoption of these practices common in patrilineal societies did not make
the Tonga any less matrilineal. The Tonga continued to privilege matrilineal descent and
matrikin relations. Similarly, Brantley re-examines the unpublished data, which Margaret Read
collected as part of the 1939 Nyasaland Nutrition Survey and her simultaneous study on the
impact of migrant labor on village life in Nyasa land. She argued that Read’s conclusion that
matrilineal practices were being taken over by patrilineal ones is not borne out by the evidence
she collected. Rather, as peoples in the three nutrition survey villages (Yao, Chewa and Ngoni)
and in the surrounding areas experienced much interaction and as, especially, patrilineal Ngoni
interacted with matrilineal Chewa, practices usually associated with one or another of these
descent systems became mutually modified rather than uni-directional. Aspects of patriliny
79

MacGaffey argues that the West-Central African region had an essential bilateral mode of
descent, and that matriliny developed as a consequence of the slave trade.

258

Brantley and Peters

also argue that matriliny was not a fragile complex vulnerable to collapse in the face of European
intervention.

259

Peters argues that the matrilineage practices and ideologies of the Shire

Highland survived successive European campaigns against matriliny, which they viewed as
“inhibitive to development.” Shire matriliny also survived Christian and Islamic missions’ war
against uxorilocal marriage and promotion of a patriarchal nuclear family ideal, and the colonial
government’s effort to undermine matrilineal inheritance through patriarchal estate tenancy and
agricultural development policies.

260

The war against matriliny in Peters’ view was a war

against women’s power and autonomy. Thus, the resilience of matrilineage principles evidence
women’s agency and power. This view is evident in Jean Davison’s comparative study of
Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia, in which she examines how matriliny and its

actually failed to give advantage to many people, and aspects of matriliny, such as inheritance,
rights to land, and control over labor and children, proved to be more durable than her
interpretations implied.
258
Wyatt MacGaffey, “Lineage Structure, Marriage, and the Family Amongst the Central
Bantu,” Journal of African History 24 (1983), 173-197. MacGaffey focused on the
complementarity and flexibility of patrilateral and matrilateral relationships among the
BaKongo, BaSuku, and BaPende of Zaire, Congo, Zimbabwe and Angola.
259
Similarly, in a revisionist essay challenging Schneider and Richards on the vulnerability of
matriliny to abrupt change, Gillian Barber examines how resilient notions of matrilineal
inheritance and residence patterns among the Chiradzulu of Southern Malawi constitute a corpus
of “authoritative knowledge” that influence decisions that are made regarding child-bearing. See
Gillian Barber, “It’s Only Natural!’ The Views of Villagers from Chiradzulu District, Southern
Malawi on Matrilineal Inheritance and Matrilocal Residence” in John McCracken, Timothy J.
Lovering, and Fiona Johnson Chalamanda (eds.) Twentieth Century Malawi: Perspectives on
History and Culture (University of Stirling: Center of Commonwealth Studies, 2001), 58-68.
260
Pauline Peters, “Against the Odds: Matriliny, Land and Gender in the Shire Highland of
Malawi,” Critique of Anthropology 17, 2 (1997), 189-210.
80

attendant practices influenced women’s and men’s access to and control over productive
resources.

261

This historiography informs my study of Ohafia, where changes in lineage ideologies
governing ownership of persons and property occurred gradually between the 1850s and 1920s,
and shaped transformations in indigenous conceptions of gendered power. At the end of his
seminal work on Ohafia-Igbo matrilineage system, Nsugbe asserted, “It remains to show whether
there have been shifts indicating any fundamental change in the Ohaffia descent system as
described, particularly with regard to the rules of inheritance.”

262

This aspect of Ohafia history

remains unstudied, and this dissertation strives to fill the gap, because changes in property
inheritance shaped changes in lineage practices and gendered power distribution in the society.

A Brief Note on How this Dissertation Engages with the Scholarship on the Atlantic Slave
Trade and African Slavery
Beginning in the 1960s, Africanist scholars of the Atlantic slave trade were obsessed with
centralized states and elites in analyzing the processes of slave production, transformations in
uses of slaves, and changes in African slave systems, until scholars such as Robert Baum,
Andrew Hubbell, Walter Hawthorne, and Ugo Nwokeji challenged what has come to be known
as the “predatory state thesis.”

263

By examining the transformative role of the Ohafia-Igbo in

261

Jean Davison, Gender, Lineage, and Ethnicity in Southern Africa (Colorado: Westview
Press, 1997) Contrasting matriliny to patriliny, Davison argues that rural woman’s and men’s
needs, interests, and priorities changes in the face of colonial capitalism and development in the
post-independent period.
262
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 122.
263

Robert M. Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial
Senegambia (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999); Andrew Hubbell, “A View of the
Slave Trade from the Margin: Souroudougou in the Late Nineteenth – Century Save Trade of the
Niger Bend,” The Journal of African History 42, 1 (2001); Walter Hawthorne, Planting Rice and
Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400-1900 (Portsmouth,
81

militant slave production in the Bight of Biafra, and the impact of the dynamic constructions of
gender identities on changing exploitation of slave labor and indigenous slave systems, this study
demonstrates that non-centralized and non-oligarchic African societies were not passive victims
of the Atlantic slave trade.
of production

265

264

Indeed, the Atlantic slave trade ushered Ohafia into a slave mode

and shaped the emergence of a heroic ethos that redefined the society’s

conceptions of masculinity (ufiem), ethnic identity, and gendered power and authority (chapter 3).

Secondly, “Emergent Masculinities” draws upon the scholarship of a number of scholars
who have examined how African slave systems became transformed as a result of the Atlantic

NH: Heinemann, 2003); Ugo G. Nwokeji, The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra:
An African Society in the Atlantic World (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
264
Walter Rodney, “African Slavery and Other Forms of Social Oppression on the Upper
Guinea Coast in the Context of the Atlantic Slave-Trade,” The Journal of African History, 7, 3
(1966), 434; Walter Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545 to 1800 (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1970), 109; Jack Goody, Tradition, Technology, and the State in Africa
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Philip Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa:
Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975);
Joseph Smaldone, Warfare in the Sokoto Caliphate: Historical and Sociological Perspectives
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); I.A. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and its Neighbors,
1708-1818 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); J.D. Fage, “Slavery and the Slave
Trade in the Context of West African History,” Journal of African History 10, 3 (1969), 393404; J.D Fage, “African Societies and the Atlantic Slave Trade,” Past & Present, No. 125 (Nov.
1989), 106-111; Adu A. Boahen, “New Trends and Processes in Africa in the Nineteenth
Century,” in Ade J.F. Ajayi (ed.), General History of Africa, vol. 6, Africa in the Nineteenth
Century Until 1880s (Oxford: Heinemann International, 1989), 40-63; Patrick Manning, Slavery
and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990); Boubacar Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 107; Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, xv, 68-69, 8465, 103-104, 126-128, 148, 182-184, 188-189; Klein, “The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade,”
234-235, 237-239; Rosalind Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual Imagination in Sierra
Leone (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 207, 213-216.
265
Rodney, “African Slavery,” 433-442; Fage, “African Societies,” 111, 106; Klein, “The
Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on the Societies of the Western Sudan,” Social Science
History, 14, 2 (Summer, 1990), pp. 234-240; Jay Spaulding and Stephanie Beswick, eds. African
Systems of Slavery (New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2010); Brown and Lovejoy (eds.)
Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 221-229, 321-328; Lovejoy, Transformations in
Slavery, pp. xv, 68-69.
82

slave trade.

266

It argues that the increasing availability of slaves within the Bight of Biafra, sequel

to the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, resulted in the transformation of the mode of
exploitation of slaves and their labor. With the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, there was a glut
of slaves on the local market, the volume of domestic slavery increased, British economic policies
encouraged an intensified exploitation of slave labor within the region, and the rate of inhumane uses
of slaves increased due to indigenous practices of a new form of ufiem premised on wealth —
ogaranya masculinity. It was in this environment that a deity (obu nkwa) that had served as a major
institutional foundation of Ohafia militant slave production became transformed into a protective
deity to ameliorate slave exploitation, resulting in the production of communities of spiritual
267

slaves

in the region. Thus, this study demonstrates that the transformations in indigenous African

slave systems complicate the popular distinctions between a static and benign African slavery and
chattel New World slavery. The Atlantic slave trade and the transformations in indigenous slave
systems have also shaped the historical memories of the slave trade as trauma, discourse and
268

tradition.

This dissertation examines Ohafia practices such as the war dance and idioms of

expressing masculinity, against the background of the legacies of the slave trade.
266

Spaulding and Beswick (eds.) African Systems of Slavery; Brown and Lovejoy (eds.)
Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
267
For this original concept, see Nwando Achebe, “When Deities Marry: Indigenous ‘Slave’
Systems Expanding and Metamorphosing in the Igbo Hinterland,” in Jay Spaulding and
Stephanie Beswick (eds.) African Systems of Slavery (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press,
Inc., 2010), 105-133.
268
Paul Obiani, “The Stigmatization of the Descendants of Slaves in Igboland,” in Brown and
Lovejoy (eds.) Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 321-328; Akuma-Kalu Njoku,
“Before the Middle Passage: Igbo Slave Journeys to Old Calabar and Bonny,” in Brown and
Lovejoy (eds.) Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 57-69; John McCall, “The Atlantic
Slave Trade and the Ohafia Warrior Tradition: Global Forces and Local Histories,” in Brown and
Lovejoy (eds.) Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 75-76; Mariane C. Ferme, The
Underneath of Things: Violence, History, and the Everyday in Sierra Leone (Berkeley: The
University of California Press, 2001); Anne C. Bailey, African Voices of the Atlantic Slave
Trade: Beyond the Silence and the Shame (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005); Rosalind Shaw,
83

Thirdly, the unusually high percentage of females in the number of slaves exported from the
Bight of Biafra shaped what is meant by “creole” in the Americas, especially in Cuba, Jamaica,
Hispaniola, Barbados, United States (Georgia, Maryland and Virginia), Belize, and Caribbean island
such as Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana.

269

“Emergent Masculinities” argues that the guerilla

tactics of Ohafia warriors, the long distances which they traversed in the course of their slave raids,
the matrilineal kinship system of the warrior society, and the masculinity ethos that required the
cutting of male heads in combats, account for the production of more female slaves and children than
male slaves from the Igbo and Ibibio hinterland (chapter 3). On the other hand, the life history of

Chief Eke Kalu, who rose from slavery to warrant chief status between 1860 and the 1930s,
challenges the rigid conceptions of social identity formation in African societies,

270

and the

ideology that conscious resistance was limited to political groups, who developed classconsciousness, and undermined the slave system.

271

Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual Imagination in Sierra Leone (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2002); John Thornton, “Cannibals, Witches, and Slave Traders in the Atlantic
World,” William and Mary Quarterly, 60, 2 (April, 2003); Nicholas Argenti, The Intestines of
the State: Youth, Violence, and Belated Histories in the Cameroon Grassfields (Chicago: the
University of Chicago Press, 2007).
269
Douglass B. Chambers, “Tracing Igbo into the African Diaspora,” in Paul E. Lovejoy (Ed.),
The Black Atlantic (New York: Continuum, 2000); Morgan D. Philip and Sean Hawkins, Black
Experience and the Empire (London: Oxford University Press, 2004); Douglass B. Chambers,
Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia (Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi,
2005); Michael A. Gomez, “A Quality of Anguish: The Igbo Response to Enslavement in the
Americas,” in Paul E. Lovejoy and David V. Trotman (eds.), Trans-Atlantic Dimension of
Ethnicity in the African Diaspora (New York: Continuum, 2003).
270
Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff, “Introduction,” In Slavery in Africa: Historical and
Anthropological Perspectives, eds. Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff (Madison: The University
of Wisconsin Press, 1977).
271
Thornton, Africa and Africans, pp. 174-300; James H. Sweet, Culture, Kinship, and Religion
in the African- Portuguese World: Recreating Africa, 1441-1770 (University of North Carolina
Press, 2003), pp. 20, 215; Walter Hawthorne, “Being Now, as it were, One Family:’ Shipmate
Bonding on the Slave Vessel Emilia, in Rio de Janeiro and Throughout the Atlantic World”,
84

Summary of Chapters
This dissertation is comprised of five chapters, and divided into three parts. Part one
includes the introduction and chapters one and two, which provide a background to the
dissertation and the Ohafia-Igbo. The introduction situates the Ohafia-Igbo within existing
scholarship on gender and masculinities in West Africa. Chapter one examines the history of
migration and settlement of the Ohafia-Igbo, and historicizes their emergence as the only
matrilineal society in Igboland. Situating Ohafia within existing studies of matriliny in Southcentral, East, and West Africa, this chapter argues that until the late 19th century, the OhafiaIgbo possessed dominant matrilineal principles, and that missionary and colonial influences
amplified the transformations in matrilineage practices in the society at the turn of the 20th
century. This resulted in the transformation of the society into a double unilineal system, and
reshaped the distribution of socio-political power for men and women. Between 1900 and 1920,
Ohafia-Igbo women increasingly lost the privileges they had enjoyed within the matrilineage
system in the pre-colonial period, due to changing practices of land tenure, property ownership,
inheritance, marriage, and redefinitions of paternal responsibility and authority.
Chapter two examines Ohafia-Igbo gendered socio-political organization between 1850
and 1900. It focuses on female power, agency, and consciousness through a comparative analysis
of gendered socio-political institutions and rituals. It posits political power as the exercise of
coercive influence, based on the threat or use of sanctions, control over public morality and
communal values, and over the distribution of material resources. It argues that contrary to the
prevailing notion (see chapter 2) that Ohafia-Igbo women were socio-politically subordinate to
men, politically invisible and docile, they maintained one of the most powerful socio-political

Luso-Brazilian Review, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2008), p. 55; Judith A. Carney, Black Rice: The African
Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Harvard University Press, 2001).
85

institutions in pre-colonial southeastern Nigeria, and performed political strategies that were
more effective and powerful than those of men until the advent of British colonial rule in 1901.
Part two comprises chapters three and four, and explores the constructions of
masculinities among the Ohafia-Igbo as a product of competitive social mobility and personal
distinction from 1850 to 1900. Chapter three examines masculinity (ufiem) performance in the
leisure practices and military (headhunting and warfare) activities of the Ohafia-Igbo, and argues
that masculinity was negotiated daily in the society’s kinship relations and political practices.
The chapter argues that ufiem (masculinity) entailed a construction of privilege, power, and
social status. Rather than assume that the Ohafia-Igbo were patriarchal, the chapter examines
how male power and privilege were historically constructed between the 1850 and 1900. It
analyzes the historical processes (slave production and headhunting) through which ndi ikike
(warrior masculinities) attained social hegemony over other forms of ufiem in the society, which
enabled them to define the dominant values of how real men should behave. The historical
constructions of ndi ikike masculinity shaped the popular imagination of Ohafia as a warrior
society at the turn of the 20th century. However, while warrior masculinities discriminated
against other men known as ujo (cowards), who failed to distinguish themselves in warfare, they
lacked political power over women. Moreover, the chapter demonstrates that Ohafia-Igbo some
women also performed warrior masculinity in a bid to deliver some men from ujo status, and that
their actions and inactions shaped the gender identities of men.
Chapter four examines institutions of masculinity such as secret societies, the dibia cult,
hunting, and yam cultivation, to demonstrate how past socio-cultural practices and organizations
significantly shaped the production and understanding of ufiem (masculinity), and the gendered
contestation of power in Ohafia-Igbo society between 1850 and 1900. These institutions embody

86

the impact of macro-historical forces such as the Atlantic slave trade and legitimate commerce,
on the society. They enabled the successive transition from boyhood to adult masculinity, and
represent a conscious effort by male society to masculinize the public space and render it
exclusive to women. They also reflect structural lineage oppositions and contestations, which
were also gendered. The chapter distinguishes the purely performative aspects of ufiem
(masculinity) from the institutions within which they operated in the society. It demonstrates that
individuals were managers of meaning and identity in their inevitable social contexts, because
they were remaking institutions and their meanings as they used them. By analyzing other forms
of ufiem (masculinity) besides warrior masculinities, this chapter argues that ufiem (masculinity)
was immanent and manifest in political (secret societies), economic (trade, agriculture, hunting,
and traditional medicare), and spiritual activities of the Ohafia-Igbo. Thus, the chapter provides a
counter-narrative to the dominant militant conception of Ohafia-Igbo masculinities. It
demonstrates that the ujo, who emerge in the Ohafia-Igbo context as disprivileged subalterns,
had access to alternative, subordinate, and sometimes, subversive ufiem identities.
Chapter five forms the third part of this dissertation. The chapter examines the changing
constructions of gender identities between 1900 and 1920 through the lens of ogaranya (wealth)
masculinity, and argues that it was a cause and consequence of the declining power of women.
The chapter analyzes the impact of the performances of ogaranya (wealth) masculinity on the
increase in domestic slave trade, transformations in uses of slaves, and indigenous memories of
the slave trade. It offers a counter-narrative of women’s performances of ogaranya masculinity,
as indicative of increasing female resistance to emerging male socio-economic hegemony in the
th

first two decades of the 20 century. The chapter explores the gendered impact of British
colonialism, Christianity and Western education on Ohafia and argues that the gradual

87

disempowerment of women was inseparable from the processes through which men themselves
came to dominate significant spheres of authority between 1900 and 1920. It contends that while
colonialism and Christianity obliterated traditional avenues for ufiem distinction, such as
headhunting and slave production between 1900 and 1920, Ohafia-Igbo men often colluded with
European officials and missionaries to forge patriarchal, exploitative, and discriminatory
ideologies that facilitated the subjugation of women. Women’s redefinitions of gendered roles
and spaces through economic and political pursuits constituted resistance to an emergent
patchwork of European and African patriarchies during this period.
The conclusion clearly shows the major contributions of the dissertation to studies on
African matriliny, women and gender, African slave systems and the Atlantic slave trade. It
restates the case for the theorization of masculinity as a historically constructed gendered
identity, which processes involved the interactive exercise and negotiation of power between
men and women. It also re-emphasizes the argument that complex individual and collective
identity formation was taking place in this pre-colonial African society before contact with
Europeans. In so doing, the dissertation deconstructs popular and narrow conceptions of African
historical identity formation and social change.

88

CHAPTER ONE
ORIGIN STORIES: HISTORICIZING THE SOCIAL CONFIGURATION OF OHAFIAIGBO SOCIETY
This chapter seeks to provide the 16th-19th century historical background to Ohafia-Igbo
acquisition of key socio-political institutions and practices such as a matrilineal kinship system,
an age-grade system of political organization, secret societies, and a militant ethos, which
distinguished them from most Igbo communities, and later shaped the constructions of gender
identities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thus, the chapter examines the migration and settlement
of the Ohafia-Igbo in a borderland territory and the impact of their geographical location on
these historical processes. Situating Ohafia in comparative perspective with the wider literature
on African matriliny, the chapter provides an overview of the character and changes in OhafiaIgbo lineage practices, as well as the impact of dominant matrilineal principles on gendered
power relations in the society. Thus, the chapter offers important perspectives on Ohafia-Igbo
gendered religious and economic organization before British colonial rule.
Traditions of Origin, Migration and Settlement
The Cross-River Igbo,

272

as the Ohafia and their Igbo neighbors (Ada, Ihe, Aro, Abam,

and Abiriba) have come to be known, mark the eastern limit of Igboland. The Ohafia are
bounded in the north, west and south, by Igbo communities such as Ihechiowa, Ututu, and
Arochukwu (south); Abiriba and Abam (west); and Nkporo and Ada (north).

273

To their east,

they are bordered by non-Igbo speaking, riverine ethnic groups including the Ibibio (Biakpan,

272

Defined in Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples, 9-10, 52.

273

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 9; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 67.
89

Ikun, Urugbam, and Agbanwan), Annang, Efik, Eket, Qua, Ekoi (Ejagham, Bekwarra, Yako,
Biase/Agwagune/Akunakuna, Bahumono, Agbo, and Mbembe), and Ogoja peoples.

274

Figure 1: Map of Igboland

Source: Google Maps.
274

Attoe, A Federation of the Biase People; Jaja, Erim, and Andah, History and Culture of the
Upper Cross River; Iyam, The Broken Hoe, 4, 29-32; Abasiattai, Akwa Ibom and Cross River
States, 8-11, 27-40, 48; Onor, The Ejagham Nation, 13-31; Nair, Politics and Society, 3-4, ff.
90

Figure 2: Map of Ohafia-Igbo and their Neighbors

Grey - Ohafia
White - Igbo Communities
Brown - Cross River Ethnic Groups
Blue - The Cross River and its Estuaries
For interpretation of the references to color in this and all other figures, the reader is
referred to the electronic version of this dissertation.
91

A major challenge to the reconstruction of Ohafia-Igbo history is lack of evidence for
precise dating of historical events in the pre-colonial period. Ohafia traditions of migration
before their arrival in Ibeku (Umuahia) in the early 16th century are largely conjectural.

275

The

post-Ibeku migration phase is easier to reconstruct because indigenous accounts of this period
align with documented population movements in the region, and is collaborated by the oral
testimonies and kinship practices of Ibeku, Abam, Abiriba, and Ada peoples.

276

Ada (north of

Ohafia) traditions of origin, which show that the people lived in Okagwe village, Ohafia for a
while, before migrating to their present location lends credence to the antiquity of Ohafia
settlement.

277

Similarly, Abiriba oral traditions show that the Ohafia-Igbo were already

established before the former settled in their present location, migrating from Ekoi to Obubra,
Orugbam, and eventually, Udaro-Abuo located west of Ohafia in the mid-17th century.

278

A number of scholars have argued that the Ohafia-Igbo must have settled in their present
location before the 17th century,

279

since the foundation of Arochukwu (south of Ohafia)

275

As evident in these oral interviews: Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Nde-Ibe village, Ohafia. Nov. 3, 2011; Elders of Nde Odo Compound, Akanu Village,
Group Interview with author; Elders of Nde Oka compound, Group Interview by author, digital
voice recording, Okon Village, Ohafia. September 14-15, 2011.
276
Oriji, Traditions of Igbo Origin, 149-155; Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking
Peoples, 54; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 12-17. Till date, the Ohafia and Ibeku maintain
ritual kin relationships. They avoid mutual blood-shed, and Ibeku individuals visiting Ohafia are
given special privileges such as being the first to be served a cup of wine or kola nut (the cultural
expression of peaceful reception) in a public gathering, because the Ibeku are seen as “the
begetter” of the Ohafia. Certain cultural practices such as the raising of ancestral pot monuments
that exist in Ibeku and Ohafia, do not exist in other surrounding villages.
277
Oriji, Traditions of Igbo Origin, 151; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 28.
278
279

Oriji, Traditions of Igbo Origin, 154-155.
See footnote 19, Introduction.
92

corresponds with the settlement of the Ohafia-Igbo.

280

This is significant because Ohafia forged

an alliance with the Aro and played a major role in militant slave production and the spread of
Aro commercial influence in the course of the Atlantic slave trade (1660s-1840s). Aro
foundation thus sheds light on the antiquity of Ohafia settlement in their present location.

281

Various studies on the non-Igbo Cross River ethnic groups also account for demographic shifts
occasioned by Ohafia settlement in the region during the 17th century.

282

Lastly, by the time of

British colonial contact with Ohafia, in the course of the Aro expedition (1901-1902),

283

all the

26 Ohafia-Igbo villages had been founded, and this lends further support to a pre-colonial
antiquity of settlement.

284

The Ohafia-Igbo trace their ancestry to a common father, Uduma Ezema Atita.

285

Several oral traditions of the Ohafia-Igbo indicate that their ancestors migrated from the Niger-

280
281

Oriji, Traditions of Igbo Origin, 148-153.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 27.

282

Nkparom C. Ejituwu, A History of Obolo (Andoni) in the Niger Delta (Oron: Mason
Publishing Company, 1991), 28-29; Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples, 52;
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 11-12; Afigbo, Ropes of Sand, 229-230.
283
BNA, CO520/1, 95, 128-134, 506-515; CO520/2, 229-333, 433-434; CO520/3, 5-7, 14-23,
99-100; CO520/7, 197-200; CO520/8, 403-437, 453-460, 598-758. Also, Macalister, “The Aro
Country, Southern Nigeria,” 631-637; Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 44.
284
Phone conversation with Prof. Onwuka Njoku, Lansing to Enugu Nigeria, March 22, 2013.
285

Thus, the people are often referred to as Ohafia Uduma Ezema. The Ohafia-Igbo were a
patrilineal group before their arrival in their present location. Ogbuka Ogbuka Abaa, oral
interview by author, Nde Oji Compound, Isiugwu Village Ohafia. Decemcer 10, 2011; Elders of
Umu-Anya Family, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Ohafia, Group Interview by author, digital voice
recording, Elu Village. August 14, 2011; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu Village
and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu
Village. August 18, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the
Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011.
93

Benue confluence to Umunede and Owan near Benin before the 16th century.

286

With the

expansion of Benin kingdom eastwards, and ensuing military conflicts between the Benin
monarchy and Eze Chima of Onitsha (c.1480 and c.1517),

287

some of the Ohafia-Igbo migrants,

then known as Mben, migrated to the West Niger region of Aniocha, while others settled east of
the Niger at Ndoni.

288

Some traditions suggest that the Ohafia Mben ancestors, led by Nna Atita

Akpo Ukwu later migrated from Ndoni to Okwala in Andoni, north of Opobo, attracted by the
emerging coastal trade in European commodities.

289

From Andoni, the Mben, led by Ezema

Atita Akpo (oldest son of Nna Atita Akpo Ukwu, who died at Andoni) later migrated to Isieke in
Ibeku (present-day Umuahia). Nkparom Ejitiwu argues that the Mben were forced out of Andoni
because they were in the habit of raiding neighboring villages.

290

286

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, August 15, 2010; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Nde-Ukpai, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011; Chief K.K. Owen, oral
interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author. Also documented in Eze O.
Uma, Factors in Ohafia History (Elu Ohafia, 1989), 8-10; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 2; Oji
K. Oji, “A Study of Migrations and Warfare in Ohafia” (B.A. Thesis, University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, 1974), 6-15.
287
Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 51-52, suggests that other Igbo communities such as
Oguta also settled at Illah, during this period.
288
Uma, Factors in Ohafia History, 9; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 3
289

Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi Village, Members of the Men’s Court and Nde-Ichin,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi. Nov. 17, 2011; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo
of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ibina (Ihenta) Village. Dec.
12, 2011. Nde-Ichin, Amuma Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his cabinet
members., Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amankwu Village. October 25,
2011. The claim of this migration stream is supported by Kenneth O. Dike, Trade and Politics in
the Niger Delta, 1830-1885: An Introduction to the Economic and Political History of Nigeria
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 24; Ejituwu, A History of Obolo (Andoni) in the Niger Delta,
28-29; Ole U. Ikpa, The Age Grade System: A Way of Life in Ohafia (Lagos, 1984), 8.
290
Ejituwu, A History of Obolo (Andoni), 28.
94

Extant evidence affirms that the Ohafia-Igbo lived in Ibeku for a time. John Oriji points
out that the Ibeku view the Ohafia as their kinsmen, and Ibeku traditions of origin claim that they
and the Ohafia descended from a common ancestor called Ifukwu.

291

According to Daryll Forde

and G.I. Jones, all the towns in the Ohafia-Abam complex (Ohafia, Abam, Abiriba, Ututu, and
Ihechiowa) claim to have derived from Ibeku.

292

Nsugbe writes that the Mben migrants settled

at Umuajiji in Ibeku, inter-married, and lived peacefully, until their Ibeku hosts became jealous
of their agricultural prosperity, and disdained their resistance to cultural and political
293

assimilation.

Other traditions suggest that as mutual distrust developed between the Ibeku and Mben
settlers, the latter engaged in hostile practices such as burying sharpened bamboo spikes in the
paths leading to their community and killing visitors and strangers,

294

in order to defend

themselves against slave raids from the Asa and Ndoki peoples, who lived in the northern
territories of the Niger-Delta.

295

Around the late 16th century,

296

a military conflict developed

between the Isieke Ibeku and the Osa people. The latter sought protection (ukwuzi) from the

291
292
293
294

Oriji, Traditions of Igbo Origin, 149; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 15-18
Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples, 54.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 12-17.
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 10-11.

295

These peoples are referred to as “Ukwa Anya-Ocha” in Ohafia oral traditions. See Isichei, A
History of the Igbo People, 58; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 7. This defense mechanism was
widespread among the Cross River Igbo peoples, and they later employed it in their resistance to
British colonial rule. See Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 63-64.
296
This date is suggested based on the documented period between Mben migration out of
Umunede (1480-1517) and their settlement in their present location in the early 17th century.
95

Ohafia (Mben) settlers, and the Isieke Ibeku interpreted Ohafia protection of the Osa as a
declaration of war.

297

The Ohafia people feared an imminent Ibeku reprisal, and lived in constant fear. Thus,
when in the middle of a night, a woman’s calabash dishes (oba) accidentally fell from the strings
(ngu), which held them up in the cooking hearth, many Mben people thought the noise to be a
war alarm, and in the ensuing panic, began to flee their Ibeku settlement. Their neighbors, the
Leru, also fearing an Ibeku attack, fled with them. A popular rendition of this tradition goes:
Aka metu ngu (A hand touched a calabash line); Ngu metu oba (The line touched
the calabashes); Oba mee kpogoro (The calabashes sounded ‘kpogoro’); Uso su
298
Mben, su Leru, Mben uso, Leru uso (Mben fled, Leru fled).
It is probable that the Ibeku people had recently settled in their location before the arrival
of the Mben. As Northrup noted, the Igbo-speaking communities (Ibere, Obero, Olokoro,
Isuorgu, and Ibeku [Bende]) north of the Ngwa peoples, most likely established their settlements
around the 15th and 16th centuries, and since land was not a scarce resource, they were willing
to accommodate new migrants, provided such migrants were willing to respect local
traditions.

299

Similarly, describing the first inhabitants of the territories between the Imo and the

Cross Rivers, Jones indicates that Ngwa Uku and Ibeku were the original settlement points for
the Isuama Igbo, who were the first Igbo group that crossed the Imo River and fused with
297

Mayne, “Intelligence Report,” 11-12. Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 8.

298

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Aug. 15, 2010; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Ufiele Village. Oct. 27, 2011; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by
author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 8; Nnenna
E. Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, Covering from About 1432 to 2008: Collated Oral
Tradition (Ohafia: Lintdsons Publications, 2008), 2-3; Oriji, Traditions, 150.
299
Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 31-34. It was perhaps a violation of such precepts existing
between hosts and visitors that resulted in Mben emigration from Ibeku.
96

northern Ibibio and other Cross-River peoples between 1550 and 1600. He argues that following
the Ngwa, the Ibeku and Ohuhu also crossed the Imo River, and from Ibeku, some groups
including the Ohafia and Abam, moved “across the broken country drained by the Enyong
[River] to the high ground between it and the Cross River.”

300

Ohafia-Igbo traditions of origin show that they were one of the pioneer Igbo groups to
settle in the middle Cross River between the 1550s and early 1650s. As a number of scholars
(Forde, Jones, Northrup, Oriji, Njoku, Nsugbe, Azuonye) have pointed out, upon leaving Ibeku,
the Mben founded Abam, Ohafia, and Ada in succession.

300

301

Arochukwu, the only other Igbo

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 1. Thus, the Ngwa, Ibeku, and Ohuhu were the
primary points of settlement, and their military contacts with the non-Igbo Cross River peoples
were less significant than those of the later Mben migrants, whose settlements were entirely in
Ibibio, Annang, Efik, Ekoi and Eket territories.
301
From Ibeku, the Mben were led northwards through Okputong Bende, by Onyerubi Atita and
Ezema Atita Akpo (sons of Nna Atita Akpo Ukwu). After crossing the Igwu River, the wife of
Onyerubi, who was pregnant could not continue the journey, and some of the Mben party
camped at a place called Amaelu, which became the present home of the Abam people. Ezema
Atita Akpo led the rest of the Mben party onwards until he died, and was succeeded by his son,
Uduma Ezema Atita, who led the Ohafia people to their present location. See Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 9-10. While Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples, 53-56, 85,
argue that the Ada were a subgroup of the Aro, Oriji, Traditions of Igbo Origin, 151 records a
tradition which asserts that the Ada first settled in Okagwe village, Ohafia, and from there,
migrated to their present location. This is supported by Ohafia accounts that Egbebu Atita
(brother of Ezema and Onyerubi) migrated with the Mben to Ohafia, and upon a breach of peace,
was evicted and thus, founded Abam. See Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 2-5.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 11-18, and Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 9. Njoku and
Nsugbe further argue that as the Mben fled their Ibeku settlement at night, they told people they
met on their way that they were going to a market (afia). Because it was strange for a whole
community (oha) to go to a market (afia) at night, the Mben came to be known as oha-afia (a
community that goes to market en masse). Other traditions say that the name came from
Onyerubi Atita, who described the Mben party as “Ohu Ofia” (“slaves of the forest”) because
they continued to wander the forest, after the former joined his pregnant wife to settle at Abam.
97

community on the Cross River emerged as a result of the fusion of Igbo settlers
Igbo peoples during the same period.

302

with non-

303

The arrival of the Ohafia-Igbo in the Cross River region of southern Nigeria triggered
extensive demographic transformations among the various ethnic groups in the area. Upon
arrival, the Ohafia-Igbo displaced most of the aboriginal non-Igbo people during the 16th-17th
century Igbo-Ibibio wars,

304

and assimilated the rest.

305

Ohafia-Igbo displacement of

populations resulted in the emergence of mixed Igbo-Ibibio towns on the Cross River.

306

The

displaced non-Igbo peoples viewed the Ohafia-Igbo as land-grabbers and, according to
Chukwuma Azuonye, “the young were reminded of their duty to retake all the stolen land or at
302

Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples, 52, argue that the the Eastern Igbo
people - Aro, Ada, and Abam originated in the past from Igbo groups which crossed the OkigweArochukwu ridge at an early date. Jones (1964: 30) also noted that a second migration stream,
from the Isuama area resulted first in the settlement of the Ngwa peoples (Aba), and second, the
Ibeku (Umuahia) settlement from where the Ohafia-Arochukwu ridge was settled, and the NorthEastern Igbo offshoot established. Afigbo, Ropes of Sand, 229-230 concurs with Jones.
303
Jones, The Trading States of the Oil Rivers, 134 suggests the Aro had been established by the
mid-17th century. Ekejiuba, “The Aro System of Trade,” 13-14, argues that the early Aro
comprised a mixture of authochtonous Igbo and Ibibio groups including the Losi, Nkalaku,
Iwerri and Ohaodu. Following a succession dispute, the Igbo group invited the Ankpa (Akpa),
who helped them to establish economic and political dominance. Northrup, Trade Without
Rulers, 35, has suggested that the Akpa were an offshoot of the Agwaguna (a Biase subgroup).
The exact origin of the Aro has been controversial. See Afigbo, Ropes of Sand, 187-237.
304
Abasiattai, Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, 55.
305

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 1; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 35, 116118; Dike and Ekejiuba, “The Aro State: A Case-Study of State-Formation,” 273; R. Harris,
“The Influence of Ecological Factors and External Relations on the Mbembe Tribes of Southeast Nigeria,” Africa 32 (1962), 43-47. Harris noted that Ohafia and Ada squeezed the non-Igbo
peoples out of their land. Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 8 identifies some of the
aborigines in the primary area of Ohafia settlement as Ihenta, Umu-Oku, Letu, Umu-Amawa,
and Oha-Odu. Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 35, argues that from the core area (EluAmaekpu-Ebem) of primary settlement, Ohafia expanded eastwards towards the Cross River,
where they dislodged Ibibio and Biase peoples, who had dominant matrilineal practices.
306
Abasiattai, Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, 55; Dike and Ekejiuba, “The Aro State: A
Case-Study of State-Formation,” 273; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 131.
98

least render them unsafe for human habitation.”

307

Until the 1890s, the Ohafia-Igbo were

engaged in inter-group warfare with these eastern neighbors.

308

It is plausible that conflicts

between the Igbo communities (Aro and Ohafia) and the Ibibio, Annang, Efik, Eket, and Ekoi
peoples on the eastern part of the Cross River, played a part in the migration of Efik peoples
from Uruan near Itu, to found Creek Town (1590s), Old Town (1630s), and Duke Town (1650s),
before the expansive growth of the Atlantic slave trade, in the late 17th century.

309

While the relationship between Ohafia and her Igbo neighbors such as the Abam, Ada,
and Abiriba, with whom they share a tradition of common ancestry and ritual kinship was cordial
and restricted to skirmishes at worst,
and hostile people.

311

310

Ohafia traditions portray their eastern neighbors as alien

Prior to Ohafia settlement in the Cross-River region in the 16th century,

Ibibio and Ogoja peoples engaged in headhunting expeditions as a psychological means of
defense,

312

and embarked on raids usually occasioned by drought, seasonal hunger (unwu), and

crop failure. In a bid to regain their lost land between 1700 and 1890s, they employed these
defense mechanisms against the Ohafia-Igbo.

307
308

313

In turn, the Ohafia imitated the war tactics of

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 13.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 27-28; Abasiattai, Akwa Ibom and Cross River, 55

309

A.J. H. Latham, Old Calabar, 1600-1891: The Impact of the International Economy Upon a
Traditional Society (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1973), 9-10; Kalada A. Hart, Report of the
Enquiry into the Dispute over the Obongship of Calabar (Enugu: Enugu Government Printer,
Official Document 17 of 1964), 10-17; Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 11-12.
310
Mba Odo Okereke, ezie-ogo of Akanu Village, oral conversation with the author, Akanu.
Oct. 15, 2011; Chief Ugbu Uduma, ezie-ogo of Nde-Amogu, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Ihenta (Ibina). Nov. 11, 2011; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author.
311
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 67
312

FO84/2020. “Africa, West Coast, 1890,” 348-359; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 14.

313

CO520/20: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, 1903,” 18-20, 44-54, 173-187, 263265; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 13; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 68.
99

their hostile neighbors, often taking the battle to the doorsteps of their enemies, beating them at
their own game, and successfully taking their heads to deter them from venturing into their
domains.

314

Hence, various scholars have noted that headhunting developed as a defensive

warfare tactic of the Cross-River ethnic communities during this period.

315

The hostile frontier environment in which Ohafia settled was fundamental to the
evolution of what Njoku and Azuonye describe as a heroic age (1700-1900), which placed
emphasis on militant conceptions of manhood and honor.

316

During this period, in order to

better defend themselves, the Ohafia-Igbo borrowed the better-organized military and paramilitary organizations of their matrilineal and bilateral Ibibio and Ogoja eastern neighbors. These
borrowed practices include a well-integrated age-grade system with elaborate rites of passage,
which ensured a substantial reserve of on-call, battle-ready, able-bodied men; secret societies;
and a village residential layout akin to a military garrison.

317

The borrowing of institutions from

non-Igbo ethnic groups and their gendered adaptation within Ohafia

318

imbued the society with

314

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011. Harris, “The Influence of
Ecological Factors,” 46-47, described the Cross River region as being in a constant state of
unrest during this period, as local groups fought and jockeyed for territories, and engaged in
headhunting forays. From the 17th century, Ohafia warriors also raided the Ibibio settlements for
slaves as well. See CO520/8, 510-514. Thus, Nsugbe argues that the slave-trade encouraged
hostilities in the Cross River area. Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 31.
315
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 87; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 14; Azuonye, “The
Narrative War Songs,” 32; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 27, 56.
316
Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 9, 13-14; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 68-72. It was also in
this forest environment where bush hogs ravaged farm-crops and leopards “swooped upon homesteads seizing and devouring livestock and men,” that hunting became transformed into a means
of masculine distinction.
317
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 68; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 51.
318

See chapters 2-4 for a discussion of the role of these institutions in the gendering of
identities.
100

a socio-political system more akin to those of her non-Igbo neighbors (particularly the Biakpan,
Ikun, Biase, Yako, and Mbembe). Thus, in contrast to most Igbo communities, which possessed
a lineage-based political system, and where age-grades were mostly convivial, the Ohafia
political system was based on pyramidal age-grade organizations between 1800 and 1900.

319

Matriliny and Gendered Power: A Historical Background
G.T. Basden, Forde and Jones, and C.J. Mayne noted the unusual predominance of
matrilineal elements among the Cross-River Igbo (excluding the Aro-Igbo),

320

and Nsugbe, then

a government ethnographer, made it a subject of study in 1960-62. He established that among the
Cross River Igbo, matrilineal principles were strongest in Ohafia, and that matriliny became
definitive to Ohafia-Igbo ethnicity upon their settlement west of the Cross River around the 16th
century.
society.

321

322

Ibeku, where the Ohafia-Igbo (Mben) lived for some time, was not a matrilineal
Ohafia oral traditions account that they (the Mben) developed matrilineal principles

in the course of their migration from Ibeku, and upon integration with pre-existing Ibibio, Yako,
Mbembe, and Biase peoples, who possessed dominant matrilineal principles, and lived west of

319

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 58, 69; Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking
Peoples, 52; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26, 59; M.M. Green, Ibo Village Affairs (London:
Frank Cass, 1947), 25; Afigbo, Ropes of Sand, 22; Uma O. Eleazu, “Traditional Institutions and
Modernization,” Ohafia Review 1 (April 1981), 9; Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria,
84; Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 198.
320
Basden, Niger Ibos, 268; Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples, 52; Mayne,
“Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 39
321
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 18-20, 112-118; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 15;
Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 22; Abasiattai, Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, 50.
322
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 47; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal
Ibo, 16-18. Ibeku was patrilineal. Thus, while in Ibeku, pot monuments were raised to the
memory of males only, in Ohafia, it was raised for both male and female ancestors to varying
degrees, and preserved and handed down from generation to generation as long the matrilineage
and patrilineage persisted.
101

the Cross River until the Ohafia-Igbo pushed them east of the River, absorbing remnants of the
inhabitants and their customs.

323

Villages such as Amangwu, Okon, Ufiele, and Nde-Ibe, where

the Mben (Ohafia) immigrants integrated with the Ibibio (Biakpan and Ikun) peoples are strongly
matrilineal, and the non-Igbo ethnic groups have survived as distinct lineages within them.

324

However, the Ihenta patrilineal aboriginal people, who the Ohafia also integrated with upon
settlement, have survived as the only patrilineal Ohafia village.

325

Some Ohafia oral traditions link the origins of matriliny to the active role women played
in the foundation of new villages, by assisting their community in times of crisis, or rescuing
326

male individuals from difficult situations.

Yet, others ascribe the origin of matriliny to

323

Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples, 96-97, 105-106; Harris, “The
Influence of Ecological Factors,” 40-48, 95; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 117-118. These
Cross River societies such as the Yako, Mbembe and the Agoi lineage systems as they existed
before the 20th century, are best described as double descent or double unilineal, because, even
though matrilineal inheritance was prominent, and marriage within the matrilineage was
forbidden, patrilineal inheritance was strongly practiced. Thus, the emergence of dominant
matrilineal ideologies and practices among the Ohafia-Igbo as a result of their geographical
proximity to these societies was not a result of simple culture-transfer, but rather, a product of
active borrowing, selection and gendered practices. This is fully explored below.
324
Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village. Aug. 4,
2010; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village. Aug. 5, 2010; Dibia Kalu
Uko (a.k.a Ekpo), oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 14 and
20, 2011; Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, Okon Village. Sept. 22, 2011; Chief
Obasi Kama, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, September 26, 2011.
325
Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author, digital voice recording; Nde
ichin (ten elders of) Amuma, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma
Village. November 26, 2011; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 37.
326
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 4; Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with nde
ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia, digital voice recording, Amuma Village. November 26,
2011; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author, digital voice recording;
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author;
Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author;
Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author.
102

ancestresses who individually founded a village.

327

As Nsugbe rightly pointed out, it is not the

historical truth of these traditions that make them important, as much as their role in validating
the structural principles upon which crucial social relations were built before colonial rule.

328

The first popular tradition, provided by Chief Ikenga Ibe during a group interview with elders of
Amuma village, accounts that after the Mben migrants left Ibeku, they reached a certain river
(River Igwu), which they had no way of crossing because of the absence of a bridge. At that
point, a woman from Umuinyam

329

lineage produced an axe, which the party used to cut down a

large tree, which served as a bridge that enabled the Mben to cross into the middle Cross River.
To commemorate the indispensable role of women in the course of migration, the Ohafia-Igbo
upon settlement, passed down land and other movable property through their matrilineage.

330

The second tradition tells the story of an Ohafia man, who had accidentally killed a
fellow citizen. The deceased’s family requested the culprit to provide another individual in

327

The case of Ebem village is discussed below. The subject of female founders of villages
looms large in the oral traditions of the Mben (Ohafia, Abam, Ada) peoples. Obuba, The History
and Culture of Ohafia, 4; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral
interview by author; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu, oral interview by author;
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010.
328
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 112. This is important given that the neighboring Afikpo
shares a second Ohafia tradition of matriliny. See Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African
Society, 94
329
The lineage of this woman is contested among the traditions of various villages in Ohafia. In
Amaekpu and Elu villages, the traditions claim that this woman was called Nne Orie and she
belonged to Umu Okochi maternal family, and that the historic axe is still hidden in Elu Village.
See Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 4. However, all the traditions concur that it was a
woman, who enabled the Mben to cross the river.
330
Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with nde ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia, digital
voice recording, Amuma Village. November 26, 2011; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral
interview by author, digital voice recording; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr.
Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author.
103

recompense, or face death himself. This human substitution is known in Ohafia as igwa ochu (to
cleanse murder). The murderer tried to offer one of his children, but none of his wives would
give up their child to save him. He then ran to a brother (a patrilineal kinsman), who rather than
assist him, offered him up to be killed. The murderer managed to escape, and this time, ran to a
sister, who rather than give up her brother, chose to offer her own head in place of his.

331

Many

years later, when the man was dying, he willed all his possessions to his sister’s children in
gratitude. In this manner, Ohafia-Igbo people adopted matrilineal inheritance, because as they
saw it, a man’s worst enemy is his patrikin, while his best friend is his matrikin.

332

The last tradition of matriliny centers on the village of Ebem, which was founded by a
woman, Mgboenini.

333

According to Ikenga Ibe and Torti Kalu, Ohafia people first settled at

Elu, which became the headquarters of the village-group. After several generations at Elu, a
woman called Mgboenini became pregnant, and her co-wife spread a false rumor that she was
pregnant with twin children. To prevent Mgboenini from having twin children in their new
settlement, a situation that was held as an abomination, the Ohafia expelled Mgboenini from
their community. She moved downhill (ebem) into the forest, and there, had a son, who she
named Ofia-ire (“the forest has provided for me”).

334

331

Because a woman founded Ebem,

In some versions of this tradition, it is said that the sister offered her son. Chief Kevin Ukiro,
oral interview by author, Asaga. August 10, 2010; Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera,
Group Interview by author; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author.
332
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 19; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author.
333
Mayne recorded a version of this tradition, which provides the name of the female founder as
Chiasara. Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 18-21.
334
Chief Ikenga Ibe and Chief Torti Kalu, in Group Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of)
Amuma Ohafia, digital voice recording, Amuma Village Ohafia. November 26, 2011.
104

matrilineal practices are strongest in this community.

335

Here, in addition to land, estates, and

movable property, political offices are matrilineally inherited.

336

Nsugbe noted that the stories of Ohafia migration from Ibeku to their present location,
which he documented in the 1960s, were riddled with accounts of pregnant women being left
behind, and that such women became founders of new settlements.

337

Mayne recorded one such

tradition in his Intelligence Report on the Ohafia-Igbo. He noted that a woman founded the
village of Nkwebi, like that of Ebem. The Nkwebi founder was Ugoagha Imaga. Similarly, she
was driven out of Elu village, because she birthed twins.

338

The historic role of women as

founders and co-founders of villages, are commemorated through annual ritual performances in
Amuma and Amaekpu villages, for instance, during which a woman leads the ceremony.

339

The religious practices of Ohafia also evidence what Amadiume describes as a
matriarchal ideology.

340

In the case of Amuma, a rock outcrop with footprints is believed to

represent the female founder of the village, and constitutes the common ancestral shrine of the

335

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 18-21. The foundation of Ebem, is
perhaps the most popular tradition in Ohafia, and is easily recounted by most Ohafia people.
Almost every individual interviewed for this study recounted a version of the story. The story
always began with the assertion, “anyi eri ala a nne” (“we eat through the mother.”)
336
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 21-24; Ndukwe Otta and Elder
Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem. August 14, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral
interview by author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral
interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author.
337
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 19.
338

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 29.

339

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 19; Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Amaekpu. Aug. 15, 2011; Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011.
340
Amadiume, Male Daughters and Female Husbands, 99.
105

community.

341

In the case of Amaekpu, Nsugbe noted that earlier attempts by men to establish a

village community failed, because “the land was too hot for them, and nothing would grow upon
342

it;”

until the successful male founder paid heed to a priest’s advice and married his mother’s

brother’s daughter (ada nne) who then cooled the land, enabled things to grow, and averted
annihilation.

343

Hence, female ancestor worship in pre-colonial Ohafia emphasized the salvific

role of women’s reproductive abilities in the course of Ohafia settlement.

344

This ideology was

ramified in the establishment of shrines of a fertility goddess, uduma in every Ohafia compound,
and the naming of many Ohafia-Igbo people, Uduma.

345

In effect, the Ohafia-Igbo became a matrilineal society due to a number of conjunctive
factors, including female agency in the course of migration, women’s foundation of new
settlements, and cultural borrowing from pre-existing matrilineal/double unilineal Ekoi and
Ibibio peoples. However, the maintenance or reproduction of dominant matrilineage principles is
best seen in the socio-political practices of men and women, upon settlement.
On the one hand, scholars such as Azuonye and Nsugbe argue that over two centuries of
Ohafia-Igbo constant involvement in heroic warfare, from the time of settlement, placed the

341

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 103; Nde-Ichin (elders of) Amuma Village, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Obu Nde-Torti, Amuma. November 27, 2011.
342
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 20.
343

Ibid.

344

Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, digital voice
recording, Elu Village, August 10, 2010; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Elu Village, August 18, 2011; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her
Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. October 25, 2011.
345
Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amaekpu, Aug. 15,
2011; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interveiw by author, digital voice recording, Ebem
Village, Aug. 14, 2011; Ezie-ogo Mecha Ukpai Akanu, the Uduma Anaga 2nd of Amangwu
Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Aug. 18, 2011.
106

burden of agricultural production and family sustenance on women. As a result, women
controlled food production and the transmission of agrarian land, while men defended the
homestead and controlled the transmission of residential (patrilineage) estates.

346

Thus, all land

immediately beyond the residential units (these land are called agbugbo ezi) as a rule, belonged
to the matrilineages in Ohafia, and patrilineages generally established new settlements or
farmland on land pledged from matrilineages.

347

Articulating the social structure that emerged,

Njoku writes, “The Ohafia were a matrilineal people. Residentially, they were patrilocally
organized.”

348

This means that patrilineages had physical compounds and matrilineages did not.

On the other hand, this study suggests that the reproduction of dominant matrilineal
principles should also be sought in the memorialization practices, narratives, and sayings of the
Ohafia-Igbo. The symbolic figure of the female in Ohafia-Igbo traditions of settlement, as the
giver of life, the bread-winner, and the source of communal stability and survival, reflected the
dominant role of women in agricultural production, their reproductive value in a settler society
on the fringe of extinction, and their control over the distribution of material resources before the
20th century. By examining gendered agricultural production and trade, property ownership and
inheritance, marriage and divorce procedures, women’s ownership of children, and the religious
corpus (ancestral worship) of the Ohafia-Igbo, this study seeks to highlight the social power of
Ohafia-Igbo women, and their roles in the constitution and maintenance of the matrilineage until
1900. These practices, which evince the dominant social position of women among the OhafiaIgbo have historically shaped the emergence of a matrifocal (mother-centered) social system.

346

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 13; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 21.

347

Mayne, “Intelligence Report,” 39; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 87.

348

Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia,” 18.
107

Anyi Eri Ala a Nne - We Eat Through the Mother: Matriliny, Economy and the
Breadwinner Concept
The idiom, “anyi eri ala a nne” (we eat through the mother) expresses both the
indispensable role of women as premier food producers and distributors, as well as the fact that
th

property was passed down through the mother-line until the first two decades of the 20 century
among the Ohafia-Igbo.

349

Ohafia men’s preoccupation with the military defense of their

territories (c.1500-1650), their preoccupation with warfare, headhunting and slave raids in the
18th and 19th centuries (the so-called “heroic age”), as well as the scarcity of land for
agricultural purposes, particularly for the cultivation of yams, in the densely-populated region of
the Cross-River, led women to dominate agricultural production.

350

Thus, Nsugbe describes pre-

colonial Ohafia-Igbo men as poor farmers, who only cultivated yam as a prestige crop that was
not sufficient to provision a family through half of the year; while women produced the real
staple crops (maize, rice, cassava, coco-yam, beans, and vegetables), in addition to carrying out
the continuous work of weeding the yam farms throughout the agricultural year.

349

351

Nnenna Emeri and Mmia Nnaya Bassey, members of Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village,
Group Interview. Nov. 3, 2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Kalu Awa Kalu,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011.
350
Emea O. Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” Africa: Journal of the
International African Institute 51, 2 (1981), 695; McCall, Dancing Histories, 83; Northrup,
Trade Without Rulers, 116; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 21; Mama Docas Kalu and
Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author;
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by
author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author.
351
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 21. Other studies indicate that in most Igbo societies,
agricultural production was gender-complementary. See J.S. Harris, “Some Aspects of the
Economics of Sixteen Ibo Individuals,” Africa 14 (1943-44), 319; Ikennna Nzimiro, “Social
Structure,” in G.E.K. Ofomata, ed., The Nsukka Environment (Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth
Dimension, 1978), 245; Amadiume, Male Daughters and Female Husbands, 29-31; Achebe,
Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 109-122.
108

In view of the preeminent role of Ohafia-Igbo women as food producers, Nsugbe noted
that “Ohaffia women [were] considered by other Ibo groups to be the hardest-worked on the
farm of any Ibo womenfolk . . . and the men [were] often ridiculed for the hard use they put their
women to.”

352

McCall concurs when he writes that “the traditional Ohafia economy depended

largely on women’s agricultural labor,” and “women’s day-to-day agricultural labor and food
marketing activities formed the basis of subsistence production and consumption.”

353

However,

his assertion that warriors married many wives and thus controlled the products of their labor is
misleading. Abundant evidence shows that Ohafia-Igbo women controlled the production and
distribution of the bulk of the family food until the 1920s.

354

Mayne writes that before colonial

rule, “It is to the farm that [Ohafia] people turned their attention, deriving their income almost
entirely from this source.”

355

While women continued to dominate food production in the first

th

two decades of the 20 century, the changing economies ushered by Western education and
colonial service, which birthed new forms of ogaranya masculinity reduced men’s dependence
on women for food (see chapter 5). Thus, I argue that agricultural production no longer provided
a basis for women to enjoy breadwinner status under colonial rule.
The nature of pre-20th century long-distance trade in the Bight of Biafra also shaped
indigenous notions of the breadwinner concept. This trade was mostly based on the export of

352
353

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 21.
McCall, Dancing Histories, 83.

354

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41-44; Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and
the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 695; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 38; Nnenna Emeri and Mmia
Nnaya Bassey, members of Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview, Nov. 3,
2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, Aug. 18, 2011; Kalu Awa Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011.
355
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 5.
109

food-crops from the hinterland to the coastal communities, in exchange for Efik and Ibibio crafts,
356

as well as European commodities until the 1890s.

As Northrup shows, food items from the

hinterland provisioned the coastal trading societies as well as slave populations destined for the
Americas, before the 1850s. After abolition (1807-1815), the population of the coastal states
continued to increase because of incessant slave supplies, and they produced very little food for
their sustenance.

357

The palm-oil trade, which peaked between 1820 and the 1860s, also

increased the number of people involved in the production and marketing of palm produce in the
Biafran hinterland.

358

Other trading societies including the Aro and Ndoki almost ceased to farm

at all, and with more and more labor withdrawn from the agricultural sector in the long 19th
century, greater demand for food increased throughout the Biafran hinterland.

359

Until 1900, Ohafia women produced food to meet family needs as well as regional
market demands. In various oral narratives, Ohafia men recounted stories of male individuals
between 1850 and 1900, who were so dependent upon their wives for food that they negotiated
yearly sustenance by marrying more wives, and offering gifts of yams and European
manufactures especially the jooji wrapper cloth to women.

360

It was not until the 1930s that

foods and crafts such as palm oil, oranges, snails, roofing mats, and wood carvings from the
Biafran hinterland were traded to the northern part of Nigeria for products such as beef, onions,

356
357
358
359

Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 208-219.
Ibid.
Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 208.
Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 218.

360

Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members., Group
Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral
interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga
Village, Ohafia. September 16, 2011.
110

dried fish, and cod.

361

Since the bulk of both locally consumed and regionally traded food was

produced by women between 1800 and 1900, the indispensability of female labor to food
production shaped Ohafia-Igbo conceptions of women as the breadwinners of their families.
Nsugbe’s characterization of Ohafia-Igbo men should however be contextualized, for as
Njoku noted, no human community ever survived on warfare and headhunting alone.

362

According to both scholars, unlike in Northern and Western (riverine) Igboland, where men
dominated agricultural production, among the Central and Eastern (Cross River) Igbo, women
controlled farm-work because of land scarcity, limited arable land, high population density, and
men’s preoccupation with warfare.
364

yam cultivation,

363

But it must be pointed out that in addition to their limited

Ohafia-Igbo men produced crafts (mat-making, woodcarving, and

blacksmithing), and engaged in long-distance trading between 1850 and 1900.

365

As Jones

noted, the internal slave trade (1820-1900) rendered the Cross River region so unsafe for
traveling that men from Ohafia, Abiriba, and Arochukwu dominated long-distance trading.

366

Also, in the few villages such as Okon, Amangwu, Isiugwu, Nkwebi and Okagwe, which

361

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 37.

362

Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia, 1900-1979,” 5.

363

Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia,” 12-13; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 21.

364

In chapter 4, I argue that yam production became masculinized, in the sense that men used it
to perform ogaranya masculinity. The concept of masculinization also captures the fact that
following the yam revolution, discussed in chapter 4, Ohafia women who performed the
masculinity of yam cultivation were socially perceived as masculine.
365
Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma Village. Nov. 26,
2011; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author. While women (especially young girls and nursing mothers) wove mat and ropes, the
arduous task of wood carving, particularly, the nkwa (statues and wood-beam carvings)
woodcarvings and mortar and pestle making were the preserve of men.
366
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 5.
111

possessed rivers and streams, men also dominated fishing.

367

Moreover, female dominance in

agriculture led Ohafia men to transform hunting into a distinct masculine pursuit.

368

Nonetheless, men’s economic endeavors before 1900 were marginal to women’s
economic activities,

369

and indigenous notions of breadwinner were premised on female

dominance in agricultural production.

370

For instance, Ohafia-Igbo blacksmiths and wood

carvers did not achieve the reputation and regional specialization of Nkwere, Awka and Abiriba
blacksmiths. Thus, while there were few Ohafia blacksmiths,

371

the Ohafia-Igbo mostly relied

on Abiriba professional blacksmiths for their metal weapons and agricultural tools.

372

It was

perhaps in the traditional medicare and spirit-medium (dibia) profession that Ohafia-Igbo men
enjoyed a profound advantage over women, because the dibia institution was a masculine
373

one.

Yet, the status of dibia also brought with it professional limitations, because while some

dibia participated in itinerant trading, dibia were generally proscribed by the taboos of their
profession, from engaging in any agricultural pursuit, including yam cultivation.

367

374

Moreover,

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 40.

368

See chapter 4 for details. I employ the concept of masculinization to show that hunting was
not necessarily feminine, originally, but Ohafia men trabsformed it into an institution for
performing ogaranya masculinity. Also, see Turner, Schism and Continuity, 230-243.
369
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 21-22.
370

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 5; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu
Village, Group Interview; Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview.
371
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 158-170.
372

Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 196-197; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 14;
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 43.
373
See chapter 5 for detailed discussion.
374

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author.
112

because women became dibia, and in the process, performed masculinity between 1850 and
375

1920,

they redefined the institution as non-male dominated.

The reputation of Ohafia men as warriors has led a number of scholars to argue that
Ohafia did not participate in the regional trade of the Bight of Biafra before the 20th century, in
contrast to their neighbors, the Aro and Abiriba peoples.

376

The notion of Ohafia commercial

inactivity fails to account for the gendered nature of pre-colonial Ohafia economy; namely, that
while men engaged in slave production, women were active players in the regional food and
palm produce trade. Moreover, Ohafia men adapted to the changing economies of the region.
They played a prominent role in the Atlantic and domestic slave trade until the 1890s,
participated in the palm produce trade from the 1860s.

378

377

and

For both the trade in slaves and palm

produce, they exploited the region-wide commercial network of the okonko secret society.

379

Indeed, the Ohafia-Igbo participated in the regional trade of the Bight of Biafra by
utilizing the cowries of the Lower Niger, the manillas of Bonny and Kalabari, and the brass rods

375

See Chapter 4.

376

Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 116; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 9; Isichei, Igbo Worlds,
132.
377
Ohafia slave traders enjoyed privileged access to Aro controlled markets in Bende, Uzuakoli,
and Itu. Charles Patridge, Cross River Natives (London, 1905); A.G. Leonard, The Lower Niger
and its Tribes (London: 1906); Basden, Among the Ibos, 37, 208-209; Basden, Niger Ibos, 377388; Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, 184; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 12-13,
27-28; Dike and Ekejiuba, The Aro of South-eastern Nigeria; Oriji, “Slave Trade, Warfare and
Aro Expansion,” 107-114; Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 34; Azuonye, “The Heroic
Age,” 15; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 49. Bende was the largest market in the hinterland of
southeastern Nigeria until 1897 when Uzuakoli displaced it. Uburu ranked next to Bende. Each
of these markets, controlled by the Aro, held every 28 days, for 4 consecutive days. Traders
visited Bende from the length and breadth of southeastern Nigeria, including Onitsha, Ikom,
Ibibioland, Awka, Nkwerre, and Niger Delta. Ekejiuba, “The Aro System of Trade,” 18-19.
378
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 33.
379

This okonko is fully explored in Chapter 4.
113

of the Cross River for trade, in addition to the barter system.

380

They made use of three major

trade routes. Two of these routes were waterways, through which Ohafia-Igbo men traded mostly
slaves and palm oil, while women traded food items. The first route comprised the Enyong and
the Cross River, which enabled the Ohafia-Igbo to trade with their non-Igbo neighbors, including
the Ekoi, Ibibio,

381

Obubra, Efik, and Calabar peoples.

mostly from Northern Igboland,

383

382

On the one hand, in addition to slaves

Ohafia-Igbo warriors formed an alliance with the Odoro Ikpe

clan of the Ibibio, and raided other Ibibio communities, especially the Ikpe clan for slaves, who
they sold to the Aro, and also traded at Bende.

384

On the other hand, Ohafia-Igbo men supplied

palm oil to the Ikpa and the Enyong on the Cross River, through Arochukwu.

385

The second

route was the Uduma stream, which ran parallel to the western tip of Ohafia, and linked the
Ohafia-Igbo with Arochukwu, Itu, Ikpe and Ikot Eto.

386

Beginning in the 1850s, Ohafia men

traded swamp rice, palm oil and palm kernels to Itu and Calabar, in exchange for Ibibio
masquerade outfits and European imports such as guns, textiles, and animal traps.

387

380

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 31; Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia
Clan, 1934,” 15, 49-51.
381
Ekoi (Ejagham, Bekwarra,Yako/Yakurr, Biase/Agwagune/Akunakuna, Abiayong,
Bahumono, Agbo, and Mbembe); Ibibio (Biakpan, Ikun, Urugbam, Isumutong, and Agbanwan).
382
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and
Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording; Ogbuka
Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 50.
383
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 85.
384
385
386

Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 119.
Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 201.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 51; Mayne, “Intelligence Report,” 50-51.

387

CO520/63: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, 9th July-31st July 1908,” 129-134;
Ezie-ogo Okorie Kalu of Isiugwu Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Dec.
10, 2011; Chief Ikpo Chukwu Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ohafia.
April 6, 2012; Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 121; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 51.
114

The third route was an extensive overland system that converged at Abiriba (AbiribaAda-Afikpo-Uburu; Abiriba-Bende-Uzuakoli; and Abiriba-Isikwuato-Ututu), then went through
Ohafia to Arochukwu, Ihechiowa and Ututu.

388

Women dominated the trade of the overland

route, and to overcome the insecurity of long-distance trade, as a result of the domestic slave
trade between 1820 and 1900, they often went to distant markets in groups accompanied by male
warrior-guards.

389

Many Ohafia-Igbo women, who frequented the major hinterland Bende

market, to trade their agricultural produce for Akwete cloths (akwa mmin), Ututu mats, Uburu
and Okposi mined salt, Abiriba metal products, and European imported commodities, were often
satirized in the songs of the all-male obon secret society for being too enterprising, and
abandoning their farms and responsibilities as bread-winners of their families.

390

It is important to note that slaves were the only commercial commodity over which
Ohafia-Igbo men exercised productive control in the 19th century, and most slaves were traded
over the land route to Bende or Uzuakoli.

391

exports of the Bight of Biafra by the 1830s,

Palm oil and palm kernels had become the main

392

and their manufacture was monopolized by

women, who sold these in local markets, where male entrepreneurs bulked and transported them

388

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 49.

389

Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by
author; Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview; Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade
in Ohafia, 1900-1979,” 23.
390
Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu Village and Members of the Men’s Court,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording; Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author;
Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma Village Ohafia.
November 26, 2011; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral
interview by author; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 50. Indeed, the market was the domain of
women, and served as venue for trade, socialization, gossip, and political mobilization.
391
CO520/107. “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, Oct. - Nov. 1911,” 220.
392

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 33.
115

to Arochukwu, Itu and Ibibio markets through the waterways.

393

Thus, the regional markets

were linked with the domestic intra-village and inter-village four-day markets, controlled by
394

women.

Before the 20th century, a women’s council (Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom) governed the

domestic markets, regulated prices, and settled disputes arising in the market.

395

This council

also established and maintained taboos governing male and female participation in the
productive economy. For instance, it generally forbade men from participating in the lucrative
business of palm oil and kernel production and sale.

396

It was not until the 1860s, at the peak of

the palm produce trade in the Bight of Biafra, that men were allowed to bulk and sell palm
produce to distant markets, but women still maintained monopoly over its production.

397

Given

women’s dominance in agricultural production and their prominent role in domestic and long
distance trade, it is not surprising that Ohafia people describe women as the breadwinners of
their families. It is in this context that the matriliny expression, “anyi eri ala a nne” — “We eat
through the mother,”

398

is most meaningful.

393

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 164; Chief Ikpo Chukwu Ndukwe, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Ndi Ado Compound, Ohafia. April 6, 2012; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of
Akanu Village, Group Interview.
394
Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia, 1900-1979,” 22, 27.
395

Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, digital voice
recording, Elu Village. August 10, 2010; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Elu Village, August 18, 2011; Ezie-Nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her
Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. October 25, 2011; Njoku, “InterVillage Trade in Ohafia, 1900-1979,” 23.
396
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 24.
397

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 15; Chief Ikpo C. Ndukwe, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Ndi Ado Compound, Ohafia. April 6, 2012; Hon.
Tessy Uzoma Odum, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ohafia Local Government
Council Office, Ebem. Sept. 5, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview.
398
Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace
Ojieke, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital
116

Ancestral Worship and Ududu Veneration: The Construction and Maintenance of a
Matriarchy
Victor Uchendu clearly describes pre-colonial Igbo cosmology when he writes,
The Igbo world is a “real” one in every respect. There is the world of man
peopled by all created beings and things, both animate and inanimate. The spirit
world is the abode of the creator, the deities, the disembodied and malignant
spirits, and the ancestral spirits. It is the future abode of the living after their
death. There is constant interaction between the world of man and the world of
the dead; the visible and invisible forces . . . The [dead] are a part of the Igbo
social world . . . The principle of seniority makes the ancestors the head of the
lineage. Without death, there will be no population increase in the ancestral
399
households and correspondingly, no change in social status for the living Igbo.
However, in contrast to the Igbo that Uchendu describes whose ancestors were “organized in
lineages with patrilineal emphasis just as are those on earth,”

400

the reverse was the case among

the Ohafia-Igbo, where the reconstitution of lineages in the ancestral world had a matrilineal
emphasis, because the matrilineage, as opposed to the patrilineage was the dominant descent
system. While libations were performed for male and female ancestors, the dominant religious
practice was matrilineal ancestress veneration through the raising of pot mouments (ududu). As
Amadiume observed in this regard in the case of Nnobi, individuals created their own gods and
goddesses in terms of their own gender relations.

401

voice recording, Uduma Ukwu Village. November 17, 2011; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu
Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group
Interview; Godwin Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu and his cabinet members, Group Interview by
author; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku and Members of the Men’s Court, Group
Interview.
399
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 11-12.
400

Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 12 defines cosmology as an action system of
prescriptive ethics. In other words, it was human activities that gave meaning to the spirit world.
401
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 99.
117

Among the Ohafia-Igbo before the 20th century, both men and women were buried inside
their respective homes when they died.

402

During the burial, a hole was made in the ground, into

the mouth of the interned deceased. This hole served as a link between the dead and the living;
for in the period following the burial, drink was occasionally poured into it, in prayers and
libation by family members of the decased. It was this practice that established dead Ohafia-Igbo
men and women as ancestors.

403

However, while deceased individuals became ancestors, only a

few were deified and worshipped. For men, deification (idoru nna) was restricted to warriors
who had gone to war and brought back a human head as proof of their accomplishment.
men were said to have accomplished ufiem (masculinity).
not accomplish ufiem were not deified after death.
nna (to lay a father to rest),

407

406

405

404

Such

Deceased male individuals who did

After the deification ritual known as idoru

a pot monument was raised in honor of the deceased ufiem. Men

who did not receive the honor of idoru-nna were believed to constitute restless spirits, stuck
between the world of the living and the dead, and attracted shame and derision to their

402

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 44. This burial practice was peculiar
to Ohafia-Igbo people and shaped the practice of libation performances within the home.
403
Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu
Village. Nov. 17, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem
Village. Aug. 14, 2010; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s
Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. Aug. 18, 2011;
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Mr. Arunsi
Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. August 15, 2011.
404
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral
interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author. For similar
rituals in Afikpo, see Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 193, 197-198.
405
This subject is fully explored in Chapter 3.
406

N. Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” Ikenga: Journal of African Studies
1, 2 (1972), 78; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 23.
407
The burial of ufiem and the rite of idoru-nna are fully explored in Chapter 3.
118

descendants.

408

The ududu (pot monuments) of male ancestors were arranged in a chronological

order in their patrilineage obu (meeting-hall),

409

where they received libations during

patrilineage meetings and rituals such as the New Yam Festival.

410

Notably, the male ududu

emphasized individual accomplishments, and their representation as cult objects was confined to
specific patrilineage segments, as opposed to the village-group.

411

Deceased women on the other hand, had ududu raised in their honor within their
matrilineages (ikwu). Upon the foundation of Ohafia-Igbo villages, the female descendants of the
founding female settlers raised pot monuments (ududu) in honor of their mothers when they
died, inaugurating the practice of ududu ancestor worship.

412

Up to the early 20th century,

daughters and sisters continued to raise ududu in honor of their mothers and sisters.

413

With

population increase between the 17th and 20th centuries, each matrilineage had developed a
number of sub-units called ulue (houses).

408
409

414

Each ulue was led by the oldest female member

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 108

410

Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with nde
ichin (ten elders of) Amuma, digital voice recording, Amuma Village. Nov. 26, 2011; Chief
Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village. Nov. 3, 2011.
411
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 103.
412

Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 50. Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African
Society, 204 records a similar practice among the Afikpo.
413
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 109
414

Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu
Village. Nov. 17, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem
Village. Aug. 14, 2010; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s
Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. Aug. 18, 2011;
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Mr. Arunsi
Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. August 15, 2011.
119

415

called ezie-nwami.

As the spiritual head of the matrilineage,

416

the ezie-nwami ikwu kept the

successive ududu of her female ancestors, tracing their origins to a common founding ancestress.
She chronologically arranged the ududu in her home, emphasizing an unbroken chain of
matrilineage matriarchs.

417

Unlike the male ududu, which Nsugbe noted were not under the care

of any particular priest, and thus suffered damage from exposure and neglect,
ududu were “fed” daily by the ezie-nwami,

419

418

the female

as well as “on specific occasions prescribed by

custom or at an emergency following the request for such a rite by a member of the matrilineage
whose well-being needed to be assured.”

420

These specific occasions prescribed by custom include annual ceremonies such as omume
iri uduma (ritual inaugurating the farming season in April) and the New Yam Festival (ritual
celebrating successful harvest in September). In both cases, the various ezie-nwami ikwu offered
sacrifices on behalf of the entire Ohafia community, and for matrikin beyond Ohafia, in addition

415

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 93. “A male cannot be its ritual head.”

416

The matrifocal leadership of the Ohafia-Igbo religious system differed significantly from the
case of Afikpo, who Ottenberg describes as possessing “primary” matrilineal ties, but are best
seen as a double-descent society, and where the matrilineal shrine was controlled by a priest and
male elders. See Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 94-141, 204.
417
Onwuka Njoku, oral conversation with author, University of Nigeria Nsukka, July 12, 2010;
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 50.
418
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 111. Nsugbe concluded that the female ududu “still
evoke stronger abd deeper emotions of loyalty even today than their male counterparts.”
419
In addition to drink libations, these ududu were usually fed with pounded yam and egusi
(mellon seed) soup, which was considered prestige food in pre-colonial Igbo societies. Chief
Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010; Ndukwe Otta and
Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village Ohafia. August 3, 2010; Chief Kevin
Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga. August 10, 2010.
420
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 93.
120

421

to appeasing the matriarchal ududu.

In an agro-based economy dominated by women, the

appeasement of female ancestors to insure good harvest, was accompanied by the appeasement
422

of women by their husbands, during omume iri uduma.

Thus, every husband also paid a ritual

homage to his wife, by weaving a beautiful basket and filling it with huge yam tubers, an
expensive jooji wrapper cloth, and a hoe.

423

During these ceremonies, men, women, and

children from various Ohafia villages and neighboring towns trooped to the home of their
respective ezie-nwami ikwu to worship Ohafia matriarchs, pray for the new farming year, and
offer thanksgiving for good life and harvest.
425

eleghe ulue-uka mgbe ichin”

424

Hence, Uduma Uka stated that “Ulue nne ikwu di

(the matrilineage mother’s home was like a church in the pre-

colonial period.)
Unlike the male ududu which were confined to patrilineage segments, the matrilineage
ududu enjoyed an inter-village and inter-ethnic religious loyalty. First, they were not stationery
like the male ududu, because they moved with successive ezie-nwami ikwu to various

421

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Ndukwe
Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording. Ebem Village Ohafia. August 3, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Asaga. August 10, 2010; Ezie-ogo Mba Odo Okereke (Modok),
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu. October 26, 2011.
422
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 46.
423

Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. Aug. 3, 2010;
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 14,
2011; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author. The hoe is significant in this regard, for
as Nsugbe noted, “the more versatile farm tool, the hoe, is a woman’s tool in Ohaffia. But this is
not so in those Ibo communities where farming is squarely a man’s occupation, where the hoe is
a man’s tool and much bigger and heavier.” Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 22.
424
Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 698; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma
Uka, Group Interview, by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording.
425
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011.
121

patrilineage compounds and villages (natal or marital). Second, because as Njoku noted, the
members of the matrilineage were resident “in every village,”
patrilocal residences in neighboring communities,

427

426

and sometimes lived in

the matrilineage and its ududu enjoyed

religious veneration beyond the segmentary patrilineage units. Thus, while members of a
matrilineage were territorially dispersed, their allegiance to both the living heads of the group
and the sacred pots (ududu) of their ancestresses, afforded them a formidable sense of cohesion,
which inspired the notion, “father’s penis scatters; and mother’s womb gathers.”

428

In this way,

matrilineages and their matriarchs came to symbolize societal well-being and group solidarity.
Indeed, whereas it was the ambition of every Ohafia-Igbo man to attain ufiem status and
earn the privilege of idoru-nna (deification), Ohafia-Igbo women did everything possible to have
a daughter, who would immotalize them as a matrilineage matriarch, including purchasing and
adopting female slaves, and becoming female husbands.

429

Hence, the religious practices of the

Ohafia-Igbo shaped gender ideologies of social power and status achievement and informed
dynamic constructions of gender identities in the society before 1900. Secondly, Amadiume
noted, “A phenomenon in Ohaffia, which is absent in accounts of patrilineal Igbo areas, is the
ritual superiority of the female in the matrilineage.”

430

She went further to write that unlike in

Nnobi, where men sought control over women through their control of ancestral symbols and
426
427

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 68.

428

Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 94;
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26.
429
Case studies of female husbands are presented in Chapter 5. For similar studies, see McCall,
“Portrait of a Brave Woman,” 127-136; Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 185186; Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 206-215; Achebe, “And She Became a
Man,” 52-68; Achebe, The Female King, 97-196.
430
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 174.
122

rituals, men were never able to perform the role of ezie-nwami ikwu in Ohafia, while women
sometimes fulfilled the secular role of superintending over the material wealth of the
matrilineage, in the absence of an adult male.

431

This chapter suggests that the matrilineage

provided the basis for profound mother-centered or pro-feminist (matrifocal) ideologies and
principles, which translated into female dominance in the agro-based economy, and informed the
adoption of extreme mechanisms of punishment by ikpirikpe (the female court) in defending the
rights of individual women, and the rules governing moral precepts in their society (chapter 2).
The Matrifocal Definition of Ohafia-Igbo Citizenship
Among the Ohafia-Igbo before the 20th century, the patrilineage was a temporary owner
of persons and property, and citizenship (rights, duties, and privileges based on socially-accepted
definitions of descent, belongingness, inheritance, succession, and burial) was defined through
membership of a matrilineage. According to Nnenna Obuba, “By Ohafia customary law, a child
belonged to his/her matrilineage.”

432

Thus, in contrast to patrilineal Igbo societies where

children belonged to their fathers and their patrilineage (umunna) upon divorce, and where first
daughters had to become gendered male by avoiding marriage, in order to retain their father’s
heritable wealth;

433

among the Ohafia-Igbo, all children belonged to their mother upon divorce,

and all heritable property of a deceased individual reverted to his or her maternal relatives
431
432

Ibid.
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 49.

433

Amadiume define such daughters as “male daughters,” and Achebe argues they are best seen
as “female sons” since they changed gender and not biology. Amadiume, Male Daughters,
Female Husbands, 31-33; Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 206-215; Achebe,
“And She Became a Man,” 52-68. This author also found similar cases of “male daughters” as
well as “female husbands” among the Inyi people of Enugu State in the course of his B.A. thesis
research in 2006. See Ndubueze Leonard Mbah, “Some Aspects of the History of Inyi, 19071968 (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, 2007).
123

(ikwu), as opposed to the patrilineage (umudi). This was because a man belonged to a different
matrilineage (his mother’s) while his children belonged to another matrilineage (their
mother’s).

434

Until colonial rule, a family unit within a patrilineage compound may at any time
comprise of a husband and wife (or wives), their children by blood, dependent relations, adopted
children, indentured servants, slaves, and resident specialists such as dibia (spirit-medium and
medicare providers).

435

Both male and female members of a patrilineage were often localized

within their patrilineage compound because of patrilineage endogamy, but some female members
also married and lived far away from their patrilineages.

436

Spouses had little or no right over

each other’s property, and women were economically self-sufficient.

437

At the death of a man,

his patrilineage, his matrilineage, and his wife’s matrilineage often took great interest in
redistributing his property. The only property which his eldest son (okwara) inherited was his
house. However, if this house was erected on land pledged from a matrilineage, it reverted back
to the matrilineage upon the death of the individual.

438

The deceased’s eldest sister took charge

434

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 72-78. Ohafia matrifocal conceptions of citizenship are
further reflected in the etymology of matrilineage (ikwu) and patrilineage (umudi). As Nsugbe
shows, ikwu (matrilineage) in Ohafia refers to a distinct descent system and denotes “the
descendants of an original ‘mother’ [whose members are] related to each other through females
only;” in contrast to patrilineal Igbo societies where ikwu has a more temporal meaning as the
immediate blood relatives of one’s mother. On the other hand, the term for patrilineage, umudi
(children of mother’s husband) among the Ohafia-Igbo is configured from a woman’s
perspective as half-siblings (the children of a man from other wife/wives). This was in contrast to
other Igbo societies where the patrilineage (umunna - children of an original father) is defined
from a male-centered perspective as a distinct descent category.
435
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 49.
436
437
438

Mayne, “Intelligence Report,” 39; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 75.
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 51.
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 53.
124

of all his property, including land, farm produce, slaves and adopted children, which she publicly
transferred to her own son, or mother’s brother in that order.

439

If the deceased had no brother, his eldest sister inherited his property, and if he had no
sibling, his mother became the inheritor.

440

The deceased’s biological children belonged to their

mother, who either chose to live alone or remarry, since widow-inheritance was viewed with
horror among the Ohafia-Igbo, in contrast to patrilineal Igbo societies.

441

If the deceased was a

married woman, her daughters shared her property including land, slaves, house, money, farm
produce, economic trees, and personal effects such as clothes, ornaments, and kitchen utensils,
the eldest receiving the largest share. If she was unmarried, her eldest sister inherited her
property. In the absence of the deceased’s sister, her mother took her place.

442

In either case, the

inheritors were maternal relatives, while patrilineage members were marginalized. The trustee
took responsibility for the deceased’s debts and burial expenses, and the deceased’s matrilineage
439

Mayne, “Intelligence Report,” 42; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 86, 89-92.

440

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 43.

441

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 82; Workshop on Widowhood Practices, Widowhood
Practices in Imo State: Proceedings of the Better Life Programme for Rural Women Workshop,
Multi-Purpose Hall, Owerri, June 6-7 (Owerri: Government Printer, 1989); Felix Ekechi,
Tradition and Transformation in Eastern Nigeria (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press,
1989); Chima Korieh, “Widowhood Among the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria” (M.A Thesis,
University of Bergen, Norway, 1996); Augustine C. Odimmegwa, “Widowhood and the Dignity
of Womanhood in Igboland: A Pastoral Challenge to the Discipleship of the Roman Catholic
Church in Igboland,” (Jan. 1, 2010).
442
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 44; Obuba, The History and Culture
of Ohafia, 55. The children of a male member of the matrilineage are referred to as umu ikwu
(children of the matrilineage) while their father’s male and female siblings constitute nna (father)
to the children. The children of a female member of the matrilineage on the other hand constitute
the umunne (brothers and sisters) to the matrilineage, and inherit within it. Thus, at any point in
time, an individual was simultaneously, nwa ikwu (child of the matrilineage) to his father’s
matrilineage, and nwanne (brother or sister) to his mother’s matrilineage. The individual had no
inheritance right from his or her father as nwa ikwu; but he or she had inheritance rights from his
or her mother as nwanne. Also, whereas women constituted an eternal link of successive
inheritance, men could not pass any significant property to their children.
125

presided over his/her funeral.

443

In effect, all persons and property ultimately belonged to a

matrilineage as opposed to a patrilineage. Thus, Uchendu’s assertion that “An Igbo without
‘umunna’ [patrilineage] . . . is an Igbo without citizenship,”

444

does not hold true for the Ohafia-

Igbo, where the parameter of citizenship was membership in a matrilineage before colonial rule.
The matrifocal definition of citizenship shaped the rights of individual men and women.
Divorce was granted at the wish of either spouse, unlike in patrilineal Igbo societies, where it
was difficult for women to obtain divorce.

445

According to Nnenna Emeri and Mmia Bassey,

before the advent of Christianity (1911), women expressed divorce by simply gathering their
property and children and moving out of their husband’s house. If the husband contested the
grounds for divorce, the wife then initiated a formal legal petition (ikpe kupu m aka), which in
practice, entailed her approaching the members of her husband’s patrilineage with a drink to
formally inform them of her decision.

446

In the divorce process, a woman’s greatest ally was her

matrilineage, to which she and her children represented both productive and reproductive
resources to be safeguarded.

447

Divorce rate among the Ohafia-Igbo was very high before the

20th century, but prostitution was curtailed due to a practice called jonkijo, where every four

443
444

Mayne, “Intelligence Report,” 44; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 52.
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 13.

445

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 47-48. The difficulty of divorce for
women in patrilineal Igbo societies was not a result of the notion that wives were property to
their husbands as Meek and Basden argued, but rather, the difficulty stemmed from the complex
processes of bride-price repayment, which often resulted in the wife’s relatives pressurizing her
to remain with her husband. See Basden, Among the Ibos, 76-77; Meek, Law and Authority, 279284; Korieh, “Widowhood Among the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria,” Chapter 1.
446
Nnenna Emeri and Mmia Nnaya Bassey, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of
Akanu. Nov. 3, 2011. The formal declaration of divorce was necessary because it was taboo for a
divorcee to resume cohabitation with his/her spouse without a formal ritual of reunion.
447
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview with author. Nov. 3, 2011.
126

years, widows or unmarried women, had an opportunity to choose a man as a husband, and any
man thus chosen had no choice but to become husband.

448

Whereas the death of a male represented a relative increase in the redistributive resources
of his matrilineage, the death of a female constituted a grave loss, because the wealth in persons
and property which her offspring would have accrued the matrilineage were lost forever. Thus,
Njoku noted that “it was considered a calamitous circumstance if a matrilineage was faced with
the possible extinction of its femalefolk.”

449

Nsugbe also writes:

Daughters were highly prized in Ohaffia, so much so that a prosperous Ohaffia
household without any would endeavour to acquire or ‘purchase’ women from
outside Ohaffia . . . They were ‘purchased’ mainly from the neighbouring
patrilineal Ibo communities, as well as from groups east of Ohaffia at a much
higher cost than [married] Ohaffia women. When married they were referred to as
either aluralu (‘married’ but also connoting ‘purchased’) or ohu nwanyi (‘slave
woman’; ‘slave’ here connoting ‘expensive’) . . . Children resulting from such
marriages, although regarded as full and free-born citizens, did not, by Ohaffia
custom, belong to their father’s patrilineage. On their father’s death they were
450
passed over to their father’s matrilineage (ikwu).
The act of marrying wives from patrilineal societies was a mechanism through which
male and female husbands ensured the continuity of their dwindling matrilineages.

451

Ugo

Nwokeji noted that women bought and owned female slaves in 19th century Arochukwu as well,
and argues that this was what Ifi Amadiume “misidentified as ‘female husbands’.”

452

However,

among the Ohafia-Igbo during the same period, women not only married wives, thereby
becoming female husbands, they also purchased and owned female slaves, some of whom they
448

Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author.
449
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26.
450
451
452

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 83.
See Chapter 5 for discussion of female husbands and masculinity performance.
Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 58
127

distributed as wives to their matri-kin.

453

This was in contrast to Ottenberg’s observation in the

case of Afikpo, that “there was no device of bringing an outside female into the [matrilineal]
descent group as a fictional relative to produce children for a dying matrilineage.”

454

In Ohafia,

the stranger-wife’s means of incorporation as a legitimate member of society was her
membership of a matrilineage. Having no matrilineage of her own within Ohafia, she
automatically became a member of her husband’s matrilineage. Such a wife was regarded as
nwannediya (husband’s sister) and as such, received special care and attention from her husband
and his matrilineage.

455

In contrast to the view that nwannediya symbolized wealth and

affluence of her husband’s family,

456

Ohafia-Igbo women forged critical discourses against this

incorporation of stranger-wives into their community. In their view, patrilineal Igbo women were
“expensive property” and “slaves” of the matrilineage, unlike indigenous wives.

457

Women

shaped discourses of legitimate citizenship through gossip, rumor, iko-onu (verbal aspersions)
and rituals such as uzo-iyi (virginity test) during which they made distinctions of citizenship.

458

453

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem, Ohafia. August 14,
2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording. Ebem Ohafia Local Govt. Council Office. Sept. 5, 2011.
454
Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 141.
455

Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 51.

456

Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ndi Owom,
Okon Village. August 5, 2010; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011.
457
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview with author. Nov. 3, 2011; Ndukwe
Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem Village, Ohafia. August 14, 2010;
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia.
August 10, 2010; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26.
458
Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace
Ojieke, oral interview. See Chapter 3 for detailed discussion of uzo-iyi ritual.
128

Through discourses and marriage practices, Ohafia-Igbo women also defined themselves
as the only mechanism through which Ohafia-Igbo men and male individuals from the
neighboring Cross River ethnic communities historically attained legal citizenship within Ohafia,
since it was the husband’s and children’s belongingness to the wife and mother, respectively, that
assured them citizenship.

459

Through inter-marriage with non-Igbo ethnic communities, Ohafia-

Igbo women transformed the multi-ethnic Cross-River region into a network of matrilineal kinrelationships, such that various Ibibio and Ekoi ethnic communities have had chiefs of Ohafia
maternal descent.

460

Since all children belonged to their mother’s matrilineage, Ohafia-Igbo

women who married outside Ohafia produced children who had property and citizenship rights
within Ohafia, as well as in their father’s ethnic homeland. Thus, before the 20th century,
individuals were occasionally invited from outside Ohafia to succeed to matrilineally-inherited
political offices within Ohafia.

461

This was not possible in patrilineal Igbo societies.

By appropriating the cluster of norms and practices that constitute matriliny,

462

individuals transcended ethnic boundaries in the Cross River region through marriage, divorce,

459

Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma
Ukwu. Nov. 17, 2011; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording. October 25, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu
Village, Group Interview; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, Group Interview;
Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview.
460
Mayne, “Intelligence Report,” 23; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 68.
461

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 23; Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview
by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by
author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview
by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu and
her Cabinet, Group Interview; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview; Mecha
Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview.
462
For this view of matriliny as an appropriable ideology as opposed to a system, see Turner,
Schism and Continuity in an African Society, 89, 242-243; Holy, Strategies and Norms in a
129

th

and inheritance before the 20 century. These practices enabled Ohafia-Igbo women to
strengthen the matrilineage because, whereas the patrilineage gained strength through
demographic unity and concentric expansion, the matrilineage gained strength through spatial
and demographic diversity, segmentation and dispersal.

463

The premier social position of

women in Ohafia-Igbo society enabled them to play a central role in the reproduction and
464

perpetuation of the matrilineage until British colonial rule.

Ohafia matrifocal conception of citizenship was particularly exotic to the Western
experience, and was regarded in anthropology as a special problem.

465

The constant fissure

(high divorce rate) of the nuclear family in African matrilineal societies preoccupied early

Changing Matrilineal Society; Mahir, “Matrilineal Inheritance,” 346; Peters, “Introduction,”
126-130, 141; Crehan, “Of Chickens and Guinea Fowl,” 211-213.
463
Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 140-141.
464

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 25.

465

The classical evolutionists defined matriliny as a complex of traits and banished it to the
beginnings of human society, while the structural-functionalists later redefined it as a “puzzle” –
a fragile complex prone to breakdown upon contact with modernity and social complexity. See
Audrey Richards, “Some Types of Family Structure Among the Central Bantu,” in A.R.
Radcliffe-Brown and C.D. Forde, eds., African Systems of Kinship and Marriage (London:
Oxford University Press, 1950), 246. From the 1950s, the “matrilineal puzzle” pre-occupied
anthropologists who began to study the so-called “matrilineal belt” – the region from Angola
eastwards, through sections of Zaire, Zambia and Malawi, to the Indian Ocean coast of
Mozambique and Tanzania. The conflict between the husband and the wife’s brother(s) over the
control of children became the definition of African matrilineal societies, and the focus of study
until the 1980s. Anthropologists assumed that the only productive and inheritable property in
African matrilineal societies was children of the matrilineage. The means of distribution of sons,
daughters, sisters, brothers, nephews, and nieces, defined the social structure. The resultant
structural-functionalist argument that men found ways out of the “matrilineal puzzle” by opting
out of matrilocal residence, replacing bride-service with bride-wealth, and favoring their own
sons (as opposed to sisters’ sons) as primary heirs, was very andro-centric and facilitated the
1970s/80s feminist back-lash. The fear that colonialism would erode African cultures and that
under the pressure of capitalist individualism, African matrilineal societies founded on
distributive communalism, would become patrilineal, also fostered a salvage ethnographic
mentality. See L.L. Langness, The Study of Culture (California: Chandler and Sharp, 2005).
130

studies on African matriliny, resulting in the definition of matriliny as deviant and unstable.

466

However, these scholars failed to see that the matrilineage, rather than the nuclear family,
constituted the primary social unit in African matrilineal societies.

467

They also overlooked the

fact that while the nuclear family and the patrilineage were temporary social systems of
individual identification, matrilineage practices such as cross-cousin marriage ensured the
stability of both the nuclear family and the patrilineage. Hence, matriliny did not generate an
unstable social system. In Ohafia, sons and daughters of a man could marry sons and daughters
of the man’s sister, and vice versa, because the couple belonged to two different matrilineages,
even though they were members of the same patrilineage.

466

468

In effect, while the matrilineages

The study of African matriliny progressed from evolutionism to structural-functionalism.
The anthropologists trained by Branislaw Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown, including Audrey
Richards, Margaret Read, Fred Eggan, Meyer Fortes, Clyde Mitchell, Elizabeth Colson and
Victor Turner, all studied matrilineal societies in Africa. See Sally Falk Moore, Anthropology
and Africa: Changing Perspectives on a Changing Scene (Charlottesville: the University Press of
Virginia, 1994), 8-15. Within the structural-functionalist model, African matrilineal societies
were studied merely as examples of functionally integrated social structures or “systems” and
within the context of wider theoretical interests founded on evolutionism. Since the 1900s,
matriliny has been conceptualized as anomalous, primitive, and crisis-ridden. For a review of the
early literature by scholars such as J.J. Bachofen, McLennan, E.B. Tylor and Morgan, see David
M. Schneider and Kathleen Gough, eds. Matrilineal Kinship (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1962), 3-23. George Murdock, Social Structure (New York: The Macmillan Company,
1949) argued that matriliny created conflict in the nuclear family; it was a destabilizing influence
to civilized, Christian family values. Levi-Strauss, Mary Douglass, and David Schneider made
similar arguments. See Mary Douglas, “Is Matriliny Doomed in Africa?” in Mary Douglas and
Phyllis M. Kaberry eds. Man in Africa (New York: Anchor Books, 1969), 122-123. The
structural-functionalist model focused on “a bounded social structure” and anything that
appeared to divide a person’s identification with the conjugal family was assumed to create
problems. However, the “dispersal” of women through marriage in non-matrilineal societies was
never considered a problem or “puzzle.” This perception of matriliny as deviance generated a
large literature on high rates of divorce among matrilineal peoples in Africa. See Meyer Fortes,
“Structure of Unilineal Descent Groups,” American Anthropologist 55 (1953).
467
Schneider and Gough, eds. Matrilineal Kinship, vii-xx; Peters, “Introduction,” 127-134.
468

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 73, 79.
131

were exogamous (no inter-marriage within them), the patrilineage groups (umudi) were
endogamous (paternal cousins inter-married).

469

In patrilineal Igbo societies, this was taboo.

Ikwu Nwe Ali - The Matrilineage Owns the Land: Gendered Implications of Changes in
Property Ownership and Inheritance Among the Ohafia-Igbo, 1850-1920
Land means many things to the Igbo. It is the domain of the earth-goddess, a
burial place for the ancestors, a place to live on and make a living. Land is
therefore the most important asset to the people. It is a source of security, which
is emotionally protected from alienation. It is believed that a people cannot have
470
too much land and that no opportunity to acquire rights in land should be lost.
[Italics mine.]
In addition to the literature on African matriliny, my examination of changing practices
of property ownership and inheritance is informed by Anthony Hopkin’s observation that studies
of West African property rights have focused overwhelmingly on slaves and wage labor.

471

This

has birthed the notion that land was surplus, freely given, and not a basis of socio-economic
469

This author witnessed three cases of endogamous patrilineage marriages during his
fieldwork.
470
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 22. This quote is inserted here for its ambiguity.
It suggests that the Igbo were averse to land sale before the 20th century, but also suggests that
individuals and groups sought avenues to acquire land. Second, it is a counter to John Thornton’s
popular assumption that since “African law made land available to whoever would cultivate it,
free or slave, as long as no previous cultivator was actively using it,” Africans did not have
private ownership of land as an alienable factor of production, and thus, slave labor (including
marriage which he defines as an “institution of dependency,” since “ownership of labor also
constituted slavery”) or rights-in-people (Miers and Kopytoff) became the only privately owned
factor of production, hence slavery was so widespread in Africa before the Atlantic slave trade.
See John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 84-87; Igor Kopytoff and Suzanne Miers,
“Introduction: ‘African Slavery’ as an Institution of Marginality,” in Miers and Kopytoff (eds),
Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1977), 7-11. As this study shows, individual land alienation was common
among the Ohafia-Igbo, through rent, leases, and later on in the mid-19th century, sale. Among
the Ohafia-Igbo, land was not abundant and individuals did not have free access to land. Rightsin-land was earned through kin-networks as well as private capital.
471
Anthony G. Hopkins, “Property Rights and Empire Building: Britain’s Annexation of Lagos,
1861” The Journal of Economic History 40, 4 (Dec., 1980), 797.
132

differentiation in pre-colonial African societies,
revenue-generating factor of production.

473

472

while slaves were the only alienable and

As Assan Sarr demonstrates with regard to the

Lower Gambia basin between the 19th and 20th centuries, emphasis on rights/wealth-inpeople/slaves ignores the political and social value pre-colonial Africans placed on land, and
obscures the fact that both Western influences and local forces shaped changing land-tenure
practices.

474

Land was the chief resource of the Ohafia-Igbo and the basis of their socio-economic
organization in the pre-colonial period. A key part of the mechanism of Ohafia-Igbo land
acquisition and population expansion upon settlement in the Cross-River region was intermarriage with the pre-existing matrilineal Ekoi and bilateral Ibibio peoples.

475

Contrary to the

notion that matriliny disintegrates upon contact with patrilineal societies, the patrilineal Ohafia472

Jack Glazier, Land and the Uses of Tradition Among the Mbeere of Kenya (Lanham:
University Press of America, 1985), 1-2; R.E. Downs and S.Reyna (eds.) Land and Society in
Contemporary Africa (London: University Press of New England, 1988), 13; Joseph C. Miller,
Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830 (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 44; John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Of revelation
and revolution: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier, Vol. II (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1997), 369.
473
Thornton, Africa and Africans, 74-78; Martin Klein (ed.) Peasants in Africa: Historical and
Contemporary Perspectives (London: Sage, 1980), 13-22, 43; Miller, Way of Death, 43-44.
474
Assan Sarr, “Land and Historical Change in a River Valley: Property, Power and
Dependency in the Lower Gambia Basin, Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries,” 7-11.
475
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon. August 5, 2010; Dibia Kalu Uko,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Ohafia, September 14 and 20,
2011; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author. According to Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal
Ibo, 18, this practice was informed by Ohafia-Igbo experience at Ibeku, where their neighbors
the Osa, were reluctant to part with their daughters as wives to the Ohafia. When they did, they
accepted no marriage payment, and rather insisted that the children of such marriages would
inherit from them and belong to their descent grouThe Ohafia however received marriage
payments for any daughters they married to the Osa. As a result, the Ohafia lost their rights over
their sons as well as their daughters, because what they gained in monetary value, they lost in
persons. While the Osa population expanded, Ohafia-Igbo population thinned out. As a result
argues Nsugbe, the Ohafia-Igbo adopted matriliny upon settlement in their present location.
133

Igbo, like the Ngoni studied by Kings Phiri, became matrilinealized upon contact with societies,
which possessed dominant matrilineal or mother-centered practices. The result was that before
the 20th century, most land were communally owned, most of these belonged to matrilineages,
and access to land was governed by an individual’s membership in a matrilineage.

476

However, individuals negotiated private access to land through kinship networks, leases,
pledges and rent.

477

The negotiation of rights-in-land through kinship networks was gendered.

Men gained access to farming land through women — mothers (descent) and wives (marriage),
while women qualified for individual land allocation through marriage.

478

In effect, individuals

received land portions upon reaching adult status, which was defined by marriage and the
establishment of a new home.

479

Upon marriage, a man received a tiny portion of ala ezi

(patrilineal land) for settlement within the compound, and had access to two categories of
matrilineage land for farming: agbugbo ezi (land immediately beyond patrilineage compounds)

476

Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 49-56; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 8788; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem. August 14, 2010;
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga. August 10, 2010.
Ottenberg’s observation in the case of Afikpo that all but about 15 percent of farmland was
matrilineally controlled was even truer for the Ohafia-Igbo where the matrilineage owned all but
residential units. See Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 204.
477
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Elders of
Umu-Anya Family, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice
recording. Aug. 14, 2011; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, Ezie-ogo of Amangwu Village and Members of
the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 18, 2011; Mr. Arunsi
Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011.
478
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma
Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem, Ohafia. Aug. 14, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga, Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010; Obuba, The History
and Culture of Ohafia, 49-56; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author.
479
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 43; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by
author; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. August 18,
2011; Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 86.
134

and agu (bush or forests land).

480

matrilineage land upon marriage.

Women similalrly earned rights to these categories of

481

Also, patrilineages often leased land (ala ukwuzi) from matrilineages for settlement and
agricultural purposes. In the latter case, male and female members received parcels for their
agricultural needs, each individual maintaining rights over his or her produce.

482

This land

tenure system guaranteed Ohafia women economic autonomy, and their dominant role in
agricultural production enabled them to enjoy bread-winner status before the 20th century.
Moreover, the fact that Ohafia women inherited and passed on land to their descendants was in
sharp contrast to patrilineal Igbo societies where women did not own land in the pre-colonial
483

period.

Beyond kin-based land rights, individual men and women pledged, leased or rented land
by establishing a lien on the land through the provision of variable forms of wealth such as yams
and slaves.

484

As the British colonial officer C.J. Mayne noted in his Intelligence Report on the

Ohafia-Igbo, such privately owned land was “controlled by the individual and all matters in
connection with pledging or renting was for him to decide.”
480

485

Thus, individuals not only

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 89.

481

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu,
Group Interview with author. Nov. 3, 2011. Upon divorce, husband and wife lost access to each
other’s farming land.
482
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 23, 88-89; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 38. Agbugbo
ezi land, which patrilineages pledged from matrilineages for settlement and farming, always
reverted back to the matrilineage when the sites became abandoned.
483
M.M. Green, Land Tenure in an Ibo Village in South-Eastern Nigeria (London: LSEPS,
1941), 12-13; L.T. Chubb, Ibo Land tenure (Ibadan, 1961); Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern
Nigeria, 87.
484
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41.
485

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41.
135

acquired land as private property, they also possessed the right to further rent or lease the
property to another. Mayne also noted, “It was gathered that in olden days, land was sometimes
sold but not often and then only to some person in the same town . . . It might be added that . . .
in order to raise money in olden days sale of land was resorted to.”

486

Hence, Thornton’s claim

that private land ownership and alienation was alien in pre-colonial Africa, and that slave labor
was the only privately owned factor of production,

487

is unfounded in the Ohafia-Igbo case.

Land sale was indeed rare until the 20th century, not because of any “African law” as
Thornton claims, but rather, because the political-economy of land usage until the mid-19th
century was subsistence-based. Thus, during the 1860-1900 growth of legitimate trade,
individuals who acquired wealth through continued slave production as well as long-distance
trade, rented land from their matrilineages, as did their forebears, but this time, they established
oil palm, kola-nut, cocoa, and wine palm plantations.

488

A few of these individuals who
489

performed ogaranya (wealth) masculinity outrightly purchased land in the 1870s.

Hence,

communal land ownership became increasingly complimented by large-scale individual land
usage.

490

This new land tenure practice was cash-crop driven, reliant on slave labor and male-

dominated. Hopkins and Sara Berry have shown similar transformations in land tenure in Lagos
and the Gold Coast respectively, as a result of the expansive growth in cash crop production

486

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41.

487

Thornton, Africa and Africans, 84-87.

488

For the case of Nna Udensi Ekea (1840s-1916), see chapter 4; and for Chief Kalu Ezelu
Uwaoma (c.1870-1968), see chapter 5. Such individuals performed ogaranya masculinity.
489
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 42; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010.
490
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41.
136

during this period.

491

By the 20th century, with the growth of a colonial market economy,

individual land acquisition through purchase became common-place in Ohafia.

492

These changing practices of land-tenure reflected broader changes in practices of
property ownership and inheritance between the 1850 and 1900, which occasioned
transformations in lineage practices among the Ohafia-Igbo. As individual property ownership
increased, the transmission of property beyond the control of matrilineages also increased.
The major heritable form of individual property before the 20th century, was movable
property such as livestock, food, clothes, ornaments, utensils, furniture, and agricultural tools.

493

Father-son inheritance was restricted to this form of property. Wealthy individuals who wished
to avert the complete transfer of their wealth to their sister’s son tried to provide for their own
sons as much as possible while they were still alive. Yam (Dioscorea rotundata and Dioscorea
cayenensis) was a major form of wealth in the 19th century.

494

Fathers usually provided their

sons with their first yam seedlings in an adult initiation ritual called igwa oba (to start a yam
barn).

495

Those who desired to play a more active role in their son’s life also provided the bride-

491

Hopkins, “Property Rights and Empire Building,” 790; Sara Berry, No Condition is
Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (Madison: The
University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 16.
492
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 38; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 90.
493

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 122; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr.
Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
494
See Chapter 5 for detailed discussion of yam and masculinity performance.
495

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 122; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group
Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral
137

price for their son’s first wife, and presented their son with a machete and farmland.

496

Such

fathers gained respect as ufiem (performed masculinity) because they had risen to their social
obligations, in spite of their son’s matrilineage, and enabled their sons to establish a home (ibi
ulo) and attain adult masculinity.

497

By the mid-19th century, wealthy fathers who often performed ogaranya masculinity by
purchasing large tracts of land began to apportion land and plantation farms to their sons, while
they were still alive. This property transfer was as a rule, transacted in the presence of the
individual’s matrilineage, otherwise his son lost his claims upon his father’s death.
Ottenberg recorded a similar case among the Afikpo village-group.
when gun ownership had become more widespread,

500

499

498

Simon

Also, during this period,

distinguished hunters (di nta) bequeathed

guns to their sons, who often served as their apprentices.

501

Lastly, fathers transferred money

interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo,
oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author.
496
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu. Aug. 15, 2011.
497

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010.

498

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 122; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, Okon.
Aug. 4, 2010; Elders of Umu-Anya Family, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Elu. Aug. 14, 2011; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s
Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 18, 2011; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011.
499
Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 199-202.
500

FO84/1701: “Africa: Slave Trade, West Coast, 1885,” 298-300; CO520/11: “Southern
Nigeria Original Correspondence,” 538-540; CO520/15: “Southern Nigeria Original
Correspondence, July to October, 1902,” 492-497; Arthur G. Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to
Bende,” The Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society, XIV (1898), 196; Njoku, Ohafia:
A Heroic Igbo, 40; Isichei, The Ibo and the Europeans (London: Oxford Uni. Press, 1973), 52.
501
Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, Isiugwu Village Ohafia. Dec. 10, 2011.
138

and businesses to their sons,

502

and whatever an individual received from his father while he

was still alive, the matrilineage could not take away.

503

In the last quarter of the 19th century, individuals negotiated matrilineage control over
personally acquired landed property in two major ways. First, women increasingly made
financial contributions to their husband’s land purchase, such that upon the passing of their
husband, they and their children inherited the estate to the exclusion of the husband’s maternal
relatives.

504

Second, sons popularized a practice of burying their deceased fathers on land the

deceased had privately purchased, thereby transforming such land from matrilineage property
into patrilineage compounds, which they then inherited, as opposed to the matrilineage.

505

Personally acquired property at the turn of the 20th century consisted mainly of land,
estates, business ventures, and movable property such as automobiles within Ohafia, but also
outside Ohafia in emerging colonial cities such as Umuahia, Aba, Enugu and PortHarcourt.

506

The new forms of property acquisition were facilitated by a colonial wage labor system and
legitimate trade.
502

507

When a property-owning individual died, rather than his matrilineage

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010.

503

A.K. Uche, Customs and Practices in Ohaffia (Aba, Nigeria: A.K. Uche, 1960), 39-40;
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 54; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Amangwu Village. Aug. 15, 2011.
504
Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, Uduma Ukwu. Nov. 17, 2011; Mama
Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera of Ebem Village, Group Interview by author.
505
Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s Court, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. August 18, 2011; Anaso
Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by
author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011.
506
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 12; Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166-170;
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 90; Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording. Ebem Ohafia Local Govt. Council Office. Sept. 5, 2011.
507
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 31-39, 47-61.
139

customarily inheriting his property, the Judiciary Courts determined the right of inheritance.

508

Where the individual had legally willed property to his children, or where it was established that
his business was a nuclear family venture, his matrilineage lost their rights of inheritance.

509

In

these instances, the deceased’s children and his patrilineage took responsibility for his funeral. In
the absence of a will or proof of family investment, the matrilineage became the inheritor.

510

The changing practices of property inheritance were also shaped by changes in individual
interpretations of social responsibility. Whereas an individual’s matrilineage had been largely
responsible for his welfare (bride-price payment, fees for initiation into secret societies, debtpayments, and burial rites) and training (apprentice fees for training in warfare, hunting, and
business ventures) before the 20th century,

511

in the first three decades of the 20th century, as

more and more Ohafia men acquired Western education and converted to Christinaity, some of
them began to sponsor their sons to mission-run primary, post-primary and teacher-training
schools in Ohafia, Itu, and Calabar, where they learned to read and write, trained as teachers,
catechists, and clerks, and received training in carpentry, brickmaking, and tailoring.

512

Several Ohafia-Igbo men indicated that a revolution in lineage affiliation, and
conceptions of masculinity (ufiem) occurred as a result of fathers’ increasing assumption of
social responsibility towards their own children. For instance, Mr. Arunsi Kalu stated that
508
509
510
511

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 90.
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu. Aug. 15, 2011.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 90.
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 52.

512

Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 160-164; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 122-123;
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. Aug. 2010;
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga Village. August 10, 2010; Mr. Arunsi Kalu,
oral interview by author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
140

“masculinity is the individual prowess of every man,” and “a father who trained his son in
school, thereby helping him to marry a wife, secure a farmland, and establish a home performed
ufiem.”

513

The emphasis on home establishment within the patrilineage compound as essential to

ufiem construction stemmed from the fact that men who lived in the homes of their wife’s family
(uxorilocal residence) upon marriage (a practice which Ohafia-Igbo men said existed in the precolonial past) were perceived as ujo (cowards).

514

Thus, a father who helped his son to acquire a

wife and attain adult masculinity was seen as ufiem.
Chief Olua Iro Kalu stated that proper marriage was an elaborate and expensive rite of
passage into full manhood.

515

Mayne observed that dowry in the pre-colonial period consisted of

rare and expensive brass rods known as okpogho.

516

The term okpogho came to represent all

forms of monetary wealth at the turn of the 20th century, and individuals who became ogaranya,
were defined as those who possessed okpogho.

517

Such okpogho-possessing individual fathers

sponsored their son’s marriage in the following way:
The father would purchase goats, cocks, yams, and drinks. He and his son invited
their friends, relatives, and age-grade (uke) members. The groom’s uke erected a
huge hut completely covered with expensive jooji cloth. This was called ulue
513

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu. Aug. 15, 2011.

514

Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem, Ohafia. August
3, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga Village.
August 10, 2010. However, uxorilocal residence did not completely disappear. Chief Kalu Ezelu
Uwaoma, the subject of chapter 5 of this study, lived with his wife’s family in Isigwu village
until 1916, when he had accumulated sufficient wealth to establish himself as ufiem, and returned
to his natal village in Elu Ohafia, to build a modern storey building in performance of ogaranya
masculinity. See Geoffrey Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments in
Eastern Nigeria,” The Bulletin of the Society for African Church History II, 2 (1966), 144; Kalu,
“An Ibo Autobiography,” 166-167.
515
Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. August 3, 2010.
516
517

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 47.
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010.
141

okara (the cloth house). Within this hut, the groom’s age-grade members were
entertained. Permission for this hut was obtained from patrilineage elders upon
fee payment. The male organ of the uke [age-grade] known as akpan was also
518
presented with wine and gifts.
It was also in expression of ufiem as the fulfillment of paternal social obligations that
Chief Emeh Okonkwo asserted, “My father lived during colonial rule, and so did not have a
chance to fight any wars and cut a head, but he accomplished ufiem because he married a wife
when he was of proper age! He trained his children in schools. He rode a bicycle and then a car
when he was supposed to! He was a man!”

519

An individual trained in school or trade, or

provided with a wife by his father was often referred to as enyi nnaya (father’s friend).

520

Such

sons demonstrated their love for their fathers by building new houses for them, thereby,
performing ogaranya masculinity themselves.

521

The growing popularity of enyi-nnaya

relationship in the early 20th century posed a threat to matrilineage rights. As fathers invested
more in the welfare of their children, their matrilineages lost the rights-in-people they had
customarily enjoyed, while the agnatic kin gained greater stake in their sons and daughters.
Since the 20th century, while the normative principles of inheritance among the OhafiaIgbo were still dominantly matrilineal, individuals have increasingly come to emphasize the
social importance of fathers and the patrilineage.

518
519

522

The socio-political processes (slave

Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. August 3, 2010.
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interveiw by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. Aug. 2010.

520

Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s Court, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. August 18, 2011.
521
Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu and his cabinet members. Group Interview
by author, digital voice recording, Amankwu. October 25, 2011.
522
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village,
Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Chief Udensi Ekea of Ndi Ekea Compound, Okon Village, oral
142

production, cash crop-driven plantation economy, legitimate trade, Christianity and Western
education) which enabled men to displace women as the bread-winners of their families between
1900 and 1920 (see chapter 6) similarly challenged the matrifocal ideologies of the Ohafia-Igbo.
Ohafia: A Matrilineal Igbo Society?
Various studies on the peoples of southeastern Nigeria suggest that most Igbo
communities practiced a patrilineal kinship system (of property inheritance), and a dual-sex
system of social organization;

523

double descent kinship system,

while some communities practiced what has been called a

524

alongside the dual-sex system. Studies on the double descent

system have resolved that the major defining factors are the existence of both patri-clans and
matri-clans as the kinship/corporate groups within which property is owned and inherited
(“double inheritance”); that both descent groups are exogamous (“double clanship”); and that
every individual belongs to both his/her patrilineal and matrilineal descent group.

525

The co-existence of patrilineage residential compound units alongside dominant
matrilineage practices in Ohafia has led some scholars to challenge the characterization of
Ohafia as matrilineal. These scholars argue that Ohafia is best seen as double unilineal or double-

interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka,
Group Interview by author; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 27.
523
Ibewuike, African Women and Religious Change, 49-54; Okonjo, “The Dual Sex Political
System, 45-46; Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 36; Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern
Nigeria, 13. “Patriliny” refers to the system where an individual belongs to, and possesses rights
of inheritance in his paternal descent group. The Igbo are generally considered a patrilineal
society, so much so that Uchendu asserted that “An Igbo without ‘umunna’ [patrilineage . . . is
an Igbo without citizenship.”
524
Jack Goody, “The Classification of Double Descent,” Current Anthropology 2, 1 (Feb.,
1961), 3-25; Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples, 55. Simon Ottenberg’s
Double Descent in an African Society is a case in point.
525
J. Goody, Comparative Studies in Kinship (California: Stanford University Press, 1969), 112.
143

descent.

526

Contending that the Ohafia-Igbo were a double descent society, Simon Ottenberg

claimed that patrilineal groupings were the basic unit of the society’s political system, and that as
such, “politics seems patrilineal rather than matrilineal.”

527

This is misleading however, because

the basis of the Ohafia-Igbo political system in the pre-colonial period was not the lineages but
the age grades.

528

When this question was posed to an Ohafia elder, Chief Olua Iro Kalu, he

declared: “Listen! Umunna [patrilineage] ruled within their umunna homestead; Ikwu
[matrilineage] ruled within their ikwu matri-clan. When it came to communal issues, it was the
uke (age grade) that took charge of it, and the uke comprised men and women.”

529

Indeed, among the Ohafia-Igbo in the pre-colonial period, the matrilineage never had a
unifying compound unit (ezi or mba), unlike the patrilineage. However, the matrilineage was the
main property-owning and property-inheriting group, as opposed to the patrilineage. Thus, men
and women pledged their land to their matrilineage as opposed to their patrilineage, and landed
property were matrilineally inherited. Second, the matrilineage was the only exogamous unit,
such that intermarriage among its members were prohibited, while members of the same
patrilineage were able to inter-marry, in sharp contrast to what obtained in the rest of patrilineal

526

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 27; Abner Cohen, review of Ohafiia: A Matrilineal Ibo
People by Philip Nsugbe, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 40, 3 (1977),
683-684; Caroline Ifeka, review of Ohafia: A Matrilineal Ibo People by Philip Nsugbe, Journal
of African History 16, 2 (1975), 311-312; Simon Ottenberg, “Ohafiia: A Matrilineal Ibo People
by Philip O. Nsugbe,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 46, 3 (1976), 296.
527
Ottenberg, “Ohafiia: A Matrilineal Ibo People by Philip O. Nsugbe,” 296.
528

David U. Iyam, The Broken Hoe: Cultural Reconfiguration in Biase Southeast Nigeria
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 133-135, similarly shows that while kinship was
important for the Biase, it was “a less profound basis for social organization than nondomestic
social groups” such as Inyono and Ekpe mystical organizations, and Abu and Ebrambi secular
associations of social bonding. For the Biase, these organs were more important than kinship in
shaping, ordering, and regulating individuals’ behavior.
529
Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. August 3, 2010.
144

Igboland.

530

Third, while the matrilineage was dispersed (no residential compounds), its

members maintained unity through day-to-day practices such as ududu (ancestral pots and deities
of matrilineage ancestresses) veneration, marriages, divorces, burials, physical and legal
protection over members and provision of resources (food, land, labor, and material wealth) to
members. I argue that it was these practices, as opposed to residential arrangements, that shaped
local ideologies of kinship affiliation.
Amadiume has persistently argued that the Igbo double descent system derives from the
historical imposition of an Igbo patrilineal system upon the matrilineal systems of indigenous
populations through military conquest.

531

At first glance, this would seem to fit with the Ohafia-

530

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 119-121. In patrilineal Igbo societies, the patrilineage
was the only exogamous unit, and the principal owner of persons and property. Hence Uchendu,
The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 13, asserted that “An Igbo without ‘umunna’ [patrilineage] . . .
is an Igbo without citizenship.”
531
See Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 186-194. Indeed, Nsugbe’s work
inspired Okonjo and Amadiume to speculate about “gender parallelism” and matriarchy for a
wide range of African societies. See Okonjo, “The Dual Sex Political System in Operation,” 4558. In a later work titled Afrikan Matriarchal Foundations: the Igbo Case (1987), Amadiume
argued that the Igbo were in the past a matriarchal society, and that, elements of Igbo matriarchy
have survived in inheritance and succession practices and especially in religion. In 1997,
Amadiume published a compilation of essays written between 1989 and 1994 titled Re-Inventing
Africa: Matriarchy, Religion and Culture. She argued that there were structural gender
contestations premised on the presence of matriarchy “in the fundamentals of the ideas of kinship
in ancient and traditional African societies.” She insisted that Christianity, colonialism and
capitalism were corrupting influences on African matriarchal heritage, and evidence “patriarchal
paradigmatic monolithism,” which can only be deconstructed through a study of indigenous
religions, as embodying “contesting and complementary gendered systems,” and providing
“alternative social history to the unpopular assumptions of anthropology.” See Ifi Amadiume,
Re-Inventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion and Culture (London: Zeb Books, 1997), ix-8.
However, Amadiume did not substantiate her claim of “primordial and empowering matriarchy.”
Nkiru Nzegwu pointed out two key flaws in Amadiume’s work: the conceptual fuzziness of key
notions such as matriarchy, gender, and afrocentrism; and the inadequate reference to the work
of scholars from the diverse societies whose cultures she analyzed. Nzegwu concluded that the
ideology Amadiume is portraying as matriarchal is fundamentally patriarchal, and that “whatever
it is Igbos created it certainly was not matriarchy, and it does not need that name.” See Nkiru
145

Igbo case, but the immediate result of Ohafia-Igbo absorption of matrilineal non-Igbo peoples,
between the 16th and 17th centuries, was their emergence as a matrilineal Igbo society, not a
double descent society. Thus, Nsugbe argues that the Ohafia-Igbo were more like the Ashanti of
Ghana, and less like double descent communities such as the Yako and the Lo Dagaba.

532

It is plausible that after relying on male leaders for so long, without finding a permanent
home, the Ohafia-Igbo sought to attain stability by relying upon women for subsistence
production, while men became preoccupied with the military defense of their new territory.

533

It

is in this context that the popular Ohafia-Igbo adage, “utu n’atusa atusa; ikpu n’ekpokota
ekpokota” (“the penis scatters; the womb gathers”) becomes very meaningful.

534

Practices such

as the raising of ududu pot monuments in honor of deceased matriarchs began as a mechanism to
foster communal strength and stability, as it brought members of the community into a ritual
unity.

535

Similarly, the practice of patrilineal endogamy, which is peculiar to the Ohafia-Igbo, in

contrast to patrilineal Igbo communities where such unions were viewed as incestuous, served to
ensure communal peace. Hence the Ohafia-Igbo say, “Anyi namu, nuru, maka udo” (“we take in

Nzegwu, “Chasing Shadows: The Misplaced Search for Matriarchy,” Canadian Journal of
African Studies 32, 3 (1998), 594-622.
532
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 119-123.
533

Scholars of Ohafia-Igbo history agree on this point. See Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo,
21; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 9, 11, 18-20, 31. Nsugbe and Azuonye concur that as men were
preoccupied with the defense of their new territory, the bulk of farm-work was transferred to
women, and after so many generations of controlling farmland, women became the sole
transmitters of the right of its ownership.
534
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author.
535

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 93. This practice did not exist when the Ohafia-Igbo
(Mben) lived in Ibeku, where such pots were raised only for deceased male ancestors.
146

marriage whom we bear, for peace.”)

536

Nsugbe thus concludes that a prominent feature of

Ohafia social ideology is their strength of common feeling as a single maternal community.

537

The opposition to the description of Ohafia-Igbo society as matrilineal derives from a
structural-functionalist conception of lineages as static corporate groups or structures, as well as
the reductionist view of lineages as descent groups,

538

as opposed to social practices. In the

structural-functionalist perspective, true matriliny is defined as a system where “kinship was
traced only through the mother.”

539

Thus, any trace of patrilineal ideology in the society is

construed as undermining matriliny. In contrast, the existence of trace matrilineal principles and
practices in so-called patrilineal Igbo societies has not led scholars to define these societies as
double unilineal or double-descent. Indeed, ikwu is recognized in so-called patrilineal Igbo
societies, as a descent system, hence Uchendu writes that when the Igbo individual found himself
in conflict with his agnatic kin (umunna), he always ran to his umunna (mother’s agnates or
ikwu) among whom he enjoyed okene/nwadiala privileges. When he faced conviction for crime
or danger for his life in his umunna, the Igbo individual always found safety among his ikwunne, where he was considered sacred.

540

The point is that the conception of lineages as descent

groups does not shed any light on individuals’ value placement on lineage affiliation. However,

536
537

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 79.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 39.

538

Peters, “Introduction,” 134. For exponents of this view, see George Murdock, Social
Structure (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949); Mary Douglas, “Is Matriliny Doomed in
Africa?” in Mary Douglas and Phyllis M. Kaberry eds., Man in Africa (New York: Anchor
Books, 1969), 122-123; David M. Schneider and Kathleen Gough, eds. Matrilineal Kinship
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), 16, 23; Meyer Fortes, “Structure of Unilineal
Descent Groups,” American Anthropologist, 55, (1953), 17-41.
539
Schneider and Gough, eds. Matrilineal Kinship, vii-xx; Peters, “Introduction,” 127.
540

Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 13-14.
147

inheritance practices, religious beliefs, and social conceptions of motherhood and fatherhood tell
us which lineage principles are dominant.
What has not been examined, with regard to southeastern Nigeria, are the evident
transformations in kinship practices over time. The Ohafia-Igbo case suggests that what was at
th

once a matrilineal society increasingly became, at the turn of the 20 century, a double unilineal
society, with multi-faceted implications for gendered power relations. Thus, this dissertation
argues that lineages are best viewed as practices.

541

It was people’s practices — the proclivity of

association and belongingness, gift-giving and reciprocity, social responsibility to offsprings,
marriage and divorce — that constituted lineages in the first place, continued to give lineage its
meaning, and ushered significant changes in lineage principles over time.

542

Recounting the

changes in lineage ideology, Ohafia men and women cite the increase in individual property
ownership (as opposed to ownership by the matrilineage) since the mid-19th century, the
transmission of property (first, yam wealth before the 1820s, slaves up to the late 19th century,
541

For case-studies showing changes in lineage systems as a result of changing ideologies and
practices, see Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 147-148, 192-202; Karla Poewe,
“Matrilineal Ideology: The Economic Activities of Women in Luapala Zambia,” in L.S. Cordell
and S. Beckerman (eds.) The Versatility of Kinship (London and New York: Academic Press,
1980), 345; G. Geisler, “Moving With Tradition: The Politics of Marriage Among the Toka of
Zambia” 1990, cited in Peters, “Introduction,” 135.
542
This is what the 19th century Prussian-born American anthropologist Franz Boaz called the
“genius of the people.” Thus, Emile Durkheim argued that the origin of an institution does not
explain its function; rather, the meaning of an institution should be sought in synchronic
practices. It is then that as Radcliffe-Brown points out, we can understand the “systems of real
relations of connectedness between individuals occupying various social roles,” the “phenomenal
reality” of “social structure.” In the processes of their practices, lineages emerged as
distinguishable structures that shaped individuals themselves, but it was people’s actions that
continued to give lineages their meanings, and ushered significant changes in lineage practices
over time. See L.L. Langness, The Study of Culture (California: Chandler and Sharp, 2005), 22;
Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, Vol. II (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 4; Adam
Kuper, Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School (New York: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1996), 47-48; A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, A Natural Science of Society (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1957), 45, 55.
148

and estates in the early 20th century) from father to son (opposed to inheritance by uterine
siblings), and fathers’ (opposed to maternal uncles) assumption of responsibility for the welfare
of their children.

Conclusion
This chapter has examined the implications of Ohafia-Igbo migration and settlement in
the Cross River region in the 16th century for their emergence as a matrilineal Igbo society. The
chapter argues that Ohafia-Igbo women enjoyed prominent socio-economic positions in their
society, which enabled them to reinforce matrifocal conceptions of social identity until 1900.
Against the background of studies on African matriliny, and popular conceptions of
African property ownership, the chapter analyzed changes in lineage ideologies as evident in
changing practices of property ownership and inheritance between 1850 and 1900. It shows that
as men replaced women as the breadwinners of their families, and increasingly bequeathed
property to their sons, as opposed to their sister’s sons, matrilineage rights-in-people declined.
Lastly, the chapter re-examined the emerging challenges to the description of OhafiaIgbo society as matrilineal, by examining the limitations of the double-descent hypothesis. It
argues that lineages are best seen as a product of individual practices and negotiations, rather
than a concrete system.
Ohafia-Igbo settlement in the Cross River region also facilitated their acquisition of an
age-grade system (uke) of political organization, a militant ethos, and secret societies, which
distinguished them from most other Igbo societies, and later shaped social conceptions of
gendered identity and power between 1850 and 1900. These historical processes are examined
successively in chapters 2, 3, and 4.

149

CHAPTER TWO
THE GENDERED SOCIO-POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF
THE OHAFIA-IGBO, 1850-1900
This chapter examines the Ohafia-Igbo age-grade system (uke) as a gendered sociopolitical organization, and analyzes the concept of female political power against the background
of discourses of Ohafia-Igbo women’s powerlessness in the pre-colonial period (1850-1900).
First, the chapter examines the age-grade as a distinct Ohafia-Igbo socio-political system, by
arguing that its organization differed from the age-grades of other Igbo societies between 1850
and 1900. Second, the chapter highlights the role of the uke (age-grade) in gendered socialization
(the separation of boys from girls and the transformation of boys into men and girls into women).
Third, the chapter differentiates the various stages of age-grade organizations among the
Ohafia-Igbo, and clearly shows that at a certain stage of its organization (the uke ji ogo stage),
Ohafia-Igbo gender-inclusive age-grades would be separated to form two political organizations:
the all-male akpan and the all-female ikpirikpe. Both of these political associations resulting
from age-grade organizations constituted the male and female courts, respectively, and between
1850 and 1900, they were responsible for the regulation of political relations in each village.
Hence, Ohafia-Igbo political system between 1850 and 1900 was sex-differentiated.
Indeed, Ohafia was such a society constructed, as V.O Ibewuike writes, with respect to Asaba,
“an organization of parallel gender institutions.”

543

Okonjo defines this as a “dual sex” system

of social organization in which “each sex generally managed its own affairs,” such that each sex
had its own kinship institutions, age grades, secret societies, and title societies.

543

544

Mba describes

Victoria O. Ibewuike, African Women and Religious Change: A Study of the Western Igbo of
Nigeria: with a Special Focus on Asaba Town (Uppsala: Victoria O. Ibewuike, 2006), 52.
544
Okonjo, “The Dual Sex Political System, 45-46.
150

this as “sex political differentiation.”

545

However, in Ohafia, while women and men maintained

their separate political, economic, and social institutions, they collaborated within The Age
Grade System, having equal rights and obligations.

Defining the Problem: The Notion of Invisible and Docile Women
The scholarship on Ohafia socio-political organization has emphasized male sociopolitical institutions. Accounts of female socio-political organization appear as a last-ditch effort
to say something about women.

546

The result is that a gendered analysis of Ohafia socio-

political institutions does not exist. Moreover, the view that Ohafia women were politically
“inferior” to Ohafia men is prominent in literature authored by indigenous Ohafia historians.
Thus, Uduma Uduma writes that “the subordinate position of women is manifest in every area of
life in all societies including Ohafia,” and that women “are hardly allowed to feature prominently
in any . . . prestigious endeavors.”

547

He further states that “female inferiority” in Ohafia is

“culturally based,” and as such, “it is not possible to be completely phased out.”

548

Another indigenous historian, Grace Kalu contends that “women’s roles in Ohafia society
were limited mostly to bearing children and agricultural engagement,” and that it was the
“salvific” influences of Christianity and Western education that enabled women to become

545
546
547

Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 36.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 17-33; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 58-71
Uduma O. Uduma, The People of Ohafia Ezema (Nigeria: Arinson Publishers, 2007), 97.

548

Uduma, The People of Ohafia Ezema, 100-101. For other proponents of this view, see E.E.
Nkata, “The Role of Women in Development,” Ikoro, (Vol. 2, No. 2, 1976), 35-36; Ogbeyalu
Nchonwa, “The Role of Women in Development,” Ohafia Review (April 1981), 7-9; and A.I.
Udensi, “Elevating the Ohafia Woman,” Ikoro, (Vol. 3, No. 3, December 1998), 40-44.
151

politically “visible.”

549

Njoku, a prominent Ohafia-born scholar of Igbo history further added

that “Ohafia, like the rest of traditional Igbo society, is a male-dominated society and men are
more politically visible than women.”

550

However, it is not clear if Njoku is describing present-

day Ohafia society or pre-colonial Ohafia society. The skewed idea of Igbo women’s precolonial socio-political insignificance was also espoused by G.T. Basden, who argued that
colonialism liberated Igbo women from traditional and cultural burdens,

551

rescuing them from

“generations of monotonous routine,” in which “cheery and bright, their lives run in a hopeless
groove.”

552

The mentality of a male-centered heroic past, which continues to be dramatized through
the popular culture of iri-aha (Ohafia war dance) also tends to obscure the preeminent sociopolitical power and positions of Ohafia-Igbo women in the pre-colonial period. The
overwhelming academic focus on Ohafia’s historical militancy and their characterization as
brave “headhunters” and “Aro mercenaries,”

553

further contributes to the marginalization of

women in academic discourses. Indeed, the dominant ideology is that men distinguished
themselves in renowned warfare and women did not. This inability to construct ufiem

549

Grace U. Kalu, “Women in Social and Economic Change in Ohafia, 1945-1990” (Nsukka,
Nigeria, 2005), 1, 36.
550
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 24.
551
552

Basden, Niger Ibos, 203; Basden, Among the Ibos of Nigeria, 88-96.
Basden, Among the Ibos, 93.

553

Patridge, Cross River Natives; Leonard, The Lower Niger and its Tribes; Talbot, The Peoples
of Southern Nigeria, 18; Basden, Among the Ibos, 37, 208-209; Basden, Niger Ibos, 377-388;
Kenneth O. Dike, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830-1885 (London: 1956); Dike and
Ekejiuba, The Aro of South-eastern Nigeria; Northrup, Trade Without Rulers; Oriji, “Slave
Trade, Warfare and Aro Expansion,” 107-114; Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs;” Azuonye,
“The Heroic Age,” 8-35; John C. McCall, “Dancing the Past: Experiencing Historical
Knowledge in Ohafia, Nigeria,” Passages: A Chronicle of the Humanities 6 (1993).
152

(masculinity) is often interpreted as a lack and limitation on women, and taken as the major basis
of their socio-political invisibility.

554

Similarly, Philip Nsugbe’s observation that “Ohaffia women are considered by other Ibo
groups to be the hardest-worked on the farm of any Ibo womenfolk . . . and the men are often
ridiculed for the hard use they put their women to,”

555

has popularized the notion that Ohafia

men exploited their women. It was in this fashion that Basden described Igbo women as “the
burden-bearers of the country . . . [who] have few rights in any circumstances, and . . . accept the
situation as their grandmothers did before them.”

556

Jean Allman, Susan Geiger, and Nakanyike

Musisi have described this as “the brutality of racist discourse.”

557

Here, no attention is given to

the agency and consciousness of Ohafia and other Igbo women and the socio-political
implications of their dominance in the agro-based economy of their society. Moreover, Nsugbe’s
emphasis on the ridicule, which Ohafia men encountered from their neighboring communities by
virtue of female dominance in agricultural production and subsistence, is always overlooked.
In addition, the dearth of information on female socio-political institutions in European
colonial and missionary records has clouded the prominence of past female power and authority
in Ohafia society. For instance, in his Intelligence Report on the Ohafia-Igbo, Mayne presented
pre-colonial Ohafia political administrative and judicial systems as exclusively-male. He writes,
The administration of each village in ancient times was essentially on democratic
line, the supreme control being lodged in the hands of the Village Council . . .
554

Kalu, “Women in Social and Economic Change,” 14, 29; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 2329. Azuonye further equates Ohafia-Igbo social identity with warrior masculinity.
555
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 21.
556

Basden, Among the Ibos, 88.

557

Jean Allman, Susan Geiger, and Nakanyike Musisi, “Women in African Colonial Histories:
An Introduction,” in Jean Allman, Susan Geiger, and Nakanyike Musisi, eds., Women in African
Colonial Histories (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002), 1.
153

composed of the EZEOGO [male ruler] of the village together with each family
head. In addition to this, certain elders were also entitled to be present by virtue of
their age or because they had been called by the EZEOGO and family heads . . .
558
and the head of the local Akpan.”
He further stated that this Village Council was solely responsible for civil and criminal
cases.

559

Under the title, “Ethnological,” where he discussed land tenure, inheritance of

property, and festivals, Mayne devoted five sentences to a sub-section titled “EZE NWANYI OR
QUEEN.” He noted, “Her functions are to settle petty disputes between women in matters
touching land and other small matters between females of her village.”

560

Mayne never

indicated that the “EZE NWANYI OR QUEEN” was in any way, part of the political
administrative and judicial system he described. In his proposal for the future administration of
Ohafia under colonial rule, following the abrogation of the ill-fated warrant chief system in 1927,
Mayne argued that “the Clan Council membership consist of the EZEOGO of each village, the
family heads and senior men of the AKPAN of each village.”

561

It is no surprise then that

writings on Ohafia-Igbo political organization, which have relied on this authoritative archival
document, have been male-centered.
The Annual Reports on the region (Bende District) are silent about women generally.
Preoccupied with political and administrative developments under colonial rule, such as the
establishment of Native Courts, the appointment of court clerks and warrant chiefs, military
expeditions, the mobilization of African labor for road construction and river dredging, the
expansion of trade, and the spread of Christian missions and schools, the reports focused on

558

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 12.

559

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 30-31.

560

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 46.

561

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 52.
154

European and African men.

562

As a result of the silencing of women in published literature and

European written sources, this dissertation relies upon oral histories of Ohafia-Igbo women and
documentation of Ohafia-Igbo women’s rituals and resistance strategies, in order to give voice to
this section of society, whose agency in the pre-colonial period has been grossly obscured.
Uke (the Age Grade): A Distinct Ohafia-Igbo Socio-Political System
The age-grade system (uke) was the foundation of Ohafia political administration before
the 20th century. Unlike other parts of Igboland, where the socio-political system was based on
lineage organizations, and village assemblies,

563

among the Ohafia-Igbo, the regulation of

political relations in the village (mba) was the responsibility of the uke (age-grades), which
formed a pyramidal socio-political hierarchy.

564

Indeed, while the Ohafia-Igbo possessed

politically responsible kinship organizations such as the onu ulue (nuclear family), utuga/isi ogo
(minimal patrilineage), and umudi ezi (the patrilineage compound), these lineage institutions did
not exercise socio-political influence beyond the organization of patrilineage kin.

565

In contrast

to most Igbo communities whereas M.M. Green observed, “age groups were largely social and

562

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 68-88.

563

Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 39-44, describes the “general pattern of political
process which is shared by all Igbo,” as one comprising kin-based organizations (first stage),
lineages (second stage), and village-level democracy and representative assembly (comprising all
adult males). Here, age-grade associations were at best, one of the many “instruments of
government.”
564
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 58, 69. The Ohafia refer to the age-grade system as
ukeibe, often shortened to uke. The hierarchies of the uke are discussed below.
565
Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village Ohafia.
August 3, 2010; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interveiw by author, digital voice recording. Ebem
Village Ohafia. Aug. 2010; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Elu Ohafia. August 10, 2010; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011.
155

convivial in their activities, and concerned with the interests of their own members;”

566

in

Ohafia and other neighboring Cross-River Igbo societies such as Abiriba, Abam, Afikpo, and
Nkporo, the uke was highly developed, and associated with elaborate initiation rituals.

567

In the

words of Ohafia oral historian, Uma Eleazu, the uke was “a basic institutional form as far as the
continuity and stability of the social system was concerned.”

568

The uke had emerged as the major basis of Ohafia socio-political organization by the 18th
century.

569

Hence, Njoku describes the institution as “Ohafia’s way of life, as old as the

community.”

570

The Ohafia-Igbo arrived at their present location with what Afigbo described as

a “loosely-integrated age-grade system”

571

characteristic of most Igbo societies, but they found

it militarily and politically expedient to adopt the well-integrated and “most-purposively and
effectively organized”

572

age-grade system of their non-Igbo Cross-River neighbors. Because of

its historic role in the mobilization of male warriors for territorial defense between the 17th and
18th centuries,

573

its instrumentality to women’s exercise of socio-political power and authority

before the 20th century,

574

its function in the gendered socialization of boys into men and girls

into women, and its emergence as a social welfare and self-help developmental agency since the
566
567
568

M.M. Green, Ibo Village Affairs (London: Frank Cass, 1947), 25.
Forde, and Jones, Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples, 52; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 59.
Uma Eleazu, “Traditional Institutions and Modernization,” Ohafia Review 1 (1983), 9.

569

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 21-23; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A
Matrilineal Ibo, 58 concur that the Ohafia-Igbo adapted the better-organized age-grade system of
their non-Igbo Cross River neighbors during the “heroic age” of the 18th century.
570
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26.
571
572
573
574

Afigbo, Ropes of Sand, 22.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 59.
Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 21-23.
See discussion below.
156

20th century,

575

the uke (age grade) has been described as “the matrix of socialization, resource

mobilization, self-actualization and community development.”

576

Thus, in order to clearly show

the gendered political organization of the uke system, this study first examines uke as a
mechanism of gendered socialization, and highlights the functional changes of the uke between
the 19th and 20th centuries.
Uke: A Mechanism of Gendered Socialization
Chieka Ifemesia defined the age-grade system as “a vital institution among the Igbo for
fostering communal and humane living.”

577

The twin principles undergirding the uke were

seniority and personal achievement. With regard to the first principle, Uchendu observed that the
age-grade served as a basic means of differentiating seniors from juniors “irrespective of
578

sex,”

in Igbo societies where seniority was of great importance. Among the Ohafia-Igbo,

before the 20th century, boys and girls born within a three-year age bracket were grouped into
the same uke (age grade), and this grouping was repeated every three years for each new set of
three-year olds in each village.

579

575

Agwu Don Chima, “The Age Grade System in Traditional Ohafia up to 1935,” B.A. Thesis,
Department of History, University of Nigeria Nsukka (October 1996), 32-71.
576
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26.
577
578

Chieka Ifemesia, Traditional Humane Living Among the Igbo (Enugu: 1980).
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 84.

579

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 58; Nna Agbai
Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. August 10, 2010; Mr. Arunsi
Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu. August 15, 2011. Most Ohafia
people interviewed on this subject concur. The uke system is based on a seven-year shifting
cultivation land tenure system. Within the seven-year period when the village moves on to a new
farm-land, allowing the previous farm-land to lie fallow, two uke are constituted.
157

As children, boys and girls within an uke lacked clearly defined gender categories.

580

Recalling his childhood in the early 20th century, Nna Agbai Ndukwe stated that boys and girls
within an uke played as equals, hunted animals together, and made “no distinction between male
and female.”

581

Within the uke, boys and girls enjoyed equal rights and complementary

responsibilities, and girls often expressed this equanimity. Another Ohafia male elder, Mr.
Arunsi Kalu avers, “mgbe ichin [in olden times] within the uke, a girl always asserted her right as
your equal. She would call you a small boy, because you were of the same uke. If you felt
angered, she would challenge you to a wrestling bout.”

582

This joking relationship was based on

a philosophy of gendered equality and camaraderie within the age-grades,
observed, “each age-grade was a censor morum for its own members.”

583

584

whereas Meek

The gender-equal

philosophy of the uke defined the organization of communal work, the assignment of levies, and
the logic of interpersonal relations such as the distribution of kola nuts, food, and drinks, at home
585

and in public.

In spite of the gender-inclusive socialization within the uke, boys and girls tended to
distinguish themselves from each other. This distinction began informally during play. Thus,
while the girls cooked, and pretended to be mothers, using dolls made out of plantain stem or
carved wooden dolls, boys often occupied themselves with erecting play houses using twigs, and
580
581

Uduma, The People of Ohafia Ezema, 53-54.
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. August 10, 2010.

582

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu. Aug. 15,
2011.
583
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Akanu. November 3, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Elu. August 18, 2011.
584
Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, p.198.
585

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 27.
158

engaging in mock gun-battles (egbe too-too).

586

It was in this respect that Rattray noted in the

case of the Asante that young children were daily “undergoing unconscious instruction, mostly
perhaps by a process of imitation of their elders.”

587

However, it was not until the age of 10-16

years that the social distinction between boys and girls was actualized, through the respective
performance of igba nnunu (to shoot and kill a bird) and ino nhiha (menstruation-seclusion).

588

When boys accomplished the feat of igba nnunu, they were socially constructed as
having “cut their first head” (igbu ishi mbu), which signified overcoming ujo

589

(coward) status.

This accomplishment enabled a boy to transition from motherly care into the world of men.
From this point onwards, boys were schooled in the art of warfare and secrecy.

591

590

When a girl

experienced her first menstruation (ifu nso), which was accompanied by ritual seclusion (ino
nhiha), she was said to have “cut the first head” or “killed an antelope” (igbu ele).

592

In this

586

Uduma, The People of Ohafia Ezema, 54; N. Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ warriors of Igbo
Land,” Ikenga: Journal of African Studies 1, 2 (Nsukka: Institute of African Studies, 1972), 77
587
R.S. Rattray, Ashanti Law and Constitution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929), 11-13.
588

Mama Docas Kalu and Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ebem Village. Aug. 10, 2010; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Elu Village, Aug. 18, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview
by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief
Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu village. Aug. 18, 2011.
589
The word ujo means “fear” in Igbo general usage. However, the Ohafia use it to refer to a
coward. Here, ujo denotes an individual who personifies or embodies fear. The ujo were the
polar opposite of ufiem (real men/masculinity).
590
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village,
Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Uduma, The People of
Ohafia Ezema, 56; As shown in chapter 4, the accomplishment of igba nnunu, enabled the boychild to physically and symbolically move out of his mother’s house into the boys’ quarters or
men’s house (uluenta), where he lived with other boys, and learned how to be a man.
591
For detailed discussion, see Chapter 4.
592

Mama Docas Kalu and Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ebem Village. Aug. 10, 2010; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice
159

case, a girl was distinguished by the women-folk as having taken the first step towards
593

womanhood.

According to Ohafia female elder, Mary Ezera, the first menstruation is

characterized as igbu ishi (to cut a head) because it was not an easy accomplishment.

594

Another

female elder, Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke said that women likened the first menstruation to a
woman’s first birth, which they describe as igbu ishi abuo (to cut the second head).

595

The

phrase, igbu ele is used because upon a girl’s first menstruation, her father killed an antelope to
596

commemorate the accomplishment.

Until they reached the age of 18 years, the uke remained informal associations, and the
members were generally regarded as umurima (non-adult persons).

597

Each uke up to 18 years

did not have a name; rather, each was identified by the name of one of its members, usually the
most outstanding. In most cases, the uke was known by the name of the first boy to perform igba

recording, Elu Village, Aug. 18, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview
by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief
Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu village. Aug. 18, 2011.
593
Ibid. The girl was then surrounded with several taboos to limit physical contact with men.
She constantly bathed herself in a group of other girls, after which they applied nzu (white chalk)
and uife (red color) decorations on their bodies. These bodily decorations must remain intact till
the following day as evidence that a girl had not been touched by a man. This bathing and body
decoration exercise was repeated daily to maintain sexual purity.
594
Mama Docas Kalu and Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ebem. August 10, 2010.
595
Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Elu. Aug. 18, 2011.
596
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village,
Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Elu village. Aug. 18, 2011; Mama Docas Kalu and Mary Ezera,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem. August 10, 2010.
597
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010;
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011; Chief
Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village. August 3, 2010;
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga. August 10, 2010.
160

598

nnunu or the first girl to accomplish ifu nso (menstruation).
uke was not based on age but on personal achievement.

599

This is because leadership of an

These groups of uke were assigned

simple community tasks such as sanitation exercises and collection of minor contributions for
communal festivals.

600

After the age of 18, the 3 years gap between the various uke becomes secondary to the
principle of achievement. Thus, the first informal uke to accomplish a significant self-imposed
community project launched itself into formal recognition, through a public parade and
commemoration ceremony known as ifiwe uke (to establish an age grade).

601

The ifiwe uke

project could be the building of a community hall or the construction of a major road linking a
village with its neighbors. Any uke between the ages of 18 and 24 (that is two uke ranges) might
perform ifiwe uke.

602

According to Azuonye, the mutual competition among uke members for

leadership, and between various uke for formal recognition, “emphasize[d] the need for
individuals to make notable contributions to the glory and welfare of the community at various
stages of their lives.”
598
599

603

Ibid.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 27.

600

Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village, Aug. 18,
2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Akanu Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Nde-Ukpai, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011; Chief K.K. Owen, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village. Aug. 12, 2010.
601
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga. August 10,
2010; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011.
602
Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village Ohafia.
August 3, 2010; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, NdeUkpai, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011.
603
Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 18.
161

A formally recognized uke was known as uke ji ogo (the uke that holds the community),
and at any point in time, there might be four different age grades in this category (its age range
was 25-36 years).

604

The major responsibility of the uke ji ogo was to organize its junior

informal counterpart for their ifiwe uke (in effect, to establish an uke that would take their place).
The uke ji ogo gave a temporary name to its potential successor. It supervised the junior uke and
ensured that the latter formally compiled the names of its members, held regular meetings,
organized themselves for a second communal project, and from time to time, undertook certain
self-imposed communal tasks, in the quest for popularity and name-making.

605

Both the newly established uke and the uke ji ogo were tasked with community vigilance
(inotu uche). Between 1850 and 1900, they often organized themselves into two vigilante groups
to guard the community against enemy attacks, especially on farm-days when most people were
606

not at home.

They also guarded the yam barns and community farms. It was these two age

grades that provided the young ambitious warriors of the community; for it was primarily
607

between the ages of 18 and 35 that a man must accomplish ufiem or remain ujo.

The

relationship between the newly established uke and the uke ji ogo was a competitive one. Nsugbe
described the newly established uke as “a stumbling block,” “an obstacle in one’s path,” “the
604

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 59.

605

Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village. Aug. 12,
2010; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010;
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011; Chief
Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author.
606
Ibid.
607

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 22; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Amangwu Village. August 15, 2011; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording. August 4, 2010; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital
voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording. Ebem Village Ohafia. August 3, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Asaga. August 10, 2010.
162

opposition,” “the left hand,” and the “impetuous ones” because they were “poised, waiting to
take over from the senior set, uke ji ogo.

608

Uke Ji Ogo: The Age Grade System of Gendered Political Organization
Membership of the uke ji ogo was a major turning point in the lives of Ohafia-Igbo men
and women between 1850 and 1900; because it marked the beginning of formal political
leadership. It was at the stage of uke ji ogo that for the first time, the sexes formed separate
political groups. The female members of the uke ji ogo formed a political association known as
ikpirikpe ndi inyom,
610

akpan.

609

while the male members constituted an equivalent organ called

The life span of both political organizations ranged from 36 to 55 years, at the

expiration of which the members retired into a distinguished class of honored elders (nde ichin).
In practice, the akpan worked under the leadership of the ezie-ogo (male ruler) to
constitute a men’s court, while the ikpirikpe, under the leadership of the ezie nwami (female
ruler), constituted the women’s court. To mark the transition from uke ji ogo to active
608

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 58 (footnote).

609

In general Igbo translation, ikpirikpe ndi inyom would mean the assembly of wives.
However, in Ohafia, this organization included both married and unmarried adult daughters of a
village, as well as wives, in addition to the ezie nwami. This female court is examined below.
610
In eight Ohafia villages, known collectively as the Ohaeke, which claim autochthonous
privileges, older members between the ages of 46 and 55 years are selected from the akpan to
form umuaka. Mama Docas Kalu and Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, digital voice
recording, Ebem Village. Aug. 10, 2010; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Elu Village, Aug. 18, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and
Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu village. Aug. 18,
2011; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village
Ohafia. August 3, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Asaga Village. August 10, 2010; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Elu Village. Aug. 12, 2010; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording. August 4, 2010; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital voice
recording. Aug. 14, 2011; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author.
163

governmental responsibility, the age-grade as a collective, males and females, would launch
itself into community recognition by accomplishing a significant project. This ranged from the
building of new bridges to embarking upon military expeditions. The uke must however, perform
duties demanding physical prowess, endurance, and valor. This process is called ifiwe uche (to
give political mandate to an age grade).

611

At this stage, the female members of the uke were mostly married. Between raising their
children and providing the bulk of their families’ subsistence through farming and trade, they
made equal financial and material contributions to the ifiwe uche, undertaken by their uke.

612

Upon this accomplishment, the uke relinquished its “temporary name” and was given a name by
the elders of their village,

613

commensurate with their accomplishments, in a ceremony called

iza afa (“to answer a name”). The formal name of an age-grade served as a chronicle of its
achievements, and was indeed a praise-name. Thus, between 1850 and 1900, various uke were
given the names of founding ancestors or heroic warriors such as Uke Uduma Ezema (founding
ancestor of Ohafia) and Uke Inyima Offia Ire (heroic son of the female founder of Ebem).

611

614

Onwuka E. Oti, The Age Grade System and Otomu Ceremony in Ohafia (Aba: EMS
Corporate, 2007), 11.
612
Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami
Ogbonne Kalu Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu Village.
November 17, 2011; Ezie-ogo Okorie Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Isiugwu Village. December 10, 2011. Indeed, most on my oral interview collaborators affirm
that women always matched their male counterparts with material and financial contributions for
every project undertaken by their uke.
613
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 28. The uke in Ohafia were often named after heroic
ancestors and ancestresses, who played distinguished roles in the formation and history of the
society. Through such naming, these personalities are honored and immortalized, and their
names were often recycled for various uke.
614
Chief Udensi Ekea oral interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010.
164

At the turn of the 20th century, when ogaranya (wealth) masculinity became popular,
many age-grades lobbied to be called Uke Akajiuba (the age grade that possesses wealth).

615

Also, under British colonial rule, some uke lobbied to be named Uke London (in reference to the
British metropolis), and Uke Agent (in reference to the representatives of the United African
Company).

616

Each uke lobbied their community for a name befitting their accomplishment, and

the female members often fed the entire village in order to accomplish this objective.

617

Thus,

the responsibilities for the establishment of an uke were shared by its female and male members,
such that it is inconceivable to speak of an uke without women at every stage of its development.
Upon the completion of ifiwe uche project (to earn political mandate) and iza afa (“to
answer a name”), the uke ji ogo became known as uke n’ogo (“the age-grade that is out in the
village,” i.e., the ruling age grade). Thus, whereas Uke Anyafumba was the uke n’ogo in Ebem
village between 1897 and 1907,

615

618

Uke London was the uke n’ogo in Nkwebi Village between

Oti, The Age Grade System, 19.

616

Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011. The
U.A.C. established in Ohafia in 1930, and Chief Kalu Ezelu, who performed ogaranya
masculinity in Ohafia between 1900 and 1920, was an agent of the U.A.C, and the wealthiest
individual in Ohafia during that period.
617
Women’s feeding of the village was known as isu ahu, “to pound mellon seed,” which was a
reference to the large quantities of mellon seed they expended in preparing egusi soup and
pounded yam for the entire community. Oti, The Age Grade System, 14; Mama Orie Emeh and
Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview; Ezie Nwami Ogbonne Kalu Kalu of Uduma Ukwu
Village, oral interview; Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview; Nmia
Nnaya Agbai, oral interview; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording. October 25, 2011.
618
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011.
“Anyafumba” refers to one was too eager to take over a territory, and it referred to the agegrades that fought the last battles of the 19th century, such as the Ukpati War and Eror (Nsukka)
War in the 1880s, and the Nteje war in 1891. The average rulership tenure for each uke n’ogo is
7 years, but this sometimes varied. Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Amuke, Ohafia. Nov. 24, 2011.
165

619

1914 and 1921.

Ifiwe uche was the starting point of mandatory community service, and

members of uke n’ogo served in daily governance as political leaders, judges, and orators.

620

The uke n’ogo were the ruling age-grade, and they were held responsible for the peace of the
community. According to Ohafia oral historian, Onwuka Oti, they constituted “the pulse, the
active, the taxable and the major productive cream of the society.”

621

Njoku described the male

members of uke n’ogo as “the arrow-head of community defense,” the seasoned war leaders “so
dreaded throughout most of southeastern Nigeria.”

622

The female members regulated peace

within the village, especially within the patrilineages, by superintending over the ethical and
legal conducts of men and women, married and unmarried, and they constituted the dominant
productive resources in the agro-based economy.

623

At about the age of 55-60 years, the uke n’ogo retired from active community service
624

through an elaborate ceremony called igba uche (to celebrate the age-grade),

after which they

619

Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi Village, Members of the Men’s Court and Nde-Ichin,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi Village. November 17, 2011.
620
Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 22.
621
622

Oti, The Age Grade System, 12.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 28.

623

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41-44; Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and
the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 695; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 24; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 24, 37-38; Eze Onuoha Uma, Guidance and Destiny: My Life and Thought;
Autobiography of His Royal Highness, Eze Elder Onuoha Uma, Udumeze of Isiama Ohafia
(Ohafia: Eze Onuoha Uma, 2002), 2; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Mrs. Nnenna
Emeri and Mmia Nnaya Bassey, members of Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group
Interview. Nov. 3, 2011; Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Ufiele
Village. October 27, 2011 Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview by author,
digital voice recording, Akanu. Nov. 3, 2011.
624
In some Ohafia villages, the ceremony is called igba ekpe (masquerade celebration), because
of the public parade of masquerades that accompanied the celebration. In some other villages, it
is called igba ota omu, and the meaning derives from a practice, whereby a warrior’s shield (ota)
was decorated with yellow palm fronds (omu) to mark his retirement from active war service.
166

became nde-ichin (elders). Before this transition, the uke n’ogo must have accomplished a
specified community project such as building the village obu or a hut to house the village’s ikoro
(large wooden public address system), the construction of a major road, the reconstruction of a
market, or the provision of recreational facilities. Since the 1920s, various uke have provided
pipe borne water, school buildings, maternity homes, and electricity to their communities. Each
uke sought to outshine its predecessor, such that today, over ninety percent of the social
amenities in Ohafia were provided by various uke.

625

While some completed their projects in

less than four years, others spent up to ten years. Whereas the age-grades had split up at the uke
ji ogo/uke n’ogo stage for political administrative purposes along sex lines, they combined
efforts to organize their igba uche, and both men and women made equal financial contributions
to their assigned projects.

626

Upon satisfactory completion of the assigned project, the uke attained the status of ndenchin (elders), which Azuonye has described as “the supreme goal of life,” when the individual
was looked upon as a “living ancestor . . . [and] addressed by the title, Nna (ancestral father) or

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. August
15, 2011; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010;
Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. August 3, 2010;
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga. August 10, 2010.
625
Mama Docas Kalu and Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ebem Village. Aug. 10, 2010; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Elu Village, Aug. 18, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview
by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief
Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu village. Aug. 18, 2011;
Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village Ohafia.
August 3, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga
Village. August 10, 2010; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Elu Village. Aug. 12, 2010; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording.
August 4, 2010; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview. Aug. 14, 2011.
626
Ibid.
167

Nne (ancestral mother).”

627

Njoku distinguishes two grades of ndi ichin: the junior set between

sixty years and seventy years, and the senior set, seventy years and above. He noted that the
former were sometimes called upon to serve as expert witnesses in the male and female courts
between 1850 and 1900. The latter were ndi ichin in the fullest meaning of the concept. They
were the ultimate repositories of indigenous wisdom and the embodiment of the people’s custom
and history, and they were only consulted to resolve intractable issues in the community.

628

Nsugbe, like most scholars of Ohafia history after him, provided an inconclusive account
of the age-grades and their functioning relationship with other political bodies in the
community.

629

He links only the male governmental agencies of akpan, and umuaka to

succession through the age-grade political system, as the age-based associations “controlling
governmental powers in the village.”

630

Analytically, he excludes the female political institution

of ikpirikpe, as an equivalent political body.

631

Amadiume observed that Nsugbe’s study of the

matrilineal Ohafia was disappointing from a gender perspective, but she also missed the insight
that the autonomous non-lineage-based ikpirikpe did in fact derive from the age-grade

627

Ibid.

628

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 46; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo,
28; Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 200. Meek observed that while the elders may
have retired from active community service, their opinions were sometimes sought, especially in
land disputes, and that in order to prevent them from inadvertently giving wrong decisions, the
younger age-grades often combined to form pressure groups agains the elders. Mayne indicates
that where land disputes involved women, female ichin (elders) became responsible for resolving
such disputes.
629
Azuka A. Dike, “Review of Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo People by Philip O. Nsugbe,”
American Anthropologist 78, 1 (Mar., 1976), 173.
630
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 59.
631

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 59-70.
168

632

institution.
“men.”

633

This oversight is corrected in this chapter. Nsugbe describes ndi-ichin as

However, ndi-ichin includes both women and men,

634

and the variations in the duties

of male and female ichin are explored below. Other scholars have presented the uke as a
dominantly male organization.

635

This chapter differs: it situates girls and boys, women and

men, within the age grade institution, and charts the formative stages of Ohafia gendered
political institutions.
Ezie Ogo, Nde-Ichin and Akpan: The Men’s Court, 1850-1900
Elderly male representatives (ndi ichin) of various umudi ezi (patrilineage compounds) in
each village, in addition to members of akpan age-grade, constituted a men’s court or assembly,
headed by the ezie-ogo (male ruler) who was usually the head of the most senior compound in
the village.

636

This assembly is known as amali, and it usually held court at the home of the

ezie-ogo. The ezie-ogo wielded considerable moral power, derived from his role as the
632
633

Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 173-174.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 66.

634

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 28-29. Also, all my oral interviews confirm this.

635

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 21-22.

636

The information for this section is based on oral interviews with various ezie-ogo, their
council members and ndi-ichin: Okorie Kalu, Ezie-ogo of Isiugwu Village, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu Village. December 10, 2011; Elders of Umu-Anya
Family, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Ohafia, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Elu Village. August 14, 2011; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, Ezie-ogo of Amangwu Village and
Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu
Village. August 18, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa, Ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the
Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Ndea-Nku Village. November
17, 2011; Vasco U. Iro, Ezie-ogo of Nkwebi Village, Members of the Men’s Court and NdeIchin, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi Village. November 17, 2011;
Kalu Awa, Ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ibina
(Ihenta) Village. December 12, 2011. Nde-Ichin, Amuma Village, Group Interview by author,
digital voice recording, Obu Nde-Torti, Amuma Village. November 26, 2011; Godwin
Nwankwo Uko, Ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members, Group Interview by
author, digital voice recording, Amankwu Village. October 25, 2011.
169

customary custodian of the sacred symbols of the community’s ancestors, as well as the
communal land of the patrilineages. He performed sacrifices to the ancestral spirits on occasions
such as the commencement of the farming season and the celebration of the new yam festival or
the New Year.

637

The ezie-ogo was installed into office in an official coronation rite called Isuyi

Nzu Isi, followed by a public presentation, a day after.

638

Amali made decrees relayed to the community by a village announcer. In consultation
with ikpirikpe ndi-iyom (discussed below), amali set the annual farming calendar, as well as
dates for the celebration of important festivals. It made rules about the conduct of the citizens of
the village and mediated relations with other villages. As a judicial body, amali settled disputes,
which defied solution at lower levels of the political and administrative arrangement such as the
639

patrilineage compounds (umudi ezi).

Amali sometimes summoned a meeting of all free born

adult males of the community (oha ogo), to deliberate on matters of grave importance such as an
untraced murder, threat of external attack, mobilization for external attack, spread of dangerous
epidemic, or ‘abomination of the Earth” (aru).

640

When such an ad hoc assembly was called,

every person, irrespective of age, who had a contribution to make, was given a chance to do so,
the crowd shouting down unpopular opinions while applauding popular ones. According to

637

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 21.

638

The various ezie-ogo cited in footnote 535 above discussed this rite; also, Mba Odo Okereke,
ezie-ogo of Akanu, oral conversation with the author, Akanu Village. October 15, 2011.
639
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 22.
640

The summons for this meeting was announced using the ikoro, housed in a hut, at the village
square. The ikoro is beaten sparingly, mostly in times of emergency.
170

Njoku, “young men with power of speech would easily sway the assembly,” and this “provided a
forum where the young . . . could bring their influence to bear on the old and conservative.”

641

In his characterization of pre-colonial Igbo of Nigeria, Uchendu writes,
Every villager who [could] contribute to [a] discussion [was] given a hearing.
When the matter [had] been thoroughly talked out, the leaders from each lineage
in the village retire[d] for izuzu (consultation). The right to participate in izuzu
[was] a greatly cherished . . . one and [was] restricted to men of weight and
prestige, men who [had] the wisdom to understand and appreciate all schools of
thought and achieve a compromise which the Amala [could] accept. After izuzu, a
spokesman who [was] chosen not because of his age but for his power of oratory,
his persuasive talents, and his ability to put the verdict in perspective,
announce[d] the decision. This [was] either accepted by the Amala by general
acclamation or rejected by shouts of derision. In the latter event the view of the
642
assembly prevail[ed].
Uchendu’s description was equally true of Ohafia society between 1850 and 1900,
according to Mayne’s observations.

643

At the center of the men’s court was the akpan age-grade.
644

Akpan was a police organ, which enforced the decisions of the amali.

Mayne writes,

In ancient times [before 1910, when the warrant chiefs were appointed], each
village of Ohafia possessed its AKPAN . . . [which was] appointed by a council of
elders to investigate all matters both criminal and civil. Their duty was not only to
investigate but to arrange for the appearance of both parties and their witnesses
645
and carry into effect the decisions of the [men’s] court or council.
Some of the decisions which akpan enforced include prohibitions of fishing out of season
or at night, collecting firewood from the forest when the ban prohibiting it was yet to be lifted, or
the planting of yam before the ritual inauguration by ndi-eze-ji (yam priests). Akpan announced

641
642
643

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 23.
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 41-42.
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 12-13.

644

And in the eight Oha-eke villages, those of the umuaka as well. In the 18 villages where
umuaka did not exist, akpan assumed the responsibilities of umuaka as well. Chief Ugbu Uduma,
ezie-ogo of Nde-Amogu, oral interview by author, Ihenta (Ibina) Village. November 11, 2011.
645
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 8.
171

the days when specific age-grades would be required to perform certain tasks in the village, and
they sometimes kept watch over the village and its farmland. In enforcing laws, akpan utilized
two mediums: nkwa akpan (akpan drum) and ekpe akpan (akpan masquerade). The major means
of law enforcement was the imposition of fines on violators, and these fines were often paid in
the form of brass rods currency.

646

According to Njoku, during their fine imposition missions,

the akpan “walk[ed] in a single file, speechless and no person dare[d] to cross their way.”

647

Akpan arrested offenders in their homes. When offenders were visited by akpan, they
648

were first required to pay a “summons fee” known as ima nzu.

If an offender refused to

comply or tried to argue with akpan, they, without uttering a word, hung the nkwa akpan at the
entrance of the house of the head of the compound in which the offender resided. This signified
649

that the offender had “carried akpan on his head — buru akpan isi.”

This was a calamitous

offense that incriminated both the offender and male members of his compound. The latter
would pressurize the individual into appeasing the akpan, by paying his fine. Alternatively,
akpan would seize the offender’s property, or any property of significant value in the immediate
neighborhood. In the latter case, pressure from the real owners of the property forced the
offender to meet akpan’s demands.

646
647
648
649

650

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 31.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 22.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 61.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 22.

650

Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuke,
Village, Ohafia. Nov. 24, 2011.
172

As an organ that enforced the resolutions of the male government, akpan was not to be
disobeyed, and the penalty for disobedience was severe.

651

On special occasions, such as the

burial of a member of akpan, or the celebration of the new yam festival, ekpe akpan (akpan
masquerade), the organ’s secret society, was produced. In most Ohafia villages, only the most
senior members of akpan participated in the masquerade performance, but in others, every male
irrespective of age took part.

652

In order to dramatize its power, and elicit obeisance from

penalized individuals, the akpan masquerade was hideous and frightful.

653

It wore a very loose,

over-flowing gown of coarse jute material with live cocks suspended on its back. Before the
British colonial government established a Native Court in Ohafia in 1907, when ekpe akpan was
exerting punishment against an offender, it killed with impunity any livestock it laid hands
654

on.

The masquerade symbolized the emergence of the ancestors in corporeal form, and this

reified the sacredness of akpan powers.
The Men’s Court and Its Power Limits
This chapter deals specifically with gendered political power, and it is apt to clarify the
limits of men’s political power in Ohafia-Igbo society between 1850 and 1900. The political
prerogatives of the men’s court placed an emphasis on community defense, and the regulation of
651

Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 199.

652

Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview with author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village.
November 3, 2011. This differed in other Igbo societies, where only initiates took part in
masquerade societies. Indeed, the akpan masquerade was the only one in Ohafia that allowed
uninitiated males to take part in its public performances. Other Ohafia secret societies discussed
in chapter 5 did not allow uninitiated males into their circles.
653
Nde-Ichin, Amuma Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Obu NdeTorti, Amuma Village. November 26, 2011; Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Amuke, Ohafia. Nov. 24, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka,
Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011.
654
Ibid. The logic was that the offender bore the cost of replacing all akpan damages.
173

inter-group relations within and outside Ohafia.

655

Men’s dominance in these spheres of

administration resulted primarily from a historical tradition where men were preoccupied with
the military defense of their communities and the maintenance of peaceful relations with their
neighbors through ukwuzi (diplomatic contract) negotiations.

656

The men’s court had no

jurisdiction over women, a reality that will be made very clear in the following section.
Second, the level of organization of the men’s court varied from one village to another
depending on the relative size of each village. This was often reflected in the number of ndi ichin
representation in amali, as well as the calibre of individuals that made up the akpan.

657

Moreover, the office of the ezie-ogo (male ruler) was powerful only to the extent of the
individual occupying that position. Nsugbe noted that the ezie-ogo of Amaekpu village in Ohafia
was “kept out of village politics . . . He did not openly participate in the running of the affairs of
his own village; he [did] not attend meetings and therefore did not preside over them; nor did he
undertake any ritual duties. He [was] greatly respected but not regarded in any sense as a sacred

655

Okorie Kalu, ezie-ogo of Isiugwu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu
Village. December 10, 2011; Elders of Umu-Anya Family, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Ohafia,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village. August 14, 2011; Mecha Ukpai
Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author,
digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. August 18, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of
Ndea-Nku and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ndea-Nku Village. November 17, 2011; Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi Village, Members of
the Men’s Court and Nde-Ichin, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi
Village. November 17, 2011; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Ibina (Ihenta) Village. December 12, 2011. Nde-Ichin, Amuma Village,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Obu Nde-Torti, Amuma Village. November
26, 2011; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members.,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amankwu Village. October 25, 2011.
656
Ibid. Ohafia external relations are fully explored in chapters 2 and 4.
657

Onwuka Njoku, phone conversation with author, Michigan to Nigeria, Sept. 2, 2012.
174

functionary.”

658

Similarly, Mayne noted that before colonial rule, the ezie-ogo’s authority

“amounted to that of a figure-head. He had no actual control over any outside village in any
matter,”

659

he “had no autocratic power whatsoever in his village,” and “he had also no

autocratic power even in his own family.”

660

His position as ezie-ogo gave him “only the right to

announce the decisions of his Village Council.”

661

Azuonye affirms that the ezie-ogo’s function

was “interestingly, limited to the management of relations” between one village and another.

662

In addition, no uniform rule of succession applied in Ohafia for the selection of the ezieogo (male ruler). Rather, in the various villages, succession practices varied from alternate
selection from two or more patrilineages, to collective (among various patrilineages) and
individual usurpation; and wealth and influence sometimes governed a choice.

663

Mayne

similarly reported that “there [was] no hard and fast rule” governing the selection of an ezie-ogo
before colonial rule.

664

Also, within any patrilineage, personal distinction and accomplishment,

rather than seniority, was the determining factor for selection.

665

Thus, individual status

achievement, rather than ascription, was the fundamental factor in election into political office.

658

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 69.

659

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 21.

660

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 13 and 16.

661

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 13.

662

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 19.

663
664

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 95-101.
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 20.

665

Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi Village, Members of the Men’s Court and Nde-Ichin,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi Village. November 17, 2011; Okorie
Kalu, ezie-ogo of Isiugwu Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu
Village. December 10, 2011; Elders of Umu-Anya Family, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Ohafia,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village. August 14, 2011.
175

Ezie Nwami, Ndi-Ichin and Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom: An Outline of the Socio-Political Make-Up
and Prerogatives of the Women’s Court, 1850-1900

666

This chapter argues that Ohafia-Igbo women constituted and maintained a gendered
political system, which enabled them to exercise more political power in the society over and
above men, between 1850 and 1900. By outlining the limits of women’s political jurisdiction
(over both men and women), in contrast to men’s (who lacked political jurisdiction over
women), this study seeks to show that Ohafia-Igbo women were not the docile and invisible
political subjects they have been made out to be, between 1850 and 1900. During this period,
women’s political authority was most effectively expressed through a very powerful and
dynamic institution known as ikpirikpe ndi inyom. In the first two decades of the 20th century, as
women lost their political prerogatives to warrant chiefs, court clerks and Presbyterian Church
elders, the expression of female power and authority increasingly took the form of individualized
performances of ogaranya masculinity. This evolution of female power and authority is
examined in its proper context in chapter 5.
This present chapter seeks to highlight the kind of structures that enabled Ohafia-Igbo
women to exhibit greater measures of political power than men between 1850 and 1900. Njoku
writes that “In fact, ikpirikpe ndi-inyom [was] much sterner and stricter in exacting fines and

666

I have to clearly state that the choice of 1850-1900 as a representative time period for the
“pre-colonial” period is both arbitrary and informed. In the former sense, it is a heuristic device,
which I chose to situate within a manageable time-frame, the stories which Ohafia men and
women situated within mgbe ichin (olden days), by which they generally meant before colonial
rule. In the latter sense, many of the case studies, which Ohafia people recall happened in the
1890s, while other incidents within living memory happened in the first two decades of the 20th
century. My respondents talked about their parents and grandparents, who were born between
1850 and 1900. Thus, this time frame enables me to discuss a pre-colonial period, for which I
can provide evidence. Moreover, as indicated in chapter 1, the major socio-political changes in
southeastern Nigeria, which the larger dissertation deals with, such as legitimate commerce and
slave production for domestic markets, occurred between 1850 and 1900.
176

667

commanding obedience than its male counterpart,”

akpan. I contend that it was precisely

through their effective enforcement of ilu ndi-inyom (women’s laws) that ikpirikpe ndi-inyom
defined itself as a most powerful political entity between 1850 and 1900. This contradicts
Mayne’s statement that before 1900, “supreme control” rested with the ezie-ogo, patrilineage
male elders, and akpan,

668

and that the ezie-nwami settled “petty disputes between women in

matters touching land and other small matters between females of her village.”

669

Au contraire,

ikpirikpe dealt with both men and women, and while they governed women’s affairs, they also
dramatized their power over men.

670

What did female power and authority between 1850 and

1900 entail and how was it expressed?

667
668

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 25.
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 12.

669

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 46. Mayne’s statement was more in
tandem with the rest of patrilineal Igbo society, whereas Nina Mba stated, “women were not
involved in the communal judicial process, though disputes between and among women were
settled by the women’s associations.” See Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 27. The ikpirikpe
also differed from the Women’s Council of Nnobi studied by Amadiume, where, even though the
Agba Ekwe (ruler of the women’s council) held the most honored title in Nnobi, women were
only invited by men to settle disputes only as a last resort. See Amadiume, Male Daughters,
Female Husbands, 67. The Ohafia case differed because ikpirikpe had sole jurisdiction in any
case involving a woman.
670
This argument is significant because Nina Mba’s assertion that while pre-colonial Igbo
women largely controlled their own world, they lacked direct influence over communal politics,
and were not allowed formal direct participation in the decision-making processes, has not been
challenged. Mba viewed Igbo women’s political organizations as informal associations, beyond
the mainstream, because the assembly of wives and daughters were ad hoc in nature. See Mba,
Nigerian Women Mobilized, 29. Caroline Ifeka-Moller also argued that in eastern Nigerian, what
is ethnographically known as the formal political system was by custom allocated to men, and
that where women held some offices, owned marketing associations, and relatively independent
sphere of all-female activities, they were merely nominal instances of female autonomy. IfekaMoller, “Female Militancy and Colonial Revolt,” 134. Also, see Annie M.D. Lebeuf, “The Role
of Women in the Political Organization of African Societies,” in Denise Paulme, ed., Women of
Tropical Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1960), 109, 113. The
ikpirikpe was very different, because it was a formal political organization, rooted in an
extensive age-grade organization, which was hierarchical in nature. It had a direct male
177

Like its male counterpart, Ohafia female political organization encompassed all women.
A village council of female elders (ndi ichin),

671

often representatives from the various umudi

ezi (patrilineage compounds), in addition to ikpirikpe ndi-iyom constituted a women’s court
under the leadership of the ezie-nwami. While some female elders and ikpirikpe members were
daughters of a village, others derived from both within and outside the village as wives. Thus,
ikpirikpe comprised married, unmarried, divorced, and widowed daughters of a village, known in
other Igbo communities as umuada (assembly of daughters); as well as village-driven and
foreign wives, hence, otu inyomdi (assembly of wives), also found in the rest of Igboland. Both
umuada and otu inyomdi are subjects of significant studies.

672

Achebe has described the former

as a police force, the most powerful government organ in northern Igboland, a supreme court of
appeal, a rotating credit union, the custodians of religious morality, the preserver of market
peace, and a welfare organization. Achebe describes the latter as a lower court where cases
involving women were initially brought, a self-help group, and the regulators of husbands’
treatment of their wives.

673

equivalent, akpan. However, its political prerogatives and authority outshone those of the akpan.
Namely, whereas ikpirikpe exercised power over both men and women, akpan could not. The
Ohafia-Igbo political system was the age-grade institution writ-large. Moreover, Ifeka-Moller’s
argument that Eastern Nigerian men’s political power was based on “production,” does not
translate to the Ohafia-Igbo case, where women were the breadwinners of their families.
Lebeuf’s argument that in kinship-based societies, women rose to formal leadership positions
only through religious practices and inheritance from fathers is also not true of ikpirikpe.
671
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 24.
672

Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 59-67; Okonjo, “The Dual-Sex Political
System;” Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 164-171.
673
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 164-171.
178

However, unlike the rest of Igboland where these female organs existed independent of
each other, and only merged to form a temporary Women’s Assembly during emergencies,

674

the Ohafia-Igbo ikpirikpe ndi-inyom permanently comprised individuals, who could be classified
as umuada and inyomdi. The powers and prerogatives of ikpirikpe ndi-inyom also encompassed
those of these two institutions. Amadiume clearly stated with regard to patrilineal Igbo societies
that “the fact remains that even though there was a unifying organization which safeguarded
women’s interests, female solidarity was neutralized, to some extent, through the division of
women on the basis of gender; daughters were seen as males in relation to wives and superior in
authority to wives . . . Daughters, in alliance with their fathers and brothers, identified
themselves with male interests.”

675

The Ohafia-case was remarkably different, for ikpirikpe derived its members from the
uke (age-grade), and included both select wives and daughters in profound group solidarity. The
existence of women who were simultaneously wives and daughters in each Ohafia village was
made possible by endogamous marriage practices within the patrilineage, since the dominant
matrilineage was the only exogamous unit in the society.

676

As Nina Mba indicates, this was

different in the rest of patrilineal Igbo society, where village exogamy was practiced, and as a
result, wives of a village came from a distance away, and remained essentially outsiders, even
when they had children.

677

The Ohafia case was different, because both wives and daughters

could derive from the same patrilineage. Thus, the ezie-nwami as both daughter and wife of the

674

Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 170-171; Amadiume, Male Daughters,
Female Husbands, 67.
675
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 67.
676
677

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 72-79.
Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 62.
179

village, led the women. It is in light of a women’s council, combining the powers of umuada, otu
inyomdi, and a female ruler that the Ohafia female court is to be seen.
Mayne translates the title ezie-nwami as queen. However, Ohafia women constantly
referred to the ezie-nwami as ezie anyi (“our king”), and contrasted her to the ezie-nwoke

678

(“male king”). When I asked ikpirikpe ndi-inyom of Elu village why they referred to their ezienwami as king of the women, Uche Kalu Ebi responded, “in Ohafia, women managed their own
affairs independent of men. The ezie-nwoke [male king] ruled over the men, and this ezie anyi
[our king] is the ruler of the women . . . Since the olden days, women’s rulership in this Ohafia
have been stronger than the men’s.”

679

Thus, ezie anyi (“our king”) evinces women’s

consciousness of a gendered political system, and reaffirms the ezie-nwami’s political autonomy.
This is why Amadiiume boldly translated the Ohafia title ezie nwami as “female king.”

680

The concept of “queen,” which refers simultaneously to a female sovereign or monarch
as well as the wife or consort of a king, does not fully capture the status of ezie-nwami in OhafiaIgbo society. First, her right to rulership and her position did not derive from being the wife of a
king; indeed, her husband was no king. Rather, her right to rule derived from her membership of
a royal lineage, just like the ezie-ogo. Secondly, the ezie-nwami was autonomous from the “male
678

The following male elders also made this distinction by referring to the ezie-ogo (male ruler)
as ezie-nwoke (male king), and describing the ezie-nwami (female ruler) as ezie ndi-iyom (“king
of the women”), and onye-ishi ndi-inyom (“head of the women”): Ezie-ogo Okpan Ncheghe of
Ndi-Orie-Eke Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Dec. 15, 2011; Ezie-ogo
Ukonu Okoro Ekere of Eziafor Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Dec.
17, 2011; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga. August
10, 2010; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. Aug. 12,
2010; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010.
679
Mrs. Uche Kalu Ebi, Cabinet Member of Ikpirikpe Ndi-Iyom of Elu Village, In Group
Interview with Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, digital voice recording,
Elu Ohafia. October 25, 2011.
680
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 174. This is not unlike Achebe’s translation
of “female eze” (C.K. Meek) as “female king.” Achebe, The Female King, 2.
180

king,” and it was expected that both worked hand-in-hand with their courts for the peace and
681

well being of their village. The coronation of the ezie-nwami is also known as isuyi nzu isi.

The ezie-nwami is in a sense, comparable to the omu in Onitsha, Asaba, Osommari, Ilah,
and other Ika-Igbo areas, who Basden observed, “[was] installed with regal ceremony, for the
rites include[d] a symbolic crowning . . . on similar lines to the coronation ceremonies observed
when installing a king. After this ceremony, [she was] known and saluted as ‘Omu’ (Queen). It
(“Queen”) [was] merely a courtesy title, for the ‘Omu’ [was] never the wife of a king.”

682

She

and her male counterpart, the Asagba/Obi were autonomous monarchs with separate but cognate
powers and functions.

683

However, the ezie-nwami differed significantly from the omu because

unlike the latter, most of her powers were not exercised over the regulation of trade and the
market, but rather, over all socio-political spheres of the society involving women.

684

The notion of the ezie-nwami as king of the women, reframes popular conceptions of
female power and authority in southeastern Nigeria. In her study of the “life and times of Ahebi
Ugbabe, the only female warrant chief and king in colonial Nigeria,”

685

Achebe argues that

Ahebi transformed herself into a “man” to become king in a society with no kings. However, the
681

Information for this section derived from oral interviews conducted with: Ezie Nwami
Ogbonne Kalu Kalu of Uduma Ukwu Village, oral interview; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu
Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group
Interview; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu Village and Members of the Men’s
Court, Group Interview; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the
Men’s Court, Group Interview; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview; Godwin
Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu and his cabinet members, Group Interview by author.
682
Basden, Niger Ibos, 209-210.
683

Elizabeth Isichei, “Historical Change in an Ibo Polity: Asaba to 1885,” Journal of African
History 10, 3 (1969), 424; Okonjo, “The Dual-Sex Political System,” 47-48; Ibewuike, “African
Women and Religious Change,” 62-67, Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 21-26
684
N.A.I, CSO 26/3 File 29196: C.J. Mayne, Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934, 46.
685

Achebe, The Female King, 2.
181

ezie-nwami never had to construct herself as male in order to be socially perceived as king of the
women. The gendered distinction between ezie-nwoke (“male king”) and “king of the women” is
located within the indigenous logic of the Ohafia-Igbo. Here, the significant factor of distinction
is not the gender of the individual king but the gender of those over whom the king exercised her
or his power and authority. Thus, the ezie-nwami as “king of the women” was king over the
women, and the ezie-ogo also called ezie-nwoke,

686

as “male king” was king over the men.

687

The ezie-nwami, writes Nsugbe, “combined the secular function of presiding over
meetings, or speaking for the body (ikpirikpe), with the ritual one of initiating the planting of
crops by women in the farms.”

688

Until this ritual called ichu aja izu orie, which involved the

ezie-nwami touching the earth with hoe in blessing was performed, nobody planted anything in
the community. According to Nnaya Bassey, anybody violating this taboo “must come and
appease us (ikpirikpe ndi inyom) in a ritual of ikwa ali (to mourn the land), because the person
would have accursed the soil and poisoned all crops with blight and insect-infection.”

689

Between 1850 and 1900, the female court set the calendar for planting and harvesting women’s
crops (and in concert with men, decided on the best time to begin yam planting), and maintained
taboos, which forbade men from participating in economic ventures such as palm produce
690

sale.

686

Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. August 12, 2010.

687

This interpretation emerged from oral conversations with the various ezie-ogo and ezienwami and their council members, interviewed for this study.
688
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 68.
689

Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview; Elders of Nde Odo Patrilineage,
Akanu Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 2, 2011.
690
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 24.
182

The ezie-nwami was actively involved in the political organization of women. Her home
was both a palace and a court where the female council held their meetings and heard cases.
Because the ezie-nwami was usually much older than the members of ikpirikpe ndi inyom, she
appointed a leader among the ikpirikpe members, responsible for carrying and beating nkwa ndi
inyom (ikpirikpe drum), the group’s instrument of authority. However, the ezie-nwami remained
the custodian of this instrument. In practice, women between the ages of 45 and 60 years usually
made up ikpirikpe ndi-inyom. The broader age-range of this organization resulted from the
practice of selecting very active and politically conscious members from the various uke that had
graduated from the uke ji ogo (an age-grade that had been formally recognized) stage.

691

Thus,

ikpirikpe differed from the Igbo Women’s Assembly (which combines the Assembly of Wives
and the Assembly of Daughters) in the sense that it derived directly from Ohafia age-grade
organizations, and it did not comprise all daughters and wives (rather, active representatives), but
it was always able to summon all adult women and young girls, whenever it initiated a decisionenforcement strategy.

692

Beyond her village, the ezie-nwami maintained inter-village sisterhood with all the ezienwami in each Ohafia village, such that when her cabinet members and all female persons in her
village abandoned their homes in protest against men and migrated to another village, the ezienwami of the refuge village became a hostess to her fleeing sisters. In such cases, all the so-

691

Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital
voice recording. October 25, 2011; Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu Village. November 17, 2011; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of
Eziafor Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi
Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village.
November 3, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Elu Village. August 18, 2011.
692
Ibid.
183

called refugee women would be put up in the home of the ezie-nwami and the surrounding
compounds. Here, the ezie-nwami provided the food, which the women of her village cooked and
served to their visitors, amidst soul-lifting songs and dance performances. In some cases, the
women spent the night under the care of the hostess ezie-nwami. According to the ezie-nwami of
Eziafor village, Mmia Abali, the concentration of both human and material resources of the
female members of one village in caring for women from another village, was often too
unbearable for the men of either village. This often forced men into negotiating the return of
women, and promising to meet any of their demands.

693

Thus, the ezie-nwami was cardinal to

active female exercise of political power.
Unlike its male counterparts, akpan, which primary duty was law enforcement; and
umuaka, which could only legislate but could not enforce, ikpirikpe ndi-inyom was both
legislator and enforcer of its own laws.

694

This was a frightening reality, one that was constantly

expressed especially by men, in the course of fieldwork for this study, namely, that the punitive
measures of ikpirikpe ndi-inyom were fiercer than those of men, because, “wo ji iwe ikpe wo
kpee, a wara ndi ife”

695

— they vented the anger and bitterness of the cases which they had

heard upon their offenders’ arrest. In this vein, they made use of nkwa ndi inyom (ikpirikpe
drum). What is nkwa ndi-iyom? In a group interview with ikpirikpe ndi-iyom of Akanu, Nne
Agwu Ukpai stated:
It is the instrument of authority used to govern all laws (ilu) and affairs
concerning women. Be you a man or woman, once you violate any of the laws,
which the women uphold, this ikpirikpe would come to your home, and this entire
village of ours will be quietened with fear! Man, woman, and child! No one will
693
694

Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 68.

695

Nna Uma Ukariwe Uma, in Group Interview with Elders of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu,
Ohafia, digital voice recording. Nov. 2, 2011.
184

step out of his or her home! We have various names for our drum. We call it nne
(mother and ancestress), ogotum ikwere (oracular truth-establisher), but the main
name is ikpu adighi ike eri aku mba! (the vagina which has no difficulty in
consuming the wealth of others). Just like we told you that it cannot be abused,
once you abuse it, you have incurred its wrath, and it will require you to produce
that wealth which you possess, and the people of this world would devour it! This
is because it was on its own and you looked for its trouble. I mean, it was on its
own and you looked for its trouble [Laughter]. Ozoro ezoro akpa uka! (sneaky
696
trouble maker!)
The equation of the drum with women’s vagina evoked the sacredness of the female body
and sexuality among the Ohafia-Igbo before colonial rule. Njoku writes,
It was a grave offense for a man to make an obscene remark about a woman or
female sexuality. Such an action attracted a swift and hostile reaction from the
entire women-folk of the village. They would assemble at the residence of the
offender, chanting bellicose songs, questioning the manhood of the offender and
wondering if he ever had a mother. The women would demonstrate in front of the
man’s house in such bodily exposure that could not but embarrass and shame him,
his wife, age grades and relatives. The offender would invariably sue for peace by
697
meeting the fines imposed by the council of women elders.
So, when the women say “it,” they simultaneously made reference to both the drum and
their genitals. Armed with this knowledge, that the sacred cannot be so openly named, it was
with a great sense of trepidation that the author implored the women to interpret the name of this
drum — a fear which the women relished, and one that positioned them in a more powerful
position to define their subjective understanding of female power and authority in their society.
Ohafia-Igbo women’s subjectivity equally manifested itself when in the course of oral
interviews; they narrated, re-enacted, and relived stories of de-emasculation of men. In these
cases, they transformed the interview sessions into public performances, where younger women,
children, and men constituted an awed audience. They danced and teased and cajoled, reemphasizing their power to teach men lessons when necessary. In this case, Ohafia-Igbo women
696
697

Nne Agwu Ukpai, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 25.
185

mirror the Arab-speaking Muslim Sudan Hofriyat female community, whose cult rituals re-enact
past female power in a patriarchal society,
producers and social actors.”

698

and whom Janice Boddy defines as “culture

699

Female power and authority in Ohafia was conveyed through ritual stipulations. Males
(men and boys) observed rules of “no entry” when the ikpirikpe held its meetings, unless the
individual had been specifically invited for a hearing. The secret nature of ikpirikpe consultations
elevated their aura, and promoted public anxiety. When ikpirikpe as a body embarked upon fine
imposition missions, they observed dead silence and proceeded in a single file, just like the
akpan, because, the drum, which they carried on such journeys, was considered a sacred cult
object.

700

Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu stated, “Nobody can stand in our way when we are on a

march. When we are marching with the ikpirikpe in a single file, nobody can walk in front of us.
If you see us coming and walk in front of us, we will immediately make a detour and visit you at
your home with the ikpirikpe. We will place it on your table and it is only after you have
appeased the ikpirikpe that we will lift it up and continue on our original mission.”

701

What type of cases did ikpirikpe hear and what laws did they enforce? According to
Madam Comfort Ukoha of ikpirikpe ndi-iyom of Akanu,

698

Janice Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989).
699
Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits, 4-5.
700

Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital
voice recording. October 25, 2011; Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu Village. November 17, 2011; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of
Eziafor Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011. The ikpirikpe
drum is best seen as a personal deity, because the women employed it as a spiritual relic, used for
oath-taking. Hence, ogotum ikwere (oracular truth-establisher).
701
Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu
Village. Nov. 17, 2011.
186

If you abused a woman verbally in relation to her okpu or ike (vagina/buttocks),
that was when our ikpirikpe came out. If you appeased us at that point, then our
ikpirikpe had fulfilled its purpose. You could see a married woman in her
husband’s home and ask her to leave her home. If this was violated, our ikpirikpe
came out. You could accuse your fellow woman of okpara (marital infidelity) —
that she was married and was sleeping with another man. If this was violated, our
ikpirikpe would come out. You could tell a woman that she was smelly (ishi ishi).
In this our land, if you violated this law, our ikpirikpe came out, and we the
women, would come to you so that you could wash us clean. You would present
us with soap, body lotion, nzu (white chalk/powder), cloths, perfume, and every
sort of make-up we required; because when you said that a woman was smelly,
you had abused all the women. These were the functions of our ikpirikpe before
colonial rule, and these were the laws that held our village together. You could
not snatch another woman’s husband and edge her out of her marriage. We did
not permit abortion, both for single and married women. If we learned of a
violation of this, ikpirikpe would come out. The violators and their families would
perform a funeral for this land. They would furnish us with a number of
requirements. We adjudged it a murder. The violators would buy a coffin, a jooji
cloth, chieftaincy regalia, okpu agu (warrior’s cap), eagle plumes, yams, a goat,
chicken, a pair of shoes, and a large sum of money. We would take that piece of
jooji cloth with which our nne [the drum] had been appeased, and wrap it around
702
her. Then, we would take her back to her house, where she lived.
Besides the regulation of all feminine matters (marriage, education, sexuality, divorce,
and initiation ceremony for girls), the female court was solely responsible for administering
justice in cases involving both men and women, between 1850 and 1900. Thus, Nsugbe noted,
“In cases of adultery . . . umuaka could, if the matter came before it, punish the male culprit, but
would be powerless over the female accomplice,” because ikpirikpe “[was] the one and only
body that [could] deal with the offenses committed by women.”

703

Mayne, who as a British

colonial officer, marginalized Ohafia women from his description of pre-colonial Ohafia-Igbo
political organization also wrote that adultery was considered a serious crime, and while the male

702

Madam Comfort Ukoha, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village,
digital voice recording.
703
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 68.
187

culprit was sold into slavery as punishment, “nothing was done to the woman.”

704

Yet, in

ensuring justice for a female member of society, ikpirikpe did not let any man stand in her way.
Thus, Nnenna Emeri said, “If men violated the laws upheld by ndi inyom, they were held to the
same obligations and punishments . . . If a man abused his wife physically or verbally in relation
to her sexuality, or accused her of sleeping with other men, once women learned of it, ikpirikpe
went and showed him that there was a power above him . . . And once they came in, if the man
was not co-operating, they may put him down and urinate upon him!”

705

Urinating upon men was Ohafia-Igbo women’s manifestation of what Nina Mba
described as “Sitting on a Man,”

706

and what Shirley Ardener has described as African women’s

“sexual insult” upon men, employed to enforce women’s political decisions.

707

This was a

serious punishment against male offenders, and the ability of women to punish men, as
individuals and as a group, distinguished ikpirikpe as more than a protest organization (like the
Igbo women’s assembly), and more of a formal political entity that constantly governed societal
mores. It is plausible that the matrifocal principles of citizenship, inheritance, and political
succession

708

(see chapter 2) among the Ohafia-Igbo encouraged an intense preservation of

women’s civil rights between 1850 and 1900, which often translated into regulating the conduct

704

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 32.

705

Nne Nnenna Emeri, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, digital
voice recording. Ohafia women’s employment of this strategy was corroborated by Ezie-nwami
Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu Village.
November 17, 2011; and Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor Village, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011. These ezie-nwami added that ikpirikpe also enacted
“sitting on a man” against such an individual. This is discussed further below.
706
Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,’ 165-181.
707

Ardener, “Sexual Insult and Female Militancy,” in Ardener, ed., Perceiving Women, 29-53.

708

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 23-24.
188

of both men and women. Ikpirikpe also employed similar aggressive strategies in securing the
property of women from their ex-husbands’ homes, after divorce, and in all cases of female
domesticity. Thus, in cases of abortion, ikpirikpe exerted punishment on both the man and
woman involved,

709

through what is known as ikpa mgbogho (desecration and ostracism), which

Njoku describes as “one of the most disgraceful and humiliating things that could happen to a
young girl and a young man.”

710

The socio-political roles of women in Ohafia-Igbo society between 1850 and 1900 reified
female power and authority, both at home and in public. As shown in chapter 1, women were the
breadwinners of their families, and through the withholding of food to men, as evident in the
practice of ibo-ezi (deserting their homes en-massse) discussed below, they enforced their
political decisions. Amadiume noted a similar case in Nnobi, when she writes, “if men proved
stubborn, wives went on strike, in which case they would refuse to cook for or have sexual
intercourse with their husbands. In [Igbo] culture, men did not cook: control of food was
therefore a political asset for the women.”

711

Ohafia-Igbo women not only controlled food

processing; they also controlled food production. As the late ezie-ogo of Isiama Autonomous
Community, Ohafia wrote in his autobiography, before colonial rule, “women were the breadwinners, and every man, boy and girl depended on the harvests from the farms of the women712

folk.”

709
710
711
712
713

Njoku further noted, “The kitchen was the preserve of the women.”

Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 25. Ikpa mgbogho is examined below.
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 65.
Uma, Guidance and Destiny, 2.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 24.
189

713

Also, while Ohafia men were preoccupied with the defense of the community, which
shaped their socio-political prerogatives, women were indispensable in this process, both in the
construction of the dominant ufiem (ndi ikike [warrior] masculinity), and in the prosecution of
warfare (see chapter 4). Nne Nnenna Uma Eke stated, “In this our land, anytime it was
announced that nde ikom (men) would go to war, there was a traditional rite which nde inyom
(women) must perform. We call it ije akpaka. If nde-inyom did not perform ije akpaka, nde-ikom
could not go to war.”

714

Between 1850 and 1900, refusal to perform ije akpaka was a

mechanism, which Ohafia-Igbo women used to denounce and prevent what they considered
illegitimate war between Ohafia and their ritual kin, Ibeku and Abam.

715

Achebe recorded a

similar situation in Nsukka, where the women of Orba foiled an unjust war with Obukpa by
sitting naked in front of their homes, to shame their men into submission (nudity as protest).

716

The difference is that whereas ije akpaka was a formally established practice that
regulated prescriptive behavior (authorizing warfare),

717

nudity as protest was an informal

protest mechanism, which African women employed to engineer favorable political decisions.

718

Moreover, accounts of distinguished Ohafia female warriors abound, and women played specific

714

Nnenna Uma Eke, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, digital
voice recording. The ritual of ije akpaka is fully discussed in chapter 4.
715
Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuke.
Nov. 24, 2011; Ezie-ogo Ukonu Okoro Ekere of Eziafor Village, Ohafia, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Dec. 17, 2011; Ezie-ogo Okpan Ncheghe of Ndi-Orie-Eke
Village, Ohafia, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Dec. 15, 2011.
716
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 177.
717

Here, men could not conduct any warfare, if women did not approve it. In effect, women
ultimately decided whether or not, men could go to war. In the nudity as protest case, men made
decisions about going to war, and women only protested when they did not consider it
appropriate. The difference was in the decision-making process.
718
Ardener, “Sexual Insult and Female Militancy,” 29-53.
190

roles in welcoming a male warrior back from battle, and in ensuring his re-admission into
society, through ritual purification.

719

It is thus by balancing their obligations to their

community and protecting their self-interests, that Ohafia women defined their socio-political
significance between 1850 and 1900, through the formal political institution of ikpirikpe. In view
of these, it is not logical to assert that they were docile and politically invisible.
Ikpirikpe Political Enforcement Strategies between 1850 and 1900
720

ND:
Before colonial rule, what happened when a man violated the laws upheld by women?
Mama Docas Kalu: Mgbe ichin [in the olden days], they imposed a fine on the man. If he wanted
to show that he was strong, women would go and tear him down to show him that they were the
721
people that brought him into the earth.
In a group interview with female elders of Ebem village, they tell the story of a man
named Igbe, who, during mgbe ogarelu mbu (time of the first small-pox epidemic: 1890s)

722

formed a despicable habit of peeping at women when they took their showers in the patrilineage
719

These are discussed in chapter 4.

720

“ND” is the name which Ohafia people called me while in the field. It is a shortened version
of ‘Ndubueze.” The abbreviation was a gesture of familiarity.
721
Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author.
722

Mama Docas Kalu said that she was born in the period, between the first smallpox epidemic
(when her older brother was born), and the establishment of British rule (1901-1920). Her uke is
named Okezie, and she is the oldest individual in Mgbaga section of Ebem village, Ohafia. She
is in her mid-90s. So, she must have been born between 1915 and 1920. The incident of Mr. Igbe
happened when her older brother was born. However, this story is popular among Ebem Ohafia
women. So, it must have been passed down at least from one generation to the next. This became
clearer, when Mama Docas and Mama Mary Ezera broke into an “Igbe Song” in the middle of
the story, and started performing the ikpa mgbogho dance. A number of spectators gathered.
Both women teased me, asking me if I really wanted them to perform this dance “on me;” not for
me. The point is that this story is well remembered because women relive and joke about it. We
may also recall that Ndukwe Otta had described the time period between 1890 and 1910, as “the
time of Uke Anya-Afumba” [Anya-Afumba ag-grade]. See Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka,
Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011. Ndukwe Otta was present at my
interview with Mama Docas and Mama Orie Emeh, and he pointed out that mgbe ogarelu mbu
coincided with the reign of Uke Anya-Afumba [his father’s age-grade.]
191

compound bathroom. Upon learning of this, “Women reacted: they imposed a fine upon him and
beat him up; they destroyed his house, and also cursed him. The older women raised their skirts,
opened their private parts on his face, and sat on him, saying, ‘you want to see our private parts,
here they are!’ They carried all sorts of garbage into his house. Igbe later died due to the
humiliation and subsequent isolation he suffered.”

723

Igbe’s action was sacrilegious to Ohafia

society’s moral order. Ohafia women as custodians of public morality “sat” upon Igbe in
restitution of the moral balance. Judith Van Allen has described this as “Sitting on a Man.”

724

Articulating Ohafia women’s propensity to employ disarming strategies in enforcing their
political will, Nsugbe writes, “ikpirikpe [could] mount a strong and sustained opposition against
any action or decision by the men.”

725

This study discusses the various ways through which

ikpirikpe enforced their decisions upon men in Ohafia-Igbo society in the pre-colonial period,
and analyzes the galvanization of female institutions to express political dissent. It argues that
female political institutions were more effective than their male counterparts, because women
developed more powerful strategies of enforcing their laws. Most Ohafia female protest
movements were gendered in that they were mostly directed against men. Ohafia women did not
often attempt to resist the verdicts of the women’s court, or penalties imposed for violation of
laws upheld by women. However, men sometimes did, and most women’s punitive strategies
were directed against them.

723
724
725

726

Mama Docas Kalu, in Group Interview with Mama Mary Ezera, digital voice recording.
Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,’ 165-181.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 68

726

Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and Members of the Men’s Court, Group
Interview; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku and Members of the Men’s Court, Group
Interview; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezieogo of Amankwu and his cabinet members, Group Interview by author; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji
192

A number of scholars of Igbo history have demonstrated that before 1900, Igbo women
employed political strategies that were psychologically and socially devastating to enforce their
political objectives. Amadiume argues that the most powerful political strategy employed by precolonial Nnobi women was the right to order strikes and demonstrations by all women.

727

Nina

Mba argues that in pre-colonial Igbo societies, the assembly of wives intervened in marital
disputes, by mobilizing against a defaulting husband through ridicule and the process of “sitting
on a man,” whereby the women sat outside the man’s compound, singing abusive songs and
refusing to leave until he agreed to their demands. She went further to state that besides sanctions
directed at individual men or women, women’s associations could apply collective sanctions
against the male community, such as threatening to leave.

728

According to Achebe, in pre-colonial Nsukka-Igbo society, when women’s requests
regarding objectionable male behavior were not complied with, the various women’s assemblies
engineered a militant, immediate and punitive collective action, through the use of strikes,
boycotts, force, sit-ins or sleep-ins, nudity, and sitting on a man. Once these sanctions were
engaged, expensive ritual ceremonies had to be performed by the offender(s) to restore harmony
and sanctity and placate womanhood as well as the larger community.

729

Ifeka-Moller argues

Iwe of Elu and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Oct. 25, 2011;
Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu.
Nov. 17, 2011; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording. Dec. 17, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview by author.
727
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 67.
728

Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 29; M.M. Green, Ibo Village Affairs, chiefly with
reference to the village of Umueke Agbaja, Second Edition (London: Frank Cass and Co. Ltd.,
1964), 196-214; J. Harris, “The Position of Women in a Nigerian Society,” Transactions of the
New York Academy of Sciences 2, 5 (March 1940), 141-148.
729
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 173-177.
193

that these Igbo women’s strategies were an economic and political response to male socio730

political domination.

Building on the works of these respected scholars, this chapter contends that Ohafia-Igbo
women’s enforcement strategies did not derive from informal, marginalized spheres of women’s
autonomy, but rather, from the formal institution of the age-grade system, which enabled
ikpirikpe to effectively mobilize all the female members of their society, irrespective of
representation within the women’s court, between 1850 and 1900. Ikpirikpe enforcement
strategies, which included various rituals (examined below), were also not a response to male
domination, as Nina Mba and Ifeka-Moller argue with respect to Igbo women in the pre-colonial
period, but rather, a mechanism to enforce ilu ndi inyom (women’s laws). This is a major
difference between the Igbo women’s assembly, and ikpirikpe between 1850 and 1900.
Ohafia-Igbo women went to great extents to enforce their laws and dramatize their
authority between 1850 and 1900. According to Mama Mary Ezera,
Mgbe Ichin [in the pre-colonial past], if you violated any of the laws upheld by
ndi inyom, we would first of all inform you of your violation of such law. Upon
our reaching your home, you would perform ima nzu — presentation of nzu and
money, as token of welcome and peace. You would give us kola, and spirit-liquor.
After you have presented these gifts, we would inform you the reason why we
came to see you. Come with us! If the individual refused to come with us, we
would lift up our ikpirikpe and start beating it as we march away. This our village
has four primary patrilineages (isi ogo). We would march, beating the drum to
Ekeluogo section, then onto Amafo section, then Nde-Odo; we would even go to
Ibina section. When we reached Ibina, we turned around. Then, we would beat the
drum to the home of the individual, who had violated our law. There, we would
place our ikpirikpe. This ikpirikpe of ours does not touch the ground! This ground
where people step on. It cannot be kept behind the house. Wherever and however
we placed it that was where and how it shall remain. We would leave it there and
go. In the room in which it was kept, the doors could never be shut close. It could
not be locked up. Once we have kept it, it could not be beaten. You could not
move it from the chair on which it was kept to another. It must remain there. And
the individual must feed it, and stand watch to make sure that no fly perched on it!
730

Ifeka-Moller, “Female Militancy and Colonial Revolt,” 132-135.
194

In the mornings, you would take nzu and smear over it. You would take distilled
liquor and pour out to it in libation. You would bless and venerate it. If it stayed
there till nightfall and then dawn, all the men and women in this Akanu village,
must leave their homes and gather themselves out of their compounds (ibo ezi).
Everybody would come to your house and you would be required to meet certain
731
obligations to appease the ikpirikpe.
Apparent in Mary Ezera’s recitation of this ikpirikpe enforcement mechanism, is the fact
that the institution was able to coerce both men and women into social responsibility for its own
rulings. Second, Ohafia-Igbo women’s strategies of enforcing their laws were systematic: they
increased in severity depending on the crime, and the disposition of the violator. If the
individual’s guilt was not clearly established, but he refused to be answerable to the women, the
latter coerced the entire community into pressurizing the individual as illustrated above. If there
was a gendered divide or the men of the community were not as supportive as they ought to be,
or if the individual proved recalcitrant in spite of communal intervention, the women would
involve women from the twenty-six Ohafia-Igbo villages. Thus continues Mary Ezera,
If the individual who violated our law proved stubborn or disobedient at this
point, we would go and call upon the twenty-six villages in Ohafia. The women
would come and constitute a pressure group. After the individual acquiesced, he
must provide a goat each, with accompanying distilled liquor, to every village
before the women would leave. This is because the individual believed that the
village of Akanu could do anything to him, so we brought the whole of Ohafia!
732
The individual had challenged our strength, so we showed him!
In cases of abominable crime, such as rape, the women moved swiftly, swooping down
on the male individual. In such cases, they performed ikpa mgbogho against the offender. Mayne

731

Mama Mary Ezera in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, digital
voice recording. This was confirmed by Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu and her Cabinet, Group
Interview by author; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor, oral interview by author. Dec. 17,
2011; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. August 3,
2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author. Asaga Village. August 10, 2010; Mr. Arunsi
Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu, Ohafia. Aug. 15, 2011.
732
Mama Mary Ezera in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village.
195

recorded that such “automatic punishment, without any formal trial, where the offender was
caught flagrante delicto,” was never enacted by the men’s court.

733

According to ezie-nwami

Ogbonne Kalu, “If anybody violated our laws, and we took our nne to the individual’s house,
and the person failed to appease us (idupuga anyi), we [also] performed ikpa mgbogho against
734

him.”

Njoku writes, “The custom of ikpa mgbogho typified women’s show of power and

authority.”

735

Women carried all kinds of garbage such as domestic refuse, animal and human

feces, grasses and leafy tree branches, dancing through the village and chanting derogatory songs
against the offender. Upon reaching the offender’s home, they dumped these into his house, and
continued dumping until the house was overflowing and the doorways blockaded. Sometimes,
women pulled down the houses of such individuals.

736

Ikediya Okenu stated,

Ikpirikpe would summon all the women in the community. They would start
carrying garbage (alughulu) and grasses (akirika) to the man’s house from
morning till night. When they tired, they went home and ate and came out again
to continue. The following day, they would continue again. After two days of
garbage dumping, if the individual still failed to appease ikpirikpe, they would
mandate all the compounds in Akanu to join them in ikpa mgbogho. After twentyfour hours of the entire village performing ikpa mgbogho and the individual still
proved adamant, the following morning, ikpirikpe would start going to the
twenty-six Ohafia villages (mba ofu la ishi) and these villages would join them in
garbage-dumping on that person’s home. If in the course of ikpa mgbogho the
individual or his family decided to seek peace, they would be mandated to
appease each of the villages with a goat each, and distilled liquor. Then, ikpirikpe
737
would be appeased as well.

733

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 31.

734

Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011.

735

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 25.

736

Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group
Interview; Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview.
737
Madam Ikediya Okenu, in Group Interview with ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village
and her Cabinet, digital voice recording. October 25, 2011.
196

In extreme cases, this garbage dumping continued until the house, and the larger
patrilineage compounds were covered, including the entrance to the compound. After the women
had been appeased, the individual assisted by his umunne (maternal siblings) undertook the task
of clearing and cleaning the house and surrounding compounds and carrying the garbage to the
evil forest (okoko). However, the household and compounds thus accursed by the women, were
not considered “cleansed” until the individual involved underwent a ritual purification at iyi ose
(the ose river), accompanied by the women. This ritual involved yet another level of social
degradation and rebirth, after which the individual could be readmitted as a member of
society.

738

Other scholars have described similar strategies for other parts of Igboland.

739

Collective female resistance and bargaining strategies varied in magnitude. Nsugbe
observed, “If for example, the menfolk ruled against cutting wood from the farm-bush too early
in the season, this might be objected to by the women. In such circumstances, Ikpirikpe would
rule that village housewives should leave their homes and husbands en masse, abandoning all
children temporarily, except suckling babies, and [they] would not return unless their views were
heard . . . and some compromise reached.”

740

Njoku has described this practice as women

“voting with their feet,” and he noted that the effectiveness of this strategy rested primarily in the
fact that the kitchen was the preserve of the women.

738

741

Voting with the feet, what Ohafia-Igbo

Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu
Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. October 25, 2011;
Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording.
Dec. 17, 2011. This ritual is discussed in more detail later in this chapter.
739
Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,” 175; Wipper, “Riot and Rebellion Among African Women,”
65; Ifeka-Moller, “Female Militancy and Colonial Revolt,” 132; Achebe, Farmers, Traders,
Warriors and Kings, 176.
740
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 68
741

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 24.
197

women call ibo ezi (home desertion), was a complex process that demonstrated female agency
and consciousness of power.
Ibo ezi was a realization of female group solidarity. The statement, “Anytime the men of
our community offended us and made no reparations, we deserted them en masse,”

742

was both

a recollection of history and a confirmation of contemporary practice. The tenacity of this
practice, as well as ikpa mgbogho, in spite of the existence of modern systems of law
enforcement and justice, speaks to the effectiveness of this strategy in ensuring justice for
women in Ohafia-Igbo society. The author conducted interviews in the twenty-six villages and in
every village, women recalled popular incidences of ibo ezi. One of the most important issues
over which women often disagreed with men as a collective between 1850 and 1900, was the
setting of the annual farming calendar.

743

The male tendency to place the yam crop above every

other crop irrespective of the year’s weather conditions (especially the density or scarcity of
rainfall) often resulted in gendered communal fissures. Women had specific times when they had
to plant their beans and vegetables and cassava tubers, to ensure a high yield, and if the farming
calendar did not suit their interests, they performed ibo ezi, until their demands were met.
742

744

Nne Agwu Ukpai, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village.

743

Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand-daughter of Unyang Uka) of Amangwu, oral interview by
author, Ebem Village. September 5, 2011; Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author,
Okon Village. August 5, 2010; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Elu village. Aug. 18, 2011; Mama Docas Kalu and Mary Ezera,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village. Aug. 10, 2010; Nmia Nnaya
Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village, Aug. 18, 2011; Ezie-nwami
Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording.
October 25, 2011; Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Uduma Ukwu Village. November 17, 2011; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor
Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011.
744
Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice
recording. October 25, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu, Group Interview; Ezie-nwami
Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu. Nov. 17, 2011.
198

This practice stemmed from an awareness that women accounted for over eighty percent of the
society’s subsistence between 1850 and 1900.

745

It was difficult for women to recall specific incidences of ibo ezi before colonial rule.
However, they remembered a few in the first two decades of the 20th century. Around 1909,
when herds of Hausa cattle destroyed vast hectares of women’s cassava farms in Akanu village,
the women embarked upon what they called uso lama (the cattle exodus), deserting their homes
until the restitution of their losses was secured, through the Ebem Native Court.

746

The women

of Elu village recall that mgbe ochichi Nna Kalu (during the time of Warrant Chief Kalu Ezelu’s
rulership: 1911-1927), the men of their community refused to make financial contributions for a
community project (the installation of a water well) initiated by women, and the women
performed ibo ezi. In what amounted to a critique of emerging male domination under colonial
rule (discussed in chapter 5), Elu women said, “Since you say you own and control this land,
747

here is your land, take it! When you have changed your mind, come and call on us!”

In this

particular incident, most men went for three days without food. As Nmia Nnaya Agbai recalls, “I
was a little girl then. We stayed there (Amaekpu village) for three days! And they were
providing us with food and drinks for the duration of that period. I remember that my father
came to call on me to return home with him, since there was nobody to cook for him; and
745

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 41-44; Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and
the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 695; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 24; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 37-38; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Mrs. Nnenna Emeri and Mmia
Nnaya Bassey, members of Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu, Group Interview. Nov. 3, 2011; Kalu
Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, Ufiele. October 27, 2011; Uma, Guidance and Destiny, 2.
746
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview. Nnenna Emeri and Nne Agwu
Ukpai said that this was shortly after the establishment of the Ebem Native Court (1905-07). See
chapter 5 for the Native Court administration.
747
Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu and her
Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Oct. 25, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh
and Chief Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. Aug. 18, 2011.
199

whenever he came, I ran further back inside the crowd of women.”

748

Similarly, Ebem women

recall that during the reign of Emeago Age Grade (1920s), they performed ibo ezi because their
men refused to make yam contributions for an annual ceremony.

749

How was ibo ezi organized? First, the women summoned the entire community, to openly
state their grievances. Thus, Nnenna Emeri stated, “If there was a dispute of a communal nature
involving the women, we would take our ikpirikpe drum and beat it in every section of the
village. When we have completed this, no female, young and old, in this village would cook
anything, and nobody could go to the farm or on any other pursuit, both men and women.
Everyone would appear to hear what the ikpirikpe had to say . . .”

750

In oral interviews with

ikpirikpe ndi inyom of Elu village and the ezie-nwami of Uduma Ukwu village, they also
confirmed that this ability of ikpirikpe to summon both men and women was a testament to its
powers.

751

In the rest of Igboland, no comparable institution existed, capable of commanding

such authority. If ikpirikpe did not receive a favorable response, Ohafia-Igbo women then
initiated ibo ezi, which entailed a mass exodus of the women to a particular village.

748

Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author.

749

Mama Docas Kalu and Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ebem. Aug. 10, 2010. The reign of Emeago age-grade is one of the best remembered periods in
Ebem Ohafia community politics. It coincided with the second small pox epidemic of 19181920, which caused a famine that disabled men from making their annual yam contributions for
the Omume Iri Uduma ceremony. The result was what has come to be known as the “yam
revolution.” See chapter 5. These events are also remembered by Ebem men. Ndukwe Otta and
Uduma Uka, Group Interview, digital voice recording. Aug. 14, 2011; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village Ohafia. August 3, 2010.
750
Nne Nnenna Emeri, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village.
751

Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital
voice recording. October 25, 2011; Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu Village. November 17, 2011.
200

The choice of a destination village for ibo ezi was political. Inter-village rivalry was
common between 1850 and 1900,

752

and the decision of the women of one village to seek refuge

in a rival village constituted a public defamation of their men, emphasizing their inability to
satisfy their women, and live up to their social responsibilities.
754

be illustrated with divorce. The high rate of divorce

753

The logic of this practice can

in pre-colonial Ohafia society was a

replication of women’s tendency to “vote with their feet” at the individual level. One of the most
common grounds for divorce in the pre-colonial period was the inability of a man to attain ufiem
through distinction in warfare, which wrought unbearable discrimination and disgrace upon both
a wife and her husband.

755

The threat of ibo ezi, as with the threat of divorce was an instrument

of political negotiation.
In many cases, women have sought refuge at Elu village, the capital of the Ohafia
village-group.

756

The choice of Elu was informed by the desire for publicity of women’s protest.

Since Elu is located in the most “open” and border-land part of the village-group, for any group

752

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 4; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011; Elders of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu
Village, Ohafia, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 2, 2011.
753
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu, Ohafia.
Aug.15, 2011; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4,
2010; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011.
754
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 48; Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A
Study in Church Developments,” 148; Mrs. Nnenna Emeri and Mmia Nnaya Bassey, in Group
Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu. Nov. 3, 2011; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by
author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author.
755
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 64; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Obu Ndi-Anaga, Elu Village. August 11, 2010; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, August 15, 2010; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ukpai, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011. The
status of ujo and their plight is fully examined in chapter 4.
756
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 11-14.
201

of women to march from their village to Elu, they must as a necessity pass through several other
villages. It is this strategy of publicizing the closeted, which equally informed Ohafia women’s
decision to go past Elu village as well as march to non-Ohafia neighboring communities such as
757

Abiriba.

The sight of the women, in their hundreds, their babies strapped to their backs, and

their voices chanting their woes, was often too unbearable for anybody to behold, and women
exploited the plethora of public reactions, ranging from pity to outrage to their own
advantage.

758

Thus, Nne Agwu Ukapi said,

There was no place where we went and were not well received. If you saw the
whole of Akanu women approaching your village, would you not be agitated and
concerned? Would you not want to ensure that they were okay? Indeed, if we got
to Abiriba and continued to march, past them, Abiriba people would come out and
block our path, pleading with us not to go on, because it was indeed a sorry sight
to behold — all the females in a community, old and young, mothers and
children, marching under various weather conditions, away from their village;
759
there was no greater condemnation of the men left behind.
Moreover, ibo ezi served to reinforce women’s socio-political solidarity across villages.
As women marched past every village, women of those villages supplied them with water, food,
and well wishes, cursing the men that had made them to undergo such misery.

760

Upon reaching

their destination, the ezie-nwami and women of that village played hostesses, as noted above.
When it was time for the women to return home, after the men of their village had had to come

757

Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author; Nmia Nnaya Agbai
of Elu village, oral interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Elu Ohafia. August 10, 2010; Nne Agwu Ukpai, in Group Interview with
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, digital voice recording.
758
Ibid.
759

Nne Agwu Ukpai, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village.

760

Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu, Aug. 18, 2011;
Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of
Eziafor, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji
Iwe of Elu and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author. October 25, 2011.
202

suing for peace (with gifts of a goat, yam tubers, two bottles of gin, and stockfish),

761

the host

village supplied them with a live goat and other gifts, as a testament of goodwill, and an open
invitation for similar future visits.

762

All gestures of female solidarity throughout ibo ezi, are

known as igba mkpu (participatory condemnation). As Madam Eunice Kalu put it, igba mkpu
made a statement to the effect: “what could have led women to do a thing like this?”

763

The

social defamation of men through ibo ezi was so disarming that there have been cases (such as
Ebem women’s ibo ezi during the time of Emeago age-grade), when the men of a village so
deserted, fought with the villages that had welcomed and sheltered their women.

764

Some scholars of women’s political organizations in southeastern Nigeria such as Nina
Mba, Caroline Ifeka-Moller, and Annie M.D. Lebeuf

765

have portrayed women’s political

institutions as marginal to total society and formal communal government, irrespective of the
degree of power which women possessed and exercised. Thus, Mba argues that “the men’s
world” determined the fate of the larger society, and since women were excluded from male
political institutions, their political significance was “minimal” vis-a-vis the power of the
761

Ibid. Mayne also identified these commodities as the major items of Ohafia gift-giving. See
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45-47.
762
Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu, Aug. 18, 2011;
Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011.
763
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview.
764

Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu and her
Cabinet, Group Interview by author. The men of Ebem village attacked the people of Akanu
village for welcoming their wives, sisters, and mothers, and supporting them against Ebem men’s
self-interests, namely, the timely planting of their yam seedlings, due to women’s refusal to
perform the ritual of omume iri uduma, which inaugurated the planting of crops.
765
See Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 29; Ifeka-Moller, “Female Militancy and Colonial
Revolt,” 134; Annie M.D. Lebeuf, “The Role of Women in the Political Organization of African
Societies,” in Denise Paulme, ed., Women of Tropical Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
University of California Press, 1960), 109, 113.
203

766

men.

The case study of Ohafia-Igbo women clearly shows that ikpirikpe was a formal

political organization that derived directly from the age-grade institution, with a crowned female
ruler serving as “king of the women,” and age-grade representatives and select female elders,
who served as regulators of societal mores. The influence of ikpirikpe over communal politics
was not informal and indirect, but formal and direct. Indeed, male governmental institutions had
limited powers over women, while women were able to enlist enforcement strategies, utilized by
other Igbo women in the pre-colonial period, to exercise political power over both men and
women, as far as a woman was involved.
Rituals as Institutions of Government
All the mechanisms that help to maintain or create internal cooperation,
such as rituals, ceremonies or procedures that ensure a periodical or occasional
renewal of society, are instruments of political action just as much as rulers and
767
bureaucracy.
Rituals were an important component of Ohafia female socio-political organization
between 1850 and 1900, and they served specific purposes. Some rituals such as idighi omara
(land purification rite) and uzo-iyi (virginity testing) were organized by the ikpirikpe, and were
distinguished by significant age-role inversions. In both cases, young virgin girls assumed the
role of a public court of critical opinion, primarily against the male elders of the society.

766

768

Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 29, 37.

767

G. Balandier, Political Anthropology Trans. by A.M. Sheridan Smith (London: Penguin
Press, 1970), 36.
768
Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village. Nov.
2, 2011; Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu
Village, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011; Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Ndi Owom, Okon Village. Aug. 5, 2010; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by
author; Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma
Ukwu. Nov. 17, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview; Mr.
204

Here, ritual ceremonies were transformed into political platforms for registering dissent and
bringing to public ridicule male elders who had committed social ills in secret.
In the idighi omara ritual, performed in the course of the new yam festival, the women of
the community cooked a sumptuous meal of egusi

769

soup, chicken and pounded yam. This was

dished into a calabash and given to a young virgin girl, who carried it around, serving it only to
the male elders. Any married man who had committed adultery or taken a bribe to thwart the
course of justice would be cursed with fatal diarrhea upon consuming the food.

770

In the course

of this ritual, all women in the society were socially perceived as sacred, and any man who
beheld his wife embraced her and fired a gun salute in her honor. According to Chief Olua Iro
Kalu and Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, this homage to women, similar to that performed during
omume iri uduma ceremony (see chapter 2) served to honor women as breadwinners of their
families, as well as an acknowledgment of their role in maintaining public morality.

771

To mark

the end of the ceremony, the young virgin girl went to a river to perform a ritual bath, the belief
being that she had embodied the male elders’ sins, and through her purification, moral purity was
restored in the community.

772

After bathing and purifying herself, her age mates joined her in

Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor Village, oral interview
by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011; Chief, Dr. (Dibia) Azueke Kalu of Nde Idika
Okoro, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Okon. September 22, 2011.
769
Egusi is ground mellon seed. The soup is a special delicacy in southeastern Nigeria.
770

The people of Ohafia completely believed in the efficacy of this ritual and its consequences.
Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Okon. Aug. 5, 2010;
Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011.
771
Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 5,
2010; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. Ebem. August 3, 2010.
772
Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu. Nov. 2,
2011; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu. Aug. 15,
2011; Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug.
5, 2010; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, Ebem. Aug. 3, 2010.
205

celebration. In effect, this ritual reinforced the social perception of women as the guardians of
public morality, in the pre-colonial period (before the introduction of Christianity).
The uzo-iyi ritual was more complex.

773

It was celebrated every two years between

January and February. It began on an Eke market day in Elu, the most senior village, and the
celebration lasted for eight days, and was taken up by other villages in succession. To hand over
to the next village, one village sang and danced to the boundary of the next, and there the women
engaged in verbal criticisms of each other’s village (ikotu onu). Each group of women pointed
out the failings of the other in guarding their community’s morality and checking the abuses of
774

men.

This exercise lasted four days. The second phase began with the rite of ije ugbo. Here,

adolescent girls who had experienced menstruation were distinguished from those who had not.
The latter, known as uke oluwere went and lived in the homes of the former, offering labor
services such as fetching firewood. Only girls, who had experienced menstruation, and thereby
attained womanhood, participated in ije ugbo. Ije ugbo began with wrestling competitions among
adolescent girls, through which the girls were said to have “become as men.”

773

775

This lasted two

Information on uzo-iyi is based on the following sources: Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview
by author, Amaekpu. Aug. 15, 2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie
Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author;
Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, Akanu, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Uduma
Uchendu, oral interview by author, Akanu, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral
interview by author, Okon. Aug. 5, 2010; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, dig. voice
recording, Okon, Ohafia, Sept. 14 and 20, 2011; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Elu. Aug. 12, 2010; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 16-20.
774
Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, Amaekpu. Aug. 15, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh
and Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Dibia
Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, Akanu. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral
interview by author, Akanu. Nov. 2, 2011; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author,
Okon. Aug. 5, 2010; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, Okon. Sept. 14 and 20, 2011.
775
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author,
Okon. Aug. 5, 2010; Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, Akanu. Nov. 2, 2011.
206

days and at the end of each bout, the ugbo virgins would bear a little girl on their shoulders with
a celebratory song.

776

The next day (day seven), the ugbo virgins sang and danced around the village, and
afterwards, they went to their community yam barns to eat yams roasted by older women, while
all stranger-residents (including wives from outside Ohafia, resident dibia, and slaves) in each
village were sent out to clear the path to the river where uzo-iyi would be performed.

777

Upon

reaching the yam barns, the girls ate their yams in a hurry, rushed to the river to take a bath, and
rushed back to the venue for their virginity and purity screening. Disqualified girls included: a
girl who lived with her mother after the said mother had had twin babies; a girl whose mother
was not from the village in question; a girl who started menstruating at the very last moment of
going to ugbo; a girl who had engaged in sexual intercourse.

778

As the screening went on, the

ugbo virgins sang:
Aratu esogi anyi jeni ee!
A non-virgin girl shall not come with us!
Aratu huru ibobo laje ee!
A girl who is seeing her menstruation shall go home!
Onye nne ya amagi Ekidi ee! She whose mother does not know Ekidi [uzo iyi goddess]
O nagi eso anyi jeni!
She will not go with us!
Onye nne ya wu ohu ofia laje! She whose mother is a slave or foreign wife must leave!
O naga eje ugbo Ekidi ee!
She will not go to Ekidi’s home/farm!
E e! Ebu eme ya eme!
Yes! This is how it has always been done!
776

Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, Amaekpu. Aug. 15, 2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai,
oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview; Mr. Arunsi
Kalu, oral interview by author; Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, Akanu. Nov. 2,
2011; Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, Akanu. Nov. 2, 2011; Mr. Davidson
Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon. Aug. 5, 2010; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by
author, Okon. Sept. 14 and 20, 2011; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 17.
777
In Elu, the river was called isha, in Amaekpu, it was ekidi, in Amangwu, it was utogho bila.
778

Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, Amaekpu. Aug. 15, 2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai,
oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview; Mr.
Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, Akanu
Village. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, Akanu. Nov. 2, 2011;
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village. August 5, 2010; Dibia Kalu
Uko, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Okon Village. September 14 and 20, 2011.
207

Onye nne ya wu Igbo laje!
O naga eje ugbo Ekidi ee!
Ono iberani lajee!
780
I sogi anyi jeni ee! Etc.

779

She whose mother is Igbo
[stranger/foreign] must go!
She will not go to Ekidi’s home/farm!
Stranger elements must go home!
You must not follow us to go!

As the ugbo virgins sang, uke oluwere (girls who had not experienced menstruation)
responded, “Iyoo!” When an ugbo aspirant was disqualified, her relatives wailed, while
successful ones were celebrated.

781

Successful candidates then undertook a long journey through

the forest, led by matrons who sang mellow lyrics instructing the girls on the virtues of chastity
and the woes that accompanied promiscuity. On this journey, the girls maintained a ritual
silence, their mouths sealed with omu (palm frond), until they reached the uzo-iyi river, where
amidst the cheering of other female participants, they stripped naked, and took an oath, thus,
“Ekidi, if since I was born, any man had ever touched me, may Ekidi a Chima Okoro kill
me.”

782

The priestess of Ekidi then sealed off the strait through which water flowed into the

pond, and the girls began the exhausting task of bailing out water from the pond until only mud

779

Ohafia women refer to wives from patrilineal Igbo societies, as strangers. See chapter 1.

780

The following women rendered this song: Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by
author; Mrs. Nnenna E. Obuba, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Amaekpu Village.
Aug. 15, 2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs.
Grace Ojieke, oral interview; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 18.
781
Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace
Ojieke, oral interview; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral
interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010; Dibia Kalu Uko (a.k.a Ekpo), oral
interview by author, dig. voice recording, Okon Village, Ohafia, September 14 and 20, 2011;
Mrs. Nnenna E. Obuba, oral interview by author, Amaekpu Village. Aug. 15, 2011.
782
Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu. Nov. 17,
2011; Mrs. Nnenna E. Obuba, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Amaekpu. Aug. 15,
2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace
Ojieke, oral interview; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording. Dec. 17, 2011; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 18.
208

remained. If a girl had lied under oath or was “impure,” the water would not cease flowing, until
the individual was identified.

783

The rite of ije ugbo aimed to keep girls chaste, until they were married. According to
Nnenna Obuba, it was the responsibility of ikpirikpe to ensure that the chastity of girls were
maintained, and that was why they exacted grave penalty against any man that sexually assaulted
a woman in the pre-colonial period.

784

She also indicates that men placed great value on female

chastity, such that “If a husband slept with his bride on the first night after marriage and found
her a virgin, he would send a goat to the girl’s mother the following morning in appreciation. If
on the other hand the proof of her virginity was lost, the husband sent a machete to indicate that
someone had already cut wide the ‘bush’.”

785

783

Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace
Ojieke, oral interview; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 19.
784
Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, Amaekpu. Aug. 15, 2011.
785

Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 16. It should be pointed out that ikpirikpe control
over young girls sexuality was not disempowering to women. These are little girls in question.
Indeed, what may be described as sexual promiscuity was popular among married adult women
in the pre-colonial period. It also accounted for why women were not punished for adultery, but
men were. Ohafia women were said to be in the habit of “jumping from one man to another,
having children everywhere.” This is based on the following: Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum, oral
interview by author, dig. voice recording, Ohafia Local Government office, Ebem Village,
Ohafia, September 5, 2011; Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya, oral interview by author, dig. voice
recording, Amaekpu. May 18, 2012; Mrs. Orie Udo Eke, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia. April 30, 2012; Chief Ikpo Chukwu Ndukwe, oral interview
by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village, Ohafia. May 2, 2012; Elder Ukpai Onum
Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Asaga, Ohafia, April 13, 2012; Chief
Udensi Ekea of Ndi Ekea Compound, Okon Village, oral interview by author, dig. voice
recording. August 4, 2010; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his
cabinet members., Group Interview by author, Oct. 25, 2011; Chief George Bassey, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village, Ohafia. May 2, 2012.
209

The virgin girls who took part in the uzo-iyi ritual were rewarded with fertility.

786

Thus,

the ceremony concluded with a rite where the young girls returned to the mud pond to either look
for fish or nzu (white chalk). In the case of the former, every girl would catch a fish and put it
back in the water for others to catch, and each successful candidate was said to have caught her
future baby and was celebrated; and in the latter, when any of the girls found nzu, she shared it
with her colleagues, to ensure that they would all be blessed with fertility.

787

We may recall that

in the Introduction, Nna Agbai Ndukwe made a contrast between a pre-colonial period (18501900) “when young unmarried girls who had reached puberty still wore ejigido;” and a colonial
period, “when young girls started putting on clothes.”

788

In his view, ikpirikpe was able to

maintain female chastity in the pre-colonial period, but lost this ability as a result of British
colonial imposition of warrant-chiefs.
Uzo-iyi provided ikpirikpe an avenue to check the moral conducts of men in their society.
On the day of ije ugbo, the rest of the women stayed at home and nobody went to farm. In
various sections of the village, women held discussion sessions (iku asiri) in which they gossiped
about the various ills that men had secretly committed in their community, over the last two

786

McCall, “Portrait of a Brave Woman,” 133.

787

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author;
Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Amaekpu Village. Aug. 15,
2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview; Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Uduma
Uchendu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011;
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010; Dibia
Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Okon Village, Ohafia, September 14
and 20, 2011; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 19-20.
788
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. August 10, 2010.
This also enables us to situate the uzo-iyi ritual between 1850 and 1900, as a historical practice.
210

years.

789

The next day, ikpirikpe selected four qualified virgin girls and spent time instructing

the girls on these scandalous secret atrocities committed by men of their village. Then, mounting
a podium in the center of the village square, each girl shouted out the various atrocities and
abominations committed by the identified male elders of her community. Thus, thieves, wife
beaters, bribe takers, and murderers were exposed.

790

However, for this exercise of iko onu to be successful, the virgin girl had to begin the
criticism with her own parents and other members of her family, as the Ohafia say, “Oko onu a
zi onwe ya”

791

(the abuser begins with herself). If she did not do this satisfactorily, she was

asked to come down from the podium, and another girl took her place. The purity of Ohafia
virgin girls after ije ugbo, vested them with the oracular power and authority of the Ekidi
goddess,

792

enabling them to out and publicly condemn any man, irrespective of his social

status. These girls and their ikpirikpe matrons remained immune to any harm or challenge
throughout the period of uzo-iyi. They constituted a public court of condemnation against the

789

Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011;
Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Amaekpu. Aug. 15, 2011;
Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke,
oral interview; Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor, oral interview by author.
790
Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Amaekpu. Aug. 15,
2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace
Ojieke, oral interview; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu. Nov. 2, 2011; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral
interview by author, Okon Village. August 5, 2010; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author,
Okon. September 14 and 20, 2011; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 17.
791
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author.
792

Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Akanu. Nov. 2, 2011;
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu. Aug. 15, 2011.
211

men of their community. Ikpirikpe utilized these ceremonies to socially and politically check the
excesses of the male elders, stifle immorality in their society, and sanitize the land.

793

Uzo-iyi practices such as virginity testing and various distinctions of female purity locate
the female body as a site of great moral anxiety and for the negotiation of various forms of
identity. Through this ritual, young virgin girls assumed the oracular power of a goddess (ekidi).
Through the ritual, Ohafia-Igbo women distinguished indigenes from strangers, thereby defining
what may be regarded as legitimate citizenshiThey also differentiated between slaves and
freeborn, childhood (uke oluwere) and womanhood (ugbo virgins, who had experienced
menstruation), and sexual chastity and sexual impurity. Arguably, through these ritual definitions
of social identity, they defined public notions of what Julie Livingston describes as the “moral
imagination.”

794

Women shaped discourses of these forms of identity through a combination of

rituals, gossip, and rumors.

795

The last ritual employed by ikpirikpe to exercise political authority in the pre-colonial
period, was a post-ikpa mgbogho (desecration and ostracism) cleansing rite known as iyi ose.

796

793

Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village. Aug. 12,
2010; Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu. Nov. 2,
2011; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010.
794
For an explication of this concept, see Julie Livingston, Debility and the Moral Imagination
in Botswana (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2005), 1, 6, 40-63. As
Livingstone points out, rituals such as this focused on the human body “as the locus of
personhood and the material manifestation of self,” because they defined individuals’
negotiations of social relationships, as well as a society’s moral order. Like the Tswana women
studied by Livingston, Ohafia women took the lead in shaping public debates that defined the
moral order through gossip and rumors (in the case of uzo iyi), as well as ostracism and inclusion
(in the case of iyi ose, examined below).
795
Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author.
796

The following described iyi ose ritual: Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya, oral interview by author,
Amaekpu. May 18, 2012; Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum, oral interview by author, Ohafia Local
Government office, Ebem Village. September 5, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu, Group
212

The iyi ose cleansing ritual dramatized the futility of defying female power and authority. This
ritual, which made the desirable, obligatory, was most often imposed on men, after they had
undergone ikpa mghogho. Nne Nnenna Emeri, described the iyi ose procedure as follows: After
ikpa mgbogho, a man was obliged to provide a goat for the iyi ose cleansing ritual. Upon
providing the goat,
He was marched around the village, paraded under the curses and verbal
aspersions of the women, and the general public was invited to witness his
ignominy. There is what we call iko; we take eku-agbo (calabash) and attach a
cock to it, stringed on omu (palm frond) — this was hung on the man’s neck. We
stripped him naked. We also slung a half-burned firewood from the kitchen hearth
(oreforo) over his back. He was obliged to take the goat on this parade. We
drummed up music from our ikpirikpe drum, and he was obligated to dance to this
music of shame. We paraded him in various villages. Now, when the music was
playing and he was dancing, he was obligated to shout, Ee eleghe mme wo! Ee
eleghe mme wo! (“This is what I have done! This is what I have brought upon
myself!”) Anytime he failed to shout the song, the hot coal from the firewood was
pressed into his back to ensure compliance . . . The ikpirikpe drum beat kpo kpo
ti! kpo kpo ti! kpo kpo ti! And nja (vibra-slap), which is a women’s instrument
made from bamboo, beat cha! cha cha! cha! cha cha! Together, the drum and nja
produced the lyric, Ee eleghe mme wo! If he did not dance to the music
energetically, he was whipped with a cane . . . men and women were obliged to
join in this act. After the parade, he was then marched to the river. His mother
carried a pot where the goat’s head would be put into, and his brother/sister led
the goat. The family also produced pepper, palm oil, spices, and one yam tuber,
which would be used to cook the goat at the river. Upon reaching the river, the
man went in, accompanied by his relatives and age mates. Each person, who had
accompanied him would take the cock, and flagging it around their head, say,
“This thing that has happened, let it never happen again, because it is not a good
thing. Let it not infect me from this person.” Everybody present then performed
this ritual denunciation. The man also denounced his conduct and then cast the
cock into the river. He then removed the iko around his neck and cast it into the
river as well. He bathed himself, and afterwards, he was sent home. As he
marched home, he was never to look back. At the river, the goat was killed, and
its head . . . was put in an earthen pot . . . And that goat was not killed with a
knife. From the top of a hill, it was cast down towards the river and this was
797
repeated until the goat expired . . .
Interview by author, Akanu Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu and her
Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Oct. 25, 2011; Ezie-nwami Mmia
Abali of Eziafor, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Dec. 17, 2011.
797
Nne Nnenna Emeri, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village.
213

The ritual of iyi ose may be likened to what Richard Werbner describes as a “nostalgic
genre,” which enables the redefinition of interdependent lives, and the reworking of the past and
its meanings.

798

This is because the iyi ose ritual was a dramatic reconfiguration of Ohafia

society’s moral imagination. The ritual functioned to forge a dominant narrative to explain what
had happened, simultaneously redefining right and wrong, and re-introducing an ostracized
individual as a legitimate member of society.

799

Thus, it defined how the individual was to be

socially perceived, by legitimating his social relationships with other members of society.
Because Ohafia women were the ones that defined social ostracism and inclusion through the
imposition of ikpa mgbogho and the cleansing ritual of iyi ose, they defined societal mores in the
pre-colonial period. By exercising control over when and how this ritual was performed, and
over whom it was exerted, they constantly performed and reinforced their political power.
The Fallacy of Women’s Invisibility: The Publicity of
Female Political Organization
At the beginning of this chapter, I highlighted the various characterizations of OhafiaIgbo women’s socio-political status in the pre-colonial period, particularly the notion that they
were politically invisible and docile, and confined to bearing children and agricultural
production. In the course of my oral interviews with some Ohafia male collaborators, they also
espoused these views. In both published literature and archival sources, Ohafia women’s voices
are lacking. In this section, I want to present the language, which Ohafia-Igbo women used to
describe their political status in their society between 1850 and 1900.

798

Richard Werbner, Tears of the Dead: The Social Biography of an African Family
(Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 4.
799
Turner, Schism and Continuity in an African Society, 161-169.
214

They describe their homes as being both private and public, and they describe various
occasions, which they exploited to publicize their socio-political relevance in the society. While
Ohafia-Igbo women have appeared to be politically invisible since colonial rule (see chapter 5),
they define the pre-colonial period as a time when they were visible and dominant. They also do
not hesitate to demonstrate this consciousness of female power through time-tested strategies of
political enforcement and collective bargaining, when occasion demands it, even today. Female
power and authority in Ohafia was not premised on “a shared consciousness of being a
disadvantaged sex with special interests”

800

as Mba argues with respect to pre-colonial Southern

Nigeria. Rather, the consciousness of female power is rooted in a belief that in the pre-colonial
past, women were completely autonomous and powerful, and this was a natural state of affairs.
The following is an excerpt of conversation with Akanu women:
ND: Some men told me that mgbe ichin (in olden times), women were politically
invisible, insignificant, and powerless. I thought I would come and ask you.
All the Women: (Laughter)
Nne Agwu Ukpai: If women have no strong government in any community, how
can such a community be a good community?
Mmia Nnaya Bassey: We call our Nne, Ikpu adighi ike eri aku mba! Men cannot
stand and talk about or decide on sensitive, moral questions regarding female
sexuality.
Another Woman: I tell you solemnly, women are much more powerful than men.
Mrs. Nnenna Emeri: Women’s rulership has been there since the days of old, just
as men’s rulership has been there since the days of old. Men cannot handle
women’s affairs. Like you are here today, if I come into your home and find out
that you have in any way abused your wife, men cannot come and satisfactorily
solve that problem and put an end to it. Once women come in, they will effectively
resolve the problem.
Mmia Nnaya Bassey: And once they come in, if the man is not co-operating, they
may put him down and all urinate upon him! (All the Women: Laughter)
Mrs. Nnenna Emeri: Indeed, if you see the women marching to your home, you
cannot stand upon both your feet! You cannot keep your head in one place! You
800

Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, viii.
215

will start wondering already, what have I done that the women have come to see
me, because, the punishment for the violation of any law upheld by the women is
much more severe than for those upheld by the men.
Mmia Nnaya Bassey: Much more powerful!
Mrs. Nnenna Emeri: Women’s power is as old as the community itself, and as
established as female parturition. When a woman is under labor, a man cannot
come and attend her. Is it possible? It is a woman that will see her fellow woman
and immediately understand that she is in labor, and then do something to helIf
there is no curtain to protect the pregnant woman’s privacy during birthing, it is a
fellow woman that will take off one of her own double cloth wrapper, and shield
the woman in labor from public view. A man cannot do this. This is the tradition
and way of life (agburu) established since the beginning of the world: that women
take charge of their own affairs and men, theirs!
Mmia Nnaya Bassey: If you are aware of any other community where the female
government is weak, here in Akanu, things are very different!
Mrs. Nnenna Emeri: There has never been a time when our laws/rulership proved
weak (daa mgbo)
Another Woman: Whoever told you that women are weak in this village is
wrong.
Mmia Nnaya Bassey: Now, there is disagreement over the annual farming
calendar. Some of the old men in the village stated in very clear terms, that from
their own experiences, the problem cannot be resolved unless women’s opinions
and interests are well represented. Once women rise and express their position on
the matter, it would be resolved. This is why female power is as old as the
community itself.
Another Woman: We are powerful; we are very powerful.
Mmia Nnaya Bassey: And believe me when I tell you that if we express our
position and the men do not accept it, they may no longer be able to come back
into their homes, because we can render such home uninhabitable.
The foregoing highlights the energy and passion with which women speak of their
political power and visibility. In their view, the home was both private and public and whatever
happened outside the home was dealt with inside the home. If men forgot about female sociopolitical significance outside the home, women rendered their homes uninhabitable, through the

216

withholding of food and sexual favors, or outright abandonment (ibo ezi).

801

The public nature

of the home, especially in West African societies is not a new concept. In her study of Maradi
reactions to 20th century upheavals,

802

Barbara Cooper argues that by transforming their homes

into public spaces, where they expressed their own inventiveness, agency, and subjective
experiences,

803

Maradi women redefined their rights of access to land, labor, and produce.

804

In

addition to reshaping their roles in the local economy, they also contested dominant
interpretations of marriage and female respectability.

805

Both Ohafia women and men organized politically from the homestead of their ezie
(king) between 1850 and 1900. The female courts and the male courts in every village were the
home/palace of the ezie. When the male members of a patrilineage compound (umudi ezi)
organized a meeting, they held it in their patrilineage meeting house (obu). In his examination of
the functions of the obu, Nsugbe concluded that the obu served “the multiple functions of a
home, an ancestral shrine, and a meeting-place,”

806

in Ohafia and in most parts of Igboland.

Thus, among the Ohafia-Igbo, the home was private as much as it was public. Women saw their
home as a factory for the processing of raw materials into finished goods for consumption, a

801

Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu and her
Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Oct. 25, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh
and Chief Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu. Aug. 18, 2011.
802
Including the consequences of the abolition and decline of domestic slavery, the colonial
imposition of taxation and cash cropping, the emergence of secular education and state
employment, and the rise and redefinition of Islam.
803
Cooper, Marriage in Maradi, 62-89.
804

Cooper, Marriage in Maradi, 40-61.

805

Cooper, Marriage in Maradi, 110-142.

806

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 106.
217

point of sale that saw constant streams of customers, a venue for public meetings and a rallyingpoint for political organization.
With regards to the various occasions on which women publicized their socio-political
significance, Ohafia women identified the birth of a child and funeral ceremony for deceased
women. According to Nne Agwu Ukpai,
When onye ichin [elder], especially one who had carried the ikpirikpe died, women
did not keep quiet and they did not sit back. We took up the ikpirikpe and went and
made some noise in her honor, for the entire period until she was buried . . . We
made contributions to match the individual’s status in life. If she was an ezienwami, we provided gifts befitting a king. Being a woman, we gathered all manner
of farming implements in a basin and presented to her, including a goat to signify
807
that this nne (ancestress [deceased woman]),
lived a fulfilled and outstanding
life (o tozu etozu). When we have paid our respects, we gathered the gifts made to
our nne (ikpirikpe), and marched home through the streets, singing victorious
songs. As we danced, we often received gifts and well wishes from people in
808
encouragement.
Ohafia women were indefatigable and they saw themselves as such. This is borne out in
the greetings and songs with which they opened any of their meetings:
Ndi Inyom! Unu kwe wo! (All: Whoa!)
Akanu ka nu! (All: Uhum!) 2x
Odo awu ukwu ka nu! (All: Whoa!)
Uzo anyi ga eje! (All: Anighi aga ya ala!)
Uzo anyi ga ala! (All: Anighi aga ya eje!)
Afufu! Kwe nu! (All: Whoa!)
Ilulu! Kwe nu! (All: Whoa!)
Atule Abali! Kwe nu! (All: Whoa!)
Nno m I bia! (All: Whoa!)
Ememini ememini kwe nu! (All: Whoa!)”

Great women! Greetings to you!
Akanu! Hail!
The imponderables! Hail!
The path we go on! None can go on it and return!
The path we return on! None can come and go on!
The proud sufferers! Hail!
The morning dew! Hail!
The brave of the night! Hail!
The autochthones! Hail!
The truth-establishers! Hail!

These praise-names of women speak to their self-perception. They believe that their power is
incomparable; that none other can thread the paths which they have thread or match their

807

The Ohafia refer to female elders and ancestresses as nne. Ikpirikpe members also refer to
their drum as nne (mother).
808
Nne Agwu Ukpai, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village.
218

accomplishments; that as the backbone of their society’s subsistence economy and those who
work without rest to keep their community at peace, they are proud sufferers. On the significance
of nde afufu, ilulu, and atule abali, Nne Nnenna Emeri stated,
Since this morning, we have not had anything to eat. We did not even have time
to shower this morning. We have been busy, running around to ensure that our
community is at peace . . . There is no part of Akanu where we have not been to.
Last night, we did not get home until 9:00pm . . . At 6:00am the following
morning, we were out of bed and about our business again . . . by the time we get
home, something else requiring our urgent attention may come up, and we will
come out again . . . We call ourselves afufu in celebration of our tireless services.
Most of our journeys take place during the late evening, and none of us will say,
‘I cannot leave my husband and go or I cannot leave my children and go.’ We are
always ready, and wherever we are called, we go and answer. Those nights, we
have no fear, be it 10:00pm or 2:00am! Sometimes, we have had to stay out till
daybreak! That is why we call ourselves atule abali . . . There are times when we
have to embark on journeys early in the morning. When this happens, all the ilulu
(dew) left and right on the footpaths throughout the village are cleared by our skirt
and feet. You will not say, ‘I am wearing a gorgeous dress or a new wrapper, and
I do not want it to get stained from the dew.’ You will go in that beautiful cloth,
809
even if it gets ruined and torn up, and you will return in it. That is ilulu.
In similar songs, the women refer to themselves as “nde nwe ogo” (owners of the village), and
“nde nwe ife jide ife wa” (possessors of power who hold onto their power).

810

Ohafia women’s

descriptions of their roles in government, set them apart from the Igbo women’s assembly, for in
their view, they were a formal (not ad hoc) institution, involved in day-to-day administration.
It was through their constant fearful performances of overwhelming authority that the
ikpirikpe ndi-inyom came to be socially perceived as a supreme public court, one that
simultaneously became a litigant who never lost, an arbiter who often voted in its own favor,
with its own feet, and an enforcer of its own ruling. The ikpiripke marched more often than their
male counterparts. They were the ones who constantly transformed private and secret

809

Nne Nnenna Emeri, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village.

810

Nmia Nnaya Bassey, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village.
219

disagreements into public spectacles, subject to the entire society’s moral debate. So, where lies
women’s political invisibility? Indeed, the public was the most important and effective platform
for Ohafia women’s assertion and performance of political power, between 1850 and 1900, and
they continue to exploit the public platform today. During the period of my fieldwork in Ohafia,
I witnessed at least a dozen women’s public marches; most of them were ikpa mgbogho,
especially against men, while the rest were isopu ogo or ibo ezi. I did not, in this entire period,
observe a single incidence of akpan or umuaka public march. While this is not evidence that
none ever took place, it is a reflection of the varying degree of consistency with which either
gendered marches were performed, and the varying degree of publicity, which either of them
entailed. Njoku affirms that akpan did not march as regularly, in its own case, in a bid to
command fear and respect when it did appear.

811

811

Njoku, oral conversation with author, phone call from Michigan, U.S.A to Nigeria.
220

Conclusion
The age-grade system of Ohafia distinguished its political organization from most Igbo
communities. The uke political system was a means of ensuring that the eye of the society
focused on its members to evaluate their progress and achievement, such that individuals were
made more acutely conscious of the necessity for personal success and of the pains of failure.

812

As the basis for men’s military distinction and attainment of ufiem, and women’s forging of an
effective political institution, the uke was the quintessence of political individualism and
achievement orientation. While it has been imperative to discuss men and women as
homogenous groups in order to elucidate gendered political organization and power, it was the
actions of men and women that birthed and shaped Ohafia political institutions. Thus, the
qualification for any political office was premised on personal achievement and distinction, and
social mobility was never ascriptive, including the office of the ezie.

813

Nina Mba aptly described political power as the exercise of “coercive influence,”

814

based on the threat or use of sanctions, control over public morality and communal values, and
over the distribution of material resources. Achebe argues that through the role of women as
daughters, mothers, traders and wives, as well as social conceptions of superior female principles
in Nsukka, women were able to enforce compliance to their rules and regulations in both the precolonial and colonial period.

815

This chapter has argued that contrary to the notion that women

were socio-politically subordinate to men, politically invisible, and docile, Ohafia women
812

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 22.

813

Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu and
Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku and
Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview.
814
Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, vii-viii.
815

Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 161.
221

maintained one of the most powerful political institutions in southeastern Nigeria, and performed
political strategies that were more effective than those of their men, between 1850 and 1900.
A number of scholars such as Nina Mba and Philip Nsugbe noted that Ohafia kinship
system differed from those of other patrilineal Igbo societies, but they did not examine the
ramifications of Ohafia dominant matrilineage system for women’s exercise of political power.
This chapter suggests that the position of Ohafia-Igbo women as breadwinners, as well as their
matrilineal kinship system, which placed women in an especial position of importance,

816

shaped the prominence of female political power in the society. In effect, the matrifocal
conceptions of citizenship and the high socio-cultural value placed on women, defined the
society’s moral order, and shaped the severity of their political enforcement strategies between
1850 and 1900.
Moreover, because of endogamous marriage practices within the patrilineage, the
ikpirikpe consisted of both wives and daughters within a village, and was able to fulfill political
roles, which the assembly of wives and the assembly of daughters played in patrilineal Igbo
societies. However, ikpirikpe was led by a coronated female political ruler, who served as “king
of the women.” This and the fact that it derived from the age-grade system, enabled it to function
as a formal political institution, rather than an ad hoc assembly of women, and a mere pressure
group, distanced from total society. Lastly, whereas the men’s court was incapable of exercising
power and authority over women, ikpirikpe exercised its power and authority over both men and
women. Thus, I argue that not only were they more effective in the exercise of coercive
influence, the more extensive limits of their political jurisdiction enabled them to exercise more
power than their male counterparts.

816

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 25. This is the subject of Chapter 1.
222

CHAPTER THREE
PERFORMING UFIEM: THE SOCIO-CULTURAL CONSTITUTION OF
NDI IKIKE (WARRIOR) MASCULINITIES, 1850-1900
First, this chapter will clearly show that ufiem (masculinity) was a construction of
privilege, power, and social status. The history of how ufiem powers and privileges were
constructed, is the primary concern, and this is explored in the leisure and military activities of
the Ohafia-Igbo in the second half of the 19th century. The chapter argues that boys were
socialized into the ethics of military distinction and honor from childhood through games.
Second, the chapter contends that there were many forms of ufiem in 19th century
Ohafia-Igbo society, and all were not equally powerful as social forces. Ndi ikike (warriors)
defined the dominant values of masculinity in Ohafia-Igbo society, between 1850 and 1900.
They discriminated against other forms of ufiem including yam farmers, dibia (medicine men),
hunters, and wealthy merchants (ogaranya), who ndi ikike defined as ujo (coward and weak).

817

By analyzing how women ritually became men, how some women performed ndi ikike
masculinity, and the role of women in the social distinctions between ufiem and ujo, the chapter
argues that men and women played mutually constitutive roles in ufiem construction and
performance.
Third, while various forms of ufiem were practiced in Ohafia between 1850 and 1900, it
was only the ndi ikike (warrior) masculinity that attained a hegemonic character, such that other
forms of ufiem became subordinated to it, and the ndi ikike idiom of igbu ishi (to cut a head),
became the dominant idiom of expressing masculinity performance at the turn of the 20th
century. Thus writes McCall, “the academic degree and the Mercedes-Benz [would become]

817

Chapter 4 shows that those defined as ujo constructed forms of ufiem that were sometimes
subordinate and subversive to “how real men should behave.” Morrell, “Of Boys and Men,” 608.
223

“heads” that, when brought home, establish[ed] the passage to full adulthood and status as a local
hero.”

818

The attainment of ufiem he observed placed an emphasis on “going out into the realm

beyond the limits of the familiar Ohafia world . . . confronting the unknown, prevailing against
alien forces and conquering them on their own ground. Returning with the head completed the
act of incorporation.”

819

The head symbolized the proof of successful return.

Thus, the picture of the successful Ohafia warrior who returned with a head in his right
hand is expressed as ilu ikenga (to enact righteousness, accomplishment, and social mobility).
In this sense, as McCall noted, a celebration of the head was a celebration of masculinity.

821

820

To

demonstrate how ndi ikike came to be seen as real men above all other forms of ufiem, this
chapter examines the changing practices of headhunting, and the organization of warfare in the
second half of the 19th century. Highlighting the social privileges of ndi ikike masculinities, the
chapter argues that the practices of an exclusive society called ite odo, facilitated the
entrenchment of ndi ikike hegemony in the period, 1880-1920.
Fourth, this chapter argues that the historical constructions of masculinity between 1850
and 1900 structured Ohafia society in peculiar ways and contributed to the popular imagination
of the Ohafia-Igbo as a warrior society at the turn of the 20th century. In order to demonstrate the
impact of the performance of ndi ikike masculinity on the Ohafia-Igbo, this chapter examines the

818

McCall, Dancing Histories, 73.

819

McCall, Dancing Histories, 74. This interpretation was corroborated by my interview
respondents: Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu
Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Ibina (Ihenta) Village. December 12, 2011; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011.
820
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview.
821

McCall, Dancing Histories, 74.
224

myth of cannibalism that developed between 1890 and 1920, the geography of masculinity,
1850-1920, and the role of the war dance in shaping social visions of Ohafia-Igbo society.
Igba Nnunu (To Kill a Bird): Gendering through Games
What is learned by constant informal practice, and taught by formal coaching, is
for each sport a specific combination of force and skill. Force, meaning the
irresistible occupation of space; skill, meaning the ability to operate on space or
822
the object in it.
The scholarship on African leisure activities have shown that as socially configured
practices, games provided an arena for the negotiation of social identity.

823

Second, in its

juxtaposition with work, leisure or play involved both non-obligatory activities and practices that
involved the fulfillment of social obligations.

824

Since leisure activities are largely voluntary,

they provide a reliable index of African gendered agency in social change.

825

Third, the creation

of gendered spaces through leisure, generated cultural notions of masculine and feminine spheres
of play, and shaped masculine identities.

826

Hence, Peter Alegi argues that the emphasis which

the Xhosa sport of stick-fighting placed on “physical prowess, masculine identity, theatrical
performance, and martial competition,” was fundamental to “the striving for status, the assertion
822

Robert W. Connell, Which Way is Up? Essays on Class, Sex and Culture (Sydney: Allen and
Unwin, 1983), 18.
823
Phyllis Martin, Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), 2, 52-53, 96-99; Laura Fair, Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community
and Identity in Post-abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945 (Athens: Ohio University Press,
2001), 3-4, 9-10, 14-15, 64-109, 169-270; Peter Alegi, Laduma! Soccer, Politics and Society in
South Africa (South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004), 42-47, 62-63, 87-110.
824
Martin, Leisure and Society, 7.
825

Hortense Powdermaker, Copper Town: Changing Africa, The Human Situation on the
Rhodesian Copperbelt (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), xiv, 14, 167; Clyde J. Mitchell, The
Kalela Dance: Aspects of Social Relationships among Urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956), 12, 18-22, 31-34.
826
Martin, Leisure and Society, 153; Alegi, Laduma! 1-3, 28-37.
225

of identity, the maintenance of power in one form or another, and the indoctrination of youth into
827

the culture of their elders.”

Games were central to gender-formation in Ohafia-Igbo society before the 20th century.
They served to distinguish boys from girls,
from cowards.

829

828

the good child from the useless child, and braves

The education of an Ohafia boy focused on military training. This began

informally through play such as hide-and-seek, mock gun-battles, archery, and wrestling
contests, from the age of 5 to about 18 years.

830

Nna Agbai Ndukwe recalls that growing up in

the 1920s, “The first thing we did as children when we woke up every morning was uta ngwuru
[lizard hunt] . . . no other thought preoccupied us beyond going about the village and hunting
lizards with bow and arrows, which we made ourselves; even hunger did not deter us . . . We
also hunted birds.”

831

Children often sold captured lizards to medicine-men (dibia) who utilized

them in the preparation of various curative medicines.

832

Through participation in this game,

children honed their archery skills daily in preparation for the most important accomplishment in
the early stage of their life — igba nnunu (to kill a hummingbird).

827

Alegi, Laduma! 7.

828

833

Basden, Niger Ibos, 190.

829

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village,
Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Chief
Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia. August
10, 2010; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
830
N. Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” Ikenga: Journal of African Studies
1, 2 (1972), p.77.
831
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author
832

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; See the masculinity of dibia in Chapter 5.

833

Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village Ohafia.
August 3, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga
Village, Ohafia. August 10, 2010
226

To embark on an igba nnunu venture, a group of young boys were led by an older boy of
about 15 years, who had himself successfully accomplished the feat. This boy was called ochi
agha (war leader), and he replicated the role of a warrior, who customarily led newly groomed
warriors to their first headhunting adventure.

834

He instructed the young warriors in the various

techniques of bird hunting, including where and when to look for the bird, how to set traps, and
how to shoot with bow and arrow. The choice-bird was nza — the hummingbird. The Ohafia
describe it as the king bird (ezie nnunu), because, as a very small bird, with great agility, it was
835

difficult to kill.

An individual who killed a big bird was subjected to ridicule.

836

The

hummingbirds arrived during the dry season to feed on the flowers of a particular tree known as
obolo-nza. Kamalu Uriom captures the bird-hunt scene in his historical fiction:
Anyabule and the youngsters were sitting quietly under an Ubolo shrub with their
bows set waiting for birds to appear. Above, growing on the shrubs, were clusters
of brightly coloured flowers. Just as the warriors strove to acquire human skulls to
give them glory, these youngsters were hunting for birds for the same reason . . .
The youngsters watched eagerly, their bows and arrows in readiness. A flock of
birds . . . alight and start sucking the sweet juice of the flowers. ‘Don’t shoot
immediately the birds arrive. Keep quiet, allow them to settle down. Then, choose
837
one nearest to you, aim properly and then, let go,’ Anyabule advised.
Njoku writes, “It was a red-letter day when a boy killed a bird with his bow and
arrow.”

838

This accomplishment and its celebration launched the boy’s uke [age-grade] into

834

Before the 20th century, Ohafia-Igbo men often contracted the services of seasoned warriors
to lead their sons into their first battle. Such contracted warriors were known as ochi-agha. Each
military regiment was also commanded by a warrior (ochi-agha). Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Kamalu Uriom, The
Advetures of Ancient Ikperikpeogu Warriors (Owerri: Basich Publishers, 1990), 29.
835
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, Ebem Village. Aug. 7, 2010; Chief Olua Iro
Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village. August 3, 2010.
836
Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, Ebem Village. August 3, 2010.
837
838

Uriom, The Advetures of Ancient Ikperikpeogu Warriors, 29.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 61.
227

social recognition. The young hero earned an ordinal position in the ranks of the heroes of his
age-grade.

839

Providing a sense of the igba nnunu tradition, Ndukwe Otta recalled his

experience in the 1940s:
Immediately I shot it, my age-mates applauded. We attached the bird to the tip of
my bow, and I raised it high over my head, and shouted, ‘Ujo o! [Cowards!]
Whoever fails to accomplish igba nnunu this year may also not be able to
accomplish it next year!’ Then I broke into a swift run about town, accompanied
by my age-mates. We went from one compound to another, and whichever
compound we arrived at, I would shout “Ujo o!” referring to all my age-mates out
there who had not fulfilled their igba nnunu. Then, I said that whoever was not
capable of accomplishing this feat which I had just accomplished, in that year,
would also not be able to accomplish it in the following year, either. I would
shout this so that my age mates would hear it — it was partly a way to inform
them of my accomplishment, and partly a way to pressurize all the “cowards” out
840
there to fulfill igba nnunu.
After this initial performance of accomplishment, the successful warrior went back home
to inform his parents. To celebrate his success, they dressed him up like a brave warrior, adorned
him with okpu agu (warrior’s cap), abubo ugo (eagle plumes), and jooji cloth.

841

Then, the

young warrior performed a formal public outing, visiting his kinspeople. John McCall noted that
it was through this process that the young boy first came to know most of his maternal relations,
many of whom by virtue of the dispersed residence of the maternal family, he may never have
839

Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 77; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 61;
Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author; Mama Docas Kalu and
Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author;
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. Aug. 7, 2010.
The first boy to accomplish igba nnunu among his uke became the leader of that age-grade, just
as the first girl to undergo ifu nso (menstruation) and ipso facto, ino nhiha (ritual seclusion)
became the leader of her age-grade, irrespective of age.
840
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem. Aug. 14, 2010.
841

These were the regalia of a brave and accomplished warrior. Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral
interview by author. The jooji cloth or okara was a status symbol for the rich and respectable in
most Igbo societies. It was originally imported from India until the late 19th century when large
quantities were imported from Manchester (Azuonye, 1990: 32).
228

met. He then became a person of interest to his maternal family, the people who would
ultimately grant him land and livelihood.

842

This time continued Otta,

By the evening of the igba nnunu day, when people had returned home from their
daily engagements, I gathered my age mates who had successfully performed igba
nnunu to celebrate my inu nnunu [bird-hunt celebration]. This was to show that I
had grown, that I had come of age, and that I had obtained the first head [e gbuele
m isi mbu], which every Ohafia male child should obtain. I then carried this bird,
accompanied with music from my age mates, and we visited all my relatives in
their various compounds in our village that night. We made our entrance as
people prepared their dinner. My age-mates would then increase the tempo of the
music, and I would perform the energetic warrior’s dance, like this [performs the
dance]. At each compound, before I received any gifts, I was asked to perform iba
mba [the warrior’s boast]. I took the stage and said: ‘Mmamanu o! Mmamanu o!
Agba mi nke mbu, ya akwahi! Mi mgbaa nke abuo, ya akwahi! Mi mgbaa nke ato,
ya danyi ebeo, pua!’ [Greetings! Greetings! I shot the first arrow, the bird dodged
it! I shot the second one, the bird dodged it! I then shot the third one, and the bird
fell over there!] The response was a resounding ‘Whoa! Eyooo!’ At this point, the
person whose home we came to went into his house and fetched whatever he or
she had and offered it as a gift to me. One of my age-mates carried a bowl to
receive all the material gifts including yams and cloths, while another collected all
the monetary gifts. We continued in this manner until we had visited almost every
compound in the village. When we returned home, my age-mates and I poured out
all the gifts and divided them up among ourselves. Then, we took the bird, that
tiny bird, and roasted it. My age-mates took out the head and gave it to me! Then,
they divided up the rest into tiny pieces among themselves, ensuring that each
843
person got a share.
[Italics mine]
Igba nnunu was the first logical step towards igbu ishi (to cut a head), which was the
highest performance of ufiem in Ohafia-Igbo society before 1900. Thus, when a boy killed a bird,
844

he was said to have performed his first igbu ishi.
842
843

The equation of the bird-kill with a human

McCall, Dancing Histories, 70-71.
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author.

844

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author; N.
Uka (1972: 77), John McCall (2000: 70), and Nnenna Obuba (2008: 24) noted that when the
Ohafia boy-child cut his first teeth, he was said to have “cut his first head” and upon killing a
229

head served to prepare boys for manhood. A boy that accomplished igba nnunu at the
appropriate age was a good child because he held the promise of fulfilling the dominant ufiem
(warrior masculinity) upon adulthood.

845

The performance of this accomplishment introduced

boys to the taste of ufiem privileges, and the benefits of individual accomplishment. The
symbolic equation of the head of the bird with a human head is partly realized through
descriptive language. The word ibu (from ibu ibu — to carry a heavy object) is used to describe
the act of bearing the head of the bird. This image of the head of a hummingbird as a heavy
object is equally seen in the tradition of cooking the caught hummingbird in a big pot.

846

The performance of agha nnunu (bird war) and inu nnunu (bird-hunt celebration) by male
children was a simulation of the performance of headhunting and the celebration of warrior ufiem
among adult males in the society. Iba mba (warrior’s boast) was a composite oral tradition,
reiterated in every case of igbu ishi, irrespective of the exact details of the head-hunt itself (the
killing of a bird or the cutting of a human head). The celebration of igba nnunu involved a
warrior’s dance called iri nnunu (bird dance), and this was a replication of the war dance (iri
aha), performed by adult male warriors in the society. Iri nnunu is defined as ite ujo (to dance
away the cloak of ujo — cowardice/fear), because it enabled a boy to become socially gendered
male: it marked his physical separation from his mother, and admission into the world of
847

men.

small bird, the boy was said to have “cut his second head.” However, oral evidence gathered by
this author during fieldwork does not account for the teething version.
845
Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 77.
846

Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.

847

This physical separation is elaborated below. Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group
Interview by author; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 54.
230

While boys were expected to shoot birds themselves, their experienced war-leaders
sometimes performed this task for them.

848

This mirrored cases where wealthy patriarchs

sometimes purchased the services of a distinguished warrior to lead their young sons into battle
and ensure that they returned home alive, and with a human head.

849

However, the killing of a

bird or taking of a human head by a war-leader on behalf of a young warrior was kept a secret
(between the boy and his helper), and the maintenance of this secret was cardinal to a warrior’s
reputation. The ability to keep secrets ensured brotherhood and inter-dependence among
warriors, and this was the primary objective of Ohafia secret societies (see chapter 4).
This is also seen in the changing practices of igba nnunu. Whereas boys had shot birds
with bows and arrows before the 20th century to perform ite ujo (to dance away the cloak of
cowardice), since the 1900s, they have come to rely upon rubber sling-shots, which have greater
range and accuracy than the traditional bows, and they keep this a secret from male elders, who
insist on the maintenance of the ancestral tradition (using bows and arrows).

850

The elders’

fastidious defense of traditional mechanisms of igba nnunu, and the tendency of young men to
subvert the rigid rules of man-making in their society, in the quest for social mobility and
distinction, similarly characterized the adaptation of headhunting to slave production in the 18th

848

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author.

849

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Uriom, The Adventures of Ancient
Ikperikpeogu Warriors, 13, 23.
850
McCall, Dancing Histories, 71. This ideology is also mirrored in the fastidious insistence of
the elders that young warriors brought back the heads they had caught in battle dripping blood to
ensure that it was not the head of a female or a child, before the abolition of headhunting in the
early 20th century. See Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929”; Njoku,
“Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia, 1900-1979,” 29; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 63.
231

and 19th centuries, when young warriors increasingly took live captives as slaves, instead of
cutting a head, thereby redefining conceptions of warrior ufiem.

851

Just as adult males who failed to accomplish igbu ishi were constructed as ujo (cowards),
boys who failed to perform igba nnunu were equally constructed as “cowards.” Ujo was the most
dreaded status in Ohafia-Igbo society. It was a status of shame and degradation,
of the ujo was worse than that of a slave.

853

852

and the life

So each time a boy had successfully performed igba

nnunu, he and his age-mates who had achieved this status fetched a big clay pot (ite ujo) and
filled it with all sorts of garbage, and sometimes, they defecated into the pot. Then, singing
derisive songs against their ujo mates, they marched to the home of any ujo, and in front of his
mother’s house or kitchen, smashed the pot. According to Agbai Ndukwe, this act questioned,
“Why should a coward live here?”

854

The insult against the mother is equally seen in some of

the boasts that accompanied igba nnunu such as “Onye agbaghi nnunu, a gbara ikpu nne ya
855

woo!”

[Whoever failed to shoot a bird has shot his mother’s vagina! Whoa!] Thus, each time

a boy performed igba nnunu, his ujo mates and their mothers dreaded this consequential
856

humiliation.

The choice of the mother as the recipient of this symbolic derision, in lieu of the father,
did not signify lack of respect for women. Rather, it was a social criticism of a mother’s failure
to fulfill her obligations towards the raising of a good child. In precolonial Ohafia society, both
851

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Chief
Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village. Aug. 2010.
852
Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78
853
854
855
856

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 65. See further distinctions between ujo and ufiem below.
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.
Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author.
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu. Aug. 15, 2011.
232

men and women played roles in the constructions of masculinity and femininity. Mothers
fulfilled their social obligations towards their sons and daughters by ensuring timely gendered
socialization. A boy lived with his mother until he was ready to be gendered male in the
society.

857

The weaning of the male child from the mother’s care and pampering began with

igba nnunu accomplishment, after which the prospective Ohafia male warrior symbolically
moved out of his mother’s house to live with his father or with other boys in a separate house in
the compound. This boys’ hut (uluenta)

858

was usually established near the father’s house, or

close to the home of the most senior male member of the patrilineage. Against this background, a
boy who failed to perform igba nnunu was seen as inhibited by his mother’s pampering.
This practice was prevalent among the Cross-River Igbo peoples, and in the Afikpo
village-group, the boys’ quarters were called ulote.

859

In these boys’ houses, a boy slept, stored

his treasures, received his friends, and mastered various crafts such as mat making and
woodcarving.

860

There, he learned “much about farming [fishing, climbing palm trees] and

857

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 54 writes that the age and sex of a child defined whether
he lived with his mother or father: “A male child, if still suckling or under seven years, would
sleep in the mother’s hut. Older male children sleep with senior adult males in their huts until
they are of an age to live in separate huts, which they do at about the age of sixteen to eighteen
years.” Thus, I stated in chapter 2 that until boys reached the age of about 18 years, they were
considered umirima (neutral-gendered non-adults) in Ohafia. Igba nnunu was the first step
towards their physical separation from their mothers, as well as their man making. Basden, Niger
Ibos, 196 also writes, “A boy lives in his mother’s hut until he is old enough to build quarters for
himself.” Also, see Ottenberg, below. My interpretation is based on Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral
interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral
interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author.
858
Uduma, The People of Ohafia Ezema, 56.
859
860

Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 182.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 41-43.
233

matters affecting men in general.”

861

Moreover, a boy’s informal and formal military training

continued through his association with other boys in this context. Thus, after igba nnunu, a boy
joined his peers and seniors in games, often organized competitively between various uke.
Post-Igba Nnunu Man Making Games
The Ohafia male child became a warrior apprentice after igba nnunu. Through
participation in age-grade competitive sports, he defined himself as a promising ufiem. A
prominent game in this respect was mock gun battles (egbe tootoo),

862

where boys from two

separate uke engaged in inter-group gun combats, using wooden guns in hand-to-hand battle
formation. The primary objective was to trap an opponent in a tight corner.

863

In this way, writes

Uka, “they learn from a very young age, how to face the enemy in battle without fear.”

864

It was

also during such games that the youths learned the intricacies and codes of warfare. They also
received training in guerilla warfare through a game called ina ope, in which they honed their
skills on how to attack and dodge.

865

Shooting competitions were conducted with bows and arrows. In the game of igba aju,
the pitch of a cocoyam leaf or plantain stem, or an unripe orange was used as a target. The
competitors took turns in shooting at the target from a given distance. Each member contributed
a stipulated number of cowrie shells or an arrow to a pool and this constituted the prize for the
winner. Each time a competitor missed the target, he lost cowries or an arrow to each of those

861
862
863
864
865

Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 183.
Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 61; Uduma, The People of Ohafia Ezema, 57.
Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 77.
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. Aug. 2010.
234

who got the target. In the end, winners and losers were ranked, based on the number of arrows
they accumulated or lost, and losers were sometimes subjected to receiving knocks on their
heads from the winners.

866

In a similar game called aka-oku, a ball of red-hot fire-cracker was

launched into the air and archers shot at the moving target with their arrows.
such as iti ukporo (stick and captive hoop game),

868

867

Other games

and itu ndu (local badminton) aimed at

improving targeting skills and mental acuity.
Wrestling was a prominent feature of childhood socialization and skills development in
the 19th century. Boys engaged in wrestling competitions informally and formally during annual
festivities such as the new yam festival. Wrestling was a necessary skill to acquire because all
Ohafia-Igbo 19th century warfare involved significant hand-to-hand combats.

869

It is also in this

respect that every Ohafia male child between the ages of 19 and 21 was expected to be dexterous
in the use of the machete as a war weapon.

870

Local wrestling champions were matched against

leading opponents from other villages and towns. Distinguished wrestlers attained high honor in
the society, and their praise-names were a marker of social distinction. The wrestler-hero was
called di-mgba (husband/master of wrestling), and successful wrestlers were often hailed

866

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 61; Basden, Niger Ibos, 343; Chief K.K. Owen, oral
interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author.
867
This was performed during new yam festivals and and annual wrestling bouts (igba mgba).
Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Village. Aug. 2010.
868
This game was also popular in “Native” America and in Eastern Europe.
869

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village,
Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording. Ebem Village Ohafia. Aug. 7, 2010; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording. Ebem Village Ohafia. August 3, 2010.
870
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 61.
235

azueruala (the back that does not touch the ground).
leaders in the 19th century.

871

Di-mgba often served as Ohafia war

872

Indeed, praise naming was an essential part of Ohafia gendered socialization. As Afam
Ebeogu observed, Igbo praise-names are “not mere linguistic expressions but are also indicators
of experiences which reveal much about the political attitudes and practices of the traditional
Igbo.”

873

Beginning with the informal naming of an age-grade after the first boy to perform igba

nnunu, the general practice of heroic naming among the Ohafia-Igbo served to reward
accomplishment and encourage individual distinction. Peter Alegi similarly observed in the
Xhosa sport of stick fighting that praise naming served to excite and delight. They were a fairly
faithful and inspired record of one’s career and character. In youth, they told one’s measure of
promise, his inclinations and his dormant but dominant qualities. Such names, writes Alegi,
expressed individual identities in a “ritual language that attempted to ‘fix’ and stabilize a sense
of self in a process of restless adolescent gendering.”

874

Successful wrestlers are memorialized in the oral traditions of the Ohafia-Igbo. For
instance, the tradition of origin of Okon village in Ohafia revolves around the figures of two epic
wrestlers, who were fortified with medicine by two competing dibias (medicine men and spirit
mediums). When the first wrestler threw the second and pinned him to the ground, he suddenly
died on top of the latter. Thus, while the superior wrestler won the bout, he lost the peace
because his people atoned for murder (igwa ochu) by relinquishing their prevailing political
871

M. Iwundu, “Naming and Heroism in Igbo Traditional Life,” Journal of Liberal Studies 4, 12 (1994), 34-47.
872
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interveiw by author, digital voice recording. Ebem. Aug. 2010.
873

Afam Ebeogu, “Onomastics and Igbo Tradition of Politics,” in U.D. Anyanwu, and J.C.U.
Aguwa (eds.) The Igbo and the Tradition of Politics (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1993), 79.
874
Alegi, Laduma! 9.
236

authority to their opponents. In Okon village, this tradition serves to make sense of a situation
whereby the first settlers lost their political authority to the second group of later migrants into
the region; and it emphasizes the indispensable role of two classes of ufiem (wrestlers and dibia)
to the society’s welfare.

875

Wrestlers are also celebrated as iconic historical ufiem. Thus, Emeh

Okonkwo compares his performance of ogaranya masculinity in the 1940s, with his father’s
performance of ufiem through wrestling in the early 20th century, by asserting that his father
often brought back home the ikoro mgba (wrestler drum/trophy) from other villages.

876

Dancing was an activity that shaped the gendering of identities among the Ohafia-Igbo
before the 20th century. Whereas for women, dancing was a mechanism of socialization and the
dramatization of political power, for men, dancing was both competitive sport and military
training. Besides women’s political dances discussed in chapter 3, dances such as ojo-ojo were a
rite of passage into adult womanhood. It served to educate young girls in the virtues of chastity,
hard work, and group solidarity.

877

According to Nnenna Emeri, ojo-ojo was “a form of

education developed by Ohafia ancestresses in the precolonial period. Whoever refused to
partake in the dance training was considered unruly and immoral, and those who mastered it

875

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. August 4, 2010;
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon. August 5, 2010; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. September 14 and 20, 2011; Dibia Uche
Dimgba, oral interview by author, Okon. September 22, 2011; Chief Obasi Kama, oral interview
by author, Okon Village. September 26, 2011.
876
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author.
877

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village,
Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu, Group Interview by author; Mama Orie
Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, Group Interview; Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary
Ezera, Group Interview by author.
237

were seen as good girls. The girls danced bare-chested, their waists, covered with ejigido (beads)
. . . The dance was not displayed to men.”

878

In contrast to the female dances, the male dances are known as iri-aha (the war dance).
The Ohafia war dance differed from the dance-forms of other Igbo communities. In his study of
iri-aha, McCall argues that the dance rhythm identifies a distinctly masculine genre, which
emphasizes a fast manly tempo as opposed to a graceful womanly tempo.

879

Whereas the

women’s dances involved a lilting bodily motion, the war dance involved swift and fluid
880

leopard-like movements accompanied by bodily convulsions called ofufu.

While the

professional war dance was the preserve of adult males (discussed later in this chapter) with its
characteristic mimetic performance of valorous warfare, the training for this extremely kinetic
dance form began in childhood, through membership in various exclusively male secret societies
like obon and akan, discussed in chapter 4.
In arguing that ufiem formation began from childhood, as the distinction of boys from
girls, and the braves from the cowards, this study shows that identity formation through leisure
practices was a political reality for African peoples in the pre-colonial period. Thus, it
contributes to the growing literature on African leisure activities, which in spite of its
overwhelming focus on the colonial period, elucidate the role of sports, games, and/or play in
socialization and in identity formation. Ohafia-Igbo gendered games highlight individual agency,
choice, control, and identity formation through the mediation of social relations, be it the
performance of igba nnunu or the burden of ujo status; the physical and symbolic movement of a

878

Nnenna Emeri, in Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu, Nov. 3, 2011.

879

McCall, Dancing Histories, 57-58.

880

McCall, Dancing Histories, 58-59.
238

boy-child from motherly care into the world of men; or the attainment of a praise-name, which
stabilized a sense of self.
The skills which boys acquired through games prepared them for adulthood and the
attainment of various ufiem identities such as di nta (the hunter hero), di ji (the yam hero), dimgba (the wrestler hero), dimkpa and onye ikom (the warrior hero). Thus, upon inquiring about
the socio-cultural constitution of ufiem in Ohafia-igbo society, most male respondents offered the
same answer over and over, namely, that ufiem was a man who accomplished igba nnunu at the
proper age; then became a member of obon and akan secret societies; performed ike oba (the
establishment of a yam barn) and accomplished igwa nnu (the highest title for successful yam
farmers); possibly, became a distinguished hunter of dangerous animals; married a wife in a
manner his age-mates found fulfilling (inyu mamiri ishi ulue); and ultimately, went to war and
came back with a human head (igbu ishi). However, each account of ufiem began with childhood
socialization through games.
How Ndi Ikike (Warriors) Became Ndi Ikom (the Real Men)
A man of intelligence and uncommon power of speech was admired and
respected. But if he could not match his words with deeds, his prestige was
compromised . . . The proficient farmer, the master-wrestler, and the proficient
hunter were heroes . . . But this genre of heroism stood no comparison with
military heroism, the hallmark of which was attained when a man brought home,
881
as trophy, the head of an enemy slain in battle or combat.
The Ohafia general term for “man/men” in the 19th century, was “onye [sing] ikom/ndi
882

[pl] ikom.”

881

However, ikom also referred distinctively to real men because, the entire adult

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 56-57.

882

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu, Ohafia.
August 15, 2011; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem,
239

male population was socially divided into two classes of people — real men (ikom) and ujo
(cowards).

883

Real men were male individuals who had gone to war and brought back a human

head as battle trophy.

884

The etymology of ikom (man) is therefore premised on the notion that

ufiem was attained through the physical acquisition of a human head in battle. Hence, while a
hunter may be recognized as dike (a brave man), the yam-farmer as di ji, and the dibia could
perform ogaranya (wealth) masculinity through the exploitation of an exclusive profession,
ufiem, in its strictest meaning, was synonymous with warrior masculinities (ndi ikike). Real men
were warriors, and ndi ikike (warriors) eclipsed all other forms of masculinity in social
significance. They defined the dominant ideology of masculinity in 19th century Ohafia society.
The emphasis which the Ohafia-Igbo placed on military heroism between the 17th
century period of settlement in the bellicose Cross River frontier environment, and the 19th
century period of militant slave production enabled ndi ikike to emerge as the highest category of
ufiem in the society. The social expectation and self-ambition of every male in the society during
this period, was igbu ishi (to cut a head) in order to rid oneself of the odium of ujo status. This
distinguished Ohafia from most other Igbo societies, and indeed many West African societies
like the Akan, where the greatest performance of ufiem included astute oratory and mastery of

Ohafia. August 3, 2010; Chief Udensi Ekea of Ndi Ekea Compound, Okon Village, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010.
883
Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 14; McCall, Dancing Histories, 79-80; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 62.
884
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45; FO84/2019: “Africa (Slave
Trade) West Coast, 1890,” 348-353; CO520/20: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence,
August to October, 1903,” 18-20, 44-54; McCall, Dancing Histories, 80; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 56; Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82; Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors
of Igbo Land,” 78; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 14; Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 4.
240

proverbs in view of the belief that the elders spoke “with the voice of the ancestors,”
as title-taking in demonstration of wealth.
popular by the mid-19th century,

887

886

885

as well

While ogaranya (wealth) masculinity became

title-taking was an unknown practice among the Ohafia-

Igbo in contrast to most Igbo communities.

888

Indeed, the importance which the Ohafia-Igbo placed on igbu ishi has led many scholars
into the erroneous portrayal of Ohafia-Igbo men as bloodthirsty headhunters, Aro mercenaries,
and men who had no knowledge of alternative civil pursuits. While these views were originally

885

Kwesi Yankah, Speaking for the Chief: Akyeame and the Politics of Akan Royal Oratory
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 95.
886
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 41-42, 90-92; Amadiume, Male Daughters,
Female Husbands, 119-123; Allen, “Sitting on a Man,” 165-181; Achebe, Farmers, Traders,
Warriors and Kings, 171-173, 206-215; Achebe, The Female King, 99-135. For wealth and the
construction of masculinity see Hodgson, “‘Once Intrepid Warriors’: Modernity and the
Production of Maasai Masculinities,” Ethnology 38, 2, (1999), 121-150; Cornwall, “To Be A
Man Is More Than a Day’s Work,” 230-248; McKittrick, “Forsaking their Fathers?” 33-51;
Lindsay, “Money, Marriage, and Masculinity,” 138-155.
887
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu of Ebem village, oral
interview by author; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder
Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr.
Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Ufiele Village, Ohafia. October 27, 2011; Chief K.K. Owen, oral
interview by author. Also see Felix K. Ekechi, Tradition and Transformation in Eastern Nigeria:
A Sociopolitical History of Owerri and its Hinterland, 1902-1947 (Ohio: Kent State University
Press, 1989), 145-146; Raphael C. Njoku, African Cultural Values: Igbo Political Leadership in
Colonial Nigeria, 1900-1966 (New York: Routledge, 2006), 19-21; John McCall, “The Atlantic
Slave Trade and the Ohafia Warrior Tradition: Global Forces and Local Histories,” In Carolyn
Brown and Paul Lovejoy, eds. Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Interior of the
Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora. (New Jersey/Eritrea: African World Press, 2010), 7176; Adiele E. Afigbo, Ropes of Sand: Studies in Igbo Culture and History (Ibadan: Published for
University Press in association with Oxford University Press, 1981), 241-242.
888
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 82; Adiele E. Afigbo, Igbo Enwe Eze: Beyond
Onwumechili and Onwuejeogwu (Nigeria: Whytem Publishers, 2001), 1-29; U.D. Anyanwu, and
J.C.U. Aguwa (eds.) The Igbo and the Tradition of Politics (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1993);
Obododimma Oha, “Praise Names and Power De/constructions in Contemporary Igbo
Chiefship,” Culture, Language, and representation VII (2009), 101-116.
241

advanced as part of an imperialist discourse by early European writers such as Charles Patridge,
A.G. Leonard, G.T. Basden, G.I. Jones, and P.A. Talbot, later European and African scholars
reframed the old picture, including Kenneth Dike, David Northrup, Philip Nsugbe, Richard
Henderson, and John McCall. Whereas Chukwuma Azuonye challenged this notion, his assertion
that Ohafia warriors came to see “every war no matter who the combatants were or what the
quarrel was, as their own war,”
did not accept every war.
history,”

891

890

889

is misleading, for as Isichei and Njoku noted, the Ohafia-Igbo

Njoku appears to be a lone-voice calling for a novel, “ecumenical

more sensitive to methodology, historical evidence and emic interpretations of

Ohafia inter-group relations.

892

By offering a diffuse conception of ufiem, as immanent and

manifest in leisure, military, and economic (trade, agriculture, hunting, and traditional medicare)
activities of Ohafia, and constructed through the society’s kinship and gendered political
practices, this study offers a more complex and balanced view of Ohafia-Igbo masculinities.
O Chi Udo Eje Ogu [He That Goes To War With A Rope]: The Transformation of Igbu Ishi
[To Cut A Head] from a Defense Mechanism to Ufiem Habitus
It has been noted in chapter 2 that the hostile environment in which the Ohafia settled
was fundamental to the evolution of a heroic age (18th-19th centuries), which placed emphasis
on militant conceptions of manhood and honor.

893

It has also been noted that in addition to

inspiring the borrowing of instistutions such as the uke (age-grades) and secret societies, this
889
890

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 15.
Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 71.

891

William McNeill, “Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History, and Historians,” The American
Historical Review 91 (1986), 7; Jerry Bentley, “Myths, Wagers, and Some Moral Implications of
World History,” JWH 16, 1(Mar. 2005), 53.
892
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, vi-viii, 65-72.
893

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 9; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 68.
242

hostile environment led the Ohafia-Igbo to adapt the practice of headhunting as a psychological
mechanism of defense.

894

However, the institutionalization of headhunting was realized through

the constructions of ndi ikike masculinity. While men who went to war and brought back a
human head were socially celebrated as ufiem, those who failed in this venture were constructed
as ujo. The ambition to rid oneself of ujo status was one of the major reasons for which
individual men went to battle between 1850 and 1900,
896

excuse.

895

and armies went to war at the flimsiest

Even in times of peace, young men were required to prove their manhood to the

society by hunting human heads.

897

Headhunting was so internalized by the Ohafia-Igbo that

during the Nigerian-Biafran civil war between 1967 and 1970, some Ohafia men still exploited
the war as an opportunity to cut human heads.

898

Second, after over 250 years of militant slave production in collusion with the Aro during
the period of the Atlantic slave trade,

899

Ohafia-Igbo society had by the 19th century, become

894

This has continued to date in the form of rumors of continuing headhunting, spread by
Ohafia people in the period of fieldwork for this study [20010-2012], to discourage kidnapping
for ransom in their territory.
895
Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 58; Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 119; Nsugbe,
Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 79, 82; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 14-17.
896
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 72; Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78.
897

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu
and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, Aug. 18, 2011; Chief Kevin
Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga, Ohafia. August 10, 2010.
898
Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma
Uka, Group Interview.
899
Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 119-121; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 27; Azuonye,
“The Heroic Age,” 15-17; Nwokeji, The Slave Trade and Culture, 1-14; Ekejiuba, “The Aro
System of Trade,” 11-16; Dike and Ekejiuba, The Aro of Southeastern Nigeria.
243

ushered into a slave mode of production,

900

internalizing warfare as a way of life.

901

As Richard

Roberts cogently observed, while warriors may have engaged in warfare in the interest of
contractual parties, they retained their own agenda, and continuous warfare became the result of
the warriors’ need to reproduce themselves irrespective of a market for their commodities.

902

Many Ohafia warriors in the second half of the 19th century not only cut a head; they also
captured slaves alive and their captives were defined as heads they had cut to attain ndi ikike
masculinity.
rope].

904

903

Such ndi ikike were known as o chi udo eje ogu [he that went to war with a

Davidson Oki stated,

900

Richard Roberts writes that the unity of a social system, which had attained a slave mode of
production rested on the reproduction of its material conditions and social relations of
production. See Richard Roberts, “Production and Reproduction of Warrior States: Segu
Bambara and Segu Tokolor, c. 1712-1890,” The International Journal of African Historical
Studies, 13, 3 (1980), 419. For the view that the Atlantic slave trade ushered various African
societies into a slave mode of production, see Walter Rodney, “African slavery and Other Forms
of Social Oppression on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Context of the Atlantic Slave-Trade,”
The Journal of African History 7, 3 (1966), 433-442; Martin Klein, “The Impact of the Atlantic
Slave Trade on the Societies of the Western Sudan,” Social Science History 14, 2 (Summer,
1990), 234-235, 237-239. Klein’s description of the societies of the Western Sudan, as becoming
more efficient slaving operations during the 17th and 18th centuries, such that slavery and
warfare became a way for these states to reproduce themselves, was also true for the noncentralized Ohafia-Igbo. The Ohafia-Igbo did not fit into Paul E. Lovejoy’s picture, which
subsumes “decentralized” societies into a category of “random enslavement,” that did not affect
population density. See Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in
Africa, Second Edition (Cambridge University Press, 2000), 68-69, 84-86, 103-104, 126-128,
148, 182-184, 188-189. As this chapter demonstrates below, the Ohafia-Igbo military was
organized based on the uke system, and their activities occasioned significant demographic
changes in southeastern Nigeria in the 18th and 19th centuries.
901
McCall, “The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Ohafia Warrior Tradition,” 75-76. The OhafiaIgbo were not alone in this. In the Western Sudan, warriors often massacred their captives
following the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. See Claude Meillassoux, “the Role of Slavery
in the Economic and Social History of Sahelo-Sudanic Africa,” in Inikori, ed., Forced
Migration: The Impact of the Export Slave Trade on African Societies (New York, 1982), 89-90.
902
Roberts, “Production and Reproduction of Warrior States,” 398, 400.
903

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Vasco U.
Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi Village, Members of the Men’s Court and Nde-Ichin, Group Interview
244

My grand-father lived for about 90 years. He died in 1957. My father was
popularly known as o chi udo eje ogu. He fought in Ukpati [1880s] and Nteje
905
[1890s].
When he went to war, he took his ropes and tied it around his waist.
After taking enough heads, he took captives alive, and thethered them to his rope,
and upon reaching home, the village broke out in celebration . . . Some of his
female slaves gave birth to children for him. They are still in Okon today . . . He
was a great yam farmer, and owned plantations. When he brought home his
906
slaves, he sent them to his farms as laborers. He sold some of his slaves at Itu.
In the course of their slave raids, many Ohafia warriors cut male heads and captured
mostly female slaves and children, whom they sold to the Aro.

907

Between the last quarter of the

19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, sale prices of children and female slaves
were much more profitable than the prices of adult male slaves in the Cross River Division
markets such as Itu and Asan.

908

This may have facilitated the cutting of male heads, and the

by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi. Nov. 17, 2011; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Ibina (Ihenta) Village. December 12, 2011. NdeIchin, Amuma Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. November
26, 2011; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amankwu Village. October 25, 2011.
904
Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010.
905

Arua, A Short History of Ohafia, 11; Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 85; Njoku,
Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 84; R.O. Igwebe, The History of Arondizuogu from 1635-1960 (Aba,
1962), 91.
906
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010.
907

Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 119; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 63-64; Ugo G.
Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” The William and Mary
Quarterly, Third Series 58, 1, 62-63; Ugo Nwokeji, “The Atlantic Slave Trade and Population
Density: A Historical Demography of the Biafran Hinterland,” Canadian Journal of African
Studies 34, 3 (2000), 625-626; Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author; Nna
Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Nde-Ichin, Amuma Village, Group Interview by
author; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Ufiele. Oct, 27, 2011.
908
CO520/8. “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, May to August, 1901,” 570-574.
245

dominance of women in the ratio of slaves produced from the region.

909

However as Nwokeji

suggests, in studying how African conceptions of gender shaped the slave trade, there is a need
to look beyond market forces, to lineage principles, division of labor, and ideas about gender.

910

Indeed, several Ohafia-Igbo informants argued that the matrifocal conceptions of OhafiaIgbo citizenship, the preeminent position of women as premier food producers and breadwinners, and the high socio-cultural value which the matrilineages placed on women encouraged
the taking of women as captives, and led to the definition of female heads as “illegitimate.”

911

As noted above, slaves came to signify “heads” cut by warriors to attain ufiem in the 19th
century, and the tendency to take women captive, in lieu of men, was high among ndi ikike, who
relied on such women for food provisioning,

912

to strengthen their matrilineages, and to signify

909

Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson, “Competing Markets for Male and Female Slaves:
Prices in the Interior of West Africa, 1750-1850,” International Journal of African Historical
Studies 28 (1995), 261-293; Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,”
49, 52-53. Nwokeji writes that more than half of the slave exports from the region in the 17th
century were female, which declined to 40% in the second half of the 18th century, and one-third
in the 19th century.
910
Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 49, 66.
911

Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011; Chief Udensi Ekea of Ndi Ekea
Compound, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Mecha Ukpai Akanu,
ezie-ogo of Amangwu Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author,
digital voice recording. Aug. 18, 2011; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. Aug. 15, 2011; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Asaga, Ohafia. August 10, 2010
912
Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, African Women: A Modern History (Westview Press, 1997),
11; Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe,
oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu. August 15,
2011; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; Arua,
“Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 695. When McCall, Dancing Histories,
83, writes that ndi ikike “married” wives and controlled their labor, he was referring to such slave
women who became Nwannediya in Ohafia-Igbo society during this period (See chapter 1).
246

their status as ogaranya (wealthy ufiem).

913

The guerilla tactics of Ohafia warriors and the long

distances they traversed after military campaigns also encouraged the capture of more women
and children than adult men, who were more difficult to control.

914

This view contrasts with Nwokeji’s argument that it was the economic importance of
Igbo and Ibibio men to yam cultivation that resulted in the production of more female slaves than
male slaves from the Bight of Biafra.

915

Nwokeji asked, “why did the region’s specialized

warriors decapitate men captured in warfare instead of selling them?”

916

“If the economic role

of women was so large, why were more females sent into the trade from this region than
elsewhere in Atlantic Africa?” His answers that women only assumed a major role in agircultural
production in the 20th century, and that in the Bight of Biafra, female slavery for domestic
purposes was very marginal because women did not establish lineages, do not accord with the
Ohafia, where women were dominant food producers and central pillars of the materilineage.
In spite of the increasing equation of slaves with heads in the second half of the 19th
century among the Ohafia-Igbo, young men still strove to physically obtain a head in
performance of ufiem. The quest to cut a head was so strong that while it was illegal and against
the society’s heroic ethic for warriors to bring back the head of a woman or a child, or cut a head
913

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu. August 10, 2010; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral
interview by author, Amangwu. August 15, 2011; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author.
Aug. 4, 2010. Individuals such as Kalu Ezelu went out of their way to adopt twin mothers as
wives after the cessation of slave trading at the turn of the 20th century, in performance of
ogaranya masculinity. See Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166-167. The high divorce rate in
Ohafia in the second half of the 19th century might also have encouraged this high incidence of
marriage of slave women. See Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 47-48.
914
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author. August 4, 2010; Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group
Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Village. November 26, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba,
oral interview by author, Nde-Ibe village. November 3, 2011.
915
Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 56, 62-64.
916

Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 50.
247

from within Ohafia,
these stipulations.

917

918

young men impatient to rid themselves of ujo burden sometimes violated

To disguise the illegitimacy of their actions, warriors disfigured the facial

features of their head trophies beyond easy recognition by the elders, who were strict guardians
of ufiem conferment.

919

In effect, the changing practices of igbu ishi between 1850 and 1900

was such that there was not a clear break from physical headhunting to igbu ishi signification
through slave production. It is the contention of this study that while headhunting may have
begun as a psychological mechansim of defense in the 17th century, its perpetuation resulted
from the ambition of individual men to acquire the power and social priviliges that came with
ufiem attainment. Thus, headhunting and slave production became a routine way of life in the
second half of the 19th century — a habitus of ufiem performance.
Kalu Awa Kalu recalls that when his grand-father returned from the 1891 Nteje war with
a human head, his new-born niece was named ugo-aha (the glory of war) in commemoration of
his accomplishment.

920

During the 19th century, warrior ufiem enjoyed a lot of privileges in the

society. They married the choicest women in the village, and were exempted from minor public
works.

917

921

At death, renowned ndi ikike were buried with slaves and war captives, who would

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 62-63.

918

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author. Aug. 4, 2010; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of
Amangwu Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, Aug. 18, 2011;
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem. August 14, 2010;
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 80.
919
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma
Uka, Group Interview by author.
920
Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author.
921

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 63.
248

serve them in the afterlife.

922

Ndi ikike who accomplished ufiem distinguished themselves

socially. They alone could wear the expensive jooji wrapper cloth distinguished by its red color
in the second half of the 19th century.

923

The jooji cloth was a major symbol of Ohafia-Igbo

involvement in the Atlantic economy in the 19th century. Originally produced in India, the jooji
cloth became a major British export to the Bight of Biafra in the early 19th century, and it gained
popularity among African royal families in Ghana, Calabar and Opobo.

924

Through their

commercial contacts with the Ijaw and Efik, Ohafia-Igbo people incorporated jooji cloth into
local textures of gender construction, by transforming it into a social marker of ufiem
accomplishment.

925

Because it was rare and expensive, the jooji cloth was reserved for

individuals who had accomplished ufiem in the society.
This ufiem attire of social distinction was complemented with red and white striped okpu
agu (the leopard cap of bravery), red tail feathers of the parrot and eagle plumes.

926

At social

events or in preparation for war, ndi ikike also wore long white ram’s manes on their left arms.
While red was the color of bravery, representing human blood, the ram’s mane symbolized the

922

O.K. Oji, “A Study of Migration and Warfare in Ohafia,” B.A Thesis, Dept. of History,
University of Nigeria Nsukka (1974), 42-44; FO84/2020: “Africa (Slave Trade), West Coast,
1890,” 348-351; CO520/8: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, May to August, 1901,”
570-574; CO520/36: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, June to August, 1906,” 170184; Patridge, Cross River Natives, 72.
923
Nna Kalu Awa, oral interview by author, Amuma Village. November 26, 2011; Chief Torti
Kalu, oral interview by author, Amuma Village. November 26, 2011.
924
Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 208-211; Miescher, Making Men in Ghana, 11.
925

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011; Chief
Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, Nde-Ibe Village. November 3, 2011.
926
Mayne, “Intelligence Report,” 44; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author; Njoku,
Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 63; Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78.
249

stubborn, forceful and sacrificial nature of the ram

927

— the social perception of the brave

warrior. The Ohafia have a proverbial saying that “Ishi onye ikom wu ishi ebule”

928

[the head of

a man is the head of a ram] because if a man went to war, his return was not guaranteed.
Secondly, during this period, if a man proved too dissident in the society through criminal acts or
disgraceful conduct as ujo (coward), he could be expended in a ritual hunt called iye nta — a
sacrificial hunt undertaken at the outset of a war, when the identified culprit, was killed,
deliberately mistaken for an animal hunt.

929

In contrast to ufiem, the ujo was subjected to all forms of humiliating insults. His ufiem
mates could loot his property at will, and most popular in this regard was the act of dispossessing
930

the ujo of all his yams (a major symbol of wealth),

and distributing them among the heroes of

his age grade; and the society usually did not afford him any avenue for redress, besides the
attainment of ufiem.

931

Moreover, ujo were not allowed to take any yam titles or perform the

masculinity associated with yam cultivation. Also, the ujo could be sold as a slave, because his
life was not considered valuable. Indeed, freedom, the security of life and property, and the only
way to insure the attainment of other social categories of ufiem in the society, such as ike oba
and igwa nnu (yam masculinities), ilu nwami (marriage and adult masculinity), and idoru-nna

927
928
929
930

McCall, Dancing Histories, 68; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 63.
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.
Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 59-60.

931

Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview
by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by
author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by
author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview.
250

(ancestral masculinity) was to overcome ujo status.

932

The ujo may be denied the privilege to

marry, and if he did marry, it was short-lived because his wife would likely initiate a divorce
unless he overcame ujo status.

933

In 19th century Ohafia-Igbo society, the ujo was regarded as a “woman in the skin of a
man”

934

— a social aberration. This social vision of the ujo was not a reflection of female

powerlessness, but rather a recognition of normative gender roles: Women were not responsible
for military defense of Ohafia-Igbo society during this period. Their social roles enabled them to
maintain productive and distributive control in the society, and men were able to go to war,
935

because women fulfilled their roles as breadwinners.

The ujo, as a “woman in the skin of a

man,” was neither a warrior nor a breadwinner. He was a laggard, and his social ostracism was
reflected in his exclusion from age-grade activities, which in effect, denied him a voice in the
political administration of his society.

936

The wives of ujo were not denied political participation

in the government of their society, and the high divorce rate among the Ohafia-Igbo in the 19th
932

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author;
Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author; Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78. The Igbo proverb that the
coward stands in his compound and points to where the warrior used to live, celebrates bravery,
but reminds one that the coward outlives the warrior. In a sense, this proverb had limited
application to 19th century Ohafia-Igbo society, where the ujo had a miserable existence, and his
only escape was the accomplishment of igbu ishi. However, as chapter 4 shows, individuals
sought alternative avenues of ufiem accomplishment beyond warfare and headhunting.
933
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Emea O. Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values
of Ohafia Culture,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 51, 2 (1981), 695.
934
McCall, Dancing Histories, 80.
935

Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 695.

936

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village,
Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording.
Ebem Village Ohafia. August 3, 2010; Chief Udensi Ekea of Ndi Ekea Compound, Okon
Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 4, 2010; McCall, Dancing
Histories, 80; Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 695.
251

century, stemmed partly from the tendency of women to divorce an irredeemable ujo
937

husband.

Indeed, women’s roles in the construction of ufiem and ujo were significant. Besides
women’s refusal to marry, and tendency to divorce ujo, the wives of ufiem ensured that the wives
of ujo did not wear a jooji wrapper, always dressed up as mourners, wore their hair short, did not
rub cam-wood dye on their bodies, did not wear bracelets of brass, armlets of elephant tusks, and
anklets,

938

which were the social markers of distinction and ufiem accomplishment. If the ujo or

his wife wore a jooji wrapper cloth out in public or at a ceremony, the ufiem or his wife would
strip either of the former of their dress, often leaving them naked.

939

Women especially and

sometimes children and even slaves, often taunted ujo with derisive names in public, such as
“ujonta otula akoro” [coward with dry buttocks].

940

However, women who performed ufiem

were accorded the privileges of ndi ikike, irrespective of their husbands, and several Ohafia

937

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo Society, 64; Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia
Culture,” 695; Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 77-79; Nna Agbai Ndukwe,
oral interview by author; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author; Mrs. Nnenna Emeri and
Mmia Nnaya Bassey, members of Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview. Nov.
3, 2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai of Elu Village, oral interview by author. Aug. 18, 2011.
938
Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78.
939

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author; Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78.
940
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo Society, 64; Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia
Culture,” 695; Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 77-79; Nna Agbai Ndukwe,
oral interview by author; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author; Mrs. Nnenna Emeri and
Mmia Nnaya Bassey, members of Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview. Nov.
3, 2011; Nmia Nnaya Agbai of Elu Village, oral interview by author. Aug. 18, 2011.
252

traditions account that some women had embarked on warfare in the 18th and 19th centuries, in
order to put an end to the humiliating status of their ujo husbands.

941

Nne Mgbafo and Unyang Olugu were such women during the heroic age (c. 1700-1850),
who Azuonye describes as “man-like female warriors, who surprise[d] [their] generation[s] by
taking up arms and marching to battle, fighting even more ferociously than men.”

942

Oral

narratives of the legend of Nne Mgbafo, recorded by Azuonye, account that she possessed manlike qualities from an early age.
Ohafia to find a new husband.

943

944

Having lost her husband at Arochukwu, Nne Mgbafo came to

Before setting out on her quest for the husband, Nne Mgbafo

went to a market and bought a war cap, a dane-gun, and a sharpened machete, and dressed up as
a warrior. Her search led her to Akanu village in Ohafia, where she met a man named Uduma
and took him for a husband.

945

Later, when her husband, Uduma went to war at Atatum in

Ibibioland and was killed, Nne Mgbafo set out to find him.
gun, machete, jooji wrapper cloth, and war cap.

947

946

She took her husband’s hunting

When she found her husband slain in the

battlefield, Nne Mgbafo became so upset that she overpowered an Ibibio warrior, and sacrificed
him on her husband’s grave.

948

The inability of Uduma to successfully return from battle

941

Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010;
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem Village. August 14,
2010; Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 405-463; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 15.
942
Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 132.
943

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 320.

944

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 412-463.

945

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 315.

946

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 320.

947

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 440-441.

948

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 418.
253

defined him as ujo. Nne Mgbafo sought to change his status, posthumously. Thus, Ohafia oral
historians remember Nne Mgbafo as “she-that-was-her-husband’s-heart,” “she-that-did-thingslike-her-father,” “woman that behaved like a man,” and “great leopard.”

949

Similarly, in the oral tradition of Unyang Olugu, recorded by Azuonye, her husband is
described as an ujo from whom “the penal-yam-for-cowardice”

950

was exacted. Ohafia oral

historian and current lead-singer of Ohafia war songs (abu aha), Davidson Oki, describes
Unyang Olugu’s husband as onye ngolongo (weak man).

951

In order to put an end to her

husband’s ujo status, Unyang Olugu went to war against the people of Nkalu (the original
inhabitants of present-day Afikpo),

952

who were engaged in mutual hostilities (abductions, raids

and headhunting) with Ohafia during the heroic age.

953

In the ensuing battle, Unyang Olugu

killed five Nkalu men, assembled their heads (which she dressed in okpu agu) in a long basket,
presented them to her husband, and escorted him before the ikoro (wooden slit-drum used to
954

announce warriors’ accomplishments) in order to establish him as ufiem.

However, when the

ikoro began to praise her husband, Unyang Olugu insisted that “they should not chant praises to

949

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 436, 443, 454.

950

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 409.

951

Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author.

952

The Nkalu were one of the two (the second group being Egu) original settlers of the Afikpo
area. They had migrated from Akoi (Ekuri, Erei, Agwuaguna) on the eastern part of the Cross
River State to settle at Afikpo. They were skilled farmers and fierce warriors, who introduced
yam cultivation to Ehugbo (Afikpo). Ohafia oral traditions suggest that Nkalu was founded
during the same period as Ohafia. CSE 1/85/6197A. I.R.Heslop, “Intelligence Report on the
Nkalu Clan, Orlu District, Okigwi Division, Owerri Province;” Gabriel Mbey, “Origin of
Ehugbo (Afikpo),” www.ebonyionline.com/afikpo.html; Obuba, The History and Culture of
Ohafia, 4.
953
Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 410-411.
954

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 405-408.
254

him. Rather let them chant praises to Unyang Olugu, killer-that-gave-the-honor-to-her-husband;
she-that-kills-and-packs-in-long-baskets . . . the woman that won heads in battle.”

955

The Organization of Warfare
In the quest for communal defense, human heads and slaves, Ohafia warriors went to war
as individuals, in small bands of a handful of men, and as huge armies levied by war chiefs of the
twenty-six village groups, in the 18th and 19th centuries.
warriors were organized according to age-grades (uke),

956

957

As noted in chapter 3, Ohafia

and both women and men were

involved in the organization of warfare and in the celebration of warrior ufiem. Women endorsed
the execution of communal warfare through a ritual called ije akpaka,

958

during which all adult

women in the community became men. As noted in chapter 3, if women did not perform this
ritual, men would not go to war. When men decided to embark on a war, they informed women.
At the stroke of midnight, a day before men went to war, all adult women in the village
assembled at the village square, led by a young woman, who became the ochi agha
959

(expeditionary war leader). The ochi agha dressed up as a male warrior; she tied onugwe

(men’s loincloth), she did not cover her breasts (just like men), and she donned okpu agu (brave
955

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 407-408.

956

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 15.

957

Also, see Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 22.

958

The following account of ije akpaka is based mostly on the group interview with Ikpirikpe
Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village and oral interview with Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, op. cit.
959
Arthur Glyn Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” The Journal of the Manchester
Geographical Society, XIV (1898), 196, 200, describes the making of this cloth from a tree
called aji and from a species of local cotton plant in Ohafia, and neighboring communities. In
some parts of Igboland such as Udi, a boy’s transition into adulthood was marked by the custom
of iwa ogodu in which the boy’s father provided a cow and marched the boy around the market
square. When the boy cut off the tail of the cow with a machete in one blow, he was celebrated
as having made this transition and thenceforth was allowed to wear onugwe.
255

warrior’s cap) with abubo ugo (eagle feathers). On her head, she carried a large farm-basin
(abuo), which the women filled with a species of every plant-seedling cultivated by women in
the society, as well as a hoe (Ohafia woman’s farm tool) and a machete (Ohafia man’s farm tool
and weapon of war.)

960

The female ochi agha symbolized two personae: a male warrior and a

female breadwinner; both gendered roles were fundamental to communal welfare and
survival.

961

The rest of the women went naked — they tied a wrapper cloth but beneath they were
naked. Their bodies decorated with nzu (white chalk) which signified ritual purity, they formed a
circle around the female ochi agha so that the two sets of adult male age-grades who
accompanied them as guards on this ritual expedition would not behold the female warrior
leader. The male warriors followed behind the women, maintaining a rituo-sacral distance,
occasioned by the women’s nudity and their spiritual state. Singing and dancing, the women
marched to a river, where they performed a ritual bath, offered their farm-basin and its contents
as sacrifice, and prayed for the successful military expedition of the male warriors. At the end of
this purification, all the women reapplied nzu on their bodies and every one of them donned okpu
agu, and tied onugwe, signifying their ritual rebirth as male warriors, and their sanction of
warfare. Upon women’s return at dawn, male warriors embarked on warfare.

962

John Wood has argued in the case of the nomadic camel-herding Gabra of East Africa
(when men become women) that indigenous logic of gendered power and agency become

960

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 22.

961

Indeed, both when men went to war and when they were at home, women shouldered the
responsibility of providing for their families, and indeed, feeding the society. See chapter 5.
962
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview; Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral
interview by author.
256

evident in the juxtaposition, symbolic reversals, and interrelation of opposites.

963

This is evident

in the Ohafia ritual of ije akpaka where women became men. The female ochi agha was
concealed from the vision of men because of her persona ambiguity. On the one hand, she
symbolized ujo (in this sense, a man in the skin of a woman; a queer, a social abberation), which
men must overcome in order to attain ndi ikike masculinity.

964

On the other hand, she

symbolized the reproductive power of women — their ability to give birth to male warriors.

965

In this sense, women’s performance of ritual warfare authorized men’s embarkation on physical
warfare, showing that the construction of ufiem was not realized exclusive of women.
The sound of the ikoro summoned male warriors to the village square. Azuonye noted, “it
was the custom for each of the twenty-[six] village-groups to contribute a ‘battalion’ of abuoadighi-ya-na-nnu-abo, i.e. ‘two short of four hundred times two,’ or 798 men.”

966

The exactness

of this figure is not certain, but it suggests a large army, and the ability of the male elders-incouncil to summon such an army at very short notice. In most cases, not all Ohafia villages took
part in every campaign, but when a number of villages were involved, they met at the achichi
shrine at Elu, the head-village, under the headship of the ezie-ogo of Elu village.
In preparation for battle, mothers and wives of male warriors provided warriors with
preservable foods, and warriors supplemented these with forest provisions. Warriors abstained
from sexual intercourse in the days before their battle in order to maintain spiritual purity, and
963

John C. Wood, When Men Are Women: Manhood among Gabra Nomads of East Africa
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), 3-9.
964
Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author, Uduma Ukwu. Nov. 17, 2011; Mrs.
Nnenna Emeri and Mmia Nnaya Bassey, members of Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu, Group
Interview. Nov. 3, 2011.
965
Mrs. Nnenna Emeri and Mmia Nnaya Bassey, members of Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu,
Group Interview; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu. August 15, 2011.
966
Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 32
257

dibias prepared medicines, charms and amulets for warriors.

967

These were believed to shield

them from bullets, arrows and machete blows, render them invisible to their enemies, and
enabled them to disappear when the battle odds were against them.

968

Indeed, the villages of

Ihenta, Okon, and Akanu, are renowned to have possessed very powerful deities for these
purposes, as well as dibias specialized in spiritual fortification of warriors during the 19th
century.

969

The ishi uta deity in Okon was one such shrine and Ohafia warriors, upon their

successful return from battle, went to propitiate this deity with animals.

970

Moreover, before

leaving for battle, each warrior presented himself before the kamalu (personal deity) shrine in his
compound for blessings. Then, he passed through the patrilineage obu (hall) where he also
sought the blessings of his ancestors. Finally, the warrior stepped through nkuma onu agba (his
compound’s sacred stone), before proceeding to the village square.

971

From each village square,

the warriors were bid farewell by relatives and friends, on their march to achichi shrine at Elu

967

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Ugbu Uduma, ezie-ogo of Nde-Amogu,
oral interview by author; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ihenta (Ibina), oral interview by author; Njoku,
Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 78; Chief Obasi Kama, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Okon Village, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Okon, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon,
Sept. 24, 2011; Dibia Kalu Eke, oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon Village.
September 22, 2011; Dibia Kakarere (Oyibo) oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon.
Sept. 22, 2011; Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon.
August 4, 2010; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon. August 5, 2010; Dibia
Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. September 14 and 20, 2011;
Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, Okon. September 22, 2011.
968
Ibid.
969

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Ugbu Uduma, ezie-ogo of Nde-Amogu,
oral interview by author; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ihenta (Ibina), oral interview by author; Njoku,
Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 78.
970
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010.
971

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 78.
258

village. Here, the priest of Ohafia war god, ikwan, blessed the warriors, before they set out on
their campaign.

972

Ohafia warriors’ utilized guerrilla tactics including espionage, surprise attacks, and handto-hand combat.

973

According to Njoku, at a fair distance to the target of the attack, the fighters

pitched their camp, and veteran warriors were sent out to reconnoiter the community. Each
village contingent was led by its own ochi agha but the war leaders coordinated their actions.

974

Most often, Ohafia warriors attacked their targeted communities at dawn. Before launching an
attack, warriors put on their gear, consisting of a sheathed, razor-sharp, thin-bladed machete
called akparaja; a pouch hanging down from their left hip, for securing the prized human head
trophy; and facial and bodily decorations used to frighten victims, including red (ufie), white
(nzu), and yellow (odo) substances, and a ram’s mane covering the left arm.
horn-blower and spy was on the lookout atop a tree,

976

975

While a signal

the war leaders rehearsed coded signals

for all to grasp and the warriors stealthily crawled towards the community, surrounding the
territory and blockading all escape routes. At the opportune moment, the horn-blower signaled
977

for the attack, and the warriors swooped down on their drowsy, ill-prepared victims.

972

Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 22; Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 47.

973

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author;
Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by
author; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 79; Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors,” 77.
974
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 79.
975

The ram’s mane was the signature of the dreaded Ohafia warriors. Chief Uduma Nnochin
Ogbuagu, oral interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Ndukwe Otta
and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 79.
976
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.
977

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 79.
259

Most Ohafia military campaigns involved long distance travels to northern Igboland, the
Anambra River valley, and the Ibibio and Ogoja territories on the upper and lower Cross River
basins. First, in a bid to maintain peace with immediate Igbo neighbors, the Ohafia-Igbo forbade
their warriors from hunting heads and slaves in neighborly territories such as Abiriba, Ada and
Arochukwu.

978

Secondly, the semi-savannah nature of northern Igboland was conducive to

Ohafia military tactics in contrast to the riverine and dense forest region of Osomari, Aboh,
Akwete, Azumini, and Ahoada, where the Ohafia hardly ever raided for heads or slaves. Third,
northern Igboland and the Ibibio territories were the most densely populated areas in
southeastern Nigeria.

979

Thus, Ohafia warriors carried out raids in the Anambra River valley and

surrounding territories (including Awka, Nnewi, Onitsha, Awkuzu, Nteje, Aguleri, Okija,
Ezinnachi, Ozubulu, Ihiala, Enugu Ukwu, Nsugbe, Urualla, Uli, Ugwu Ele, Mkpa, Ukwa, and
Isingu,), Enugu (including Agwu, Igbariam, Ngwo, Agbaja, Umuagu, Umuogima, Ora, Okigwe,
and Okpanku), Nsukka (Opi, Ukehe, Eror, and Ukpati), Imo River valley (including Ihube,
Akara Isu), and Itu district (Ibesikpo and Ikorokpan Nwan).

980

It often took warriors several days and sometimes, weeks to reach their destinations.

981

The warriors’ return took even longer, because reprisal attacks rendered the forests more
dangerous, after a village had been massacred, and slaves captured. Hence, R.O. Igwebe writes
that Ohafia warriors would crawl in the bush “on their knees for some days only to see that they

978

Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82; Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 4.

979

Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 53-54; Nwokeji, “The
Atlantic Slave Trade and Population,” 617-626; Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings,
33, 55; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 84.
980
Henderson, The King in Every Man, 502; Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 84-85;
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 85; Oriji, “Slave Trade, Warfare and Aro Expansion,” 111.
981
Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu. Aug. 15, 2011.
260

reach[ed] home safely.”

982

Njoku adds that, “Some Ohafia warriors who survived the raids

succumbed to hunger and sheer exhaustion from long, grueling treks; some lost their way while
others, failing to obtain the desired trophy [human heads and slaves], preferred not to return.
Some were captured.”

983

Thus, a number of Ohafia settlements emerged in various parts of

Igboland such as Orofia in Abagana, Uduma Achara in Agwu, Lohum in Uzuakoli, and
Ohambele in Ndokiland.

984

The consequences of Ohafia military raids varied. Since warriors used machetes and
scorned guns and firearms as weapons of the weak,

985

the scale of human loss of life might have

been relatively small. However, in his 1902 campaign against the importation of machetes into
the Bight of Biafra, the British High Commissioner and Consul General Ralph Moore argued
that Ohafia-Igbo military tactics and reliance on machetes instead of dane guns, resulted in more
casualties.

986

Moreover, there are accounts of communities such as Ukpati and Ora near Okigwi

being completely wiped out in the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th
century respectively, as a result of Ohafia military raids.

987

While Ohafia did not fight for

territorial and political hegemony over other groups, they were largely militarily responsible for

982
983
984

Igwebe, The History of Arondizuogu, 91.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 90.
A.O. Arua, A Short History of Ohafia (Enugu: Omnibus Press, 1951), 11.

985

Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author, Ebem. Aug. 2010; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, Ufiele. Oct. 27, 2011.
986
CO520/15: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, July to October, 1902,” 492-497.
987

Nwokeji, “The Atlantic Slave Trade and Population Density,” 632; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic
Igbo, 89; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5,
2010; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011.
261

Aro conquest and establishment of Diaspora settlements at Ndienyi, Ajali, Ndikelionwu,
Arondizuogu, and Otanchara.

988

Ohafia raids for heads and slaves forced many communities to reorganize their sociopolitical and territorial arrangements. These included the expansion of military and political
operations through the formation of confederacies as seen in the cases of Isuochi and Nneato
towns (Isumisu confederacy in Okigwe), and the Amakwan and Umuchu confederacies in Awka
and Onitsha.

989

Communities such as Enugu Ukwu resorted to poisoning their waters, wine and

food; Akwa communities surrounded their compounds with high walls with loopholes for firing,
and high watch towers; Ohuhu people built trenches around their homes; and many communities
990

resorted to hilltop settlements with poor soils.

In addition, some of Ohafia battles were

interventionist attempts to restore law and order in troubled areas or to safe-guard major trade
routes in southeastern Nigeria; and upon invitation, to defend militarily weaker communities
from their more powerful neighbors

991

— roles which the British government came to fulfill in

the region at the turn of the 20th century.

992

988

Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 119-121; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 69; Igwebe, The
History of Arondizuogu, 86-87; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village,
Ohafia. August 5, 2010.
989
Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 84-85; Henderson, The King in Every Man, 498-501.
990

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 89-90; Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 85.

991

CO520/8: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, May to August, 1901,” 510-514;
Oriji, “Slave Trade, Warfare and Aro Expansion,” 111; Uriom, The Advetures of Ancient
Ikperikpeogu Warriors, 1-23; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 90; Uma O. Uma, “Ohafia and Her
Neighbors: Intergroup Relations up to 1967” (B.A. Thesis, University of Nigeria Nsukka, 1984).
992
CO583/34: “Nigeria Original Correspondence, 16 June-31 July, 1915,” 219-232; Jones,
Annual Reports of Bende Division, 7; Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82.
262

Ohafia Inter-Group Relations: Beyond Warfare
Ohafia inter-group relations was not only characterized by warfare in the 19th century.
As noted in chapter 2, Ohafia forged lasting diplomatic relationships with her immediate Igbo
and non-Igbo neighbors through inter-group marriages which transformed the region into a
network of matrilineal kin-relationships.
chiefs of Ohafia maternal descent.

994

993

Thus, the Ikun, Urugbam and Biakpan have had

Other mechanisms for maintaining peace within Ohafia-

Igbo territory and with neighbors include the use of nzu (white chalk) instead of kolanuts to
welcome visitors, blood covenants (igbandu) between neighbors in order to establish ritual
kinship, and reliance on the okonko secret society. Nzu was a major symbol of peace in 19th
century Ohafia, where travel from one village to another was sometimes dangerous due to
heightened kidnapping occasioned by the domestic slave trade and human sacrifice, and
hostilities in the Cross River area.

995

Nsugbe writes,

In welcoming one, [Ohafia did] not say, as most other Ibo communities would,
nno (‘welcome’), or I biala? (‘have you come?’). Instead, they ask[ed], Udo
dikwa? (‘peace, is it there?’). Nor [did] the Ohaffia offer the visitor the traditional
kola first, as [did] most Ibo. Rather, they first offere[d] a wooden bowl (okwa)
993

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group
Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral
interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo,
oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author; Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji
Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village,
Group Interview; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu Village and Members of the
Men’s Court, Group Interview; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author.
994
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 68.
995

FO84/2020: “Africa (Slave Trade), West Coast, 1890,” 348-351; CO520/8: “Southern
Nigeria Original Correspondence, May to August, 1901,” 570-574; CO520/36: “Southern
Nigeria Original Correspondence, June to August, 1906,” 170-184; “Annual Report on Bende
District for the year ended 31st December, 1910,” in Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division,
70; Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 5; Patridge, Cross River Natives, 72; Basden,
Niger Ibos, 244, 254-255; Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 204; Waddell, TwentyNine Years in the West Indies and Central Africa, 315-316, 429.
263

containing a ball of white chalk (nzu) which signifie[d] obi ocha (‘whiteness of
996
heart’ or ‘good intentions’) among the Ibo.
During the second half of the 19th century, Ohafia also practiced igbandu (blood
covenant) in order to avert homicide and military conflicts with her immediate Igbo neighbors,
and individuals established similar blood covenants in various communities along the regional
trade routes to ensure safe passage.

997

However, the most important institution for assuring safe

passage for travelers who ventured into the non-Igbo regions south of Ohafia during this period,
was the okonko, which was a widespread secret society that cut across Efik, Ekoi, Igbo, and
Ibibio ethnic groups.

998

Okonko membership, which came at a high finacial cost, guaranteed

wealthy traders, and upward mobile slaves and ex-slaves, a legal immunity to travel freely to
places where others feared to go. Okonko members relied on the secret sign language of nsibidi
and jural sanctions to negotiate safe passage throughout the Cross River region, in the second
half of the 19th century.

996

999

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 31.

997

Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author; Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by
author, Okon Village, Ohafia. September 22, 2011; McCall, Dancing Histories, 82; Jones,
Annual Reports of Bende Division, 4.
998
McCall, Dancing Histories, 81. Okonko is examined in chapter 4 as an ufiem institution.
999

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45-46; NAE, RIV PROF. 8/8/433:
“Okonko Club: Activity of;” Ifemesia, Traditional Humane Living Among the Igbo: An
Historical Perspective (Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1979), 93-94; Chieka Ifemesia,
Southern Nigeria in the Nineteenth Century: An Introductory Analysis (New York: NOK
Publishers, 1978), 43-46; Patrick Nwosu, “The Age of Cultural Hybridisation: A Case Study of
Okonko Society vis-vis Christianity in Igboland,” Anthropologist 12, 3 (2010), 163; Dike, Trade
and Politics, 155-159; G.I. Jones, “The Political Organization of Old Calabar” in Daryll Forde
(ed.), Efik Traders of Old Calabar (London: International African Institute, 1956), 148-157;
K.K. Nair, Politics and Society in South Eastern Nigeria 1841-1906 (London: Frank Cass, 1972),
48-55; A.J.H. Latham, Old Calabar 1600-1891: The Impact of the International Economy Upon
a Traditional Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 34-41, 75-79, 91-96.
264

Isichei noted that during the 19th century, Ohafia balanced warfare abroad with peaceful
diplomacy at home.

1000

McCall writes that the precolonial Ohafia man had two faces: the

outward looking face was that of a rootless warrior, while the inward-looking face was that of a
negotiator, peacemaker, husband, and father.

1001

With her immediate Igbo neighbors including

the Aro, Ohafia established diplomatic contracts through a ritual called ukwuzi. Ukwuzi was a
process whereby a more powerful deity,

1002

an individual or a group offered protection to

another individual or group of persons, in return for favors.

1003

In an ukwuzi contract between a

man and a woman especially a widow, the man provided shelter, protection and support in
exchange for the woman’s sexual favors, assistance in farm work, and food provisioning.

1004

A

person could also invoke ukwuzi with a powerful deity for a temporary period until the danger
was over. It was in this fashion that criminals and slaves sought the protection of powerful
deities such as the obu nkwa in Asaga village, Ohafia between the second half of the 19th
century and first two decades of the 20th century, thereby becoming spiritual slaves.

1005

Weak

individuals also sought ukwuzi with powerful persons, and land and other property could be
1000
1001

Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82.
McCall, Dancing Histories, 84.

1002

For a detailed study of this in the Nsukka case, see Nwando Achebe, “When Deities Marry:
Indigenous ‘Slave’ Systems Expanding and Metamorphosing in the Igbo Hinterland,” in Jay
Spaulding and Stephanie Beswick (eds.), African Systems of Slavery (Trenton, New Jersey:
Africa World Press, Inc., 2010), 105-133.
1003
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 12-15.
1004

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village,
Ohafia. August 15, 2011; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Asaga Village, Ohafia. August 10, 2010; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview
by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village, Ohafia. Aug. 14, 2010.
1005
Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, Asaga village Ohafia, oral interview
by author, digital voice recording, Asaga. August 12, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Asaga Village. August 10, 2010; Mr. Onwuka Kalu Agwu, Chief
Priest of Obu Ndi Idika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. August 3, 2010.
265

secured through pledge to a more powerful person or group who establish ukwuzi protection over
such property.

1006

As a renowned warrior society, the Ohafia were in a position to provide ukwuzi
protection to their neighbors such as Abiriba, Arochukwu, and Aro-protected territories like
Bende, Uzuakoli, Aro Ndizuogu, Ajali, and Ndieni.

1007

As blacksmiths par excellence, Abiriba

supplied Ohafia with weapons and ammunitions of war, while Aro furnished Ohafia with
European trade goods and assured them access to Aro-controlled markets.
the Aro were not warriors but an organization of traders.

1009

1008

Jones noted that

Describing Aro commercial

influence, he writes that,
The advent of the overseas slave trade . . . enabled the Aro to buy slaves from the
whole of the Niger-Cross River hinterland and to bring them by routes which
converged upon Bende market, whence they could be distributed to the “up river”
markets on the delta margin, where they were sold to traders from the coastal
states that traded direct with the overseas slavers . . . By the 19th century, there
were Aro settlements in Bende, in the terminal markets [at Imo, Etche, Otamini,
Isoba, Kalabari, New Calabar, Oloko, Ngwa, Bonny, Uwet and Old Calabar] and
along the routes leading to them . . . They also enjoyed monopoly of the internal
1010
slave trade.
Northrup writes that the Aro lacked “substantial state structures and [a] military
force”

1011

of their own, but he defined the Aro as “The God Men of the Slave Trade,” and noted,

1006

Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. August 15, 2011.
1007
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 84; Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 119-121; Igwebe, The
History of Arondizuogu, 86-87; Ekejiuba, “The Aro System of Trade,” 18-19.
1008
Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 196-197; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 1315, 27. Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 142.
1009
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 4.
1010
1011

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 5-6.
Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 137.
266

There is every indication that the basis of Aro expansion . . . was economic . . .
The Aro created no new currencies and few new markets, relying instead on those
already in existence. They were not alone in forming trading alliances and dealing
in slaves and goods . . . Their achievement was . . . a virtual monopoly over longdistance trade in much of the region . . . their ability to travel unmolested [due to]
fear of divine retribution or military retaliation . . . [and their ability] to transcend
and combine into a single marketing grid the already existing regional networks
of trade and through alliances with other leading trading peoples . . . These
1012
alliances were based upon equality, not upon Aro domination.
However, in his study of “the interconnectedness of major changes in the Bight of Biafra
with changes in the overseas trade and its aftermath over three centuries,”

1013

Nwokeji contends

that Aro economic organization was informed by their political system, and that through their
trading networks, over 150 diaspora settlements in the Bight of Biafra by the mid-19th century,
as well as their ritual authority, the Aro were able to transform the region of the Bight of Biafra,
which once supplied a small number of captives so quickly into the second most important
supplier of slaves.

1014

Azuonye argues that “the spread of the warlike and headhunting

acitivities of the Ohafia people to other parts of Igbo country, in the 18th and 19th centuries, was
accelerated by their contacts with the Aro.”

1015

Perhaps, no aspect of Ohafia inter-group relations has received more commentary than
their relationship with the Aro, in which the Ohafia are presented primarily as slavocratic Aro
mercenaries, who came to see any war as their own irrespective of the logic or party
involved.

1012
1013

1016

This picture is grossly misleading. In the wars of the 19th century, which are best

Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 142.
Nwokeji, The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra, 7.

1014

Klein, “The Atlantic Slave Trade and Decentralized Societies,” 62.

1015

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 15.

1016

Patridge, Cross River Natives, 70-75; Leonard, The Lower Niger and its Tribes; Basden,
Among the Ibos, 37, 208-209; Basden, Niger Ibos, 377-388; Talbot, The Peoples of Southern
267

remembered because they were the most recent,

1017

Ohafia did not receive payments from the

Aro for military aid, the Aro did not furnish them with food provisions or weapons, and they did
not accept every Aro invitation to fight wars on their behalf, because they had a clearly defined
understanding of “legitimate war.”

1018

Azuonye writes, the “Ohafia warriors were not

mercenaries kept and controlled by the Aro . . . The Ohafia were rather an independent group in
full control of their fighting forces and free to offer or withold their services as they saw fit.”

1019

Northrup further noted that the Aro were able to safeguard their territories from Ohafia military
attack because of the ukwuzi pact, but the Aro “did not control [Ohafia] activities
elsewhere.”

1020

Aro chiefs customarily presented “items of kola”

1021

including two rams (ebule aha —

ram of war) sacrificed to ikwan di orie, the Ohafia god of war, as well as drinks and kola nuts,
which constituted the customary obligations for invoking ukwuzi.

1022

Uka noted that in the last

quarter of the 19th century, while consultation fees including “ten pounds, four war caps, heads
of tobacco, and a case of drinks,” were presented to Ohafia chiefs and elders, the warriors
themselves had no share in this, and it was a cultural prerequisite for the initiation of igba ndu
(blood covenant) with the Aro, who were expected to guarantee safe passage for Ohafia
Nigeria, 184; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 13, 27-28; Dike and Ekejiuba, The Aro of
South-eastern Nigeria; Oriji, “Slave Trade, Warfare and Aro Expansion,” 107-114; Azuonye,
“The Narrative War Songs,” 34; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 15; Jones, Annual Reports of
Bende Division, 6-7.
1017
Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82-85.
1018
1019
1020

Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82.
Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 119.
Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 119.

1021

A symbolic equivalent of “kola-nut” used to welcome visitors, pay homage to a superior, or
invoke ukwuzi.
1022
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 70; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.
268

warriors.

1023

To describe this pre-war ritual as mere payment for mercenary services, thus

amounts to an abstraction of its socio-cultural context.
Moreover, a number of scholars have concluded that the Ohafia-Igbo did not gain as
much bounty as the Aro, from their military engagements. McCall writes that most Ohafia
warriors fought in order to acquire human heads and the prestige and social power they
brought.

1024

Other scholars as well as Ohafia informants have insisted that while the Aro

pillaged villages conquered by Ohafia warriors for property and slaves, Ohafia warriors were
mostly preoccupied with obtaining the concrete symbol of military prowess, prestige and social
power — human heads.

1025

Azuonye insists that Ohafia wars with the Ibibio and Ogoja were

mostly “a struggle for survival.”

1026

However, in return for their assistance to the Aro, Ohafia

also raided for slaves and were permitted full access to Aro monopolized markets where they
could dispose of their own captives.

1027

It must be noted that there was not always a neat

distinction between headhunting, slave production, defense, punishment, and honor in the
military activities of the Ohafia-Igbo in the second half of the 19th century, even when they were
contracted by the Aro. Martin Klein acknowledged that warriors often fought for selfish reasons
when he pointed out that slave-producing warriors of the Western Sudan did not always act as

1023
1024

Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 79.
McCall, Dancing Histories, 83.

1025

Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 69; Azuonye, “The
Heroic Age,” 16-17; Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78-79; Chief K.K.
Owen, oral interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.
1026
Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 17.
1027

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 13, 31-32; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 69-72;
Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82.
269

1028

expected, for they could unmake rulers in order to strengthen their own positions.

Richard

Roberts has also observed that what may have been a political decision to wage war on the part
of a group, often became an economic or social one for warriors.

1029

A Celebration of the Head Was a Celebration of Masculinity: The Ite-Odo Society and the
Construction of Ndi Ikike Social Hegemony in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries.
Ite odo is a huge clay pot, usually 40 gallons in volume, the outside of which was covered
with human skulls and jaws — a most grotesque sight intended to frighten observers.

1030

Ite odo

was a cult object, worshipped by members of the ite odo society. The warriors’ pot was not a
deity, but it served as a totem of the most accomplished Ohafia-Igbo warriors in the 19th
century.

1031

Every Ohafia-Igbo village possessed an ite odo society in the 19th century.

1032

Ite

odo was similar to the ese-ike institution among the Ngwa people, which was open only to young
men and elders who had performed unusual acts of prowess.

1033

The ite odo society was

exclusive in the sense that it comprised of the most distinguished war-lords (ndi ikike

1028

Klein, “The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade,” 238.

1029

Roberts, “Production and Reproduction of Warrior States,” 398, 400.

1030

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by
author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author;
Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, August 15, 2010.
1031
Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia, digital
voice recording, Amuma, Ohafia. November 26, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe village, Ohafia. November 3, 2011. The word, “totem” is
used not because the warriors’ pot was a representation of an animal or plant, but rather, because
it was a distinctive and venerated emblem of the society.
1032
Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village. Nov.
3, 2011; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, August 15, 2010.
1033
Oriji, “Slave Trade, Warfare and Aro Expansion,” 109.
270

masculinities), who had achieved spectacular acts of bravery.

1034

Such acts included being the

first among peers to cut a head in battle, single-handedly dislodging or decimating an enemy’s
fighting force, or participating in several raids and wars and returning unscathed with heads and
war captives.

1035

This caliber of men was greeted honorifically as ogbusua (first to cut a head), olua oha
(conqueror of a community), oji isi eke oba (he that display human heads as a farmer displays
yams), or omere isi kpara ndu (he that returned from war with human heads and live
captives).

1036

Ite odo members regulated the conferment of ufiem on warriors, upon their

successful return from battle.

1037

Recalling the life and times of his own father (c. 1878-1858),

who was a renowned ite-odo member in Ebem village, Ohafia in the 1920s, Ndukwe Otta stated
that warriors used to troop to the homes of ite-odo members to pay homage and respect, and to
mime their heroic deeds in order to gain social legitimacy.

1038

Hence, Njoku concludes that

initiation into the society became the ultimate target of young men of high ambition.

1039

Ite odo is sometimes described as a dance society. However, it differed from the war
dance (iri aha), which was a festive dance performed by professionals in celebration of heroic

1034

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral
interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, August 15, 2010.
1035
Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author;
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem Village. August 14,
2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by
author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author.
1036
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 63-64.
1037
1038
1039

McCall, Dancing Histories, 92.
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem, Ohafia. Aug. 14, 2010.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 64.
271

ancestors and brave warriors in the 19th century.

1040

According to Otta, the dance of ite-odo was

not a formal entertainment, but rather, an occasional performance of ndi ikike masculinity, which
was “more violent, because ite odo members unpredictably swung their machetes up and down,
1041

demonstrating their greatest conquests and head-hunts.”

The public performances of ite-odo

members shaped social perceptions of ndi ikike as the most powerful group of men in 19th
century Ohafia-Igbo society. This is evident in the manner and language in which Ohafia
interview respondents described their fathers, who were members of the ite-odo society between
the 1880s and 1920s. Nna Agbai Ndukwe, now in his late 90s recalled the life of his late father,
who was a leader of the ite-odo society in Elu village:
In my father’s time [1860s-1940s], he used to take the jooji wrapper away from
the waists of his age mates’ wives and tie them on my mother’s waist! These were
his age mates that had not been able to cut human heads. Aja! He was a great,
brave warrior! My father’s ite-odo . . . he was well known for that huge pot that
ndi ikike used to carry; they did not put on shirts — they were bare-chested, and if
you encountered them on the way, you would be overtaken by fear. They tied
only their jooji wrapper, armed with their machete and if you met them on the
way, you would be forced to run away. People used to gather in the village square
and watch ite-odo members in action. Their performance sometimes got so
1042
charged that it was no longer safe for people to come out of their houses.
[Italics mine.]
Nna Agbai Ndukwe’s father was an ezie ite-odo (leader of the ite-odo society) and as such, he
housed the ite-odo pot monument in his home. Ndukwe Otta’s father, late Chief Aru Otta (18781858), equally served as ezie ite-odo of his village (Ebem) in the 1920s.

1043

Both men are

1040

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by
author; Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 62-64; McCall, Dancing Histories, 4-6.
1041
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem, Ohafia. Aug. 14, 2010.
1042

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.

1043

Otta recalled that the ite-odo, which his father kept, was never stored on the ground but
hung from a wall, in his father’s bedroom. As a cult object, it was sacrilegious for the ite-odo to
“witness” death, and so individuals who were ezie ite-odo made sure that they did not die at
272

popularly recalled in the oral traditions of Elu and Ebem villages, as leading representatives of
the age-grades that fought the last wars of the 19th century, in Nnewi (1860-1890s),
and Eror in Nsukka (1880s),

1045

and Nteje, Igbariam, and Aguleri (1890s).

1044

Ukpati

1046

The historical role of ite-odo members in the construction of ndi ikike hegemony is also
borne out in their public performances. On the days of their public outing, ite odo members filled
the ite-odo (warriors’ pot) with palm wine, and their leader (ezie ite odo) carried it on his head,
rocking it back-and-forth, and sideways, in an anti-clockwise motion, occasionally spilling some
of the wine on the ground. Marching thus in a group, they visited every patrilineage compound
(onu-ogo) in their village, to pay respect to older ufiem, who acknowledged the homage with
offers of palm wine, poured into the pot. As the pot filled up, the ite-odo members drank it down,
always keeping the pot half-full.

1047

According to Agbai Ndukwe, “they filled tall cups for men

to drink and as the men drank, the senior ite-odo members hit the top of their heads with their
machete until the cup was drained. This served to show that ite odo members were
invincible.

1048

Njoku describes 19th century ite odo members as the inner core of the ufiem social class,
revered by all.

1049

He writes,

home in the presence of the ite-odo. Members took the pot away when the keeper was about to
die. The pot, which Nna Agbai Ndukwe showed this writer as his father’s ite-odo, was about 40
gallons in volume. Chief Aru Otta was a member of uke Anya Afu Mba [age grade] (1880-1860)
1044
Oriji, “Slave Trade, Warfare and Aro Expansion,” 111.
1045

Arua, A Short History of Ohafia, 11; Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 85.

1046

Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 85; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 84; Igwebe, The
History of Arondizuogu, 91.
1047
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.
1048
1049

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 64.
273

Their arrival at a gathering of the community at the village square was announced
with ikoro beat and the sound of opu ike, the trumpet of bravery. Their names and
acts of valor . . . became edifying songs in the repertory of the traditional heroic
singer. They also featured in moonlight stories as role models to youth. At death,
they were immolated with human heads and live captives. At the appropriate time,
the death of a member was commemorated with okerenkwa celebration, the
1050
highest heroic honor that could be bestowed on a dead man in Ohafia.
At such gatherings, such as the funeral of an ite-odo member between the 1890s and 1930s,

1051

they barricaded themselves from public view, and according to Agbai Ndukwe, “nobody dared
go close to them. People often observed from a distance. Only those who had cut heads were
allowed into their company, and to take wine from the pot. If you were not a warrior, you would
not be able to see what was inside the pot.”

1052

While warrior ufiem could join in the

celebration, the senior members who knew “the secrets of the society” surrounded the pot.
Indeed, it was partly in a bid to name “what was inside the pot” that Ohafia people themselves
began to speak of ite-odo cannibalism (that human heads were inside the pot) in the 1890s — a
rumor that the members did not stifle, but rather embraced to bolster their aura.

1053

Ndi ikike enjoyed social hegemony over all other categories of ufiem. Uka noted, “happy
was the man entitled to don the eagle’s plume and the red tail feathers of the parrot in token of
his prowess in battle. In life he enjoyed special privileges, and in death was accorded the dignity

1050
1051
1052

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 64.
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45.
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.

1053

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45; Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group
Interview with nde ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia, digital voice recording, obu Nde Torti,
Amuma Village Ohafia. November 26, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Nde-Ibe village, Ohafia. November 3, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma
Uka, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village, Ohafia. Aug. 14, 2010.
274

of a warrior’s funeral with the special dance known as okerenkwa.”

1054

Okerenkwa was a dance

performed during the ritual of idoru-nna, which transformed a dead ufiem into a deity.

1055

This

ritual was not open to ujo, whose spirits were believed not to have positive impact on
individuals’ quest for social distinction, high ethical and moral standards, and societal peace and
progress.

1056

Uchendu sheds light on this when he writes that for the Igbo, life on earth was a

link in the chain of status hierarchy which culminated in the achievement of ancestral honor in
the world of the dead. Thus, those who died unaccomplished suffered much frustration in the
spirit land (ala mmuo). They remained ‘boys’ in both worlds.

1057

Indeed, age was an important factor in Ohafia-Igbo gender construction, because at
certain points in a man’s life, he was expected to have fulfilled particular feats of masculinity.
Thus, within the age-grade institution (see chapter 3), hierarchies of ufiem were constituted.
There was a distinction between adult, warrior, and senior (elder) masculinities. A man attained
adult ufiem by marrying a wife,

1058

in a fashion his age-mates found satisfactory. It was in view

of this sense of social fulfillment that Ohafia men express marriage as “inyu amiri ishi ulue” [to
urinate behind the groom’s house]. The idea was that the groom treated his age-mates to so much
sumptuous meals and palm wine that they took turns going behind his house to empty their

1054

Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78.

1055

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author; Chief Udensi Ekea of Ndi Ekea Compound, Okon Village, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording. August 4, 2010; Chief Ikenga Ibe of Nde Torti Compound, in
Group Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia, digital voice recording, obu Nde
Torti, Amuma Village Ohafia. November 26, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe village, Ohafia. November 3, 2011.
1056
Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 23.
1057
1058

Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 16.
See Chapter 1 for discussion of marriage practices.
275

bowels and bladder, returning for more food and wine, over and over.

1059

Thus, adult

masculinity entailed a performance of wealth for members of one’s age-grade. As was the case in
Ovamboland studied by Meredith McKittrick, it was customary for fathers to marry the first wife
for their sons in Ohafia-Igbo society, and fathers utilized this practice as a mechanism for
exercising control over their sons.

1060

Similarly, elders (ndi ichin) were accorded great respect for their age, because of the
belief that they were living ancestors who embodied the wisdom of ages, and that they were the
repositories of their communities’ history.

1061

However, as Chinua Achebe aptly observed, age

was respected in Igbo society but achievement was revered.

1062

In the Ohafia case, only men

who had attained ndi ikike masculinity were given the honor of idoru-nna irrespective of age.
Ufiem status, not elderhood, qualified a candidate for idoru-nna. Thus, the ujo even in old age
remained a “boy” in the human and spiritual world.
“frustrating” and “repugnant” status for the Igbo.

1063

1064

Uchendu noted that this was a most

By contrast, as Azuonye writes, ndi ichin

(elders) who accomplished ufiem constituted the “highest rank in the hierarchy of spirits of the

1059

Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ukpai, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011.
1060
Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; McKittrick, “Forsaking their Fathers?” 33-40. The
role of fathers in their sons’ attainment of adult masculinity is also explored in chapters 1 and 4.
1061
See Chapter 2.
1062

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (London: Heinemann, 1958), 6.

1063

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu,
oral interview by author; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the
Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011.
1064
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 16.
276

dead, and are known as arunshi (i.e. ‘ancestral’ as opposed to ordinary spirits).”

1065

In

expression of this achievement focus, the Ohafia say: Iboro anaghi etu mmadu na nkiti.

1066

Mayne indicates in his Intelligence Report on the Ohafia-Igbo that a man who did not
receive ufiem burial did not qualify for idoru-nna in 19th century Ohafia-Igbo society.

1067

Illustrating the burial of decased ufiem, Ndukwe Otta recalls his father’s burial in 1958:
On the day that a fellow warrior dies, ite odo members would bring down the iteodo and fill it up with palm wine. On the day of my father’s burial, wherever there
was palm wine tree in this land, both in the ude (palm wine plantations) and in
people’s compounds and backyards, ndi ikike went and tapped and confiscated
them . . . and there was nothing anyone could do about it. During the entire period
of that week in which my father died, the warriors owned the land. On the first
day, by 3:00 am, they had gone to the ude and tapped all the wine in the land, and
drank to their utmost fill, without consuming any food. Throughout that week, the
warriors avoided sexual contact with women and they did not eat a meal prepared
by any woman. They believed that in this way, they could be strong enough for
the task ahead. They marched from here [his home] to Uzo-Ubi towards the
boundary with Abam [village; a distance of 5 miles] to fetch the first ite-akoro.
This ite-akoro was just an ordinary pot, decorated and covered with grasses, and
filled with wine. They sang and danced from there all the way back [demonstrates
the dance]. Their eyes were blood-shot; they wore onugwe [loincloth]; they were
armed with machetes, which they clapped together as they danced; and they had
guns, which they shot into the air as they danced along. I saw them thus
demonstrating, until they reached the home of my father. During their march, they
cut down and killed and confiscated everything in their path. Whatever they saw,
they killed. If they saw a goat, they killed it; plantains, they cut it down; chickens
they killed. . . They do not kill people anymore but in the past, they did! In those
days when they required another human being to bury the warrior, this march was
the time to kill a war captive.
Once they reached our home, they started performing . . . I don’t know what to
call it, because they were under some influence or possession. I saw them . . .
kpara kpara kpara [in a blink], somebody was on top of the roof! The house had a
thatched roof and there were no ceilings. They opened up the roof. A grave had
been dug up in the middle of my father’s obi (living room), and a bamboo pole
erected in it. From the rooftop, they threw down that pot of palm wine into my
1065

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 23.

1066

People do not become ancestors easily. In effect, individuals are not venerated/deified in
vain; they must have distinguished themselves in peculiar ways.
1067
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 44-45.
277

father’s grave, and we heard the warriors roar, whoa! That was the first stage.
This was done by this time of the day [late morning] before the burial ceremony.
Then, they returned later, this time, carrying the ite-odo decorated with human
skulls. When they arrived and began to perform, people ran away, because they
behaved like crazy and possessed people. For instance, when they entered this
compound, they climbed on top of the fence, and ran about on top of the rough
and jagged edges. They did all sorts of incredible things. At the end of the agility
performances, they poured wine into the ite-odo, and each of them drank from it.
The pot looked old and dirty, but they drank from it anyway, in demonstration of
bravery. This was to say that if you were not capable of partaking in this rite, you
were not a man . . . Then, they covered the grave and took out the bamboo pole,
1068
leaving a hole, which directly led into my father’s mouth.
The community usually announced impending ite odo celebrations, warning parents to be
aware of their children’s safety, because if in the course of their performance they harmed
anybody, they were immune to legal reproach.

1069

After his burial, the ufiem received the

deification ceremony of idoru-nna, which established him as a powerful patrilineage
ancestor.

1070

The deceased’s son hired the services of a great warrior to perform the okerenkwa

dance. This warrior, according to Otta, was considered a man, not “because he has a penis; [but]
because he had accomplished the requirements of manhood in Ohafia.”

1071

He elaborated:

My father performed igba okerenkwa for many people. When Ukagha Onu Aja
wanted to perform idoru-nna for his father in the 1930s, it was my father that
performed okerenkwa for him. This dance was performed in a peculiar way, with
great masculine agility. As the warrior danced, successive gunshots were fired.
After the last gunshot, the process was completed . . . Okerenkwa was one of the
benefits of distinguishing yourself as a respected ufiem in Ohafia. Before my
father consented to perform this task, he was paid a large sum of money [and] . . .
he received drinks, yams, and goats, in acknowledgment of his masculinity . . . In
those days, if idoru-nna and igba okerenkwa were not performed for your father,
we believed that your father would neither belong in the world of the living nor in
the world of the dead. And people would actually insult you on that account. We
1068
1069

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author.
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author.

1070

For similar rituals in neighboring Afikpo, see Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African
Society, 193, 197-198.
1071
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author.
278

would say that your father was stranded in the pathway/boundary between the
living and the dead. So, when it was time to perform this dance, my father would
come out, the music would be playing, and he would be dancing, and warriors and
other braves would be singing and shouting his praises (itu afa). He would be
recounting tales; tales and boasts of his conquests; how he reached this place and
killed so and so number of warriors, and when he got to that other place he did so
and so . . . He boasted of his own accomplishments; he reminded the elders that
he was an accomplished warrior; and through this dance, he sanctioned the
honoring of the dead warrior with idoru nna (ududu establishment). To end a
particular tale of conquest and bravery, he would draw his machete and hold it out
and the elders seated in a row would hit the machete successively with their
walking sticks, kpa kpa kpa kpa kpa kpa! Then, he would launch into another tale.
Meanwhile, the musical instrument would keep sounding: ‘Tunkariri denkari!
Tunkariri denkari! Tunkariri denkari!’ How I am dancing now is how father used
to dance, with his sword held this way [demonstrates the dance]. At the end, there
1072
was something that he cut with his sword, at which point a gunshot was fired.
The collection of expensive fees for the performance of okerenkwa was one of the ways
through which warriors earned a living in the second half of the 19th century, besides owning
slaves, whom they employed in various labor activities.

1073

Moreover, in most cases, the warrior

was also a yam farmer and a hunter. Thus, individuals fulfilled various categories of
masculinities in their lifetime, each associated with distinct social privileges.

1074

Having been

deified upon death, the warrior ufiem thus completed his life cycle. His memorialization was
accomplished through ududu veneration, the incorporation of his life into abu-aha (war songs),
and his celebration through iri-aha (war dance).

1075

The performance of ndi ikike masculinity in

1072

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author. Chief Eke Emetu recalls
the last time ududu establishment was done to be the late 1940s in Elu village, when this was
performed for Nna Egbuta, who did not cut a human head, but was a great yam farmer, who
accumulated so much wealth, married a lot of wives, and had a lot of children, that he was
considered to have fulfilled igbu ishi, and thus deified upon death.
1073
See Chapter 5 for a discussion of domestic slavery.
1074

See Chapter 4 for the masculinity of the hunter, the yam farmer, and the dibia.

1075

Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with
Nde Ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia, digital voice recording, obu Nde Torti, Amuma Village
Ohafia. November 26, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
279

Ohafia between 1850 and 1920 also generated rumors of cannibalism and masculinist social
visions of the society. These processes are examined below.
The Myth of Cannibalism
Mayne writes in his Intelligence Report on the Ohafia-Igbo that in the last quarter of the
19th century, “slaves were eaten after their death by their respective owner and his
relatives.”

1076

Describing Bende district (of which the Ohafia-Igbo were a part) in the first

decade of the 20th century, Jones writes that “in warfare between unrelated towns, the victor
could take the head of his enemy as a trophy and could remove as much as he could of the body
for sale as meat in the local markets.”

1077

In various correspondence of British commanding

officers active in Bende division between 1890 and 1915, the most popular justifications for
punitive expeditions were the need to curb cannibalism and human sacrifice.

1078

The Church of

Scotland Mission celebrated the 1901 British expedition against the Aro as a triumph over the
“barbarous” and “savage” Aro and their Ohafia and Abam blood-thirsty, cannibalistic allies.

1079

In his 1921 tour of the Calabar Mission District, Frank Ashcroft, board chairman of the United
Free Church of Scotland Foreign Mission based at Edinburgh, Scotland, described the Ohafia as

Nde-Ibe village, Ohafia. November 3, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem, Ohafia. Aug. 14, 2010.
1076
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 44.
1077

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 4.

1078

FO84/2020: “Africa (Slave Trade), West Coast, 1890,” 348-351; CO520/8: “Southern
Nigeria Original Correspondence, May to August, 1901,” 570-574; CO520/16: “Southern
Nigeria Original Correspondence, November to December, 1902,” 508-516; CO520/36:
“Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, June to August, 1906,” 170-184.
1079
United Free Church of Scotland, “The Recent Expedition Against the Aros,” The
Missionary Record of the United Free Church of Scotland, No. 1-164 (1902), 453.
280

“head-hunters and cannibals.”

1080

A number of European writers in the 1890s and early 20th

century also claimed that the Ohafia-Igbo engaged in cannibalism.

1081

As earlier noted, some of

my Ohafia informants maintained that ite-odo members engaged in cannibalism in the last three
decades of the 19th century.

1082

These notions of Ohafia-Igbo cannibalism were not based on first-hand accounts. They
were largely impressionistic. Neither Mayne, Jones, Ashcroft, Leonard, Patridge, Basden nor any
of my informants, who alleged Ohafia-Igbo cannibalism was a witness to such practice.
However, a number of them such as Leonard, Patridge, and Basden observed stacks of human
heads at various shrines and pathways in the region. Leonard noted that “at Akano [village,
Ohafia] the Ju Ju, which was composed of an array of human skulls stacked on a wooden stool,
looked, to say the least of it, a grim and gruesome spectacle.”

1083

Similarly, Patridge observed

that at the village of Umon on the Cross River, the burial place of a woman named Ekanem was
commemorated yearly, and in one corner of the place was “a reeking pile of bloody heads . . .
1084

and two human skulls.”

Basden equally writes of the practice of using human skulls as

protective medicines placed over farm-land to scare away potential intruders.

1085

The

preponderance of human skulls in Ohafia and neighbouring communities between 1890 and
1080

Frank Ashcroft, “Report on Calabar Mission: Tour of the Calabar Mission Districts, July to
August 1921” West Africa (National Library of Scotland, MS.7796), 28.
1081
Patridge, Cross River Natives, 70; Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 190-201;
Basden, Niger Ibos, 126, 195; Basden, Among the Ibos, 37-38.
1082
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village, oral interview by
author; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village, oral interview by author.
1083
Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 196.
1084
1085

Patridge, Cross River Natives, 70.
Basden, Among the Ibos, 37-38.
281

1910, and the reputation of the Ohafia as headhunters informed missionaries’, colonial officials’,
and European writers’ reports of cannibalism in the region.
Mayne described Rev. Robert Collins, a pioneer Scottish missionary who lived in Ohafia
from 1910 to 1933, as sympathetic with the Ohafia and well-versed with “local laws and
1086

customs.”

Rev. Collins never indicated in any of his journals or correspondence with the

Home Office of the CSM that cannibalism existed in Ohafia.

1087

Njoku argues emphatically that

“cannibalism had no place in the headhunting calculations of Ohafia people.”

1088

In the absence of concrete evidence to substantiate the practice of cannibalism in Ohafia,
this study contends that the cannibalism discourse was a consequence of Ohafia performance of
ndi ikike masculinity in the last quarter of the 19th century. First, in the early 20th century, the
Ohafia-Igbo were widely renowned as Aro mercenaries and headhunters, who during the 19th
century, crossed the length and breadth of Ibibioland and Igboland in search of human heads and
slaves for ufiem attainment.

1089

This reputation of Ohafia informed British preemptive

deployment of one of the two columns of the Aro expeditionary forces through Ohafia in

1086

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 48.

1087

See United Presbyterian Church, No. 26, MS. 7715: “Collins Elizabeth Stewart, Wife of
Robert, Missionary in Calabar, nee Glen; Letters to, 1900-1916;” UPC, “Collins Robert,
Missionary in Calabar, Letters to, 1898-1929;” UPC, West Africa, MS. 7793 and MS. 7795.
“Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letters of, 1898-1933;” Acc. 7548/A13-14: “Copies of
Out-going Letters from Mission Committee to Collins;” United Free Church of Scotland,
De298/127-137: “Minutes Relating to Calabar, Robert Collins and Mincher;” Acc.7548/D44:
“Calabar Correspondence and Papers, 1913-1945;” United Free Church of Scotland,
Dep.298/127-137: “Minutes relating to Calabar, Robert Collins and Mincher;” The Church of
Scotland, Dep.298/157-167: “Minutes relating to Calabar, Robert Collins and Mincher.”
1088
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 82.
1089

CO444/2. “Niger Coast Protectorate Original Correspondence, August – October, 1899,”
h

204-224; CO520/107. “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, 9 October to 30
November, 1911,” 220-251; Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 82-85.
282

th

1090

1901.

Describing Ohafia-Igbo encounter with the British West African Frontier Force

(W.A.F.F), Ohafia’s first warrant chief and colonial collaborator (who led the British from
Ohafia to Arochukwu) Chief Eke Kalu writes, “No sooner was the [W.A.F.F.] camp placed at
Ebem than a host of the native head-hunters came leaping for joy that heads had come to their
very doors asking to be cut off. The joy of getting white heads was great amongst the
people.”

1091

British officials such as Captain Mowatt, Mr. Weir, and Mr. L.T. Chubb saw Kalu

as “a loyal servant of the Government,”
bloodthirsty headhunters.

1093

1092

and shared his vision of Ohafia people as

This reputation of Ohafia also informed the punitive measures

taken by the British government against Asaga village, Ohafia in the course of the 1905-1908
1094

Bende-Onitsha Hinterland expedition.

Since British colonial officials viewed the Ohafia as

headhunters in concert with Aro slavocracy, their rumors of cannibalism served to justify both
the Aro expedition and subsequent military patrols in the region.

1090

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 8-9; Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 162-164;
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 35.
1091
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 163.
1092

Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929,” 19.

1093

For this British view of Asaga, documented as “Patrol up the Cross River: Enyong Creek to
Obubra Hill,” and “Field Operations, October 1904 to June 1905,” see CO520/31: “Southern
Nigeria Original Correspondence, June to August, 1905,” 387-425, 526-528.
1094
CO520/20: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, August to October, 1903,” 44-54;
CO520/26: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, October to December, 1904,” 52-78;
CO520/31: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, June to August, 1905,” 102-110;
CO520/36: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, June to August, 1906,” 170-184; Njoku,
Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 97-98; Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 9-10; Chief Kevin
Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga. Aug.10, 2010; Chief K.K. Owen,
oral interview by author. The British colonial government alleged that Asaga was involved in the
Obegu massacre, and that their intervention in Eziafo and Biakpan inter-communal dispute
disrupted peace. Under the command of Captain E.C. Margesson, Asaga was assaulted.
283

Second, until the Aro expedition of 1901, European missionaries did not gain access to
the Cross River Igbo territories, and the Church of Scotland Mission, which was the most active
in the region remained a Calabar church, with minimal influence in the middle Cross River.

1095

C.S.M missionaries such as James Buchanan, Mary Slessor, and Thomas Edgerly stationed at
Unwana, Akunakuna, Okoyong, and Umon had no first-hand knowledge of the Igbo territories
west of the Cross River, and their reports of canniblism and human sacrifice served to instigate
the British government to open up the region and make it safe for missionary work.

1096

The

British colonial government sent a memo to these missioanries asking them to leave the region
before the Aro expedition, so that the Aro and their Ohafia allies would not take them
hostage.

1097

Following the Aro expedition, the C.S.M published an excerpt of the report from

The Times in its journal, The Record of the United Free Church of Scotland, and happily added
that “Unwana [the base from which Christianity spread to Arochukwu and Ohafia, 1900-1910],
our station in the Cross River, which touches the Ibo-speaking district . . . has been
reoccupied.”

1098

Aro expedition.

Johnston noted that the greatest expansion of the Mission came following the

1099

These were the circumstances that set the tone for Ashcroft’s assertion, in

his first visit to the region (for a two month period) in 1921, that “Ahofia [sic] and Aro [were] a
tribe of head hunters and cannibals now turning to Christ.”
1095

1100

Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 26.

1096

CO520/8. “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, May to August, 1901,” 717-722;
UFC, For. No. 16, MS.7672: Letter from Jan Buchanan to Robert Collins dated Sept. 26, 1901.
1097
CO520/8. “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, May to August, 1901,” 717-722.
1098

United Free Church of Scotland, “The Recent Expedition Against the Aros,” The
Missionary Record of the United Free Church of Scotland, No. 1-164 (1902), 453.
1099
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 39.
1100

Ashcroft, “Report on Calabar Mission,” 28.
284

Third, the Ohafia informants who alleged that cannibalism was practiced between 1880
and 1920, did so with specific reference to public ite-odo performances, expressing their belief
that there were human skulls in the warriors’ pots, from which they drank. It is plausible that the
fear and aura which ite-odo members evoked in non-members, their exclusivism, and the power
and privileges they enjoyed in Ohafia society between 1850 and 1920 (including being buried
with humand heads and slaves), inspired the cannibalism discourse. It was in this sense that
Luise White argues that rumors of vampirism in colonial East and Central Africa, were social
constructions, genres and mediums through which people articulated and contested differential
power dynamics in inter-group relations, especially in violent situations.
heads symbolized ndi ikike masculinity and until the 1930s,

1102

1101

Indeed, human

ndi ikike made extensive ritual

uses of human heads in Ohafia-Igbo society. In order to establish a new home after marriage
(adult masculinity), ndi ikike buried human heads in the foundation of their houses, and under
their patrilineage compound (ezi) shrines such as kamalu (god of war), fijoku (yam deity), and
onu-agba (ancestral shrine).

1103

These practices shaped popular conceptions of real men (ufiem),

as well as patrilineage autochthony, hence the saying, “Mba obula enweghi onu agba a ka

1101

Luise White, Speaking With Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (California:
University of California Press, 2000), 4, 18, 44-45, 50-54, 58, 91, 98-102, 114.
1102
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village, Ohafia. Aug. 14, 2010.
1103
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author; Elders of Nde Odo Compound, Akanu, Group
Interview by author. Nov. 2. 2011; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 26-27. Human
heads were also used to establish major deities including achichi (Ohafia society’s tutelary
spirit), ikwan (the society’s god of war), and many others. Information based on the following:
Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief
Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author.
285

bidoghi eleghe ishi ogo”

1104

[Any compound which does not have onu agba cannot be regarded

as a primary patrilineage]. The preponderance of human heads surrounding ndi ikike may have
led people to view ndi ikike as cannibals.
The Geography of Masculinity
The military legacies of Ohafia society were evident in the landcape itself; in the
architectural layout of Ohafia villages, and the location and gendered uses of certain cultural
artefacts such as the obu, ikoro, onu-agba, and shrines such as fijoku and kamalu.

1105

These

material culture of ndi ikike masculinity performance were inscribed in the physical landcape of
Ohafia society, and defined a geography of masculinity (public space for ufiem performance)
between 1850 and 1900. These artefacts played a significant role in the construction of ndi ikike
hegemony by providing the public platforms for the performance of ndi ikike masculinity. They
symbolized the efforts of ndi ikike to delineate a public sector of male domination in the sense
that they set socio-cultural boundaries against ujo and female masculinities until the 1920s. This
chapter therefore argues that the Ohafia geography of masculinity was historically constructed
and reinvented in the daily practices of the people between 1850 and 1900.
Nsugbe describes Ohafia village residences as they were in 1960. He writes,
From the air each village would be seen to consist of very low huts, strung out in
unbroken rows as if from an instinctive urge of self-defense against a danger that
was once real and constant to the inhabitants . . . a protective response to a
turbulent frontier environment . . . At the heart and center of every [village] stands
the central meeting-place, ogo [village-square]. From the ogo the tertiary
divisions [patrilineage compounds] radiate outwards like the spokes of a wheel
and terminate towards the surrounding bush . . .
1104

Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author; Elders of Nde Odo Compound, Akanu Village,
Group Interview with author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village Ohafia. November 2. 2011.
1105
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author. The kamalu and onu agba are still used in yam
veneration and remains central to configurations of gendered spaces.
286

Standing on the periphery of the ogo, the central meeting-place, and at the head of
each [patrilineage compound], are the big ‘rest-huts,’ called the obu [patrilineage
meeting-houses] . . . There is at one corner of the [obu] a small hut in which the
big war-drum [ikoro] is housed . . . Also located at one corner of the ogo [villagesquare] is the all-important village shrine . . .
The [patrilineage compound] . . . resembles the sector of a circle, and consists of
unbroken rows of huts which run radially from the ogo towards the bush behind.
In between each paired rows of huts [residential houses] lies a path . . . that leads
straight into the [village square], emptying directly behind the appropriate
[patrilineage obu]. The hind end of the path passes through the bush surrounding
the primary unit. The bush separates one territorial unit from the next . . .
Access to a [patrilineage compound] is possible either from the ogo or from the
bush end of the unit . . . This means that once one finds oneself in the path one
becomes effectively trapped, retreat being possible only by continuing in the
direction of the ogo [village-square] or by returning towards the bush. It can
therefore be imagined that should the need to defend a village arise, all that would
need to be done would be to block the two ends of the path as one would a bridge.
Doors open into the paths between the paired rows of huts. A first visitor to an
Ohafia [compound] is bound to experience the disquieting feeling of being
watched by scores of eyes from behind the interiors of huts on either side of him,
unable to see them himself . . . Most [compounds] . . . are structured this way,
with the result that each . . . presents the appearance of a . . . military
1106
garrison.
Mayne, Azuonye and Njoku indicate that this depiction was true of Ohafia society
between 1850 and 1920.

1107

This chapter examines the impact of this geography on the

construction of ndi ikike hegemony during this period. To begin with, the patrilineage obu was a
male domain. As shown in chapter 2, it was the abode of male ancestors, where the ududu of
deceased ndi ikike were kept, after the ritual of idoru-nna (to lay a father to rest).

1106

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 49-51.

1107

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 4; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 21;
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 59.
287

Figure 3: Murral Painting at Obu Ndi Idika, Mgbaga, Elu Village, Ohafia,
Photographed by Author.

Figure 4: Murral Painting at Obu Ndi Idika, Mgbaga, Elu Village, Ohafia,
Photographed by Author.

288

Figure 5: Murral Painting at Obu Ndi Ezera, Asaga Village, Ohafia,
Photographed by Author.

The obu was a major site for the organization of warfare and the meeting of male elders;
and it was a major platform for the performance of ufiem by ite odo members.

1108

The wall

decor and mural paintings of Ohafia obu houses emphasized various masculinities — the brave
warrior, the hunter, the dibia, the ezie-ikoro (ikoro master), and symbols of exclusively male
1108

Jones, “Ohaffia Obu Houses,” 169; Ezie-nwami Ogbonne Kalu, oral interview by author;
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo
of Amangwu Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author; Chief
Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, Aug. 4, 2010; Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi,
Members of the Men’s Court and Nde-Ichin, Group Interview by author; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of
Ibina, oral interview by author, Ibina (Ihenta). December 12, 2011.
289

secret societies.

1109

of male visibility.

Its location in the center of the village square (ogo) defined a public sector

1110

Audrey Smedley has cautioned against essentializing patriliny as

patriarchy and matriliny as matriarchy since women played a role in reinforcing patrilineal
ideologies.

1111

However, the masculinization of Ohafia patrilineage obu was in direct structural

opposition to the absence of matrilineal residential compound units.

1112

The term masculinization is used because it was the performances of ufiem that defined
the obu as a distinct male sphere. In front of Anaga patrilineage obu, there is a big stack of
tightly woven twigs called egbo, which contains arrows said to be more than two hundred years
old.

1113

Until the 1930s, it was customary for any man armed with bow and arrow, especially

hunters who went past this obu, to aim and shoot into the twig pile, before continuing on their
journey. Those who failed to fulfill this task had their bow and arrows taken away from
1114

them.

The egbo was a medicine believed to protect the community, and it gained its power

1109

Jones, “Ohaffia Obu Houses,” 169-171; Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa
shrine, Asaga, oral interview by author; Aug. 12, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by
author; Mr. Onwuka Kalu Agwu, Chief Priest of Obu Ndi Idika, oral interview by author.
1110
The subject of female political visibility is examined in Chapter 2.
1111

Smedley, Women Creating Patrilyny, 1-3.

1112

Nde-ichin, Amuma, Group Interview; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu
Village and his cabinet members, Group Interview. Ottenberg, Double Descent, 25-93, 192-193,
has made similar observations in the case of the neighboring Afikpo village-group.
1113
Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, chief priest of obu ndi Anaga, oral interview by author, Elu. August
11, 2010; Elders of Umu-Anya Family, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Village, Group Interview by
author, Aug. 14, 2011; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 26.
1114
Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, Chief Priest of obu ndi Anaga, oral interview by author; Elders of
Umu-Anya Family, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Village, Group Interview by author.
290

through spectacular performances of archery skills by men.

1115

The constant performance of

archery by men reinforced the social perception of the Anaga patrilineage obu as a male space.
Similarly, the ikoro, located at the center of the village square (ogo), was both a symbol
and public platform for the performance of ndi ikike masculinity. Azuonye describes the ikoro as
a wooden “slit-drum of great size used to summon the able-bodied members of the village in
times of serious emergencies.”

1116

According to Nnenna Obuba, until the early 20th century,

before effective British colonialism and the entrenchment of Christianity (c. 1920), when the
ikoro was sounded, only men came out.

1117

The role of beating the ikoro was fulfilled by an

indiviudal who had accomplished ndi ikike masculinity. He was known as ezie-ikoro
1118

(priest/master of the ikoro).

Njoku writes that various male age-grades (uke) took turns

keeping watch over the ikoro, because it represented the strength of a community.

1119

The notion of the ikoro as signifying a community’s strength is informed by the arduous
labor involved in its creation, as well as its ritual transformation into a protective medicine.

1120

The making of the ikoro involved the collective labor of all able-bodied adult males in a
community, who took turns cutting down the huge tree required for the ikoro drum, and hauling
it back to the village-square amidst jubilations. Special wood carvers then set to work hollowing

1115

Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, Chief Priest of obu ndi Anaga, oral interview by author.

1116

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 19.

1117

Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Amaekpu. Aug. 26, 2011.

1118

Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of) Amuma, Nov. 26, 2011;
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author.
1119
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 81.
1120

Chief Ugbu Uduma, ezie-ogo of Nde-Amogu, oral interview by author, Ihenta Village.
November 11, 2011; Elders of Nde Odo Compound, Akanu, Group Interview with author; Chief
Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, Nde-Ibe Village, Ohafia. November 3, 2011.
291

out the tree trunk and designing the ikoro, over a period of about six months.

1121

Jones noted the

existence of such carvers in Asaga village, in the first two decades of the 20th century.

1122

Upon

completion, the ikoro drum usually stood at nine feet in length, five feet in height, and about
seven to ten feet in circumfrence.

1123

Before the ikoro could be used, human heads were
1124

sacrificed to it to transform it into a protective medicine.

Ikoro was a public platform for ufiem performance. It was a stage for the performance of
iba mba (warrior’s boast) identified at the beginning of this chapter. Obuba writes,
After a successful human headhunt, there was always an elaborate ceremony
where the [warrior] would display the head. He would then be qualified to be
welcomed by the village tom tom (ikoro), a victory war drum, which he in turn
1125
would salute (ibiri ikoro) in a display of gallantry of his prowess in war.
Njoku concurs and writes that upon a warrior’s return from war in the 19th century, “halfrunning, half-walking,” he trotted to the village-square in front of the “talking ikoro,” where
“holding his trophy [human head] proudly aloft,” he saluted it, and performed the warrior’s
boast.

1126

The moment before the ikoro was one of ecsatsy and grief; jubilation for those whose

loved one returned in triumph, and sorrow for those whose relation failed to return or cut a

1121

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu. August 15, 2011; Chief Udensi Ekea,
oral interview by author, August 4, 2010; Chief Ikenga Ibe in Group Interview with Nde Ichin
(ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia, digital voice recording, November 26, 2011; Nna Agbai Ndukwe,
oral interview by author, Elu Ohafia. August 10, 2010.
1122
Jones, “Ohaffia Obu Houses,” 170-171.
1123

Field observations; Basden, Among the Ibos, 246.

1124

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu. Aug. 10, 2010; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral
interview by author. Aug. 15, 2011; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, Aug. 4, 2010;
Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with nde ichin (ten elders of) Amuma, Nov. 26, 2011.
1125
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 26.
1126

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 81.
292

human head. It was a moment of social distinction between ufiem and ujo, in which women
played a significant role. According to Mrs. Nnenna Emeri,
When a man who had cut a human head from battle returned; when he arrived at
the village square, he threw out the head, which he had cut and the ikoro would
sound to acknowledge, announce and celebrate his accomplishment. Once the
ikoro had sounded, everybody would shout, ‘yooooooo! uma-moo, uma-moo!’ As
the shouts rent the air, his wife would emerge with nzu [white chalk] to decorate
and venerate him publicly. Other women would then join her in dancing and
jubilation. They would dance to her natal compound, and then to her husband’s
compound . . . It was a woman that made the public announcement of her
husband’s accomplishment. This established her husband’s new status in the
community, for nobody would ever forget the special manner in which his wife
1127
danced herself crazy on that occasion.
Describing his father (1878-1858) as a brave warrior, who constantly performed
masculinity, Otta stated, “he would always tell me what the ikoro was saying.”

1128

Ikoro was a

talking drum and ‘real men’ (ufiem) understood its language. During festivals such as the
celebration of the new yam, the entire community assembled at the village-square, and as people
made their entrance, the ezie-ikoro (priest/master of the ikoro) drummed praise beats for the
ufiem and insolent beats for the ujo.
When the ikoro saw you wearing a jooji wrapper, it would ask you, ‘Gu o gbuu
ole ndu were uko turu isi?’ [‘Which people have you killed to provide skulls for
your hearth?’] If you failed to understand the ikoro or ignored it, it would then
insult you, saying, ‘O di gologolo pu!’ This means, ‘There goes an empty and
weak male! He is no man!’ If you understood the ikoro, you would perform the
warrior’s boast [iba mba] before it, informing the ezie-ikoro of your recent igbu
ishi accomplishment. My father would be lying down in his house, listening to the
beats of ikoro, and he would laugh and say the ikoro is insulting so and so person.
When he went to the village-square, the ikoro hailed him ‘O-mere-ndi--a-duyimweyi-okpa!’ [‘the terror of the shoe-wearers’]; ‘Ishi-e-bu-ite-ndi-una!’ [‘the
head that carries the pot of the braves’] — that is the leader of the ite odo society;
‘O-mere-ndi-na-ata-mgba-mgba’ [‘the terror of Ibibio people.’] Because he
accomplished ufiem, when I danced with my age-mates during igba-ota-omu

1127
1128

Nnenna Emeri, Group Interview with Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Nov. 3, 2011.
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author.
293

[retirement parade of the age-grade], I kept saying, ‘O wu onye oke mu mi wo! [‘I
1129
was born by a real man!’]
From the foregoing, it is clear that ibiri ikoro (to salute the ikoro) and iba mba (the warrior’s
boast) were mundane practices in the 19th century; an embodied consciousness (a habitus), a
celebration of ufiem, a denunciation of ujo, and a memorialization of heroic ancestors.
Both men and women were involved in the establishment and celebration of ufiem
publicly. Women went to the village-square with their symbol of political authority, ikpirikpe
drum, to legitimate successful warriors as ufiem.

1130

As men beat their drums (nkwa), women

clapped their aja, “saying, “O gbuu ishi, O loale! O loale!” [“He cut a head! He has
returned!”

1131

Secondly, having shed human blood, the warrior was considered defiled, and

would undergo ritual purification before being re-admitted into society, and before entering his
home. When a wife applied nzu (which symbolized ritual purity) on her husband, she enacted the
first step in his ritual re-incorporation into the community.

1132

Following his wife’s nzu

application, the warrior accompanied by members of his age-grade, his wife and other women,
was led to his patrilineage compound’s onu-agba, where a goat was slaughtered in his honor and
its blood sprinkled on his legs.

1133

According to Njoku, the sacrificial animal was later on used

to prepare a sacred meal which members of the warrior’s age-grade who had accomplished ufiem
1129
1130
1131

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author.
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview.
Chief Kalu Awa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ufiele. Oct. 27, 2011.

1132

Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi Village, Members of the Men’s Court and Nde-Ichin,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi Village. November 17, 2011; Nmia
Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village, August 18, 2011;
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Akanu Village. November 3, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Uka Ike, Elu Village. August 18, 2011.
1133
Ibid.
294

consumed. After the sprinkling of blood, the new ufiem achiever was given a calabash of water,
with which he washed his face, legs and hands. Having cleansed himself, he threw the calabash
on the ground, breaking it into pieces. Then, he presented himself to the kamalu deity of his
patrilineage, to which he offered a healthy cock. The priest of the deity ritually blessed him and
welcomed him back with strokes of nzu on both feet. He was thereafter confined to seclusion for
eight days, to complete the purification process.

1134

There is an apparent contradiction in the celebration of igbu ishi (to cut a head)
accomplishment and the simultaneous perception of a warrior as defiled, upon this
accomplishment. Murder was a heinous crime in Ohafia society between 1850 and 1920, and as
Mayne noted, “the punishment for this offense was death in the manner in which the offender
had murdered the deceased. This was carried out by the nearest relative of the deceased.”

1135

The fear of retaliation for murder was a major consideration for which headhunting within
Ohafia was frowned upon.

1136

The reincorporation ritual sought to reconcile this moral

contradiction: it celebrated the sanctity of human life by having the warrior undergo successive
purifications, thereby reminding warriors and the society that headhunts were not motivated by
blood-lust, but by honor.

1137

Thus, Njoku argues that the ritual “demonstrates the sacredness

with which Ohafia people, even in those times of uncouth valour [sic], held human life.”

1134
1135

1138

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 81.
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 32.

1136

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu. Aug. 15,
2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village. Nov.
3, 2011; Chief Ugbu Uduma, ezie-ogo of Nde-Amogu, oral interview by author. Nov.11, 2011.
1137
Ibid.
1138

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 82.
295

The ikoro, onu-agba and kamalu were central to social configurations of gendered
spaces.

1139

Women were not allowed to pass through the onu-agba except they were

1140

Women’s lack of access to onu agba — a mound of stones hedged in by two trees,

virgins.

1141

shaped notions of female political invisibility and inferiority vis-a-vis men.

Whereas the

ikoro was used to announce the death of ufiem, as well as their accomplishments, it was never
sounded at the death of a woman,

1142

or to celebrate women’s performances of masculinity,

until the 1920s, when women such as Unyang Olugu, who performed ogaranya masculinity, had
the ikoro sounded in their honor.

1143

The ikoro also distinguished ufiem from ujo. Chief Kalu

Awa Kalu states, “The ikoro would be sounded for a man who had cut a head even if he was 30
years old. It was the signifier that you accomplished ufiem, so the ikoro would be sounded.
However, if a male person had not cut head, he was not considered a man, and even if he died at
a very old age, the ikoro was not sounded for him.”

1144

Men’s appropriation of public spaces

through ufiem performances and women’s transformation of public spaces into the most effective
platforms for registering political dissent and asserting political authority over both men and
1139

Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author; Elders of Nde Odo Compound, Akanu Village,
Group Interview by author.
1140
Elders of Nde Odo Compound, Akanu Village, Group Interview by author.
1141

See Chapter 3. In oral interviews with men, they describe this female lack of access to onuagba and other similar spaces as evidence of female political inferiority, in retrospect.
1142
Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ukpai, Ufiele
Village. October 27, 2011; Chief Ugbu Uduma, ezie-ogo of Nde-Amogu, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Ihenta (Ibina) Village. November 11, 2011; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011;
Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 463.
1143
Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem Ohafia
Local Govt. Council Office. Sept. 5, 2011; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. August 15, 2011. The exceptional story of Uynang
Olugu is provided in Chapter 5.
1144
Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author.
296

women (chapter 2), indicate that the public space was an arena of gendered contestation, and
thus an apposite context for studying the gendered struggle for power.
Iri-Aha: The Reproduction and Performance of “Tradition,”
Hegemony, and Identity, 1850-1920
Nothing dramatizes Ohafia’s military propensity in the past [c. 1650-1900] as the
1145
people’s war dance, iri aha.
Through dancing, men link their sense of personhood, masculinity, and their
somatic knowledge of themselves with a continuum of experience that extends
1146
beyond individuals to encompass a corpus of ancestral knowledge.
A popular tradition traces iri-aha (war dance) origins to a woman from Ebem village,
called Nne Ugoenyi (or Ucha Aruodo). According to this tradition, during the historical period of
Ohafia migration and settlement in the Cross River region (1500-1650), Nne Ugoenyi lost two of
her sons in battle, and consequently vowed to protect her third son, Egbelenwa, by forbidding his
participation in any war. Throughout Egblenwa’s childhood, Ugoenyi prevented him from
playing with other boys, and often dressed him up as a girl. However, when he came of age,
Egbelenwa followed his age-mates to battle without his mother’s awareness. He was successful
and not only returned with a human head but with live captives. The entire community rejoiced
at Egbelenwa’s successful return, bearing him high over their shoulders. Upon learning of her
son’s return, Nne Ugoenyi declared that he must be celebrated. She dressed him up as a warrior,
and killed many goats and chickens, providing an elaborate feast. She asked the men to produce
a dance to commemorate the occasion and the war dance has been performed ever since.

1147

The

men subsequently assembled three human heads in a basket, respresenting heads they had cut
1145
1146

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 54.
McCall, Dancing Histories, 63.

1147

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by
author; Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 62-64; McCall, Dancing Histories, 4-6.
297

from Benin, Umunede, and Ajata Ibeku (the three successive points of Ohafia-Igbo settlement
before their arrival in their present location). This basket of heads was known as oyaya and the
war dancers carried it on their heads when they danced.

1148

I witnessed and video-recorded several performances of iri-aha at funerals, ezie-ogo
(male ruler) coronations, new yam festivals, and igba-ota-omu celebrations, in the course of
fieldwork for this study, and also interviewed participants and elders on the origin and
significance of the war dance. Iri-aha, the Ohafia war dance, also known as ikpirikpe ogu is a
masculine genre of music and dance in which the lead dancer carries a headdress bearing human
skulls (oyaya).

1149

However, since the colonial period, the human skulls have been replaced

with wooden sculptures dressed in okpu agu and surrounded by white rams’ manes. The musical
instruments comprised of akwatankwa (three pairs of bamboo slats, formally elephant ribs), one
long hand drum (nkwa), and a “talking” antelope horn. As the music rent the air, and the abu-aha
(war song) singer narrated heroic tales to accompany the music, the warrior-dancers made their
entrance in quick compulsive feet movements, accompanied by convulsive jerking of the entire
body, as well as ofufu — what McCall describes as “rippling undulations of the pectoral muscles
causing the entire chest to pulsate continuously,”
force and the masculinity associated with it.

1150

and the dramatic embodiment of ancestral

1151

1148

Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author; Nde-Ichin, Amuma, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Obu Nde-Torti, Amuma. November 26, 2011.
1149
Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by
author; Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 62-64; Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral
interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Nde-Ichin, Amuma Village,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Obu Nde-Torti, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011.
1150
McCall, Dancing Histories, 6
1151

McCall, Dancing Histories, 59
298

In this highly charged dancing mode, the warrior-dancers slid over rough dusty grounds
in wave-like patterned body movements and with the grace of ballet dancers; making sudden
pauses, taking long calculated steps as a cat would, charging forward like tigers, and drawing
back like defensive warriors.

1152

The dancers are visual representations of Ohafia warriors: they

wear okpu agu on their head with eagle feathers, ram’s mane on their arms, onugwe (loincloths,
of blue or blue and red striped jute material) on their waists, leopard skins draping over their
shoulders, omu (newly grown yellow-colored palm frond) clasped between their lips, and a
sheathed machete hanging from their left hip. At certain points in the dance, the dancers reenacted scenes of warriors drawing and swinging their machete, cutting the head of their enemy,
and stowing it in the imaginary pouches hanging from their waists.
The war dance was both a religious ritual and a physical performance. The oyaya was a
personal deity as well as a symbol of Ohafia military heroism, and its appearance was initiated
with a sacrifice of a live cock, which one of the dancers constantly swung over the board of
skulls, in sanctification, veneration, and deification. The omu signified ritual silence and stealth
as well as a “declaration of war,”

1153

but it also located the warrior as representing both the

living and the dead, and providing a channel of communication between both worlds. In this
sense, ikpirikpe ogu dancers are comparable to Igbo masquerade heroes, who are reincarnated
ancestors distinguished by the following heroic qualities: bravery, honor, reverence, veneration,
accomplishment, excellence, courage, wisdom, justice, and integrity.

1152
1153

1154

Video Clip by author, “Ezeogo Coronation, Akanu 5.AVI.” 2011.
McCall, Dancing Histories, 69.

1154

Emeka Nwabueze, “The Masquerade as Hero in Igbo Traditional Society,” Frankfurter
Afrikanistische Blatter 1 (1989), 95-107.
299

Chukwuma Azuonye and John McCall have studied the complex composition and
meanings of the Ohafia war songs (abu aha) and war dance (iri aha), respectively. Azuonye
describes the war songs as the principal channel through which Ohafia cultural traditions and
ideals of personal success and veneration of dead ancestors and brave warriors were transmitted
to younger generations, inspiring them to emulate the example of their forebears. Through
constant performance, iri aha and abu aha became religious and philosophical traditions, and the
expression of a community’s identity and history.

1155

Similarly, McCall argues that in the war

dance, the past and present become inter-permeable, experience is structured, and history is
reconstituted.

1156

Elsewhere, McCall argues that the war dance embodied the legacies of the

Atlantic slave trade — that it was used to indigenize and domesticate the potentially destructive
forces of change that now challenge Nigerian ways of life; it was reflective of Ohafia
internalization of warfare, and an expression of manhood and Ohafia identity.

1157

Iri-aha had been central to the social production of ndi ikike masculinity as the dominant
ufiem in the society between 1850 and 1920. As a performance of history, iri-aha not only
symbolizes the past, it equally embodies it in the present. Between 1850 and 1900, iri-aha was
performed at funerals of ufiem to celebrate their earthly accomplishments.

1155
1156
1157

1158

Since the turn of

Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 50-52; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 34.
McCall, Dancing Histories, 65.
McCall, “The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Ohafia Warrior Tradition,” 75-76.

1158

Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village. Nov.
3, 2011; Ezie-ogo Mecha Ukpai Akanu, the Uduma Anaga 2nd of Amangwu Village, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording. Aug. 18, 2011; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of
Amankwu Village and his cabinet members, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Amankwu. Oct. 25, 2011; Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi Village, Members of the Men’s
Court and Nde-Ichin, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi. Nov. 17,
2011; Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ihenta
300

the 20th century, when Ohafia men returned home with the insignia of modernity and wealth,
evidence of success in academic endeavors or trade, such as school certificates, automobiles,
British pounds, the erection of modern houses, or meritorious retirement from the civil service,
iri-aha dancers performed for them.

1159

On the one hand, such performances defined the

acquired certificate, wealth, or modern house as igbu ishi (thus, establishing the achiever as
ufiem).

1160

On the other hand, the performances celebrated all past heroes. Hence, Azuonye calls

iri-aha “a record of the heroic deeds of the ancestors.”

1161

However, iri-aha performances have evolved during the modern period. The war dance
was performed at home during the Nigerian-Biafran war to drum up confidence and raise
hopes;

1162

at universities such as the University of Nigeria Nsukka in the 1980s to launch
1163

history journals such as Ikenga and Ohafia Review;

at Lagos, Nigeria to welcome home

national heroes such as Odumegwu Ojukwu; and the dance is showcased on televisions in
Nigeria and in the United Kingdom as Igbo cultural heritage. Videos of the dance are you-tube
sensations, and provide platforms for Ohafia diasporas to reconnect with each other.

1164

This chapter argues that the performance of iri-aha constructed and entrenched the view
of Ohafia as a land of noble warriors, and has encouraged the misrepresentation of Ohafia
Village. Dec. 12, 2011; Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of)
Amuma Ohafia, digital voice recording, obu Nde Torti, Amuma Village. November 26, 2011.
1159
Ibid.
1160
1161

Ibid.
Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 23.

1162

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ufiele Village.
October 27, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Chief Kevin
Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia. August 10, 2010.
1163
Onwuka Njoku, oral conversation with author, University of Nigeria Nsukka, July 12, 2010.
1164

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExHWaf6rT9o&hl=en&fs=1"><;
http://article.wn.com/view/2012/02/27/Ohafia_War_Dance_in_Honour_of_Odumegwu_Ojukwu/
301

women as subservient in mainstream literature, thereby clouding the earlier preeminence of
female power in pre-colonial Ohafia society. The dance performance significantly structured the
social perception of the society’s gender system as one comprising of visible male warriors, and
invisible female farmers. The militant conception of manhood and honor embodied in ndi ikike
became ramified in the war dance.

1165

Thus, iri-aha oversimplifies the complexity of Ohafia-

Igbo masculinities by portraying warrior ufiem as the only form of masculinity in the society, in
addition to projecting the socio-cultural hegemony of ndi ikike over all other categories of ufiem.
Indeed, as chapter 4 shows, yam farmers, hunters, dibias, wealthy merchants, fathers,
husbands, and male political leaders all strove towards the accomplishment of igbu ishi
physically and symbolically between 1850 and 1920, thereby reinforcing the hegemony of this
ufiem even as they struggled against the discriminations which the lack of its attainment entailed.
As this chapter shows, resistance to ndi ikike discriminations was defined by gaining inclusion
within this ufiem category through headhunting. Moreover, iri-aha was a major factor in the
equation of Ohafia ethnicity with headhunting at the turn of the 20th century. The vision of the
war dancers bearing human skulls became the dominant social characterization of Ohafia-Igbo
society by successive historical actors in the region, including missionaries, colonial officials,
academic researchers, Igbo and non-Igbo neighbors, and Ohafia people themselves.

1165

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 11.
302

Conclusion
The performance of ndi ikike masculinity was a performance of power over others,
defined as ujo (cowards). This chapter has theorized masculinity as a historically constructed
gender identity among the Ohafia-Igbo through an examination of how ndi ikike emerged as a
hegemonic form of ufiem in the society between 1850 and 1900. Ohafia-Igbo men who
accomplished ndi ikike masculinity did so through hard work, and not because they were
biologically male. Indeed, many Ohafia men did not accomplish ndi ikike masculinity, and were
as such ridiculed and victimized by both men and women.
The chapter also analyzed the impact of ndi ikike masculinity performance on the society
between 1890 and 1920, by highlighting the emergence of the cannibalism myth, the production
of a geography of masculinity, and the masculinist definition of Ohafia “tradition” through the
war dance. These social productions of ndi ikike masculinity performance in turn reinforced the
ability of warrior ufiem to define the dominant stereotype of how real men ought to behave.
The chapter shows that women played significant roles in this historical constitution of
ndi ikike social hegemony, and that some women performed ndi ikike masculinity themselves. In
effect, the chapter examines gendering as a historical process. Rather than presume patriarchy, it
historicizes the establishment of male power and privilege, and defines it as the exercise of
power over other men (not women). It remains to show the implications of ufiem construction for
female power and authority, as well as the historical responses of the so-called ujo to ndi ikike
hegemony. These issues are addressed in chapters 4 and 5.

303

CHAPTER FOUR
INSTITUTIONS OF MASCULINITY, 1850-1900
The demise of Okonkwo, the militant ufiem in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, in
juxtaposition with the survival and social mobility of the compassionate and reasonable
Obierika, manifests the Igbo saying that “the coward stands and points to where a warrior used to
1166

live.”

This proverb reflects the possibility that while the ujo had a miserable life, most of

them outlived warriors. By analyzing other forms of ufiem (masculiity) besides warriors among
the Ohafia-Igbo between 1850 and 1900, this chapter argues that the ujo (cowardly and weak),
who appear in the Ohafia-Igbo context as disprivileged subalterns, had access to alternative and
sometimes, subversive ufiem identities. Individuals who did not go to war and cut a head might
have been able to negotiate adult masculinity by joining secret societies, perform ogaranya
(wealth) masculinity through hunting and yam cultivation, or exhibited temporary dominant
moral visions of identity and power through dibia (medicine men) practice. Through these
institutions of ufiem, individuals sought to redefine the meaning of igbu ishi, beyond the actual
cutting of a head in combat, and thus transformed the symbolic representation of masculinity
from physical heads to material wealth. Hence, this chapter is a counter-narrative to the dominant
vision of ufiem established by ndi ikike between 1850 and 1900.
Some ufiem institutions such as secret societies, which the Ohafia-Igbo adopted from
their non-Igbo Cross River neighbors between the 18th and 19th centuries, evidence significant
socio-political transformations that took place in this society before colonial rule. These
institutions of masculinity, particularly the okonko secret society unearth the impact of macrohistorical forces such as the Atlantic slave trade and legitimate commerce on the Ohafia-Igbo.

1166

Nwando Achebe, written correspondence with author, February 15, 2013.
304

However, while acknowledging the impact of institutions and structures on the historical
processes of identity formation, the chapter shows as Glassman observed, that individuals were
constantly negotiating a tangeled web of ideological filaments, each filament originally spun in a
different time and place.

1167

Frederick Cooper has noted that often times, individuals “were

remaking institutions and their meanings even as they used them.”

1168

This chapter distinguishes

the purely performative aspects of ufiem (masculinity) from the institutions within which they
operated in society between 1850 and 1900, in order to capture individual agency in the
transformative uses of these institutions. It examines indigenous interpretations and individual
appropriations of ufiem institutional practices, to show that individuals were managers of
meaning and identity in their inevitable social contexts.
Secret Societies as Institutions of Masculinities
With the exception of the ekpe masquerade institution, which is equivalent to the
mmanwu (masquerade) in most parts of Igboland, the rest of Ohafia-Igbo secret societies were
borrowed and adapted from non-Igbo Cross River peoples between the 18th and 19th
centuries.

1169

By the 1850s, these secret societies had become fundamental to the realization of

ufiem (masculinity) in Ohafia-Igbo society.

1167

1170

Initiated into obon, the male child graduated

Glassman, “The Bondsman’s New Clothes,” 288.

1168

Frederick Cooper, “Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History,”
American Historical Review 99 (1994), 1535, 1544.
1169
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 29, 68; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 51; Chief Oluka
Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Mr. E.I.
Udensi of Eziukwu Compound, Okagwe Village, oral interview by author, Ohafia Local
Government Council Office, Ebem. September 5, 2011; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by
author; Elders of Nde Odo Compound, Akanu Village, Group Interview with author.
1170
Secret societies, especially in West Africa are usually studied in a religious/spiritual
context. This dissertation posits that it is circumscriptive to limit the analysis of these institutions
305

successively into akang, ekpe and ekpe okonko secret societies.

1171

The common features of

these societies were their strict exclusion of women, and their open-secret nature. They were
publicized as much as they were shrouded in secrecy. While some of these societies were
gender-inclusive in the Cross-River societies from which they derived, they excluded women
upon adaptation within Ohafia. This gendered adaptation shaped the degree of legitimacy and
socio-political influence that secret societies gained locally. Moreover, they were also gendered
in the sense that membership in these societies distinguished boys from adult men, and helped to
define adult masculinity as a social category distinct from maleness. Lastly, as gendered
practices, these secret societies constitute part of a dynamic system of gendered contestation of
public spaces, which became cardinal to the construction of gendered power in the society.

to their religious or political functions. While conscious of the ritual elements of Ohafia-Igbo
secret societies and their multivalent uses, this dissertation poses a larger question, namely: how
did these institutions fit into the mental map of Ohafia-Igbo social configurations of space,
power and inter-personal relations? For religious or other analyses of secret societies some of
which are discussed here see Patrick U. Nwosu, “The Age of Cultural Hybridisation: A Case
Study of Okonko Society vis-vis Christianity in Igboland,” Anthropologist 12, 3 (2010), 161165; Patrick U. Nwosu, “The Theory and Practice of Secrecy in Okonko and Ogboni Societies,”
www.academia.edu, 1-17; Patrick U. Nwosu, “The Role of Okonko Society in Preserving Igbo
Environment,” Journal of Human Ecology 31, 1 (2010), 59-64; Elechukwu N. Njaka, Igbo
Political Culture (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 127-129; Nwabueze, “The
Masquerade as Hero in Igbo Traditional Society,” 95-107; M. C. Jedrel, “Aspects of a West
African Secret Society,” Journal of Anthropological Research 32, 3 (Autumn, 1976), 234-245;
A.O. Onyeneke, The Dead among the Living: Masquerades in Igbo Society (Nigeria: Holy Ghost
Congregation, Province of Nigeria and Asele Institute, 1987); Chieka Ifemesia, Traditional
Humane Living Among the Igbo: An Historical Perspective (Enugu: Fourth Dimension
Publishers, 1979), 76-80; Forde and Jones, The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples of SouthEastern Nigeria, 52-55; Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 47-48, 147-148;
Basden, Among the Ibos, 235-243.
1171
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45.
306

Ohafia-Igbo female lack of access to these secret societies shaped the notion that women were
socio-politically invisible and inferior to men in the pre-colonial period.

1172

Figure 6: Obon Preparation, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

1172

Ndubueze L. Mbah, “Matriliny, Masculinity and Contested Gendered Definitions of Ethnic
Identity and Power in Southeastern Nigeria, c. 1500-1900,” in Jan Bender
Shetler (ed.) Gendering Ethnicity in African Women’s Lives (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, Women in Africa and Diaspora series, Forthcoming). For this ideology, see Kalu,
“Women in Social and Economic Change,” 1, 14, 29, 36; Azuonye, “The Heroic Age of the
Ohafia Igbo;” Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 24; Uduma O. Uduma, The People of Ohafia
Ezema (Nigeria: Arinson Printers and Publishers, 2007), 97, 100-101; E.E. Nkata, “The Role of
Women in Development,” Ikoro 2, 2 (1976), 35-36; Ogbeyalu Nchonwa, “The Role of Women
in Development,” Ohafia Review (April 1981), 7-9; and A.I. Udensi, “Elevating the Ohafia
Woman,” Ikoro 3, 3 (December 1998), 40-44.
307

Figure 7: Obon Preparation, Asaga Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

Since the period of settlement (c. 1600-1650), every year in the days leading up to the
new yam festival (September), or in the event of the funeral ceremony of a deceased member of
the obon secret society, it was customary for obon members to erect tightly-knitted palm-frond
fences in the center of the village-square, from which they played moving and energetic
music.

1173

However, women and ikpo (uninitiated boys) were never allowed to see what was

1173

Nde-Ichin, Amuma Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma
Village. Nov. 26, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, NdeIbe Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi, Members of the Men’s Court and
Nde-Ichin, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Nkwebi. Nov. 17, 2011.
308

actually happening inside the erected obon structures.

1174

Whenever obon members performed,

uninitiated boys were according to Njoku, “treated as girls” and “asked to go indoors with their
1175

sisters.”

This discrimination served to humiliate the ikpo and their parents who were

construed as incapable of fulfilling their social obligations towards their sons by affording the
requisite initiation yam-fee payment.

1176

Since a man’s wealth and social standing was until the

colonial period (c. 1900), considerably measured in the number of yams he possessed,
inability of a man to provide the obon yam-fee payment for his son

1178

the community. Such men were viewed as ujo (cowardly and weak).

1177

the

undermined his status in

1179

The ujo’s lack of yam-

wealth meant that he was lazy or had failed to accomplish igbu ishi, which precluded him from

1174

Ezie-ogo Mecha Ukpai Akanu, the Uduma Anaga 2nd of Amangwu, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording. Aug. 18, 2011; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu
Village and his cabinet members, Group Interview by author, Amankwu. October 25, 2011.
1175
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 29.
1176

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ufiele Village.
October 27, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe
village, Ohafia. November 3, 2011; Ezie-ogo Mecha Ukpai Akanu, the Uduma Anaga 2nd of
Amangwu Village, oral interview by author. Aug. 18, 2011. In the precolonial period, this
entrance “yam-fee” comprised of a cock, yam tubers, and okpogho (iron rods/money).
1177
Emea O. Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” Africa: Journal of the
International African Institute 51, 2 (1981), 695; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu
Village oral interview by author; Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author; Chief Torti Kalu, oral
interview by author, Amuma, Ohafia. Nov. 26, 2011; Oriji, Traditions of Igbo Origin, 6.
1178
In Ohafia matrilineal context in the pre-colonial period, the responsibility of raising a male
child was substantially assumed by the maternal uncles, who claimed rights in labor over the
child irrespective of his biological father. The struggles between fathers and maternal uncles over
ownership of sons, and sons’ changing visions of social responsibility towards fathers would
shape the society’s transition into the modern period. See chapter 2 for detailed discussion.
1179
Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia, digital
voice recording, Amuma Village. November 26, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village. November 3, 2011; Ezie-ogo Mecha Ukpai
Akanu, the Uduma Anaga 2nd of Amangwu Village, oral interview by author. Aug. 18, 2011.
309

taking yam titles (such as ike oba and igwa nnu) and the masculinity status associated with
proficiency in yam cultivation.

1180

Obon comprised of boys ten years old and above. Initiation into obon was a puberty rite
that distinguished boys from girls. While women were not allowed to come near obon meeting
venues, boys below the age of ten were considered “partial members” because of their maleness
and were introduced to the drumbeats and songs of the society’s dance.

1181

However, these

“partial members” were also considered ikpo (immature), and as such were always asked to leave
the venue before the actual dance commenced. Young men who were not initiated into obon
were socially viewed as immature, and were denied knowledge of the society’s signs and
1182

symbols.

Upon initiation at the age of ten, obon members were taught the secrets of the

society, including the vigorous rhythmic music and dance. These were skills sine qua non to the
performance of ndi ikike masculinity in Ohafia society. The energetic dance performance was
required in the fulfillment of iri nnunu (bird-hunt dance) and later in adult life, iri-aha (war
dance) and ibiri-ikoro (post-igbu ishi dance before the ikoro war drum).

1180

1183

Secrecy and sign

The logic was that if a man was a di ji (great yam farmer), publicly hailed “okogbua”
(farmer par excellence’) or “oji ji akugbu mgbamgba” (a farmer whose yam tendrils grew so
profusely that it suffocated the mgbamgba tree), he would have possessed enough yams in his
barn to feed his entire community, and afford the obon initiation fee. Individuals who did not
achieve igbu ishi were discouraged from taking yam titles, for when they did, their ufiem agemates conscripted their yams. Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 701.
1181
Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe. Nov. 3, 2011;
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem Village. Aug. 14, 2010; Chief
Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, Ufiele. October 27, 2011.
1182
Ibid.
1183

See chapter 3 for discussion of iri nnunu, iri-aha and ibiri ikoro.
310

language instilled camaraderie among potential warriors and was a prerequisite for successful
conduct of guerilla warfare, headhunting and slave raids in the 18th and 19th centuries.

1184

Lastly, obon provided a means of social control over young boys by older men — it
involved obligatory practices that established paternal authority of fathers and maternal uncles
over sons. Indeed, obon was a means through which the patrilienages (in fact, the male elders of
the lineage) constructed their power and influence over sons, in their structural opposition to the
matrilineage, which literally owned all persons in the community.

1185

Thus, whenever an older

member of obon died, his son was compulsorily initiated. Where his first son refused initiation,
his second or third son, in that order was initiated. If he had no son, his patrilineage provided a
substitute. The patrilineage also kept custody of obon instruments which were both recreational
and ritual objects, and these were often housed in the patrilineage obu (meeting house).
Therefore, obon was in every sense a gendering institution that distinguished males from
females, un-gendered (uninitiated) boys from real boys (initiated), and boys from men. It enabled
the successive transition from boyhood to adult masculinity, and it represented an effort by male
society to masculinize the public space and render it exclusive to women if only seasonally.
Having successfully kept obon secrets from male non-members and all women including
his mother,

1186

a boy was at 15 years of age considered fit for initiation into the more eerie

akang. Also owned by the patrilineage, akang was more secretive, its instruments were hidden
1184

Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amankwu. Oct. 25, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and
Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village. Aug. 14, 2010.
1185
For examination of structural lineage oppositions, see chapter 2; Also, Ottenberg, Double
Descent in an African Society, 147-148, 192-202. For similar discussion of the patriarchal role of
patrilineage male elders in sons’ initiations, see Basden, Among the Ibos, 240-242.
1186
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 27; Idika Aso, chief priest of obu nkwa Asaga,
oral interview by author, tape and video recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia. August 12, 2010.
311

from public view in various obu meeting houses, the initiation fee was higher, and the process
more elaborate. Initiation into akang has been equated with military training,

1187

because it

tested the candidate’s courage, endurance and discipline. At night, candidates were taken through
tortuous routes into the forest at the outskirts of the village. They were frightened and taunted by
members, the goal being to disqualify the weak. The stronger candidates were forced to crawl on
their bellies from the forest back to the patrilineage obu house where they were initiated into
akang. The age-range of akang members and the emphasis on physical training, suggest that the
society was a military training institution for the active age grades including the informal uke
(18-25 years), and uke ji ogo (26-35 years) who provided the fighting forces of Ohafia military
until the late 19th century. Thus, besides its roles in recreation and socialization, fostering the
unity of the patrilineage (in view of the dispersal of the matrilineage), and in securing senior
men’s paternal authority over younger men, akang was an institution that prepared adult males
for the performance of igbu ishi (to ‘cut a head’).
Another secret society that shaped Ohafia-Igbo gender constructs between 1850 and
1900, was the masquerade society. The ekpe

1188

was the masquerade society of the Ohafia-Igbo.

It was a pan-Igbo institution known as mmanwu in other parts of Igboland. However, unlike the
mmanwu, which policed the community, and sometimes possessed the judicial power of life and
death in the pre-colonial period,
1187

1189

the Ohafia ekpe was mostly a male dance society.

1190

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 30.

1188

It is important to distinguish between ekpe as the Ohafia general term for masked spirit,
ekpe as the name of an Ohafia male dance society, which also owns a masquerade, and ekpe as
the alias for okonko in the Cross River region. In this study, ekpe is used to refer to a
masquerade, thus, ekpe (masquerade,) ekpe akpan (the masquerade of akpan institution), ekpe
okonko (the okonko masquerade), and to the ekpe male dance society that owns a masquerade.
1189
Ifemesia, Traditional Humane Living Among the Igbo, 77-79; Talbot, The Peoples of
Southern Nigeria, 767; Nwabueze, “The Masquerade as Hero in Igbo Traditional Society,” 95312

Unlike in other parts of Igboland where each village had a host of masquerades, in Ohafia, each
village ekpe society had just one masked spirit.

1191

The existence of gendered socio-political

institutions such as the all-male akpan and the all-female ikpirikpe, possibly undermined the
political functionality of the ekpe institution in precolonial Ohafia.
Also, Ohafia-Igbo proximity to the non-Igbo Cross River peoples enabled them to
substitute some of their pan-Igbo institutions with those from their non-Igbo neighbors. Thus,
they adopted the okonko secret society between the 1820s and 1880s, in the course of trading
voyages to the coastal communities of the Cross River,

1192

and upon its introduction into

107; Onyeneke, The Dead among the Living, p.78; Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and
Kings, 213. Masquerades played a part in amusement, lamentation, and government of the living.
Their emergence during festivals affirmed the well being of the community, and their appearance
at funerals reassured all about ancestral continuity and social solidarity.
1190
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 30. An exception was the ekpe akpan discussed in chapter 3.
1191

Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village.
Nov. 2, 2011; Chief Kalu Ukariwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu.
Nov. 6, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview with author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe
Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the
Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011; Chief Uduma
Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuke. Nov. 24, 2011.
1192
According to Chief Oluka Mba of Nde-Ibe village, Ohafia, ekpe okonko was introduced to
Ohafia by Ohafia traders, who constantly visited or sojourned in Calabar. While he opined that
obon had been indigenized before his grand-father was born, Chief Oluka remembers that Mr.
Kalu Esu (c. 1865-1940) the son of an itinerant dibia from Ukwa, in Akwa-Ibom State,
introduced ekpe okonko to Asaga village, from where it spread to Nde-Ibe. Chief Oluka Mba,
oral interview by author, ocit. It is plausible that the okonko masked spirit itself (ekpe okonko)
was a more recent introduction. However, European observers had noted the practice of the
okonko (the society, also known as ekpe) institution in Ohafia and surrounding regions by the
late 19th century. See Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 196, and Ifemesia, Traditional
Humane Living Among the Igbo, 92-94. Also, as indicated in the introduction, the period 1820s1880s witnessed the decline of the Atlantic slave trade, and the rise of domestic slavery and long
distance trade in legitimate commodities. During this period, the Cross River was one of the
major trade routes that linked European and African traders on the Biafran coast with the
hinterland dwellers of southeastern Nigeria. During this period when long-distance trade was
dominated by men, Ohafia-Igbo people supplied palm produce and slaves to the coastal ports of
Itu, Calabar and Opobo. Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo People, 48-49. Also, see chapter 1.
313

Ohafia, the okonko masquerade (ekpe okonko) eclipsed the pan-Igbo ekpe masquerade in social
significance.

1193

This was possibly because the former was important to the regulation of long

distance trade (see below). However, both the pan-Igbo ekpe and ekpe okonko masquerades were
displayed during communal festivals between 1850 and 1900, and played significant roles in the
gendering of identities (initiation into masquerade societies) during this period.
Chief Olua Iro Kalu and Davidson Kalu Oki stated that it was only adult men that were
admitted into Ohafia masquerade societies before colonial rule.

1194

Indeed, an inalienable

feature of masquerades wherever they existed in Igbo society was their masculinization. Thus,
Onyeneke writes, “The social definition of man therefore is the ability to control a
masquerade.”

1195

Achebe defines the masked spirit as the institutional practice, which

limitations prevented female masculinities from realizing full manhood.

1196

Women were not

allowed to be members, were forbidden to claim knowledge of what was behind the mask, and
were required to dread the masquerade and run away from it.

1197

Chieka Ifemesia shows that

membership of the masquerade society served to distinguish boys from adult men, and ensured
that the young obeyed the authority of the male elders. He writes,
By initiation, a youth demonstrated his right to associate with ‘spirits’ because he
had visited their frightful world, gone through their gruelling mill, committed his
life to their precarious keeping; and still emerged victorious. In a word, he had
begun to acquire the proper arts and qualities of manhood. He was now, in the
best sense of the expression, an okolobia, a young man . . . Indeed, it was only by
1193

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 30.

1194

Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village. August 5, 2010; Chief
Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. Ebem Village. August 3, 2010.
1195
Onyeneke, The Dead among the Living, 78.
1196

Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 213-215.

1197

Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, 767; Basden, Among the Ibos, 235; Ibewuike,
African Women and Religious Change, 43.
314

membership of the society that a male was regarded as responsible in the
1198
village.
The last secret society that was relevant to gender construction among the Ohafia-Igbo
between 1850 and 1900, was the okonko instituion (not its masquerade) itself. This institution
played a major role in Ohafia conceptions of ogaranya (wealth) masculinity before colonial rule.
Okonko was a widespread institutional practice that diffused all over the Cross River area,
bestowing privileges and immunities upon members and granting them safe conduct throughout
the Igbo, Ibibio, Efik, Efut, Ododop, and Ekoi territories.

1199

Some accounts of its diffusion

mechanisms suggest that its first point of domestication east of the Cross River (the Igbo
territory) was the boundary town of Arochukwu, from where it spread through borrowing and
formal insitutionalization by special Aro groups to other parts of Igboland.

1200

However, Ohafia informants insisted that it was introduced to their society by Ohafia
traders, who came in close contact with non-Igbo Cross River peoples.

1201

By gaining

membership into okonko, an individual could travel more freely in the region of southeastern
Nigeria, which was rendered unsafe by the internal slave trade, kidnapping and robbery between

1198
1199
1200

Ifemesia, Traditional Humane Living Among the Igbo, 77-79.
Ifemesia, Traditional Humane Living Among the Igbo, 94.
Nwosu, “The Age of Cultural Hybridisation,” 163.

1201

Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village.
Nov. 2, 2011; Chief Kalu Ukariwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu
Village. Nov. 6, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview with author, digital voice recording,
Nde-Ibe Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and
Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011;
Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, Amuke, Ohafia. Nov. 24, 2011.
315

1202

1850 and 1900.

Since okonko had its own courts in most communities in the region, it

protected its members by inflicting harsh punishments against people who threatened, harmed, or
stole from them. It also brought an individual into membership of a widespread trade monopoly
enjoyed by okonko members.

1203

Lastly, membership in okonko provided creditors with a

powerful legal institution which forced their debtors to make payments.

1204

Upon the

introduction of the Native Court system under British colonial rule in 1907, okonko was at long
last (after futile efforts by British colonial officers to outlaw it)

1205

legalized, and members’

petitions were often favorably ruled upon by Native Court members (Ohafia warrant chiefs), who
were themselves, okonko men.

1206

As an institution of masculinity, okonko had hierarchies of titles. Through the wearing of
special insignia, members distinguished ranked grades and determined the allocation of
authority.

1207

By bringing the wealthiest group of men together, and introducing them to the

1202

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 4-5. The high incidence of robbery which
rendered the major trade routes of the region unsafe was one of the reasons that Ohafia warriors
used to justify their headhunting expeditions between 1850 and 1900; and later, the British
colonial government would use the same reason as justification for the “Collective Punishment
Ordinance” of 1915, and for conducting various pacification expeditions against Opobo, Bende,
Afikpo, and Awka districts. See CO583/49: “Nigeria Original Correspondence, OctoberNovember, 1916.” The major markets visited by Ohafia traders between 1850 and 1900, include
Ikwun and Biakpan (Afikpo Dividion), Calabar and Itu (Cross River Division), Arochukwu and
Uzuakoli (Bende Division). See Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 50.
1203
McCall, Dancing Histories, 81.
1204

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45; NAE, RIV PROF. 8/8/433:
“Okonko Club: Activity of.”
1205
NAE, RIV PROF. 8/8/433: “Okonko Club: Activity of.”
1206

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 46; Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview
by author, digital voice recording, Amuma, Ohafia. Nov. 26, 2011; Chief Uduma Nnochin
Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuke, Ohafia. Nov. 24, 2011; Chief
Kalu Ukariwe, oral interview by author, Akanu Village. Nov. 6, 2011.
1207
Offiong, Continuity and Change in Some Traditional Societies of Nigeria, 92
316

1208

complex secret sign-language of nsibidi,

okonko prevented rivalry among powerful men and

ensured the good order and stability of a community. However, the institution stressed the
differences between the poor and rich, slave and freeman, young and old.

1209

Patrick Nwosu

defines okonko as an authentic aspect of African religion that afforded protection to the elite
through religious rites, mystery and secrecy, eliciting fear among free society, maintaining law
and order, and creating economic inequalities between individuals and groups.

1210

Okonko was a means through which men, who became ogaranya exploited slave, poor
and immigrant populations. Since cases could be brought to okonko only through or by a
member, non-members were never assured justice.

1211

However, slaves who amassed wealth

were able to gain entry into okonko. The society admitted slaves to its lower and middle grades
up to the mid-19th century; and to all its grades from the 1850s.

1212

Nonetheless, it vested more

power in the wealthiest male members of the society; a category that excluded most slaves and
1208

Nsibidi was a repertoire of bodily, gestural and written signs, which enabled peoples from
different language groups such as Igbo, Efik, Ekoi and Qua to communicate intelligibly and
establish their status as okonko members, which guaranteed them safe passage.
1209
Ifemesia, Traditional Humane Living Among the Igbo, 93; Dike, Trade and Politics, 155159; G.I. Jones, “The Political Organization of Old Calabar” in Daryll Forde (ed.), Efik Traders
of Old Calabar (London: International African Institute, 1956), 148-157; Nair, Politics and
Society, 48-55; Latham, Old Calabar 1600-1891, 34-41, 75-79, 91-96; Chieka Ifemesia,
Southern Nigeria in the Nineteenth Century: An Introductory Analysis (New York: NOK
Publishers, 1978), 43-46; Nwosu, “The Age of Cultural Hybridisation,” 161-165; Nwosu, “The
Theory and Practice of Secrecy,” 1-17; Nwosu, “The Role of Okonko Society,” 59-64.
1210
Nwosu, “The Theory and Practice of Secrecy,” 2, 6, 14.
1211

Chief Kalu Ukariwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village. Nov.
6, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview with author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village.
Nov. 3, 2011; Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov.
26, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court,
Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov.17, 2011; Chief Uduma Nnochin
Ogbuagu, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording. Ebem Village. August 3, 2010.
1212
Ifemesia, Traditional Humane Living Among the Igbo, 93.
317

the poor. Second, since a man could not gain membership in the society before his father, poor
fathers were assured higher social status in the society than their wealthy sons who customarily
purchased membership for their fathers before they themselves could gain entry.

1213

Thus, while

wealth was important, age and seniority also shaped the attainment of okonko masculinity.
However, what is most significant about the domestication of okonko in Ohafia is that in
Calabar from whence it originated, okonko was used to regulate both trade and political life, was
the supreme judicial authority, and was gender-inclusive.

1214

In some other Igbo societies such

as Amuzo-Ihe, okonko membership was also gender-inclusive in the 18th and 19th centuries.

1215

In Ohafia however, it excluded women and lacked any substantial political prerogative, beyond
protecting the interests of its own members. Thus, Njoku observed that initiation into okonko in
Ohafia was finacially and materially cost-prohibitive, and so not many men could become
members. The few that did, enjoyed high social status as ogaranya, yet they lacked political
leverage.

1213

1216

Okonko members in Ohafia could set up toll-stations on major trade routes,

1217

Ibewuike, “African Women and Religious Change,” 45.

1214

Ifemesia, Traditional Humane Living Among the Igbo, 93; NAE, RIV PROF. 8/8/433:
“Okonko Club: Activity of.” Okonko members announced community labor and penalized those
who failed to turnout by seizing their livestock, especially goats and chickens, and killing and
sharing these. They heard and decided upon cases brought by members including debt, larceny,
committing adultery with a member’s wife, and murder. They rigidly defended the rules
governing membership such as giving false evidence in a case or observing okonko
entertainment without being initiated and exerted punishment against offenders, members and
non-members. Members could be penalized with fee payment of a goat, dismissed, and then readmitted with payment of a cow. Punishment for slaves who were non-members was death.
1215
NAE, RIV PROF. 8/8/433: “Okonko Club: Activity of.” Both men and women were
admitted upon payment of £20. Among several Ngwa communities, women were not admitted
into okonko, just like the Ohafia case. The reasons for the differing circumstances of gendered
adaptation in these other societies have not been made clear.
1216
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 30. According C.J. Mayne, the cost of membership in
Ohafia’s okonko society was two bottles of gin and a goat. Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the
Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45. Among the Ngwa where okonko fulfilled legitimate political functions
318

collect expensive fees from prospective members before initiation, and hold meetings and
entertainments, but they lacked legislative or judicial powers over the rest of the community.

1218

Simon Ottenberg also noted in the case of Afikpo, that the holders of the senior secret society
titles were powerful only to the extent of “reinforcing the authority structure of the village,” and
performing ritual and prestige functions.

1219

The performance of ogaranya masculinity through okonko membership was a
dramatization of high social status for wealthy Ohafia men between 1850 and 1900, but okonko
members lacked formal political power over women. This may be because, while the exclusion
of women from okonko membership provided men with yet another institution for ufiem
performance, it equally reinforced the autonomy of female political institutions, which limited
okonko members from realizing legitimate political power in the society, unlike in Calabar.
Indeed, the political roles that okonko served in Calabar were fulfilled in Ohafia by two gendered
institutions: the male akpan and the female ikpirikpe ndi inyom.

1220

Hence, with regard to

Ohafia, Nwosu’s assertion that okonko represents Igbo identity and that without it a community

however, membership fees ranged from a cow and £10 to several goats and 1600 manillas. See
NAE, RIV PROF. 8/8/433: “Okonko Club: Activity of.”
1217
Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 197.
1218

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 45-46; Chief Kalu Ukariwe, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village. Nov. 6, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba,
oral interview with author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe Village. Nov. 3, 2011; Chief Torti
Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011; Anaso
Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by
author, digital voice recording, Ndea-Nku Village. Nov. 17, 2011; Chief Uduma Nnochin
Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuke, Ohafia. Nov. 24, 2011; Chief
Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. Ebem Village. August 3, 2010.
1219
Ottenberg, Double Descent in an African Society, 147.
1220

See chapter 3 for detailed discussion of these institutions.
319

1221

is without a name,

does not hold true. In the first two decades of the 20th century, many

more Ohafia men, who amassed wealth as mission-school-trained enterpreneurs (carpenters,
masons, and tailors) were able to afford membership of okonko.

1222

By that time, okonko had

gained legitimacy under British colonial rule, and the political interests of its members were
protected by the colonial Native Court.

1223

Theorizing Gender Construction through the Lens of Ohafia Secret Societies
One important feature of Ohafia secret societies was their role in delineating and enabling
successive transitions from boyhood to adult masculinity. According to Obuba Igu, “They were
the societies which enable the traditional Ohafia man recognize that a male child had attained a
certain level of maturity and was capable of being left with some responsibility.”

1224

This

responsibility for a male child included being able to keep a secret, perform igba nnunu (to kill a
hummingbird using bow and arrow),

1225

live with other boys independent of his mother, go on

dangerous hunting expeditions, cultivate yams, establish a yam barn, marry a wife, and go to war
and cut a head as the ultimate proof of ufiem (masculinity), between 1850 and 1900.

1221

Nwosu, “The Age of Cultural Hybridisation,” 162

1222

Elder Ukpai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia,
April 13, 2012; Elder Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. May 18, 2012;
Mr. I. Ukoha, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Ebem Village. Oct. 27, 2011.
1223
NAE, RIV PROF. 8/8/433: “Okonko Club: Activity of;” Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the
Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 46; Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Amuma Village. Nov. 26, 2011; Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Amuke Village. Nov. 24, 2011; Chief Kalu Ukariwe, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village. Nov. 6, 2011.
1224
Obuba Igu, The Advent of Catholicism in Umuahia Diocese: The Ohafia Experience
(Nigeria: Felly Prints, 2005), p.50
1225
See chapter 3.
320

Second, through dance performances, secret societies functioned to socially legitimate the
attainment of various forms of ufiem. Thus, at the death of a warrior or upon the accomplishment
of ufiem such as igwa nnu (the prestigious yam title) or igbu ishi (“to cut a head”), obon, akang,
and ekpe dance performances were enacted in respect and celebration of these accomplishments.
Through these ufiem-legitimating performances, the indigenous logos of masculinity was
mapped on both the individual involved and the participating spectator public.
For instance, in an oral interview with Akanu elders, they recall the anthropologist John
McCall as “onye ocha ku nwunye ya bia” [‘The white-man that came with his wife’], and that in
acknowledgment of his bravery in conducting ethnographic work in the rough and tumble field,
his impressive effort to understand a culture different from his own, and his symbolization of
modernity and success (in Ohafia view, Western education and financial wealth), Akanu people
deemed it fit to bestow ufiem upon him. Thus, John Idika said: “a gbaara ya ekpe, kpuo ya akwa,
kpuo ya okpu agu” [“The ekpe masquerade dance was performed for him, the jooji cloth was
wrapped around him, and the leopard cap of bravery was put on his head”].

1226

Third, as institutional practices, Ohafia-Igbo secret societies highlight the social nature of
gender formation as well as the fact that the fulfillment of obligatory practices within these
institutions required individual performances of distinction. On the one hand, these secret
societies made social discriminations between initiates and non-initiates, which were gendered.
On the other hand, through the accumulation of wealth, even slaves were able to gain
membership in the most exclusive secret society in the region. Thus, Ohafia secret societies
evidence the conjunctive view of ufiem attainment as both social configurations and a product of
individuals’ quest for social mobility.

1226

Nna John O. Idika, in Group Interview with Elders of Nde Odo Compound, Akanu Village.
321

Men of Spirits: An Overview of Ohafia Dibia Institution, 1850-1900
Spirit-mediumship in pre-colonial southeastern Nigeria was a complex phenomenon,
manifest in priests and priestesses, prophets and prophetesses, reincarnates (ogbanje) and
1227

diviners (dibia).

This chapter examines the most prominent spirit-mediumship in Ohafia —

the dibia, a much-understudied aspect of Igbo religious and political life.

1228

In pre-colonial

Ohafia, the dibia institution was exclusively male, and controlled by a fastidious guild (aja abali)
composed of the most practiced men.

1229

Through theatrical public performances of mastery

over the spiritual world, itinerant healing practices in the unsafe 19th century environment of the
Bight of Biafra, and by fulfilling the role of community protectors, Ohafia men gendered the
dibia institution, such that the few women who became dibia were socially defined as men.

1230

1227

Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 53-107; Chinwe Achebe, The World of the
Ogbanje (Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension, 1986); Jude C. Aguwa, The Agwu Deity in Igbo
Religion: A Study of the Patron Spirit of Divination and Medicine in an African Society (Enugu,
Nigeria: Fourth Dimension, 1995), 39-45; Basden, Among the Ibos, 223-254; Francis Arinze,
Sacrifice in Igbo Religion (Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press, 1970).
1228
The need to understand the dibia institution is heightened by misunderstandings and misframing generated by scholars of African identity formation within the continent and across the
Atlantic, who equate African priesthood with homosexuality. Thus, the “cross-dressing”
Brazilian ades (Candomble priests) are seen as “passive homosexuals” - bichas that constitute
evidence of historic Yoruba homosexuality (Sango priests); and Southern Africa priests,
diviners, and spirit-possessed prophets (isangoma, kimbanda, esengei, mwaami, eshenga,
ikihindu, ikimaze, and inkosi ygbatfazi) are defined as homosexuals and hermaphrodites. See
Lorand J. Matory, Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the
Afro-Brazilian Candomble (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005), 206-212;
Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, eds., Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African
Homosexualities (New York: Palgrave, 1998). While this study is sensitive to how the
masculinization of indigenous African institutions was central to the constitution of a
heteronormative culture, and does not suggest that homosexuality is “un-African,” it is critical of
unfounded assumptions of homosexuality within African institutional practices.
1229
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 44.
1230

Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu, Ohafia.
Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu,
Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde
322

Between 1850 and 1900, every Ohafia village possessed a number of dibia but some
villages such as Okon, Akanu, and Amaekpu were distinguished for the preponderance of dibia
in their communities.

1231

Dibia combined knowledge of herbal medicine and divination. First,

they offered healing and immunization through the curative powers of roots and herbs gathered
from the bush. In this sense, the dibia was both doctor and pharmacist. His medicine-making was
known as igwo ogwu. This meant the preparation of medicines with natural substances and the
invocation of a good or bad spirit to empower it.
Second, dibia were possessed by the medicine deity, agwu, which enabled them to
function as intermediaries between humans and spirits, and interprete the will of the gods.

1232

Hence, I define them as spirit mediums, who were gifted with four eyes: two for the human
world, and two for the spiritual world.

1233

They were able to harness psychic forces through

such extrasensory powers as clairvoyance and clairaudience,

1234

which enabled them to deal

with physiological, mental, and spiritual health challenges.
The ailments treated by Ohafia dibia in the pre-colonial period, included stomach aches,
headaches and common fevers, malaria, food poisoning and snake bites, infertility, impotence,
Idika Okoro Compound, Okon Village, Sept. 22, 2011; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 14, 2011; Dibia Azueke Kalu of Nde Idika
Okoro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village. September 22, 2011.
1231
Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 197; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 44. In Okon,
the male members of three out of the twenty-seven compounds were, according to Njoku, “dibia
to a man.” These compounds are Nde Ekea, Nde Ebin and Nde Idika Okoro. The Intelligence
Report on Ohafia is silent about dibia practices.
1232
Aguwa, The Agwu Deity in Igbo Religion, 244; Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and
Kings, 77; Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. August 4,
2010; Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011;
Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011.
1233
Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 22,
2011; Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011.
1234
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 44.
323

and sexually-transmitted diseases.

1235

extracting infected blood and bullets.

They were experts in setting fractured bones and

1236

However, it was in the treatment of mental disorders

that a dibia’s degree of expertise was defined. It was his ability to successfully combine herbal
medicines and elaborate healing rituals to restore a psychopathic patient to good health that
distinguished a successful dibia and assured him a place in the highest grades of his
profession.

1237

As Karen Flint and Julie Livingstone observed in the Zulu and Botswana cases
respectively, African medicine included practices deployed to heal the human body as well as the
body politic.

1238

Ohafia dibias were not mobilized for the well being of a king or for the fishing

out and execution of witches, neither were they used to reinforce chiefly authority, as were the
cases in Zulu and Botswana. However, Ohafia dibia played key roles in the defense and
protection of their communities, which contributed to the masculinization of the profession in the
precolonial period.

1239

During the wars of the 1880s and 1890s for instance, Ohafia dibia

1235

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ndi Ekea Compound,
Okon Village, Ohafia. August 4, 2010; Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 4, 2010.
1236
Dibia Akirika of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Okon, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Kalu Ekea of Nde Ekea Compound, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011.
1237
Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. August 4, 2010;
Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia
Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011.
1238
Karen E. Flint, Healing Traditions: African Medicine, Cultural Exchange, and Competition
in South Africa, 1820-1948 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008), 37-89; Livingston, Debility
and the Moral Imagination in Botswana, 64-106.
1239
Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village. Sept.
22, 2011; Elders of Nde Nbila compound, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Okon Aku Village. September 15, 2011; Elders of Nde Oka compound, Group Interview by
author, digital voice recording, Okon Aku Village. September 14 and 15, 2011.
324

provisioned warriors with protective medicine (ogwu) to ensure their safe return.

1240

They also

prepared medicines to protect their community from external attacks and social calamities (such
as epidemics and famine).

1241

Dibia Agwu Arua recalled that his grandfather and many other

dibias participated in various dibia competitions in the Cross River region between 1860 and
1900, and their victories reinforced the notion that Ohafia was a society to be feared, which
helped to keep away thieves and kidnappers.

1242

During community festivals usually held in the rainy months of August and September,
dibia were contracted to prepare medicines to hold off rains; and during the dry seasons, they
invoked rains to enable the community to plant their crops.

1243

British colonial officer, Major

Arthur Glyn Leonard noted in his 1896 journal that he secured the intercession of a dibia in
Akanu village, Ohafia “with a few heads of tobacco, [to] propitiate the elements and save [him
1240

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by
author, Okon. Aug. 5, 2010; Uma, “Ohafia and Her Neighbors,” 45-48.
1241
Ibid. According to Chief Agwu Ojo, dibia practice began in Okon village during the period
of settlement (1500-1650), when the original inhabitants, the Biom, who were experiencing
social calamities invited Dibia Idika Okoro Okwara to deliver their community from
uncontrollable death tolls. Dibia Okwara was able to save the community, and was therefore
invited to live among them. His descendants maintained dibia practice in Okon, and served as
community protectors. See Chief Agwu Ojo Agwu, oral interview by author, video-recording.
Okon Aku Village, Ohafia. Sept. 22, 2011. This was also corroborated by Dibia Uche Dimgba,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Idika Okoro Compound, Okon Village,
Sept. 22, 2011. Also, various Ohafia dibia interviewed in the course of this project insisted that
they were the reason why Ohafia was the only community in the region that did not fall to the
Nigerian forces during the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970). Dibia from Okon village said that
they covered their community with water, such that when Nigerian soldiers looked over the
territory, all they saw was deep blue sea. While this magic cannot be confirmed as historical
truth, this account speaks to how dibia saw themselves.
1242
Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Ohafia.
August 4, 2010. Also, Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ndi
Ekea Compound, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 4, 2010. These men also stated that Ohafia dibia
often visited various communities in the region (upon invitation), where they established oracles
and protective medicines for individuals and entire communities.
1243
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 14, 2011.
325

and his party from] a good drenching, [by causing] the threatening storm [to] roll away.”

1244

Ohafia dibia also fulfilled judicial functions. When two parties agreed to take an oath to
establish the truth, they submitted themselves to a dibia for mediation; and when a litigant
lodged a petition against another party at the shrine of a deity, the dibia sent a summons to the
defendant.

1245

Beyond punishments and rewards, dibia justice sought to establish reconciliation

through igbandu (covenant), and punishment only resulted from false testimony before the
deity.

1246

Thus, when families rent by discord sought the restoration of social cohesion and

mutual trust, they resorted to the dibia, as opposed to the punitive ikpirikpe or akpan.

1247

Before the advent of Christianity at the turn of the 20th century, Ohafia dibia proved
most useful to their society, by maintaining a cosmological balance between the worlds of the
living and the dead. The outbreak of malignant diseases such as smallpox and leprosy (as was the
case in 1890 [mgbe ogarelu mbu]) signaled the displeasure of the gods and ancestors.

1248

As

Uchendu observed, uncontrollable calamities such as continuous droughts, long periods of
famine, epidemic diseases, sorcery and other antisocial forces destabilized the “moving
equilibrium” between the worlds of the living and the world of the dead.
1244

1249

Through ichu aja

Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 197.

1245

Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011;
Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011.
Exploiting both faith and fears of the parties, the dibia established innocence and guilt.
1246
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 16-20.
1247

Elders of Nde Nbila compound, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon
Village. Sept. 15, 2011.
1248
Chief Okoro Ekeanya Ibe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village,
Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village,
Sept. 14, 2011; Chief Kalu Imaga, ezie ezi of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011.
1249
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 12.
326

(sacrifice and appeasement of spirits), the dibia drove out evil spirits and invoked the blessings
of good spirits on the living,

1250

restored the cosmic balance, and forged an acceptable narrative

that enabled the living to make sense of such tragedies.
In the pre-colonial period,

1252

1251

Ohafia dibias were celebrated annually in appreciation of

their roles as community protectors. During this celebration known as ibia abia nsi (thanksgiving
to dibia), relatives of dibia from various sections of the community and other Ohafia villages
visited dibia in their homes, presenting them with gifts and good wishes.

1253

During this

celebration, new dibia initiates also visited senior dibia in their community, in order to pay
homage. Dressed in white and red cloths, their bodies decorated with chalk (nzu), and their hair
covered with beaded dread-lock braids, the young initiates went from one dibia compound to
another in order of lineage seniority, to play and sing eulogies to senior dibia in their homes.

1254

The Ohafia dibia institution was a mechanism of socio-political change between 1850
and 1900, and it also proved itself capable of adapting to the changes brought by British
colonialism and Christianity between 1900 and 1920. Unlike in South Africa where the colonial
government was actively illegitimizing some African healers (isangomas) and licensing others

1250

Basden, Among the Ibos, 224.

1251

Dibia Azueke Kalu of Nde Idika Okoro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Okon Aku Village, Ohafia. September 22, 2011; Elders of Nde Oka compound, Group Interview
by author, digital voice recording, Okon Aku Village. September 14 and 15, 2011.
1252
This ritual continues today, and was video-recorded by the author.
1253

Chief Imaga Torti, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011;
Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011;
Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011;
Chief Obasi Kama, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 26, 2011.
1254
Ibid.
327

(inyangas),

1255

the dibia were at the turn of the 20th century, entirely dismissed by both the

British colonial government and European missionaries, who viewed the entire indigenous
religious corpus as barbaric, satanic, and fraudulent practices.

1256

The dramatic success of

Christian missionary medicare, especially as exemplified by Rev. Robert Collins of the Church
of Scotland Mission from 1911 to 1932, posed a grave challenge to Ohafia dibia. Nowhere was
this more dramatized than in the smallpox (ogharelu) and ibi (massive elephantiasis of the
scrotum) epidemics of the 1890s and 1919, which killed thousands of Ohafia people.

1257

According to Rev. Collins, most of the afflicted Christian converts recovered from the smallpox
because they were “sensible,” while the “heathens” who “followed the advice of witch doctors”
died in their numbers.

1258

One of Okon, Ohafia highly respected dibia, Agwu Arua, who contracted the pox as a
child and was quarantined in 1919, recalls that the smallpox epidemic began in the mission-run
schools, and that the dibia community had no known cures for it.

1259

This consciousness of the

limits of indigenous medicare practices shaped the eclectic nature of his own curative measures.
Dibia Agwu Arua grew up fusing traditional medicare with western scientific knowledge. He
also sent his son to the university to study western medicine, so that he would be able to combine
1255

Flint, Healing Traditions, 95-115.

1256

“Collins, Robert; Missionary in Calabar, Letters of: Letter from Collins Robert to Mr.
Livingstone, dated 10th November 1920, West Africa (National Library of Scotland, MS.7793),
41-42; Basden, Among the Ibos, 244
1257
“Collins, Robert; Missionary in Calabar, Letters of: Letter from Collins Robert to Mr.
Ashcroft, dated 7th May 1920, West Africa (National Library of Scotland, MS.7793); Dibia
Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Ohafia. Aug. 4, 2010;
Elizabeth Isichei, Igbo Worlds: An Anthology of Oral Histories and Historical Descriptions
(Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978), 231-232
1258
“Letter from Collins Robert to Mr. Livingstone, dated 10th November 1920, 41.
1259

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010.
328

both systems in his own practice. In order to expand his social legitimacy as a stellar medicare
practitioner who observed the best safety principles, Dibia Agwu Arua obtained a government
certificate, which recognized him as a reliable traditional medicare giver in 1938. This
government certification expanded Dibia Agwu Arua’s Christian clientele, and enabled him to
continue the traditional ritual and spiritual elements of his craft, which gave his work
authenticity. Similarly, several Ohafia dibia incorporate Christian iconography and concepts in
the presentation and translation of their shrines. Thus, Dibia Kalu Azueke described his
ifummonwu (cult objects) deities as his “Bible.”

1260

Dibia Hierarchies and Conceptions of Dibia Masculinity, 1850-1900
Among the Ohafia-Igbo, initiation into dibia was known as iwa anya

1261

(to have one’s

eyes opened). The iwa anya concept denotes enlightenment — the epiphanous moment when a
boy-child initiate gained revelation of his abilities as a spirit-medium; as a dibia. Uchendu writes
that through this priestly ordination, the initiate acquired the power of vision (to forecast the
future).

1262

The path to iwa-anya was a long and tortuous one marked by assiduous training and

transmission of skill and knowledge from father to son;

1260

1263

and social mobility from iwa-anya

Dibia Azueke Kalu of Nde Idika Okoro, oral interview by author.

1261

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village. August
4, 2010; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village.
Aug. 4, 2010; Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by
author; Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author; Chief Obasi Kama, oral interview by
author.
1262
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 81.
1263

The dibia profession was mostly circumscribed to certain families and compounds in each
village, often reflecting the historical order of settlement. Within such families or compounds, a
father or an adult male dibia, fulfilled the role of mentor towards an apprentice/son. There were
however cases where individuals whose forebears were not dibia sought apprenticeship under a
329

to the highest grade of dibia (aja abali status) was even more challenging. The initiate first
performed ije ogwu/isiara ogwu (divination and healing trip) to a distant community, where he
must distinguih himself by healing difficult ailments, and returning with new knowledge, wealth,
and honor.

1264

Second, the new dibia must perform a spectacular display of bravado in various
dangerous dibia competitions at home and abroad.

1265

Third, the initiate must successfully

mentor a new dibia. Upon these accomplishments, the newly-minted dibia (onye tunle ogwu)
was promoted to the status of atule abali (second-grade dibia). After years of distinguished
practice, the atule abali was then promoted to the stature of aja abali (first-grade dibia), which
earned him the right to sit in the ruling council of the dibia guild. Thus, among the Ohafia-Igbo,
the following successive grades of dibia existed: ndi lela lela (apprentices and recruits), nde
tunle ogwu (newly-minted dibia), nde atule abali (second-grade dibia), and ndi aja abali (firstgrade dibia). Each grade enjoyed a commensurate social status, which was also a reflection of a
dibia’s wealth in knowledge and material things.
The hierarchies within the dibia institution were based on the longevity of a dibia’s
practice, level of spiritual power, and wealth. Ndi aja abali, who were the top echelon of the

well-known and respected dibia. In such a situation, the relationship between the dibia and his
apprentice was expressed as that of nna na nwa — “father/master” and “son/servant.”
1264
Agwu Kalu, L.N. Chika, and N.O. Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia: An
Unpublished Work by Isiama Parish of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria,” (2005), 1; Njoku,
Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 112; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice
recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia, April 13, 2012.
1265
Dibia Uduma Uchendu of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu Village, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Akanu Village, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Idika Okoro Compound, Okon Village, Sept.
22, 2011; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept.
14, 2011; Dibia Azueke Kalu of Nde Idika Okoro, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Okon Aku Village, Ohafia. September 22, 2011.
330

institution, and who regulated admission and social mobility within the institution were the most
respected cadre of dibia masculinities.

1266

The entrance to their homes was distinguished with

omu (yellow palm leaf) decorations, which symbolized their sacred persona and the sanctity of
their ritual spaces.

1267

Among the Ohafia-Igbo, every dibia worked from home, and a room

within his abode was designated as the shrine. Visitors were obliged to take off their shoes
before entering the shrine.
However, for those dibia who attained aja abali status, their entire compound was
considered a sanctuary, and visitors observed a number of taboos within it.

1268

The variations in

the scale of social configurations of ritual sanctity distinguished senior dibia from their juniors,
and influenced the financial cost of their consultation, as well as the socio-political make-up of
their clientele. The aja abali dibia was socially perceived as a living deity, and the leader of the
1269

aja abali was a primus inter pares.

He kept the guild’s okpogho elu (medicine pot), said to

hold “the secrets” of dibia medicine, and was the most powerful medicine that insured the
security of the community.

1270

1266

Chief Obasi Kama, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Akirika,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Kalu Ekea of Nde
Ekea Compound, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011.
1267
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by
author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga Village.
September 16, 2011; Chief Okoro Ekeanya Ibe, oral interview by author, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011.
1268
The following categories of people were forbidden from the compounds of aja abali dibia:
women who were experiencing menstruation; twin mothers, twins, an adulterer and a thief. Chief
Imagha Oka of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon
Village, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Uduma Uchendu of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu Village, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011.
1269
Chief Agwu Ojo Agwu, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. Sept. 22, 2011.
1270

The okpogho-elu was described as “ihe anyi ji biri” (“that which sustained the life of our
community”), and every year, it received a grand sacrifice comprising a goat, a ram, a cock, and
331

The Initiation Process and the Performance of Dibia Masculinity
A male child born into a dibia family was groomed for initiation into the dibia cult from
birth. Every year until the age of ten, he underwent a ritual and medical immunization called itu
umurima akwukwo or ipi ogwu (herbal infusion). Dibia Agwu Arua stated:
When my mother gave birth to me [1921], we still had a tradition where every
year in the month of September, my mother would provide a cock and my father
would bring ogirisi leaves. These were mashed and squeezed; and the juices were
mixed with the blood of the cock, fresh palm wine, and other medicines, and were
dropped into my mouth and eyes . . . This was done every year until I reached the
age of ten, when I did what we call itu aba or itu anya, at which point I was
introduced to education on medicine (ogwu), and knowledge of different herbs
and leaves in the forest.
I documented the ipi ogwu ritual in Okon village, Ohafia in 2011. Within the obu
(meeting house) of Nde Idika Okoro patrilineage, which was girded by omu (yellow palm frond)
leaves to delineate a sacred space, the male elders of the patrilineage prepared a herbal infusion
in a big earthen-ware bowl called ite nja (this too was decorated with omu). The medicine thus
prepared was an elixir: it was given to male and female children to immunize them against
physical, mental and spiritual ailments; adult men drank it to reinforce their strengths, and
increase or restore their virility; pregnant women drank it for the protection of the babies in their
wombs and for safe delivery of their children; and maidens drank it to ensure that they would get
pregnant.

1271

But the ceremony focused on the children of the patrilineage, who were officially

presented before the various patrilineage shrines (kamalu, fijoku, and okpogho), where they were
blessed and immunized. In turns, the children were laid on a mat before the shrines. The infused

a dog. Chief Obasi Kama of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Okon Village, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Akirika of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview
by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011.
1271
Dibia Kalu Eke of Nde Idika Okoro, oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon Aku
Village, Ohafia. September 22, 2011; Dibia Kakarere (Oyibo) oral interview by author, videorecording. Okon Aku Village, Ohafia. Sept. 22, 2011.
332

leaves were squeezed into their mouths and eyes. Then a cock was killed and the blood spilled on
the okpogho and into the child’s mouth.
The timing of ipi ogwu is significant. It came on the eve of umerowgu (powerful
medicine display competition among dibia), which was the high-point of the biannual dibia
festival. Thus immunized, children were safe from harmful medicine discharged by any dibia in
the community.

1272

The ritual incorporation of every member of the lineage in ipi ogwu served

to reinforce the unity of the patrilineage: mothers provided the requisite cocks for the ritual on
behalf of each of their children, fathers prepared the medicine and conducted the herbal infusion,
and all the livestock were later cooked and served to all members of the lineage.

1273

According

to Dibia Ndukwe Uche Dimgba, the ritual made every child in the lineage the collective
responsibility of all adult members, such that when a child was sick or in some difficulty in the
absence of his or her parents, the entire compound assumed responsibility for his or her
welfare.

1274

Ipi ogwu also served to fortify (itahi ike) the prospective dibia child and enable him
1275

to withstand the sight of spirits upon initiation.

1272

Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Idika Okoro
Compound, Okon Village, Sept. 22, 2011; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 14, 2011; Dibia Azueke Kalu of Nde Idika Okoro, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Aku Village, Ohafia. September 22, 2011.
1273
Dibia Kalu Eke of Nde Idika Okoro, oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon Aku
Village, Ohafia. September 22, 2011; Dibia Kakarere (Oyibo) oral interview by author, videorecording. Okon Aku Village, Ohafia. Sept. 22, 2011.
1274
Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011.
1275

Chief Obasi Kama of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Okon Village, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Akirika of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview
by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Kalu Ekea of Nde Ekea
Compound, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011; Dibia Kalu
Eke of Nde Idika Okoro, oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon Aku Village, Ohafia.
September 22, 2011; Dibia Kakarere (Oyibo) oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon
Aku Village, Ohafia. Sept. 22, 2011.
333

At the age of ten, the boy underwent itu aba/itu anya ceremony, which qualified him for
intensive education in the dibia craft. As an apprentice, he carried the dibia’s medicine bag, and
began to identify and master the names, shapes, texture, smell and location of various medicinal
plants in the forest, and their curative or poisonous functions.

1276

Through observation and

experiment, he learned the various combinations of medicinal plants and the mechanisms of their
processing, as well as the symptoms and treatment of various ailments. He escorted the dibia on
house-calls and on his annual performances of ije ogwu (divination and healing trip).

1277

Between 1850 and 1900, Ohafia dibia frequently went to the riverine Cross River
territories in performance of ije ogwu, often returning with new knowledge and pharmacological
recipes.

1278

Until the first decade of the 20th century, such journeys were perilous because of

slaving activities. Therefore, the ability of a dibia to embark on the journey and return
successfully established his reputation as a powerful diviner. In his autobiography, Nna Kalu
Ezelu Uwoma, who was kidnapped as a boy and enslaved in Opobo in the 1870s accounts for the
presence of several Ohafia dibia in the region of Opobo and the Niger Delta, whose identities as
dibia rendered them immune to harassment or threat of enslavement, and who facilitated his safe
return from Opobo to Ohafia. It was also in view of the social aura and immunity associated with

1276

Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 14,
2011; Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Aku Village,
Ohafia. September 22, 2011. Also, see Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 79.
1277
Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010.
1278

Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by
author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga Village,
Ohafia. September 16, 2011; Dibia Azueke Kalu of Nde Idika Okoro, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Okon Aku Village, Ohafia. September 22, 2011; Elders of Nde Nbila
compound, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Aku Village. September
15, 2011; Elders of Nde Oka compound, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Okon Aku Village. September 14 and 15, 2011.
334

dibia that Nna Kalu Ezelu himself became a dibia upon his return to Ohafia in 1901, as an
insurance against re-enslavement.

1279

Uchendu noted that because of the Igbo respect for dibia, a fact reflected in the many
immunities they enjoyed in the pre-colonial period, members of the dibia fraternity were among
the most traveled Igbo in pre-Britisg days. They exploited their immunities to the full, and were
able to establish a Pan-Igbo solidarity, even in the days when travel in southeastern Nigeria was
considered dangerous.

1280

The social security of dibia-hood also played a significant role in the

remarkable success of Aro diviners-cum-slavers who toured various communities in southeastern
Nigeria in the 18th and 19th centuries, performing purification rituals and facilitating the
production of slaves.

1281

However, ije ogwu was still considered dangerous, because dibia had to trek to their
destinations through forests and footpaths, sometimes over a period of five weeks,

1282

and there

was no guarantee that they would be successful in curing ailments, and returning with new
wealth in knowledge and material things. Thus, ije ogwu was seen as a performance of dibia
bravado.

1283

We may recall that ufiem accomplishment was premised on the idea that young

Ohafia men ventured out beyond their borders into hostile territories, confronted unspeakable

1279
1280
1281

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 158-159.
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 81.
Nwokeji, The Slave Trade and Culture, xiii, 7.

1282

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village. Aug. 4,
2010; Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011;
Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011.
1283
Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, Okon Village. September 22, 2011; Dibia
Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 14, 2011.
335

dangers and returned home with the object of their mission.

1284

To establish oneself as a dibia

socially, a new dibia initiate embarked on ije ogwu, in the same fashion that Ohafia warriors
went to war and cut a head in order to be recognized as real men. Indeed, the process of man
making for dibia began at initiation (iwa anya), which entailed an elaborate ritual of death and
resurrection. As Dibia Kalu Uko put it, “the initiate descended into the land of the spirits, fought
incredible battles for his survival, and re-emerged in the world of the living, bursting with
confidence and pride.”

1285

I was privileged to document this initiation ritual during the Okon dibia festival in 2011.
It was performed as part of umerogwu — the dibia magic competition held during the special
new yam festival for dibia persons and their families known as aja abali (named after the highest
1286

category of dibia).

The atmosphere for the aja abali celebration was charged with

excitement. The voices of energetic young dibia initiates singing various hymns and war songs
rose above the din of hundreds of fans and spectators, chanting and gyrating to the music issuing
from various metal gong ensembles. The spectator crowd formed a big circle around the dibia
performers, where a grave had been dug uAfter several thrilling performances, the prospective
boy initiate made his entrance with elaborate music and dancing accompanied by his parents,
members of his patrilineage and matrilineage, friends and age mates. His dibia mentor blessed
him, as did his biological father. Then, he was ceremoniously wrapped in a mat, which was
borne shoulder high by four young men, who carried him into the patrilineage obu meeting
1284

See chapter 4.

1285

Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 14,
2011. This was also confirmed by Dibia Kalu Ekea of Nde Ekea Compound, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011; Dibia Chikezie Emeri, Akanu Village, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011.
1286
Video recording by author, clips DSCN 1672, DSCN 1673, and DSCN 1674, Okon Village.
September 26, 2011.
336

house. The mat bearers soon re-emerged, and lowered the wrapped mat into the grave, which
was quickly covered up.
After about thirty minutes, the boy who had been thus buried, was seen making his way
through the crowd, to the center of the theatre, amidst cheers and adulations. He was adorned in
colorful dibia regalia. His hair had been transformed into thick, long dreadlocks; his upper body
was decorated with the sacred nzu (white powder); a white cloth tie adorned his neck; he wore
around his waist, a flowing red jooji wrapper cloth bedecked with cowries; and his eyes were
circled with white nzu, signifying his new ability to see both the world of the living and the
world of the dead. His father, seated beside the initiate’s mother, showered praises and honorifics
upon his dibia son, declaring his manhood, bravery, and invincibility. Walking over to his father,
the new dibia placed his hands on his father’s in homage and blessing. Then, walking over to my
camera he boasted:
I was the one who was just buried here in front of Nde Idika Okoro compound. I
descended into the land of the spirits, fought many valiant battles, and came back
from the dead! I am the one they call Native Doctor Agu Uche. There is no
manner of illness whatever its provenance, which I cannot cure! There is no
disease that I do not heal! I am the last bus stop! Long live Okon village! Long
live Ndi Idika Okoro patrilineage! What you just witnessed is what we call
umerogwu (magic)!
Dibia Agu Uche came over to the camera of his own volition, without invitation, because
he saw it as an opportunity to publicly announce his new social status. His new distinctive
clothing, the stream of people congratulating him on his successful return back from the dead,
and the elaborate feasting and dancing among his relatives and friends that would soon follow,
all served to publicize his realization of dibia masculinity. Recalling his iwa anya several
decades ago, Dibia Agwu Arua, now in his early 90s experienced a burst of energy: he stood up

337

and performed the graceful dance of his faded youth, declaring that iwa anya “is the biggest
ceremony in life for us who are dibia.”

1287

Figure 8: Site of iwa anya/itu ogwu ritual and umerogwu burial and ressurrection
performance, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

Iwa anya was also an expensive venture. Apart from the provision of rare and expensive
ritual articles such as tortoise shells and tiger claws,

1288

it required the presentation of enough

food (yams, rice, goats, chickens) and wine to entertain the entire community for a day, and the

1287

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010.

1288

Dibia Uduma Uchendu of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu Village, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Akanu Village, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 14, 2011; Dibia Eke Uma of Nde Edem Compound,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011.
338

dibia guild for eight days.

1289

Uchendu writes, “dibia recruited [their] members through

ordination. This was usually a very costly ritual ceremony lasting for eight days, during which
time the initiate was secluded and ‘doctored’ with medicine. He paid a high initiation fee, which
was shared . . . among members.”

1290

The performance of ije ogwu divination trip, following

initiation might also have served to enable new dibia recoup their initiation expenses.
Indeed, wealth was at the center of dibia masculinity. Njoku writes, “because of the wide
demand for their services, traditional medical practitioners, especially the renowned ones, were
among the wealthiest members of Ohafia society [in the pre-colonial period].”
and women such as Madam Chief Otuwe Agwu,

1292

to purchase membership within the dibia institution.

1291

Wealthy men

who were not from dibia families were able

1293

Whereas in northern Igboland, the dibia

institution was open to both men and women, in Ohafia, women who became dibia were socially
perceived as men, and such women were also distinguished for their wealth.

1294

Nna Kalu, mentioned above, was the wealthiest individual in Ohafia-Igbo society at the
turn of the 20th century. He began his career as a dibia in 1901, and ended as a warrant-chief and
leading elder of the Presbyterian Church.

1295

According to Chief Udensi Ekea, his grand-father,

Dibia Udensi Ekea, was a very successful dibia, who served as a leader of nde aja abali — the

1289

Dibia Azueke Kalu of Nde Idika Okoro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Okon Aku Village, Ohafia. September 22, 2011; Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by
author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010.
1290
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 81.
1291
1292

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 45.
See chapter 5 for case study.

1293

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 158.

1294

John McCall, “Portrait of a Brave Woman,” American Anthropologist 98, 127-136.

1295

See chapter 5.
339

highest dibia grade, and built the first modern story house with zinc roofing in Ohafia, in
performance of ogaranya (wealth) masculinity in the late 1890s.

1296

The Ekea patrilineage is a

dibia family, and Udensi Ekea (born around 1850) was initiated into dibia as a boy. He gained
popularity as an efficient dibia not only in Ohafia but also in neighboring communities such as
Arochukwu and Abam in the 1870s.

1297

Dibia Ekea’s uncles, jealous of his prosperity at such an early age, sold him into slavery
to Opobo around 1875, where he became a domestic servant to a wealthy local chief, Agbomina
Agbo.

1298

However, Dibia Ekea soon enabled one of Chief Agbo’s wives, who was battling

with infertility to become pregnant and have a son. In appreciation, his master made him head of
his household and his chief physician, and he distinguished himself in curing Chief Agbo’s
wives, children, and numerous slaves.

1299

Chief Agbo further granted Dibia Ekea freedom and

adopted him as a son. When at a point Dibia Ekea decided to return home to Ohafia in order to
acquire more dibia power, Chief Agbo furnished him with a lot of money, five slaves, and two

1296

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village. August
4, 2010. Corroborated by Dibia Kalu Ekea of Nde Ekea Compound, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011; Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital
voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010.
1297
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 44; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, Okon.
August 4, 2010; Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug.
4, 2010; Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24,
2011; Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 26, 2011.
1298
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010;
Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011.
1299
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. August 4, 2010;
Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Ohafia. Aug. 4, 2010;
Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011; Dibia
Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011.
340

wives.

1300

Returning to Ohafia dressed in his khaki shorts and shoes, and armed with new

wealth, Dibia Ekea became a legendary ufiem around 1890.

1301

Indeed, in performance of

ogaranya masculinity, Nna Ekea married about twenty wives, and owned numerous slaves, who
worked his palm plantations, consisting of over fifty hectares of land in the 1890s.

1302

He

established a thriving palm produce and salt trade between the Ohafia hinterland and the riverine
commercial centers of Calabar and Opobo, and is remembered as one of the most prominent
dibia the Okon community ever produced.

1303

In addition to wealth performance, the successful dramatization of immunity to physical
and spiritual harm reinforced the social perception of a dibia as ufiem. The act of this immunity
(oda-eshi) performance was known as umerogwu — medicine show, and this performance was
dominated by younger dibia who sought to establish their nascent reputation. During umerogwu,
spectators were invited to land powerful machete blows on the dibia or his medicine-protected
apprentice, and to fire gun-shots at the dibia, who shook off the blades and bullets to the cheer of
the crowd.

1304

Others walked around with knife blades buried into their arms and stakes pierced

through their abdomens and necks. The spectacle was meant to shock observers and elicit
admiration and acknowledgment of dibia immunity to physical harm. This public performance of
1300

Ibid.

1301

He proudly paraded the village in his kakhi shorts and buttoned shirts, showcasing his
newly acquired kerosene lantern as evidence of his new wealth. Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview
by author, digital voice recording, Sept. 24, 2011.
1302
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. August 4, 2010;
Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011.
1303
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 46.
1304

Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu, Ohafia.
Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Eke Uma, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26,
2011; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording; Dibia Azueke Kalu,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011.
341

dibia bravado was a re-enactment of the ritual services that dibia afforded Ohafia warriors
between 1850 and 1900: furnishing them with protective medicines before they went to war.

1305

Theorizing Dibia Masculinity and Dibia Power Through Umerogwu Performance
The historic role of Ohafia dibia in providing warriors with oda-eshi medicines was reinvented in the Bakassi Boys Movement in southeastern Nigeria between 1998 and 2006.

1306

A

young men’s vigilante organization which was created by traders to combat crime in the region,
and was later adopted by various state governments as a pseudo-official state security institution,
the Bakassi Boys embodied two atavistic Igbo masculinities — the dibia and the dimkpa
(warrior). To establish their reputation as fierce crime warriors immune to physical and spiritual
harm, the Bakassi Boys held public spectacles of umerogwu, just like Ohafia dibia performers,
and the organization enjoyed a strong support in oda-eshi medicine provision and in membership
from Ohafia-Igbo people.

1307

1305

Thus, the dibia institution provided an avenue for the construction and performance of
spiritual masculinity, while enabling the successful production of warrior masculinities.
1306
The Bakassi Boys were disbanded in 2002 but their activities continued in several parts of
southeastern Nigeria until 2006. David Pratten ed., Perspectives on Vigilantism in Nigeria,
AFRICA, 78, 1 (Edinburgh, 2008), 1-10; Baker B, “When the Bakassi Boys Came: Eastern
Nigeria Confronts Vigilantism,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 20, 2 (2002), 223244; Harnischefer J., “The Bakassi Boys: Fighting Crime in Nigeria,” Journal of Modern
African Studies, 40, 1 (2003), 23-49; Meagher K., “Hijacking Civil Society: The Inside Story of
the Bakassi Boys Vigilante Group of South-Eastern Nigeria,” Journal of Modern African
Studies, 45, 1 (2007), 89-115; U. Ukiwo, “Deus ex Machina or Frankenstein Monster: The
Changing Roles of Bakassi Boys in Eastern Nigeria,” Democracy and Development: A Journal
of West African Affairs, 3, 1 (2002), 39-51.
1307
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral
conversation with author.
342

Figure 9: Umerogwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author

Figure 10: Umerogwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author

343

Umerogwu immunity performances were held every two years in Ohafia, in a ceremony
called aja abali festival, since the precolonial period.

1308

The aja abali was an elaborate ritual,

usually held on Afo (the third day in the Igbo four-day week), which was a day of rest for Ohafia
people. Aja abali was preceded with twelve days of rituals and sacrifices to patrilineage
1309

deities.

When in September 2011, my research assistant and I arrived at Okon village,

Ohafia around 6:00 am on aja abali day, the first-grade dibia (nde aja abali) were observing a
ritual seclusion and deliberation in a patrilineage obu (meeting house), and the entire community
was dead-quiet, shut indoors. The communal ritual silence which lasted three hours was
observed because since the previous night, a select few of the second-grade dibia (atule abali)
known as ughara mmonwu had been in the surrounding forests combating, killing, and appeasing
evil and powerful spirits that threatened the safety of their community.

1310

It was necessary for

the human community to maintain ritual silence so that the cries of the dying spirits could be
heard from the surrounding forests.

1311

1308

Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu. Nov. 2,
2011; Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 22,
2011; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 14, 2011;
Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. September 22, 2011.
1309
These include: Day 1 (Orie): igba aju ike kamalu; Day 2 (Afo): ike ikpem; Day 3 (Nkwo):
ije afia igwa mmonwu; Day 4 (Eke): ekpe iri ji; Day 5 (Orie): ichere dibia (also the day for ibia
abiansi and ibia ozo thanksgiving to dibia); Days 6-8: sacrifices to personal deities; Day 9 (Afo):
aja abali (dibia festival during which umerogwu was performed).
1310
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral conversation with author, hand-written notes, Okon Village. Sept. 26,
2011; Chief Okoro Ekeanya Ibe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village,
Sept. 26, 2011; Chief Kalu Imaga, ezie ezi of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011.
1311
Dibia Eke Uma of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Okon Village, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral conversation with author, hand-written
notes, Okon Aku Village, Ohafia. Sept. 26, 2011.
344

The requisite ritual silence observed for the dibia community was a phenomenon
emblematic of the seasonality of hegemonic dibia power in the society. Most of the dibia
interviewed for this study argued that while their communities possessed gendered sociopolitical institutions of administration, the dibia association enjoyed a dominant position of
power, because dibia were the protectors of the community and peacekeepers, and their rituals
defined the society’s rhythm of life. Asserting the political power of dibia in pre-colonial Ohafia
society, Dibia Agwu Arua stated:
Mgbe ichin [in the pre-colonial period], the akpan was the organ of male
government in Ohafia generally but here in our Okon community, it was the dibia
that ruled, because when the dibia were on the march, the akpan stepped aside for
them. Even if you were ezie (king), you would clear from the road for the
1312
dibia.
While Ohafia dibia were not central to the day-to-day administration of their society
between 1850 and 1900, their authority was often unchallenged, and some ambitious dibia were
able to influence political outcomes in their society.

1313

The power and respect accorded dibia

partly derived from Ohafia-Igbo cosmology, where the spiritual/ancestral world was part of the
social world, and was considered more powerful than the human/living world.

1314

The ability of

dibia to mediate between both worlds vested them with significant socio-political power.
However, since dibia were preoccupied with healing the people and the body politic, they had
1312

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010.

1313

For instance, the intervention of two dibia from Nde Idika Okoro compound, enabled Kalu
Ufere to become the ezie-ogo of Okon village between 1915 and 1935. Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Idika Okoro Compound, Okon, Sept. 22, 2011;
Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Aku Village, Ohafia.
Sept. 22, 2011; Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 54.
1314
Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Ohafia. Sept.
22, 2011; Dibia Eke Uma, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept.
26, 2011; Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept.
14, 2011. Also see Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 11-12.
345

limited direct involvement in the political administration of their societies, and hardly exercised
political authority.
In practice, the dibia association lacked any cohesive political authority in the society.
Rather, they wielded extraordinary individual influences, and at certain periods of the year such
as the month of September, during the aja abali festival, their vision of society was law, and they
defined the moral imagination of their community. During the two months period preceding the
aja abali festival, the dibia association declared an imechi ogo (two months-long community
closure). No weddings, burials or funeral ceremonies were held. Loud public gatherings, music
and dancing were outlawed, and people were barred from going to farms or engaging in any
substantial food production or processing.

1315

Since pre-colonial times, women had developed

an elaborate system of food processing known as ije iwa (stock-piling food in advance of the
September month) in accommodation of imechi ogo (community closure) by dibia.

1316

The imechi ogo and ritual silence declared by the dibia community expired on the
morning of aja abali festival (around 9:00am). It was initiated by the emergence of the firstgrade dibia (aja-abali) from their ritual seclusion and deliberation at the patrilineage obu.
Grouped according to their patrilineage units, they marched in a single file to their separate
patrilineage compounds, led by a dibia who carried the society’s okpogho elu (medicine pot and
deity). As soon as each of these groups reached their patrilineage compound, an army of young

1315

Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011; Elders of Nde Nbila
compound, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 15, 2011; Elders of
Nde Oka compound, Group Interview by author, Okon Village. Sept. 14 and 15, 2011.
1316
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 14, 2011;
Dibia Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu. Nov. 2, 2011;
Field observations and video-recorded interviews about ije iwa intensive cassava processing in
Okon. Video clips “Iri Ji Preparation, Okon [Ije Iwa] AVI-5.AVI,” September 22, 2011.
346

dibia initiates, known as nde apupa, who had been anxiously awaiting their elders’ return,
swarmed out, running about the community in search of plantains to feed their ancestors.

1317

Figure 11: Nde Apupa, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

1317

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010;
Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia
Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011.
347

Figure 12: Nde ughara mmonwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

Figure 13: Onye ughara mmonwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author.

348

The plantain hunt was competitive among the young dibia initiates, and the search for
plantains took the young warriors to the furthest reaches of their community, forests, and
individual homes. For the purpose of cutting down the plantain bunches, the young warriors (nde
apupa) were armed with wooden swords (apupa) decorated with sacred omu (palm frond) leaves.
These swords were believed to be sharper than steel blades because they were blessed by the
ancestors.

1318

After each group had piled up their plantain bunches in a big heap at the village

square, they performed victory dances around them, and carried these back to their various
patrilineage obu houses, to feed the ududu (ancestral pots) of their ancestors housed therein.
As soon as nde apupa had deposited their plantains at the patrilineage obu, the secondgrade dibia (nde ughara mmonwu), who had successfully dealt with the malignant spirits in the
forest, began to retrace their steps into the community, beating their musical instruments, to
announce that the community was safe. These instruments included a special wooden slit drum
(ikoro agwu) and a ram’s horn, and both were cultural symbols of masculinity in Ohafia
society.

1319

The return of nde ughara mmonwu spirit combatants marked the end of the imechi

ogo (community closure) declared by the dibia community. The successful return of ughara
mmonwu dibia from the land of the spirits reinforced their status as ufiem; and in order to
distinguish their status as brave spirit combatants, they covered their bodies with ghoulish colors
and leopard skins.

1320

Their heads were decorated with elaborate porcupine pikes. Their lips

1318

Chief Obasi Kama, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 26, 2011;
Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011; Dibia
Kalu Eke, oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon. September 22, 2011; Dibia Kakarere
(Oyibo) oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon. Sept. 22, 2011.
1319
The significance of ikoro and the ram is discussed in chapter 4.
1320

Chief Obasi Kama, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept.
26, 2011; Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village,
349

were sealed with sacred omu palm leaves, and they were armed with brooms, machetes and bows
and arrows. Whereas the brooms had been used to whip stubborn spirits into submission, the
machetes and arrows were used to kill spirits who possessed wild beasts to attack members of the
community.

1321

Indeed, it was a great honor for a second-grade dibia (atule abali) to be selected

into ughara mmonwu spirit combatants. This selection served as a social legitimation of the
dibia’s candidacy for promotion to the highest dibia grade, the aja abali.

1322

The twelve hour spiritual vigilante duty of the ughara mmonwu in the forest was no easy
endeavor. The selected individuals observed a ritual fast and silence for the duration of the
vigilance period, hence the omu-sealed lips. Upon emerging from the forest, for the next five
hours, they marched in a single file retracing invisible circuitous paths throughout the village;
paths believed to have been taken by the ancestral founders of the village in the course of
migration and settlement.

1323

Their mastery of these paths, which were invisible to ordinary

members of the village, established their identity as mature dibia and custodians of the
community’s culture and history.

1324

In the course of their march, they visited the various

patrilineage compounds in order of seniority — the significance was to reaffirm utugha (patterns
of settlement and lineage descent) which defined the assignment of socio-political functions to

Sept. 22, 2011; Dibia Kakarere (Oyibo) oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon Village.
Sept. 22, 2011; Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011.
1321
Ibid.
1322

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Ohafia. Aug. 4,
2010; Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 26, 2011;
Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Sept. 24, 2011.
1323
Dibia Kalu Eke, oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon Village. Sept. 22, 2011;
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 14, 2011;
Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011.
1324
Ibid.
350

the various patrilineages, and reflected their commensurate privileges, in pre-colonial times.

1325

In each patrilineage compound, the ughara mmonwu performed a ritual homage of libation to
any dibia of aja abali status resident at such a compound. Through this act, the ughara mmonwu
deified the aja abali dibia and reaffirmed the ufiem hierarchies of the dibia institution, while
1326

soliciting supreme recognition of their new social status as prospective aja abali.

As the ughara mmonwu marched around the village, spectators who had gathered to
observe the event hid themselves and peered from behind houses, because it was taboo to cross
the path of the ughara mmonwu, who were seen as living ancestral spirits, armed with powerful
and harmful medicines.

1327

At the end of their laborious exercise, after they had discarded their
1328

omu in an evil forest, the ughara mmonwu retired briefly to the home of a female dibia,

who

provided them with food and drink. When they reemerged, they were greeted with panegyrics
and ovations by the public, and each of them was escorted with adulatory music and dancing
back to his home. At this point, the umerogwu (magic) competitions began, lasting for about four
hours. The festival was concluded with a grand parade of the aja abali members. Unlike the

1325

Ibid.

1326

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Aug. 4, 2010;
Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia
Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 24, 2011; Chief Obasi
Kama, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 26, 2011; Dibia
Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 22, 2011.
1327
Dibia Kalu Eke, oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon Village. Sept. 22, 2011;
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 14, 2011;
Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011.
1328
According to the following, this female dibia was seen as a man, and in the absence of a
female dibia, the wife of a male dibia was selected to fulfill this task. Dibia Agwu Arua, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Ohafia. Aug. 4, 2010; Dibia Uduma
Uchendu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia
Chikezie Emeri, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu, Ohafia. Nov. 2, 2011;
Dibia Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 22, 2011.
351

solemn march of the ughara mmonwu, the aja abali outing was a loud and pompous affair:
musical fan-fares, praise-singing, burning incenses, and a thousand feet dancing to the music
issuing from tortoise shells and ram horns. In this fashion, the aja abali party like the ughara
mmonwu before them, visited one patrilineage after another, in order of seniority; and thus they
brought the ritual to a close at about 9:00pm.

1329

The dibia society, was a gendering institution. It distinguished various grades of
masculinity, and enabled social mobility from apprenticeship to ogaranya masculinity. As a
gendered practice, dibia excluded women and the few women that purchased membership were
perceived as men. Second, through annual rituals, Ohafia dibia strengthened the unity of the
patrilineage units, as opposed to the matrilineages. This shaped the historical diversity in the
strength of matrilineage principles from one Ohafia village to another. Third, the dibia institution
reflects the agency of Ohafia-Igbo people in social change during the pre-colonial period. By
incorporating practices from their Igbo and non-Igbo neighbors through ije ogwu (divination and
healing trips), the Ohafia-Igbo defined the dibia institution as eclectic in its knowledge sources
and dynamic in its performance of dibia masculinity (from spiritual immunity to wealth
[ogaranya] performance). Moreover, Ohafia dibia grappled with social change as was evident in
their adaptation with western medicine and Christianity, at the turn of the 20th century.

Di Nta: The Gendering of an Economic Activity, 1850-1900
The transformation of indigenous institutions into gendering institutions for the
performance of masculinity was also evident in hunting. Before the 20th century introduction of
Western education and colonialism into Ohafia, remarkable success in hunting vested a man with

1329

Field observations by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. September 26, 2011.
352

ufiem (masculinity) privileges. It distinguished him from his peers, and even facilitated his
successful pursuit of public office. Nsugbe writes of such a hunter, Chief Emetu of Amaekpu,
who in the early 20th century, accounted for “more buffalo-heads dead than alive in the bush, as
well as elephants which he had a license to hunt.”

1330

Chief Emetu was regarded as the

“husband” and “terror” (di nta) of such lesser game as bush-hogs and antelopes. However, his
identity as a brave hunter did not deter him from alternative pursuits. In the 1920s, Chief Emetu
became a government school headmaster and was a pioneer in education, not only in Ohafia, but
as far as Afikpo and parts of Ogoja Province. As a brave ufiem, he often led delegations
sometimes on behalf of the whole Ohafia to government ministers and high-ranking officials of
his region. In so doing, he established a reputation as a fearless emissary. Finally, in the 1940s,
Chief Emetu became the ezie-ogo (male king) of Akanu village, and exuded a personality that
easily won rather than imposed respect.

1331

Chief Emetu was not an exceptional case. Similar

masculinities existed in several other Ohafia-Igbo villages such as Asaga and Ebem.

1332

Such

individuals often expressed their social status by performing ogaranya (wealth) masculinity,
through the display of body parts of dangerous animals, and guns, as well as polygamy.
The point is that hunting was a very important avenue of personal distinction and
performance of bravado, and the reputation a man acquired from his successful hunting career,
earned him a social recognition as ufiem, which facilitated his social mobility. Thus, even today,
a number of ezie-ogo (male kings) interviewed for this project have their living-room walls
decorated with the hides and skulls of leopards and buffalos. While they are not themselves able
to hunt these animals, which are now extinct, they advertise their fathers’ and grandfathers’
1330
1331
1332

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 69.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 69.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 69.
353

hunting trophies to gain social legitimation of their identities as brave, fearless, and wealthy
leaders. Today, the honor which men gained through hunting has been substituted with
educational honors and prosperity in business pursuits, such that various ogaranya masculinities,
which lack the traditional iconography of hunter bravado, purchase expensive furniture, which
incorporates within its intricate designs, the hides and skulls of leopards and bush-hogs.

1333

Secondly, the story of Chief Emetu is testament to the fact that individuals constructed and
performed more than one form of ufiem in their lifetime.
Before the 1900s, Ohafia environs comprised of vegetation cover of orchard-bush forest,
i.e. a mixture of savanna grassland and tropical rain forest with large groves of big tress.

1334

This environment where bush hogs ravaged farm-crops and leopards swooped upon homesteads
seizing and devouring livestock and men,

1335

generated a need to subdue the wild, which

transformed hunting from a mere economic pursuit to a performance of ufiem in the society.
Hunters came to be seen as brave warriors who protected their communities from dangerous
animals, such that when a boy killed his first wild animal with a twisted rope trap, he was said to

1333

Observations during fieldwork; Godwill Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village,
Ohafia, oral interview by author. Oct. 25, 2011; Ogbuka Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author.
Njoku affirms that the sitting rooms of brave hunters were usually adorned with the skins and
skulls of the animals they had killed. Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 40.
1334
Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 9.
1335

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 13-14; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 72.
354

1336

have “cut the third head,”

and his father usually blessed and celebrated him, by rubbing nzu

white chalk on his right hand, and killing a goat in his honor.

1337

The task of communal defense in the pre-colonial period was not an easy undertaking for
hunters. Chief Kalu Ibem, a member of Amuma village hunters’ guild stated:
In the pre-colonial period, hunting and espionage expeditions took hunters to the
furthest reaches of our community borders and forests. In fact, in the pre-colonial
past, hunting expeditions were defensive reconnoitering exercises as well. We were
always on the lookout for any danger to the community. During community
festivals when everyone’s guard was down, hunters were the one group of people
who remained vigilant, monitoring the comings and goings of people to and from
the community. When people went missing in the village . . . hunters were the first
group summoned to go and find such individuals. This was because hunters knew
all the pathways in the forests and farmland. Before dawn, they would usually find
and retrieve the missing person; otherwise, the following day, the entire village was
summoned to conduct a search. Hunters saw themselves as atule abali (night
guards) because they operated at night. It was at night that they hunted and killed
their big game. It was at night that they conquered the forest, kept their community
safe and recovered missing individuals. A hunter set out at dusk and within three
hours, he was in Arochukwu or Ozu Abam or Abiriba. He wandered through forests
across several distant communities, and by dawn, he was back in his home, with all
his kills. By morning, he would display his game, often to the awe of the
1338
community, who had not observed his going and coming.
The role of hunters in maintaining communal safety and solidarity shaped the manner in
which their achievements were acknowledged. Until the 1920s,

1339

when any hunter from any

part of Ohafia killed a lion, leopard, or tiger, he was required to present the fresh hide of the hunt
before the achichi shrine at Elu Ohafia village and to relinquish the fangs, which were believed
1336

This meant that he had fulfilled the last bravado rite that established his identity as a
prospective ufiem; the “first head” and “second head” referring to the growth of his first tooth
and his first bird-kill, respectively. See chapter 4.
1337
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 25. The nzu chalk on the right hand was a mark
of prosperity (ikenga); it served to bless the hand that would enable the boy-child transition into
full manhood by successfully cutting a human head in battle.
1338
Chief Kalu Ibem, oral interview by author. Amuma Village. Nov. 26, 2011.
1339

Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 22; Ogbuka Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu Village, Ohafia. December 10, 2011.
355

to contain poisons that cause tuberculosis. The presentation of the hide served to acknowledge
the hunter’s successful conquest, just as Ohafia warriors were required to present the heads they
had cut in battle for social recognition before the ikoro wooden slit war drum.

1340

Secondly,

after a hunter had killed a wild animal, he presented parts of the kill to the various patrilineage
compounds in his village in order of lineage seniority, thereby validating his social
belongingness as well as the historical order of lineage seniority. However, the hunter was
honored with the head of the animal and its hide, which he displayed around the village in a
pompous and laudatory parade. The social distinction of brave hunters sought to balance
individualism and social belongingness (group identity) — a situation which Achebe describes as
culminating in a strange combination of power and lack of it.

1341

However, the special position which hunters occupied in their societies enabled them to
operate outside dominant social rules. As Nwabueze Kalu observed,
Before the time of the cotuma [court clerk] (1907) . . . anytime Isiugwu village
observed a holiday requiring everyone to stay at home, hunters were not held to
such restrictions because they were considered lifelong warriors of the society
1342
who defended their communities from human and animal dangers.
Moreover, the processes of identity formation evident in ufiem performance through hunting
show that while he ascribed to social welfare and solidarity, the individual was in no way
handicapped by his social belongingness to a group; rather, he exploited his social belongingness
to assuage legitimacy to his new status. Ufiem performance through hunting was a personal

1340
1341
1342

See chapter 3 for detailed discussion; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 22.
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 199.
Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
356

journey that began in youthful apprenticeship,

1343

and the hunter passed through stages of

accomplishment within the hunters’ guild hierarchy, based upon the type of animal he had killed.

Figure 14: Chief Torti Kalu of Amuma Village, Ohafia: Wild Animal Skulls
Trophy on the wall of his living room. Photographed by Author.

1343

Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011;
Ogbuka Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
357

Figure 15: Ite Nde Ofia (Hunters’ Pot) at Amuma, Ohafia.
Photographed by Author.

Figure 16: Trophies of Ogbuka Ogbuka Abaa of Isigwu: Buffalo Horn, Rotax Bullet,
Traditional Hunter’s Night Head-Light and Modern Head-Lamp.
Photographed by Author.

358

Thus, Ogbuka Abaa stated that he first killed a bird around 1932, then an antelope in
1934, a bush hog (potamochoerus porcus) in 1937, and ultimately in 1940, a buffalo.

1344

Upon

this last accomplishment, he came to be known as omerenke-akwuakwu (he that killed a game
that had to be towed by a community).

1345

In acknowledgment of his achievement of a warrior’s

feat (killing a buffalo), his father, who was a renowned Nteje warrior (fought in the Nteje war of
1891), killed a goat in his honor, and presented him with a gift of jooji cloth and okpu agu
1346

(warrior cap of bravery), in effect defining him as ufiem.

Ogbuka stated:

Killing a buffalo required a perfect shot aimed at the chest or head, using a single
bullet, not the cartridges with multiple bullets. So, if you were not a good shot,
you would miss it. Here is the bullet I used to kill my buffalo [produces a bullet].
The bullet is called Rotax. We preferred this bullet because even though
Europeans introduced it, we could mould our own lead bullets and load them into
the recycled cartridges. So, I could take any cartridge and load the Rotax lead
bullet into it and seal it up with wax, to make it water resistant and I have myself
a Rotax bullet . . .
As onye-ikike (warrior) of the hunters’ guild, who killed a buffalo, I became
entitled to a share of any animal killed in the village. If there was any issue of
grave importance to be discussed in the community, I was always invited. During
the public parade of nde ofia (hunters’ guild), I was always showered with praises
and honorifics because of my accomplishment. People hailed me ogbu nke akwuakwu (he that killed the animal that had to be towed by the community), ogbu nke
oha rii (he that killed for an entire village). No other answers the same name in
1347
our village.

1344

Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu. Dec. 10, 2011.

1345

Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, Isiugwu. Dec. 10, 2011. Corroborated by
Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011; Ijeoma
Onyeani, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 12, 2011. Ogbuka was
given an arm of the buffalo and its head. He kept a buffalo horn as trophy, and gave the second
horn to the hunters’ guild, which it still uses to summon a meeting of its members.
1346
Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
1347

Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
359

Most Ohafia villages possessed a hunters’ guild in the pre-colonial period.

1348

The

hunters’ guild was both a social welfare organization and an institution that regulated the social
identification of a hunter as one who accomplished ufiem. According to Ijeoma Onyeani, before
British pacification, the guild ensured the safety and welfare of its members, by meeting
regularly and accounting for the whereabouts of individual hunters. The guild reconciled
disputes among members, and made monthly contributions, in order to assist members in times
of difficulty and organize entertainments at the end of the year. It also sponsored the funeral
ceremonies of its members, and organized a special hunt for the benefit of the deceased’s
family.

1349

Yet, within the institution, there were hierarchies of ufiem. The longevity of

experience and success in killing big and dangerous animals set senior hunters apart from their
juniors, irrespective of age differences.

1350

According to Nwabueze Kalu, the distinctions on

account of accomplishment was informed by the fact that when there were grave challenges
facing the community such as the presence of wild animals or the need to scout enemy forces in
the precolonial period, hunters relied on their experienced leaders for guidance.

1351

He said,

One’s longevity and seniority in the profession defined one’s respectability. The
longevity must also reflect the number and types of animals one had killed. When
experienced hunters recounted their tales of encounters with wild animals,

1348

Ijeoma Onyeani, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu, Ohafia. Dec. 12,
2011; Chief Kalu Ibem, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma, Ohafia.
November 26, 2011; Godwill Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village, Ohafia, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Amankwu Village. October 25, 2011.
1349
Ijeoma Onyeani, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 12, 2011.
1350

Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma Village. Nov.
26, 2011; Chief Kalu Ibem, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma, Ohafia.
November 26, 2011; Godwill Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Amankwu Village. October 25, 2011; Ogbuka Ogbuka Abaa, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu Village, Ohafia. Dec. 10, 2011.
1351
Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
360

younger hunters listened because it was an avenue for them to learn the behaviour
1352
and disposition of different animals and the best ways to trap or kill them.
Thus, senior hunters were respected for their historical experiences and superior
intelligence. Hunters who performed ufiem by defeating dangerous animals were portrayed as
possessing distinctive qualities. According to Njoku, some had “special bush instincts or
expertise, if not clairvoyance, and were able to mimic animal sounds and postures as a decoy,
[and] move so stealthily in the bush as not to be noticed.”

1353

Ogbuka described hunters, who

accomplished ufiem as those who knew that “the hide around the buffalo’s neck was triple the
size of a cow’s and that trying to kill a buffalo with AA cartridge was like trying to kill a goat
with a stone sling-shot, and would result in the hunter’s death.”

1354

To kill a buffalo, the hunter

avoided “the Mark 4 which fired short range single bullets, and the AA which contained 37
bullets in one cartridge; he used the BB which contained 72 bullets or the the LG cartridge.”

1355

In addition, the performance of bravado implicated in hunting dangerous animals was juxtaposed
with the killing of harmless animals, irrespective of their size, such as the zebra (unyo). For
instance, it was taboo for a hunter to kill a zebra because it posed no danger to man. Hunters who
violated this were seen as cowardly (ujo), and were required to sponsor an expensive funeral and
mourn the zebra as one would a human death.

1352
1353
1354
1355

1356

Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 40.
Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.

1356

Chief Kalu Ibem, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011;
Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011; Ijeoma
Onyeani, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 12, 2011; Godwill
Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village, oral interview by author.
361

In the pre-colonial period, every hunters’ guild also possessed a hunters’ pot of bravery
(ite nde ofia).

1357

The hunters’ pot of bravery, decorated with skulls of dangerous wild animals

was produced during community festivals and the funeral ceremonies of deceased distinguished
hunters. The public presentation of ite nde ofia reminded the community of the social
significance of hunters as community protectors;

1358

but it was also an avenue for newly

distinguished hunters to boast of their recent accomplishments and acquire social legitimation of
their new status.

1359

In this regard, ite nde ofia simulates the Ohafia warrior’s ite odo (warriors’

pot of bravery decorated with human skulls) and oyaya (Ohafia war dancers’ head-dress with
1360

human skulls).

Indeed, Ohafia hunters perceived themselves as brave warriors, who performed ufiem by
defeating dangerous animals, and they juxtaposed this with the military distinctions of warriors;
in effect challenging the social hegemony that ndi ikike enjoyed in the pre-colonial period. The
equation of subduing dangerous animals with igbu ishi (to cut a head) is evident in the
personifying language, which hunters employ to describe dangerous wild animals they had
killed. Thus, in addition to intimating that he wrestled the buffalo to death after he shot it,
Ogbuka Abaa described the buffalo as a very intelligent animal which “defecated on the ground,
urinated on its feces, and used its tail to fire the mixed dung missile at hunters, sending them
1357

Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011;
Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011;
Chief Kalu Ibem, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. November 26, 2011.
1358
Chief Kalu Ibem, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma Village. Nov.
26, 2011; Godwill Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Amankwu. Oct. 25, 2011; Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
1359
Ijeoma Onyeani, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu Village. Dec. 12,
2011; Nna Kalu Awa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011.
1360
See chapter 4 for detailed discussion of ite odo and oyaya.
362

down from tree tops where they had sought refuge, before impaling them with its horns and
hooves.”

1361

Nwabueze Kalu said:

There were warriors who went to battle and killed their enemies and returned
home with a human head. But they were not considered braver than the ogbu agu
(leopard killer) or the ogbu enyi (elephant killer). Indeed, the ogbu agu was
considered a braver warrior than the headhunter. Mgbe ichin [in pre-colonial
times], at funeral ceremonies or new yam festivals, when the warriors brought out
their ite-odo in public, they sat apart from the crowd; and the hunters also set
themselves apart from the crowd with their own ite nde ofia. There, warriors and
hunters boasted against each other . . . You had people like Ijeoma’s father who
1362
had killed a leopard . . . when Nna Kalu lived at Isiugwu [1911-1915]
. . . and
he would stand there and recount his brave encounter with the leopard; and you
had warriors who had fought fierce battles recount their encounters with powerful
1363
enemies.
Historicizing Nde Ofia (Hunters’) Narratives as a Lens into Socio-Political Change
and Ogaranya Masculinity Performance among the Ohafia-Igbo
Indigenous accounts of the historical development of hunting and changes in hunting
techniques elucidate significant socio-political changes in southeastern Nigeria, and highlight the
agency of Ohafia-Igbo people in social change. These accounts are situated within the histories
of the Atlantic slave trade, legitimate commerce, and British colonialism. Ogbuka Abaa avers:
My fathers told me this is how hunting evolved. We started by digging up the
ground. There were no guns for hunting, so the technique was to dig a big hole in
the ground and camouflage it. When an animal such as a bush-hog fell into it, you
clubbed it to death. This was the major hunting technique in the olden days . . . [c.
1600-1800]
Then, after a long time, a new technique was invented. This time, strings
(akwara) from palm fronds were extracted with a hook (upi igwe) and woven into
twigs, which were then used to set animal traps. Two poles were set up at
opposites and the trap string was connected to both. In the middle and at both
ends of the poles, boards of sharp stakes were hidden on the ground so that when
1361
1362
1363

Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166-167; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 62.
Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
363

an animal tripped the line, the boards collided upon it, staking it to death. [c.
1800-1850]
Over time, as trade with Europeans expanded, Ohafia hunters were able to
purchase sturdier wire-strings for these traps. [c. 1850-1900].
Then, my mother’s father, Nna Ekpele of Nde Okorie Compound, Isiugwu village
introduced the okwuru (Dane) gun from Okposi . . . He was the first person to
1364
bring a gun here . . . It was not a cartridge gun. [c. 1850-1900].
There were two types of hunting guns: okwuru and erefren [the Short Magazine
Lee Enfield (SMLE)]. Erefren came later . . . [c. 1900-1950s]
Today, we use the double and single barrel cartridge rifles . . . they came just
before the Mark 4 [the No. 4 MK 1, a re-modification of the SMLE developed by
the British in the inter-war period] used by the Nigerian police today . . .
The hunter had a number of instruments with which he hunted. There was a night
lamp we call ochanja. It was locally constructed. At night, you would squat in the
forest, stalking your hunt. When you found it, you lighted the ochanja torch, and
while the animal was staring at the light wondering what lurked behind it, you
shot it with your gun. However, the ochanja night lamp was susceptible to dying
out during rains, so it was not very good for hunting during the rainy season. [c.
1850-1900]
So, over time, when we were trading with Europeans, we adapted to the use of
cabad (calcium fluoride). The person that introduced calcium fluoride night
headlamp was John from Ndea Mma, and he became known as John Oku-Ifu
(John Head-Lamp). He got the cabad headlamp from the Nigerian Coal
Corporation in Enugu, where he worked in the 1930s. We started making our own
head lamps, and bought the cabad from merchants trading with Europeans on the
coast. You added water to the cabad in the headlamp and as it burned, it lit up
blinding the wild animal and leaving you in the shadows . . . [c. 1900-1940s]
Today, a few people still use cabad lamps but most of us use battery
1365
headlamps.

1364

By the first decade of the 20th century, the British colonial government was battling with
the proliferation of guns in the interior communities of southeastern Nigeria. In the Ohafia and
Arochukwu region the British administration mounted ntiji egbe (gun-breaking) campaigns in
the course of the Aro expedition and Bende-Onitsha Hinterland expedition. This suggests a
history of gun accumulation by these Igbo communities before 1900. See CO520/68: “Colonial
Office: Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, December, 1908,” 211-214.
1365
Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
364

Guns came into use in Ohafia in the 18th century, and by the 1850s, they had become the
hunter’s chief weapon, when the percussion cap gun (egbe cham) became popular in the
region.

1366
1367

period.

Precision arms such as double-barreled guns came into use in the colonial
Leonard observed in his 1896 “Notes on a Journey to Bende” that at Akanu Ohafia,

All the way along, the people were armed with flint locks and cap guns, the
majority also carrying swords and the lads bows and arrows . . . The men [also]
carried shields made from the fiber of palm leaves, firmly secured and plaited
1368
together.
Trading up the Cross River and exploiting their special ukwuzi diplomatic relations with the Aro
merchants, Ohafia people were able to acquire imported European guns, but they also relied on
locally made guns modeled after European designs. Thus, Nwabueze Kalu recalled:
Growing up as a child, I observed the dane guns owned by the older hunters, so I
built my own dane guns using metal pipes. I made bullets with gunpowder, bullet
cases, lead shrapnel, and scrapings of phosphorous sesquisulfide from
matchsticks. Then I used a slingshot to ignite and launch the bullet . . . I have
1369
killed too many hares using this gun.
From the autobiography of Kalu Ezelu, we know that there were many such Ohafia gun-making
blacksmiths between 1850 and 1900.

1370

However, most Ohafia hunters depended on Abiriba

blacksmiths for their locally made dane guns. Leonard described the Abiriba-Igbo located on the

1366

The British were alarmed at the proliferation of guns in southeastern Nigeria in the 1870s.
See FO84/1701: “Africa: Slave Trade, West Coast, 1885,” 298-300. To prevent the British from
seizing his guns, King Jaja of Opobo moved his stockpiled guns to the interior of Igboland in the
1870s. See FO84/1882: “Africa (Slave Trade), West Coast, 1888,” 35-37. The British Consul
Hewett reported that the chiefs of Opobo were smuggling and selling guns in the interior
communities of Bende (Ohafia, Arochukwu, etc.) in the 1880s. See FO84/1941: “Africa (Slave
Trade), West Coast, 1889,” 353-359, 360-361.
1367
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 40.
1368
1369
1370

Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 196.
Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 159-162.
365

western boundary of Ohafia as consisting “of nothing but blacksmiths, who do all the work in
brass and iron for a very great distance around,”

1371

and Nsugbe writes that “the Abiriba Ibo

have always been skilled blacksmiths and supplied the Ohaffia with most of their weapons and
ammunitions of war” in the 18th and 19th centuries.

1372

Before the 20th century, guns were too expensive for many hunters to afford, and the few
who acquired them employed them as a symbol of social prestige and ogaranya (wealth)
masculinity.

1373

As Elizabeth Isichei observed, during this period, guns were primarily used

ceremonially, at celebrations and funerals.
jealously.

1375

1374

Even today, hunters who own guns guard them

Meredith McKittrick noted in the case of the Ovambo society of Northern

Namibia that the introduction of “a gun culture linked to male power” emerged in the late 19th
century, “militarized masculinity” and resulted in the emergence of an elite male culture, which
incorporated European goods such as guns and clothing into indigenous textures of gender
construction.

1376

It is in this sense that Ijeoma Onyeani compared a hunter’s gun to modern

taxicabs; a popular symbol of technologies of modernity and masculinity in southeastern Nigeria,
and one that is often equated with human heads and ufiem accomplishment in Ohafia society:
1371
1372

Leonard, “Notes of a Journey to Bende,” 196-197.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 14.

1373

Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011;
Chief Kalu Ibem, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011;
Godwill Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu, oral interview by author. Oct. 25, 2011; Ogbuka
Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu. Dec. 10, 2011; Ijeoma Onyeani,
oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu. Dec. 12, 2011; Nna Kalu Awa, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011; Nwabueze Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
1374
Isichei, The Ibo and the Europeans, 52.
1375
1376

Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
McKittrick, “Forsaking their Fathers?” 37-38.
366

In the olden days, when you came of age and your father bought you a gun, or
you used your wealth to purchase a gun, it was considered a mark of respect . . .
The gun was like a taxi. The car represents your wealth and status symbol in the
society, but it was also a means of livelihood. If you take your taxicab into town,
you make a lot of money. In the same way, if you took your gun into the forest,
you made a lot of wealth, because when you sold your hunt, you earned money.
Moreover, a man armed with a gun was greatly respected in the community
1377
because guns were expensive.
Gun ownership reinforced ufiem hierarchies within the hunters’ guild. Nwabueze stated:
There were different categories of nde ofia (hunters). They were not all the same.
The hunter who set traps and caught small game was subordinate [not of the same
calibre and social standing] with the hunter who killed a buffalo or leopard using
a gun. The former could not talk while the latter was talking. Otherwise, the
1378
hunters’ guild imposed a fine on the subordinate.
The incorporation of guns as a marker of social distinction among men was thus in
correlation to the type of animal a hunter could kill using a gun, and the varying degrees of
bravado associated with such performance. It is in this sense that Nwabueze stated:
The trap setter or fisherman was not considered a real onye ofia (hunter). When a
war broke out between our community and another, the fisherman or trap setter
did not come out and fight, but the buffalo hunter or lion killer always led the
1379
front.
As Njoku noted, a hunter who killed a leopard, bush hog or elephant was highly respected “for
the achievement was regarded as an act of unusual bravery likened to the outmarshalling of a
human foe.”

1377
1378
1379
1380

1380

Basden similarly observed that “the killing of a leopard was a red-letter day in a

Ijeoma Onyeani, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu. Dec. 12, 2011.
Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu. Dec. 10, 2011.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 40.
367

hunter’s life,” because it was a dangerous endeavor, and the accomplishment established a
hunter’s reputation as “leopard-slayer.”

1381

Besides bravery, these animals symbolized wealth because of their high cultural and
commercial value. Elephants yielded tusks used for making bangles worn by men and women of
estate and tusks were in great demand by European traders on the Biafran coast. As Basden
noted, while elephants had become rare by the mid-20th century in the Igbo hinterland, the older
men “remember the days when they were fairly numerous.”

1382

Leopard skin was highly

treasured for social and ontological purposes, just as its whiskers, teeth and claws were used by
dibia in making talismans.

1383

The colorful skins of the deer, the cobra and the python were

used for beautifying machete sheaths and for other decorative purposes.

1384

The possession of

body parts of dangerous animals by hunters was a marker of social distinction. Hunters who
accomplished ufiem always carried, especially in public, leopard tails, elephant ears, or buffalo
1385

horns,

for they symbolized a hunter’s ogaranya status in Ohafia between 1850 and 1900.

1381

Basden, Among the Ibos, 144.

1382

Basden, Among the Ibos, 145.

1383

Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, Akanu Village. Nov. 2, 2011; Dibia Kalu
Uko, oral interview by author; Dibia Eke Uma, oral interview by author. Okon, Sept. 26, 2011.
1384
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 40-41.
1385

Chief Kalu Ibem, oral interview by author, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011; Godwill Nwankwo
Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu, oral interview by author. Oct. 25, 2011; Ogbuka Abaa, oral
interview by author. Dec. 10, 2011; Nna Kalu Awa, oral interview by author. Nov. 26, 2011;
Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author. Dec. 10, 2011; Basden, Among the Ibos, 144-145.
368

Igwa Nnu: The Masculinity of Yam Production
The special place yams occupied in Ohafia culture as the prestige crop,
associated particularly with men, cannot be explained . . . as an effect of the
material importance of yam and its cultivation in the Ohafia economy . . . Indeed,
the agricultural economy itself had been more dependent on female labor . . .
women grew the staple food crops as maize, cassava, trifoliage yam, cocoyam
1386
and vegetables, while also maintaining the men’s yam fields.
Ogaranya masculinity performance was evident in agricultural pursuits such as yam
cultivation. Before the 1850s, when long distance trade especially in palm produce became
dominant in the region, enabling many Ohafia individuals to acquire wealth in European
commodities and universal currencies, yam ownership was a measure of wealth among the
Ohafia-Igbo and the few men, who produced between 7,500 and 10,000 tubers of yam per year,
were celebrated as ogaranya.

1387

This chapter argues that the emergence of yam cultivation as a

masculine pursuit among the Ohafia-Igbo was in direct relationship with the dominance of
women in agricultural production and subsistence trading. First, pre-20th century Ohafia-Igbo
economy was agro-based, and female-dependent.

1388

Second, women’s dominance in food

production until 1900 was a response to men’s absence on military campaigns.

1386

1389

Third,

Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 694.

1387

Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 701; Oriji, Traditions of Igbo
Origin, 6; Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 59-60; Mecha
Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview
by author; Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author; Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author,
digital voice recording; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral
interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral
interview by author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
1388
See chapter 1.
1389

Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 695; McCall, Dancing
Histories, 83; Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 116; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 21;
Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera of Ebem village, Group Interview by author; Nmia
Nnaya Agbai of Elu village, oral interview by author; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village,
369

women’s responsibility as breadwinners led them not to rely upon yams, which had a limited
yield in Ohafia, as the food staples for their families. As a result, what little farming men did
when they were not fighting during the war season (May-October)

1390

was restricted to yam

production during the farming season (November-April). Because yam was the only crop
cultivated by men, successful warriors were also expected to be consummate yam farmers, and
ujo (cowards) were not expected to grow and keep yams.

1391

While they were breadwinners, Ohafia women, did not cultivate yams; in exceptional
1392

cases, they grew a tiny and bitter variety called una.

While Ohafia-Igbo men and women

worked together to set the annual farming calendar, and even though women always wielded
political authority to ensure a favorable farming cycle, yam was always the first crop to be
planted, followed by women’s staple crops.

1393

Since men relied on women for subsistence,

how did the yam crop (Dioscorea) attain such high cultural value, came to symbolize wealth, and
became so masculinized? Opposed to the popular notion that the yam preceded other food crops
Group Interview; Chief Olua Iro Kalu of Ebem village, oral interview by author; Mama Orie
Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author.
1390
Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 695; Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A
Matrilineal Ibo, 27-28; Mba Odo Okereke, ezie-ogo of Akanu Village, oral conversation with the
author, Akanu Village. October 15, 2011; Chief Ugbu Uduma, eoie-Ogo of Nde-Amogu, oral
interview by author, Ihenta (Ibina) Village. November 11, 2011.
1391
Uka, “A Note on the ‘Abam’ Warriors of Igbo Land,” 78; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu, oral interview
by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa, oral interview by
author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Chief Olua Kalu, oral interview by author.
1392
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview. This was in sharp contrast to what
obtained in most Igbo societies, where women also cultivated yams. See J.S. Harris, “Some
Aspects of the Economics of Sixteen Ibo Individuals,” Africa 14 (1943-44), 319; Ikennna
Nzimiro, “Social Structure,” in G.E.K. Ofomata, ed., The Nsukka Environment (Enugu, Nigeria:
Fourth Dimension, 1978), 245; Amadiume, Male Daughters and Female Husbands, 29-31;
Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 109-122.
1393
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 23; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group
Interview by author.
370

because it was a man’s crop,

1394

this chapter argues it was because the yam was a fragile crop

that required high nutrient rich soil and a longer time to survive in contrast to cocoyam and
cassava. Adiele Afigbo noted that the rituals and taboos, as well as the institutionalization of yam
titles, especially among the Igbo, indicate not only its antiquity as a domesticated crop in the
“yam belt of West Africa,” but also of the importance attached to it, especially as it is selective
as regards soil and season for its cultivation.

1395

As has been shown (chapter 2), the Ohafia-Igbo possessed limited arable land suitable for
the production of high-nutrient

1396

crops like yams, and their location in a densely-populated

(population density of 500 per square mile) strip of territory, characterized by hills and narrow
steep-sided valleys leached by erosion, did not support extensive agricultural production. Thus,
most Ohafia-Igbo farmland were in distant locations away from their residential areas, and most
farmland comprised of sandy soils (nsai) more suitable for the cultivation of cassava, cocoyam,
beans, and vegetables, as opposed to yams.

1397

Women monopolized the cultivation of these

crops. However, the relatively limited quantities of yam available for consumption, enjoyed great
value for as Ifeanyi Nwachukwu et al., argue, the taste, color, and texture of the yam set it apart
from other roots and tubers grown in southeastern Nigeria, and shaped consumer preference for

1394

For Afigbo’s view on this, see Falola, ed., Nigerian History, Politics and Affairs,” 92.

1395

Toyin Falola, ed., Nigerian History, Politics and Affairs: The Collected Essays of Adiele
Afigbo (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2005), 91-92.
1396
I.N. Nwachukwu, O.U. Oteh, C.C. Ugoh, and C. Ochomma, “Buying Attitude of Yam
Consumers in Southeastern Nigeria,” Tropicultura 29, 4, (2011), 238-242.
1397
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 6, 15; Chubb, “Assessment
Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929,” 2-3, 6, 20-23; Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia,” 1213. For a similar case see Amadiume, Male Daughters and Female Husbands, 30.
371

yams at ceremonies and festivals, thereby imbuing the crop with socio-cultural significance.

1398

Therefore, the yam gained socio-cultural value as a rare, unreliable, but highly demanded food
staple, not simply because it was “a man’s crop.”
It is plausible that the Ohafia-Igbo arrived in their present location with a gender
complementary agricultural system characteristic of the peoples of Southeastern Nigeria, where
men grew yam and women cocoyam and other vegetables.

1399

Women’s preoccupation with the

production of food staples assured them greater economic sufficiency than men, and thus, men’s
exclusive cultivation of yams on limited arable land did not constitute a threat to women’s
economic autonomy. Since women held a central position in the subsistence economy of their
society, it made sense that they did not rely for a staple, upon a crop with limited yield.

1400

Indeed, women’s embrace of cassava cultivation and their transformation of this crop into a food
staple in the 1890s, exemplify their historical consciousness of their position as bread-winners,
who had to be reliable in agricultural production, and responsive to social change. Cassava was
introduced to West Africa through contact with Portuguese merchants between the 16th and 17th
centuries,

1398

1401

but its cultivation did not gain popularity until the late 19th century, because at

Nwachukwu, et al., “Buying Attitude of Yam Consumers,” 238-242.

1399

This gender complementary agricultural production is enshrined in the creation myth of
Igbo peoples. For the case of Nri, see Henderson, The King in Every Man, 59-60. For the case of
Nnobi, see Amadiume, Male Daughters and Female Husbands, 28-29.
1400
Thus, Amadiume, Male Daughters and Female Husbands, 30, argues in the case of Nnobi,
that ecological factors (poor soil and low yield) and industriousness made female-controlled
cocoyam and cassava cultivation, the food staple of the people, while men cultivated yams on a
small scale for ritual payments and other ceremonial exchanges.
1401
Jean Barbot, A Description of the Coast of North and South Guinea (London: A & J
Churchill, 1732), 377; Ohadike, “The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19,” 379; S.A. Agboola,
“Introduction and Spread of Cassava in Western Nigeria,” Nigerian Journal of Economic and
Social Studies 10, 3 (1968), 369; W.O. Jones, “Manioc: An Example of Innovation in African
Economics,” Journal of Economic Development and Cultural Change 5, 2 (1957), 98.
372

first, it was considered animal feed and food for the poor.

1402

As Nwoke Kalu demonstrates,

women pioneered cassava cultivation in Ohafia between 1890 and 1920, and significantly
reshaped indigenous economies.

1403

This ecological, cultural, and gendered theory of the masculinization of yam seeks to
complicate the simplistic assumption that “as the king of crops, [yam] was a man’s crop.”

1404

In

fact, yam was peripheral to the society’s subsistence, and Ohafia-Igbo women’s agricultural
practices attest that the choice not to cultivate yams might have been a conscious one. Women’s
lack of ownership of yams did not evidence patriarchal domination. Rather, it reflected an
understanding that yam cultivation made exorbitant claims on land, labor and time, with limited
yield to show for it. As Njoku noted, “Women’s farm work schedule kept them busy all year,
unlike their menfolk.”

1405

Basden observed, “In comparison with the yield, the production of

yam entailed a large acreage, strenuous labour and constant attention during some seven or eight
months of the year.”

1406

Nsugbe noted that between the months of April and August, known as

unwu (hunger period), which stretched from the period of crop planting (April) to harvest
(November), the entire community relied for subsistence on women’s crops and vegetables.

1407

Emea Arua also writes that not only did Ohafia women assume full responsibility for weeding
the yam farms from June to October, they were also solely responsible for feeding their families
1402

Falola, ed., Nigerian History, Politics and Affairs, 93.

1403

Nwoke C. Kalu, “Cassava Revolution in Ohafia Up to 1990: A Historical Analysis of
Economic Change,” (B.A. Thesis, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, July 1991), 14-22; Amadiume,
Male Daughters and Female Husbands, 30.
1404
Falola, ed., Nigerian History, Politics and Affairs, 92.
1405
1406
1407

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 37.
Basden, Among the Ibos, 150.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 24. Also, Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 37.
373

and the menfolk during this period.
subsidiary to yam

1409

1408

Thus, Meek’s assertion that all other crops were merely

was not true for the Ohafia-Igbo.

When in 1920, following the smallpox (ogharelu) and ibi (elephantiasis of the scrotum)
epidemic that swept through the region between 1918 and 1919, Ohafia-Igbo men suffered a yam
famine, and were unable to supply women with the requisite annual yam contributions for the
omume iri uduma (inauguration of the annual farming cycle) festival, Ohafia-Igbo women
initiated what an Ohafia male collaborator described as the “yam revolution.”

1410

Refusing to make their yam contribution, the men of Ebem village accused the women of
collecting yams from them and selling them in neighboring markets, instead of using them to
prepare food for the community.

1411

In protest, the entire women of Ebem community

performed ibo ezi — they deserted their village en masse and sought refuge in Akanu village,
without performing the inaugural farming ritual, thereby prohibiting men from planting their
yams in good time. This incident threatened the economic and social prestige of the entire menfolk of Ebem community, whose seed yams remained in their yam barns, rotting away. In
retaliation, the men of Ebem village attacked the people of Akanu village for welcoming their
wives, sisters, and mothers, and supporting them against Ebem men’s self-interests. According to
Mama Docas Kalu of Ebem village,
Uke Emeago [the male age-grade in government at the time] thought us [women]
a lesson, which made us not to rely upon men for yams any longer. When we
1408
1409
1410

Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 695, 698.
Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 16.
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga. Sept. 16, 2011.

1411

Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera of Ebem Village, Group Interview by author;
Nmia Nnaya Agbai of Elu village, oral interview by author; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu
Village, Group Interview; Chief Olua Iro Kalu of Ebem village, oral interview by author; Mama
Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author.
374

came back, all the women started cultivating yams, and we have been growing
our own yams ever since. At the end of that farming year, I harvested a lot of big
yams, and I gave twenty [50] tubers of akuru [big yams of a white and very sweet
variety] to my son, and asked him to use them and pay homage to his father, in
1412
demonstration of my accomplishments as a yam farmer.
Several Ohafia-Igbo men confirm that since the yam revolution, women have cultivated yams in
large quantities, sometimes, rivaling men. According to Chief Olua Iro Kalu,
Women have since been cultivating yams and in several cases, more than men.
Some had up to two or three stretches of yam barns [about 6000-8000 yams per
year] in the 1920s. The were publicly hailed oko ji (great yam farmer) or o ji ji
atugbu nnunu (she that uses yams to stone birds), which meant that one played
1413
with yams!
Chief Olua further stated that in the past, before the yam revolution, while men
dominated yam cultivation, some Ohafia-Igbo women such as widows and older women beyond
childbearing age, cultivated yams. Thus, it was not so much a cultural taboo that prevented
women from yam cultivation, as much as an indigenous ideology of complementarity in
agricultural production. Where there was no husband, when women had limited dependents, or
where men failed in their duty, women took up yam cultivation. Ndukwe Otta recalled that in the
1940s, as his father, Chief Aru Otta became old and was no longer able to cultivate yams, as
much as he did in his youth, his mother, Mrs. Otta vigorously took up yam cultivation.
Purchasing the services of several women who assisted her in the farm, Mrs. Otta harvested so
much yams that she had to leave the yam barn she shared with her husband, and established three
separate barns. A renowned yam farmer who accomplished the highest yam title of igwa nnu,

1412
1413

Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author.
Chief Olua Iro Kalu of Ebem village, oral interview by author.
375

Chief Otta had a falling out with his wife, when her yams consistently “surpassed and
overshadowed” his.

1414

Through yam cultivation, Mrs. Otta performed ogaranya masculinity.

The “yam revolution” is aptly named because it represents a popular revolution in
indigenous gender ideologies. Indeed, yam cultivation was a gendered practice and the pan-Igbo
political economy of yam usage transformed it into a gendering institution. Basden defined the
yam as “the Ibo staff of life.”

1415

In spite of its reductionist tone, this was in recognition of the

cultural value placed on yam. Before the 20th century, among Ohafia-Igbo men, every
significant form of gift-giving including bride-wealth payment, the leasing of farmland from
land-owning matrilineage units, fee payment for initiation into secret societies, and recompense
for damaged property involved the use of yams. Fathers established their sons as independent
men ready for marriage by providing them with their first yam barn. In this sense, yams were the
first form of movable property, which fathers could transfer to their sons without challenge from
1416

their uterine siblings, through a process known as igwa oba.

Thus, yam transfer enabled a

son to attain adult masculinity in the society.
Warriors who cut heads in battle and accomplished ufiem defined themselves against the
ujo (coward and effeminate) by dispossessing the latter of their yams. Wealthy individuals
performed ogaranya masculinity by holding elaborate feasts of yams. Like hunting, distinction in
yam cultivation enabled a man to gain access to public office. Thus, one of the requirements for
1414
1415

Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author.
Basden, Among the Ibos, 147-154.

1416

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 122; Chief Olua Iro Kalu of Ebem village, oral
interview by author; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder
Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr.
Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief
K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
376

admission into the male administrative organ called umuaka, was the ability of a man to maintain
a full yam barn.

1417

Deceased ogaranya were in the past buried with big yams, in the hope that

in their next life, they would harvest yams as fine as the ones they were buried with.

1418

In the

course of Atlantic and domestic slave trades (1800-1900), yams were substituted with slaves for
the burial of deceased ogaranya.

1419

The symbolic representation of yam as wealth made it a

source of constant anxiety. Individuals guarded their yam wealth by sleeping on their farms
during the early part of the farming season, and at harvest time; and until British colonial rule,
the punishment for yam theft was sometimes, death or slavery.

1420

A man’s social prestige depended to a great extent on the number of yams he was able to
display in his yam barn,

1421

between 1850 and 1900.

1422

Successful yam farmers performed the

ritual of ike oba (tying up 3000-4000 yam tubers in a barn),

1417

1423

and in so doing they became

Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 62. Also, see chapter 2.

1418

Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 303; Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of
Amangwu and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author; Ogbuka Abaa, oral
interview by author; Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by
author; Chief Kalu Awa, oral interview by author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
1419
See chapter 5.
1420

Basden, Among the Ibos, 148; Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 156, 217; Nna
Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author.
1421
Barns are fenced and unroofed enclosures, located a few kilometers on the way to the
farmland, and grouped together according to patrilineage units, in a single place where they
could be guarded if necessary. This differed from the barn practices in most patrilineal Igbo
societies, where each individual kept his own yam barn, within his compound.
1422
Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 17; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku
Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ndea-Nku Village. November 17, 2011.
1423
Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 701; Chief Torti Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma, Ohafia. Nov. 26, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa,
Ezie-Ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author,
377

known as oko ji (yam farmer). This was the first step in the performance of yam masculinity.
When the individual farmer have saved up enough yams to perform ike oba, he informed the
male members of his age-grade, who came and inspected his eziji (Dioscorea rotundata). If they
were satisfied, they fired gun salutes to proclaim the successful emergence of the farmer.

1424

The oko ji (individual that attained ike oba status) then invited his patri-kin (umudi-ezi) and
members of his age-grade for a feast of yams, meat, fish, and drinks. This ceremony was known
as igwa oba (the feast of yam-barning).

1425

Ike oba established an individual, as a potential member of the prestigious nnu society,
and the obligations for admission into the society was so onerous and costly that only a few men
attained it.

1426

Nnu refers to a million, but in practice, a farmer that presented 7,500-10,000 eziji

yams in his barn (aka oba iri — ten yam stacks), qualified for admission into the society.

1427

Such an individual feasted his entire village, and gave each visitor a yam tuber upon his
departure.

1428

Arua writes that in performing igwa nnu, members of the society erected a booth

digital voice recording, Ndea-Nku Village. November 17, 2011; Chief Uduma Nnochin
Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuke Village. Nov. 24, 2011.
1424
Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 701.
1425

Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 701; Chief Torti Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma, Ohafia. Nov. 26, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa,
Ezie-Ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author,
digital voice recording, Ndea-Nku Village. November 17, 2011; Chief Uduma Nnochin
Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuke, Ohafia. Nov. 24, 2011.
1426
Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 701.
1427

Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 701; Chief Torti Kalu, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma, Ohafia. Nov. 26, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa,
Ezie-Ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author,
digital voice recording, Ndea-Nku Village. November 17, 2011; Chief Uduma Nnochin
Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuke, Ohafia. Nov. 24, 2011.
1428
Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011;
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
378

covered with jooji cloth, taking upwards of one hundred pieces of about eight meters apiece, at
the initiate’s expense. In all respects, the ceremony was marked by the unabashed and arrogant
display of wealth.

1429

1430

known as osuu.

Individuals who performed igwa nnu (admission into nnu society) were

Reflecting on these yam titles, an Ohafia collaborator, Chief K.K. Owen,

stated: “These were what we may call rituals of masculinity or certain traditions, which ritualize
or celebrate masculinity. The osuu was an ogaranya. In pre-colonial Ohafia, there were many
ceremonies surrounding yam cultivation.”

1431

It was perhaps in reference to these practices that Meek asserted, “Much of the social and
religious life of [Igbo] people, therefore, centered round the cultivation of the yam. There were
yam festivals, yam deities, and yam titles.”

1432

In a similar tone, writing about the Ohafia-Igbo,

Njoku stated, “Unlike the other crops, yam was deified in fijoku, one of the most powerful and
revered of Ohafia deities. Every significant stage in yam cultivation was preceded with rituals.
And the farming calendar revolved around the rhythm of yam cultivation.”

1433

While these

statements are true, it should also be noted that before the planting of any crop in pre-colonial
Ohafia, the ezie-nwami (female ruler) inaugurated the farming season with a ritual hoe.

1434

Before any individual could plant, the women-folk of the village performed an inaugural ritual
known as ichu aja izu orie, or in some parts of Ohafia, omume iri uduma. This was
1429

Arua, “Yam Ceremonies and the Values of Ohafia Culture,” 702.

1430

Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon. Sept. 14, 2011;
Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011;
Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amankwu. Oct. 25, 2011.
1431
Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
1432
1433
1434

Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 16.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 36.
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 24.
379

complementary to the men’s ritual performed by nde ezie ji (yam priests).

1435

This gender

complementarity is also seen in the fact that while the yam priest ministered to a male deity
(ikwan), he must as a rule, come from a lineage that customarily housed the complementary
female deity (orie) of the society, since the agro-based system was matrifocal.

1436

Figure 17: Chief Torti Kalu’s Performance of Igwa Nnu at Amuma, Ohafia, 1952.

1435

Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview; Mama Docas Kalu and Mama
Mary Ezera of Ebem village, Group Interview by author; Nmia Nnaya Agbai of Elu village, oral
interview by author.
1436
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 15.
380

Yam cultivation is best seen as a conjunctive gendered practice involving men and
women. Men’s performance of masculinity through yam cultivation was made possible by
women’s provisioning of food crops throughout the year, women’s constant tending of yam
farms, and women’s rituals enabling yam cultivation. Thus, R.W. Connell noted that masculinity
was a configuration of practice within a system of gender relations.

1437

Against this background,

Nwokeji’s argument that the Bight of Biafra produced more female slaves than male slaves
because of the preeminent role of men in yam cultivation, fails to see yam cultivation as a gender
constituted practice.

1438

Expressing the preeminent role of Ohafia-Igbo women in yam

cultivation, Chief K.K. Owen stated, “men in precolonial Ohafia . . . they were over-pampered
by women. I don’t know whether to say that they over-exploited women, or that they were overpampered . . . women were not forced to do these things . . . they were not forced to be
breadwinners.”

1439

As Amadiume has shown, it was women’s industriousness, and sense of

responsibility as the pillars of the subsistence economy that engendered their dominance in
agricultural production. Basden was trying to make sense of this phenomenon when he described
1440

Igbo women as “the burden-bearers of the country.”

Conclusion
The idea of institutions of masculinity emerged in the fieldwork context, where both
researcher and Ohafia-Igbo informants jointly debated the meaning of past cultural practices. It

1437

Robert Cornell, Masculinities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 84

1438

Ugo G. Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” The William and
Mary Quarterly 58, 1 (New Perspectives on the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Third Series), 62-64.
1439
Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
1440

Basden, Among the Ibos, 88.
381

represents an effort to comprehend socio-cultural practices and organizations, which
significantly shaped the production and understanding of ufiem and the gendered contestation of
power in Ohafia-Igbo society between 1850 and 1900. In providing illustrative examples within
living memory to shed light on these pre-colonial institutional practices, it has been necessary at
times to draw upon specific incidences between 1900 and 1930, as well as contemporary rituals,
as a lens into the past. This is a major challenge in reconstructing African historical experiences
in the precolonial period.
Nonetheless, this chapter examines the role of secret societies, the dibia cult, hunting, and
yam production in the gendering of identities and the definitions of social mobility among the
Ohafia-Igbo between 1850 and 1900. My primary motive for writing this chapter is to
demonstrate that male power, or what others have characterized as patriarchy in precolonial
southeastern Nigeria,

1441

varied from one community to another, and that by historicizing so-

called patriarchy in specific cultural contexts, the limits of male power, and the relative power of
women become manifest. Thus, in the Ohafia case, these institutions of masculinity (which
others have presented as evidence of male domination) provided individuals with alternative
avenues for social mobility and ufiem distinction beyond warfare, but did not enable men to
exercise political domination over women between 1850 and 1900. Moreover, through these
ufiem institutions, I examine the concept of ogaranya masculinity performance between 1850
and 1900. In the next chapter, I historicize changing constructions of ogaranya masculinity
between 1900 and 1920.

1441

Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man,” 165-171; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 24; Mba, Nigerian
Women Mobilized, 27, 29, 37, 62; Lebeuf, “The Role of Women in the Political Organization of
African Societies,” 109, 113; Ifeka-Moller, “Female Militancy and Colonial Revolt: The
Women’s War of 1929, Eastern Nigeria,” in Ardener, ed., Perceiving Women, 134
382

CHAPTER FIVE
TRADERS, CONVERTS, WAGE LABORERS, COLONIZED: EMERGENT
MASCULINITIES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF OGARANYA MASCULINITY,
1900-1920
Ogaranya, the masculinity of wealth performance changed over time. It has been
examined in the context of okonko secret society, gun ownership and hunting, dibia profession,
and yam cultivation. This chapter analyzes changing constructions of ogaranya masculinity in
the first two decades of the 20th century, as a lens into the gendered struggle for power among
the Ohafia-Igbo. It argues that whereas ndi ikike were the hegemonic ufiem between 1850 and
1920, individuals who acquired wealth, performed the social power of ogaranya status, and
eclipsed both male and female traditional political authorities, defined the dominant ideals of
ufiem accomplishment in the first two decades of the 20th century, among the Ohafia-Igbo.
First, in spite of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, domestic slave trade continued
to flourish in the Biafra hinterland until 1916.

1442

As Afigbo argued, the trade in palm produce

with which the British hoped to replace the slave economy largely depended upon slave
1443

labor.

Slavery shaped social practices such as ogaranya masculinity performance in Ohafia

between 1900 and 1920. The chapter theorizes ogaranya by examining its performance through
human sacrifice, the ideology of wealth-in-people, and the resultant creation of spiritual slaves
between 1900 and 1920. In the same vein, the chapter utilizes the changing material culture
practices of the Ohafia-Igbo in the first two decades of the 20th century to provide a window into
changes in Ohafia conceptions of ogaranya.

1442

Slavery was outlawed in 1916, but slave sales continued in the regional markets until the
1920s. See the following dispatches: BNA, CO 520/38, Dec. 1906, 88-91; CO520/107, Nov. 23,
1911; CO520/123, Mar. 1913; CO520/124, May 1913, op cit.
1443
Afigbo, Ropes of Sand, 241-242.
383

Second, through the life history of Chief Kalu Ezelu Uwaoma, Ohafia’s first warrant
chief, the chapter examines the greater opportunities which British colonial rule, Christianity and
Western education provided Ohafia men, over women, and enabled men to emerge in dominant
positions of socio-political power. In order to capture the broader ramifications of social change
in the redefinition of gendered power among the Ohafia-Igbo between 1900 and 1920, the
chapter further examines the gendered impact of Christianity, Western education and colonial
rule on the Ohafia-Igbo during this historical period. It argues that ogaranya masculinity
performance manifested itself in the form of educated male Christian converts’ elitism,
characterized by their marriage of women transformed into “good Christian wives” by female
Scottish missionaries between 1911 and 1920. This form of ogaranya was a manifestation of
what Stephan Miescher coined Presbyterian masculinity,

1444

in the case of Kwawu and Akan

societies in Ghana between 1930 and 1951.
Third, as shown in chapter 1, while women controlled domestic commerce between 1850
and 1900, long distance trade was dominated by men. Through the life histories of two women,
Madam Chief Otuwe Agwu and Unyang Uka, this chapter examines how the new wealth,
accrued from both slave and legitimate trade, enabled women to become female husbands, and
dibia and to perform ogaranya masculinity between 1900 and 1920. It argues that Ohafia
women, faced with declining spheres of economic prosperity, invaded hitherto exclusively male

1444

Miescher, Making Men in Ghana, 2, 48, 49, 58, 80, 89, 138, 150, 151, 199; Stephan
Miescher, “The Making of Presbyterian Teachers: Masculinities and Programs of Education in
Colonial Ghana,” in Lindsay and Miescher, eds., Men and Masculinities, 89-108. Notably, the
Ghanaian Presbytery was an outgrowth of the Swiss and German Basel Mission, in contrast to
Ohafia, where the Presbytery emerged from the Church of Scotland Mission. Miescher uses the
Akan term krakye (clerk/those who passed Standard VII) (pl. akrakyefoo) to describe clerks,
accountants, storekeepers, pupil teachers and pastors, as Presbyterian masculinities, who stood
educationally, economically, and culturally between European and traditional cultural values,
and subjected to conflicting expectations of manhood.
384

spaces, and performed ogaranya masculinity. These life histories demonstrate that Ohafia
women moved beyond the confines of Christianity and Western education to gain social mobility
during this period. While the declining socio-political power of women between 1900 and 1920
corresponded with the emergence of men in dominant positions of religious and political power,
the increasing performances of ogaranya masculinity by women, evidence gendered resistance to
emergent African and European patriarchies.
Ogaranya Masculinity and the Making of Spiritual Slaves, 1900-1920: An Introductory
Background to Changing Constructions of Ufiem in the Early 20th Century
As indicated in chapter 4, between 1850 and 1900, ndi ikike were buried with human
heads, and sometimes live captives. However, between 1900 and 1920, individuals who
performed ogaranya masculinity were buried with live captives and slaves, and male individuals
who did not receive this honor were seen as cowards and paupers.

1445

Richard Morrisey, the

Divisional Commissioner of Cross River Division reported in his August 5, 1901 letter to the
British High Commissioner that in the Igbo and Ibibio communities on both sides of the Cross
River, at the death of a wealthy man, sometimes one hundred captives were sacrificed, and that
no attempts were made to conceal such acts.

1446

His report is definitely exaggerated and I found

no evidence that such large-scale human sacrifice occured in Ohafia. However, putting a stop to
profuse practices of human sacrifice at the funeral of ogaranya was a major justification for
military campaigns between 1905 and 1907 in Afikpo, Ohafia, Arochukwu, and Owerri during

1445

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age,” 14; Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 26-27;
CO520/8: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, May-Aug., 1901,” 570-574; CO520/36:
“Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, 1906,” 170-184; Patridge, Cross River Natives, 72.
1446
CO520/8: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, May-Aug., 1901,” 573-574.
385

1447

the Bende-Onitsha hinterland expedition.

The high rate of human sacrifice in the early 20th

century in Ohafia and neighboring communities such as Arochukwu was a result of the
increasing glut of slaves on the domestic markets sequel to abolition, in addition to depressing
sale prices of slaves,

1448

and the performance of ogaranya masculinity.

1449

Ogaranya masculinity was fundamentally linked to the ideology of wealth-in-people.
Among the Ohafia-Igbo in the first two decades of the 20th century, this ideology found
expression through the ownership of slaves, possession of numerous wives and concubines, and
the burial of deceased ogaranya with live male captives.
polygyny

1451

1450

The increased rate of elite

(which I interpret as the marriage of numerous wives in demonstration of wealth)

in Ohafia, between 1900 and 1920, may have been facilitated by the glut of slaves in the Bight of

1447

CO520/36: “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, June-Aug., 1906,”
170-184; A. E. Afigbo, The Abolition of the Slave Trade in Southeastern Nigeria, 1885-1950
(New York: University of Rochester Press, 2006), 42.
1448
John McCall, “The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Ohafia Warrior Tradition,” 75-76.
1449

Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 104 argues that this was a result of the increasing
circulation of wealth. Njoku, African Cultural Values, 19, attributes this in the case of
Arochukwu and neighboring communities, to what he calls the ogaranya syndrome, which
produced arrogant, lawless political patrons. Also, see O.K. Oji, “A Study of Migration and
Warfare in Ohafia,” B.A Thesis, Department of History, University of Nigeria Nsukka (1974),
42-44; FO84/2020: “Africa (Slave Trade), West Coast, 1890,” 348-351; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 64; Nna Kalu Awa, oral interview by author, Amuma Village. November 26, 2011;
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author. August 4, 2010; Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group
Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Village. Nov. 26, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral
interview by author, Nde-Ibe village. November 3, 2011.
1450
The illustrative life histories of Chief Kalu Ezelu, Madam Chief Otuwe Agwu, and Unyang
Uka are provided below.
1451
Nakanyinke Musisi, “Women, ‘Elite Polygyny,’ and Buganda State Formation,” Signs 16
(1991), 757-786, used this term to describe the practice of marrying more than four wives in
Buganda, beginning in the mid-19th century.
386

Biafra markets.

1452

The imposition of Pax Britannica and the consequent decrease in the

incidence of warfare and headhunting expeditions in the Cross-River region during this
1453

period

meant that most Ohafia men could no longer capture slaves through warfare.

However, slave production through judiciary decisions and kidnapping as well as the sale of
slaves in domestic markets continued throughout the region of southeastern Nigeria at least until
the 1920s.

1454

Hence, individuals who amassed wealth through trade dramatized their social

status by purchasing slaves.

1455

Whereas these ogaranya employed male slaves as domestic

servants, farm workers, plantation laborers, carriers (of trade goods), and trading staff, most
female slaves often became wives, and a few were sold in the domestic markets at Itu, Asan,
Bende, and Uzuakoli, where they fetched more money than male slaves.
of women than men (a ratio of 5:3) in Ohafia between 1900 and 1930

1456

1457

The greater number

may have been a result

1452

In contrast to this 1900-1920 development evident in the life histories provided in this
chapter below, Nwokeji indicates that before the 1900, elite polygyny in the Bight of Biafra was
very low, compared to Slave Coast and West Central Africa. See Nwokeji, “African Conceptions
of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 65
1453
Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929,” 6; Jones, Annual Reports of
Bende Division, 36; Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia,” 29; Chief Uduma Nnochin
Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, Amuke. Nov. 24, 2011; Ezie Uka Uduma Uka (Okpere Oha 1
of Akanu-Ukwu Autonomous Community), oral interview by author. Nov. 2, 2011.
1454
Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 85; Nwokeji, “The Atlantic Slave Trade and
Population Density,” 633. Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors and Kings, 75 suggests that these
mechanisms of slave production continued even through the 1940s and 50s in Northern Igboland,
when the Eastern House of Assembly passed a law abolishing the osu/ohu system.
1455
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 44.
1456

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 70; Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia
Clan, 1934,” 50; CO520/8: “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, May-Aug.,
1901,” 574; Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, Asaga Village, oral interview
by author, dig. voice recording, Obu Nkwa Asaga shrine. August 12, 2010; Chief Udensi Ekea,
oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. August 4, 2010; Vasco U. Iro, ezie-ogo of Nkwebi
Village, Members of the Men’s Court and Nde-Ichin, Group Interview by author.
1457
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 58-59.
387

of the gendered uses of slaves and the practice of elite polygyny. Concubinage also became a
popular social practice during the same time period, and might have been a result of these factors
as well.

1458

It is thus clear that the glut of slaves in the Bight of Biafra markets and the performance
of ogaranya transformed the mode of exploitation of slaves and their labor. Suzanne Miers and
Igor Kpoytoff argued that the best way to look at the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on
African societies is to look at their “permutations.”

1459

Thornton examined these permutations

in terms of the “quality of the population left behind,” and argues that it reveals how gendered
practices mediated the impact of the slave trade.
Stephanie Beswick,

1461

1460

The edited volumes by Jay Spaulding and

and Carolyn Brown and Paul Lovejoy

1462

continue this conversation

by examining how the Atlantic slave trade transformed indigenous slave systems. Particularly
illuminating for the Ohafia context is Achebe’s examination of the power that religious

1458

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Amangwu Village. August
15, 2011; Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Nde-Ibe. November
3, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, dig. voice recording, Ebem
Village,. Aug. 14, 2010; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording,
Nde-Ukpai, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011. The reasons for the increased popularity of
concubinage include the decline of the practice of jonkijo marriages as a result of Chritianity and
Western education, and the emergence of male breadwinners and wealthy individuals, who could
afford to provide financial support to concubines. The rescuing and adoption of ostracized twin
mothers by Christian male converts also increased the number of concubines in the society.
1459
Miers and Kopytoff, “Introduction,” 76. This means looking at social, political, and
economic shifts within existing patterns, changes in the use of slaves and dependent persons,
variations in methods of obtaining them, and redefinitions of old relationships.
1460
John Thornton, “Sexual Demography: The Impact of the Slave Trade on Family Structure,”
In Women and Slavery in Africa, ed., Claire C. Robertson and Martin A. Klein (Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, 1997), 39-40.
1461
Spaulding and Beswick, eds. African Systems of Slavery.
1462

Brown and Lovejoy, eds. Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
388

institutions and offices afforded spiritual slaves in Nsukka division.

1463

Achebe argues that as a

result of alarming depopulation arising from slave raids from her more powerful neighbors, the
Idoha community in Nsukka created a goddess, Efuru to protect and repopulate Idoha through
marriage (dedication of people to Efuru, hence spiritual slaves).
relative legal immunity and social power.

1465

1464

Efuru dedicatees enjoyed

The high rate of inhumane uses of slaves in Ohafia

society in the early 20th century similarly produced a class of spiritual slaves, who had sought
ukwuzi protection from Omokwu (a.k.a obu nkwa), the shrine of Ohafia’s ancestral deity, Uma
Ukpai (the founder of Asaga village).

1466

In the early colonial period, many slaves escaped human sacrifice at the burial of
ogaranya by running into the obu nkwa in order to secure protection and immunity from
1467

harm.

According to Ohafia oral historian Chief Kevin Ukiro, in addition to slaves,

individuals found guilty of murder and theft by the okonko secret society, ikpirikpe ndi inyom
and the Ebem Native Court also increasingly sought ukwuzi protection from obu nkwa, after
which they were considered “children of arunsi [deity],” and became “automatically saved.”

1468

However, i bi arunsi ukwuzi (to secure the protection of a deity) stigmatized such individuals as

1463

Achebe, “When Deities Marry: Indigenous ‘Slave’ Systems,” 105-133.

1464

Achebe, “When Deities Marry: Indigenous ‘Slave’ Systems,” 110.

1465

Achebe, “When Deities Marry: Indigenous ‘Slave’ Systems,” 127.

1466

Jones, “Ohaffia Obu Houses,” 170; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo People, 42; Chief Idika
Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, Asaga village Ohafia, oral interview by author, dig.
voice recording, Obu Nkwa Asaga shrine. August 12, 2010, and Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral
interview by author, dig. voice recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia. August 10, 2010.
1467
Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, Asaga village Ohafia, oral interview
by author. Aug. 12, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, Asaga Village, August
10, 2010; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu Village, Ohafia. Aug. 15, 2011.
1468
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, Asaga Village. August 10, 2010.
389

osu (spiritual slaves and outcasts).

1469

Uchendu describes the osu as a cult slave, who has been

dedicated to a deity, and whose descendants automatically become osu, and he argues that the
practice was most prevalent in the Owerri-Okigwi region, and was linked to powerful protector
1470

deities.

However, the Ohafia use the term osu to describe individuals who voluntarily sought

ukwuzi under a deity, rather than dedicatees.

1471

They also employ another term, ibemike to

distinguish a class of outcasts, who were not slaves, but who became socially ostracized because
they had committed murder.

1472

A remarkable difference in the Ohafia osu and ibemike system

was the fact that while male osu/ibemike descendants were not allowed to intermarry with the
rest of the community, the female descendants were exempt from this social inhibition because
of their importance to the sustenance of matrilineages, with the result that over time, it became
difficult to identify and discriminate against osu/ibemike descendants.

1473

1469

Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, oral interview by author, dig. voice
recording, Obu Nkwa Asaga shrine. August 12, 2010; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author,
dig. voice recording, Aug. 15, 2011.
1470
Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 89.
1471

Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Amangwu, Ohafia. August
15, 2011; Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, Asaga village Ohafia, oral
interview by author, dig. voice recording, Obu Nkwa Asaga shrine. August 12, 2010. Nwando
Achebe makes a clear distinction between osu and dedicatees (igberemma).
1472
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Asaga, Ohafia. August
10, 2010; Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, Asaga, Ohafia, oral interview by
author, dig. voice recording. August 12, 2010.
1473
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia.
August 10, 2010; Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, Asaga village Ohafia,
oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. August 12, 2010. In the few instances where these
distinctions could still be made, such descendants continued to suffer social discriminations. For
instance, upon their death, their family members had to purchase a private land upon which they
were buried, because they would contaminate the communal land. Upon the death of an osu or
ibemike, his body was not allowed to touch the ground. Usually, the door of his house was pulled
out and his body laid upon it to prevent it from touching the ground. No elaborate funerals were
390

Ohafia Material Culture and the Memorialization of Historical Change: A Conceptual
Background to Changing Constructions of Ufiem in the Early 20th Century
The obu nkwa is significant because it reflects the impact of ogaranya masculinity
performance on the transformations in indigenous slave systems. However, it also embodies the
changes in the performance of masculinity among the Ohafia-Igbo in the early colonial period. It
has been shown that Ohafia obu houses represent a geography of masculinity. The obu nkwa
differed from other obu houses because it was the only Ohafia obu structure with representations
of female figures. Jones described the obu nkwa in the 1930s after it had been rebuilt in 1906
following a fire outbreak that decimated Asaga community. He noted the memorialization of
various forms of male and female ufiem in the carved wooden effigies housed within the shrine:
It [the obu nkwa] houses no less than 22 male and female figures, the majority the life
size or over. Rather like an African “Madame Tussaud’s,” the figures stand on
pedestals along the walls and front verandah — a warrior in an Amaseri war cap with
a fighting matchet in one hand and a head in the other, a warrior in a trillby hat with a
dane gun standing on the head of another enemy, an old man in a straw hat sucking
palm wine through a straw out of a drinking horn, a masked Ekpe player, a court
messenger, a rich woman with ivory anklets, a young girl with brass rods on her legs,
a woman with a [basket] . . . Standing beside the figure of a seated woman with a
1474
child on her knee is the figure of a man bound hand and foot, said to be the [ujo]
husband of the woman and so punished because he co-habited with her before her
child was weaned . . . the tarry smear on their mouths . . . comes from the blood of the
1475
victims sacrificed at the shrine.
The obu nkwa material culture complex captures the society’s changing vision of ufiem,
gender roles, and power between 1900 and 1920. The current chief priest of obu nkwa shrine,
Chief Idika Aso, now aged 88 years, described the war cap, machete, dane gun, ivory, and brass
rods as symbols, which individuals who attained ufiem, used to socially distinguish themselves.
held for them, and no commemoration of ufiem accomplishment such as the beating of the ikoro,
and the performance of obon and akan secret society dances were extended in their honor.
1474
Insight was provided by Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, Asaga
village Ohafia, oral interview by author, Obu Nkwa Asaga shrine. August 12, 2010.
1475
Jones, “Ohaffia Obu Houses,” 170-171.
391

He explained that the obu nkwa statues memorialize the role of secret societies (such as ekpe
okonko) in the definition of adult masculinity, the significance of ndi ikike to societal well-being
before 1900, and the role of brave hunters in the foundation of new settlements. In contrast to
these ufiem representations, the ujo statue represents “lazy and frail men,” who the Ohafia-Igbo
often sold as slaves to the Aro.

1476

Chief Idika further stated that the figure of a woman carrying

a basket returning from the market memorializes the historic role of women as ndi n’aku ndi ife
nri (bread-winners), while the rich women statues represent women who performed ogaranya
masculinity in the early colonial period. Lastly, the obu nkwa captures an emergent masculinity,
the court messenger — a figure that speaks to larger political transformations among the OhafiaIgbo under colonial rule.
In addition to the obu nkwa, other material culture practices such as the beating of the
ikoro was transformed to accommodate the changing performances of ufiem between 1900 and
1920. According to Ohafia elder and oral historian, Chief Kalu Awa Kalu,
When an old man dies in Ufiele [village] today, if his son is wealthy . . . he would
provide a goat, the required drinks and money, and the ikoro may be sounded for
his father. However, the ikoro and iri aha [war dance] constitute the respect and
honor accorded those who had cut head in the past [before 1900]. After the white
men introduced Christianity and education, when an Ohafia man went abroad to
study, and upon his return, brought back a school certificate and money, he was
said to have cut a head. Some people who became ogaranya from trading or
working in the colonial service, also returned with a lot of money or an expensive
vehicle. The person would go to the elders bearing gifts, and the elders would say
that even though he did not cut a head with a machete, he had actually cut a head,
one that is visible and materialistic [“O gbu ghi nke mma; mana o gbuu nke a fu
anya”]. So the ikoro and iri aha would be performed in his honor. If an individual
finances the construction of motor roads for the community, which was something
customarily assigned to an entire age-grade, the ikoro and iri-aha were performed
in his honor. Men who built modern houses had the ikoro beat for them, because
they had performed a feat worthy of designation as dimkpa [brave man], as ‘onye

1476

Chief Idika Aso, the Chief Priest of Obu Nkwa shrine, Asaga village Ohafia, oral interview
by author, dig. voice recording, Obu Nkwa Asaga shrine. August 12, 2010.
392

kpara ike’ [‘one who performed bravery’]. In a sense, okpogho (money) has
1477
replaced igbu ishi [to cut a head].
The history of such individuals described by Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, are explored below.
Upstarts and Warrant-Chiefs: Kalu Ezelu Uwaoma and the Redefinitions of Ufiem
In the Early 20th Century
The extension of Protectorate rule to [Bende Division between 1901 and 1910]
and the clearing and maintenance of its “roads” was now making it increasingly
safe for travel, while the steadily expanding needs of the government and
commercial agencies offered for the first time paid employment both for unskilled
[men] and for those who had been able to acquire the skills that were now in
1478
demand and particularly literacy, the ability to read and write English.
Chief Kalu Ezelu Uwaoma,

1479

Ohafia’s first warrant chief was at the center of the major

political changes that took place in the society in the first three decades of the 20th century. His
social mobility from slavery to warrant-chief status under British colonial rule, illustrates the
changes in social constructions of ufiem and the performance of ogaranya masculinity, as well as
the emergence of men in dominant socio-political positions in Ohafia-Igbo society between 1900

1477
1478

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author.
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 36.

1479

This outline of Chief Kalu Ezelu Uwaoma’s life is based on the following: Kalu, “An Ibo
Autobiography,” 158-170; Ndukwe, “From Slavery;” Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia;”
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 42-44; Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 9; Njoku,
“Before the Middle Passage;” Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929;”
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934;” Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by
author. August 4, 2010; Chief Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of)
Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, Ufiele. Oct. 27, 2011;
Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu and his cabinet members., Group Interview by
author, Oct. 25, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the
Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, Nov. 17, 2011; Ogbuka Abaa oral interview by author.
Dec. 10, 2011; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu. Aug. 10, 2010.
393

and 1920. Chief Kalu was born around 1860,

1480

the son of Dibia Kalu Uwaoma and Mrs.

Nwangbo Agwunsi Okoro. At the age of 12 (1872), Kalu was kidnapped and sold as a slave to
Chief Akara Oja of Bonny, by Mr. Nsi Oji, an Ohafia blacksmith he was apprenticed to. At
Bonny, Kalu converted to Christianity and learned to speak Pidgin English.

1481

He served his

Bonny master for some years, and was then sold to Chief Mini Epelle of Opobo. At Opobo, Kalu
rose to become the overseer of Chief Epelle’s house slaves, and conducted trade between Opobo
and the Igbo hinterland on behalf of his master. Several Ohafia respondents stated that Kalu
served King Jaja of Opobo

1482

(before 1887), and according to Njoku, he became “one of the

1480

Kalu writes that he was kidnapped at age 12, and returned to Ohafia after about 29 years,
and that a year later, he went to Calabar as a dibia in 1901. These put his birth around 1860,
rather than 1875 as he wrote. He died in 1968.
1481
Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 21; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 95.
1482

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. August 4, 2010; Chief
Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia, dig. voice
recording, Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice
recording, Ufiele Village. Oct. 27, 2011; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village
and his cabinet members., Group Interview by author, Oct. 25, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo
of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author, Nov. 17,
2011; Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. Dec. 10, 2011; Nna Agbai
Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Elu Village. Aug. 10, 2010. For studies
on King Jaja, see Ebiegberi J. Alagoa, Jaja of Opobo: The Slave Who Became a King. (London:
Longman, 1970); S.J.S. Cookey, King Jaja of the Niger Delta: His Life and Times, 1821-1891
(New York: Nok Publishers Ltd., 1974); E.A. Jaja, King Jaja of Opobo (1821-1891): A Sketch
History of the Development and Expansion of Opobo (Lagos: Opobo Action Council, 1977);
Edward L. Cox, Rekindling the Ancestral Memory: King Ja Ja of Opobo in St. Vincent and
Barbados, 1888-1891 (Cave Hill: Dept. of History, the University of the West Indies, 1998). The
similarities between Jaja and Kalu are indeed interesting. Jaja was an Igbo boy enslaved in
Bonny at the age of 12, and worked in the conduct of the provision trade for the Atlantic slave
trade. The coastal environment was too harsh for him and he was re-assigned to the domestic,
where he worked as a cook for his master. After a while, Jaja returned to Igboland, and when he
re-appeared in Bonny a few years later, his master had died and he started dealing directly with
the British. His newly acquired wealth enabled him to pay off his master’s debt and to become
the head of one of the two dominant trading houses – the Anna Pepple House. In the ensuing
conflict between the two houses, Jaja broke away from Bonny and founded the town of Opobo.
Jaja rose from slavery to become a king. Kalu rose from slavery to become a ruler.
394

most trusted servants of Jaja.”

1483

If this is true, Kalu must have left the service of King Jaja

after 1887, when the British colonial government under the auspices of Vice Consul Henry H.
Johnston kidnapped and exiled King Jaja to Barbados.

1484

Kalu’s autobiographical account suggests that he was no longer a slave in the 1890s, or
that he was paying his manumission, because by this time, he had become an independent palm
produce trader, but still corresponded with Chief Epelle.

1485

In 1899, Kalu volunteered as a foot

soldier and gun carrier of the British West African Frontier Force (W.A.F.F) Niger Coast
Protectorate troops in their expedition against the Eket.

1486

Upon his return from the Eket war,

Kalu met three Ohafia dibias, Ukoha Nnake, Amogu Akwukwa, and Orie Obosso, who had
embarked on ije ogwu (itinerant dibia healing) to Opobo. The latter agreed to lead Kalu back to
Ohafia. However, on their homeward journey, Dibia Obosso deceived Kalu and sold him to Aro
slavers at Okporoenyi in Bende. Kalu’s new Aro master, Chief Okoroafo Ukpabi maltreated him
so much that he developed a profound hatred for Aro people. Kalu viewed his enslavement in the
hands of the Aro as illegitimate because it was a violation of the ukwuzi pact that existed

1483

Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia, 1900-1979,” 30. Under King Jaja, Kalu acquired
some wealth and himself, owned a number of slaves.
1484
FO84/1881: “Africa, West Coast, 1888,” 159-168; W.N.M. Geary, Nigeria Under British
Rule (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1927), 283.
1485
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 159-160; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 19-20. In the course of
oral interviews about Unyang Uka (discussed further below), respondents stated that she met
Kalu at Opobo around 1895, and the latter furnished her with loads of corral beads, and informed
her that he was passing as a legitimate son of the ex-king of Opobo. We know from extant
studies that the only “ex-king’ as at 1895 was Jaja. See Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand
daughter of Unyang Uka) of Amangwu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Ohafia
Local Government office, Ebem Village, Ohafia, September 5, 2011; Grace Emehe (niece of
Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral interview by author, dig. voice recording,
Amangwu Village, Ohafia, Sept. 10, 2011.
1486
See The Daily Telegraph Supplement, Saturday, June 24, 1899, 6 for a report on the Eket
War, titled, “The Horrors of Fetish Worship.”
395

between Ohafia and Arochukwu, which required that both parties not enslave each other.

1487

Kalu became more resentful of the Aro when Chief Ukpabi tried to use him as a burial good.

1488

Escaping from his captors, Kalu pledged to pay £60 to another Aro man, Ifere Imaga, who led
him back to Ohafia. Upon his return to Ohafia around 1900,

1489

Kalu convinced Ohafia elders to

compel Dibia Obosso to repay him all his lost property and money.
In spite of his professed identity as a Christian, Kalu’s first act upon his return to Ohafia
was to purchase membership of the dibia guild. As a dibia (medicine man and spirit medium), he
gained an immunity (see chapter 4) that enabled him to travel freely without fear of enslavement.
Becoming dibia was also an economic necessity that enabled him to acquire wealth. Kalu writes
that he embarked upon ije ogwu (divination and healing trips) to various Cross River
communities such as Ikun, Atam Onoyom, Akpabuyo, and Calabar, where he acquired
significant wealth and became “famed as a great native doctor.”

1490

During one of his trips to

Calabar in 1901, Kalu learned of the proposed British Aro expedition. He rushed back to Ohafia
to forewarn his people, advising them to welcome the British and allow them free passage
through Ohafia to Arochukwu.

1487

1491

Upon the arrival of the British W.A.F.F to Ohafia in late

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 160-162; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 71.

1488

Between 1850 and 1900, slaves in Bonny and Opobo had formed themselves into the
Bloodmen organization, in resistance to the increasing use of slaves as sacrifices to deities and
for the burial of chiefs. This environment may also have influenced Kalu. See Daniel A. Offiong,
“The Status of Slaves in Igbo and Ibibio of Nigeria,” Phylon 46, 1 (1985), 55.
1489
This year is popularly recalled as afo unwu (year of famine) because it was marked by an
enduring famine caused by a locust raid. Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 162; Chief Udensi
Ekea, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. August 4, 2010; Godwin Nwankwo Uko,
ezie-ogo of Amankwu and his cabinet members, Group Interview by author, Oct. 25, 2011.
1490
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 162.
1491

Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929;” Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in
Ohafia,” 28; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 31.
396

1901, Kalu raised a white flag to signal peace, and relying upon his smattering English, assured
the British of their safety in Ohafia. Kalu served as an interpreter during peace negotiations with
British officers James Watt, Captain Mowatt, and Mr. Weir, and by mobilizing the community to
provision the soldiers with food, he cultivated an enduring friendship with the British.

1492

In

what seems like an act of revenge against the Aro, Kalu led the W.A.F.F column to
Arochukwu,

1493

which was razed to the ground in 10 days. This halted the economic

monopolies enjoyed by the Aro in the region for the last 300 years.
Kalu’s intervention established him as a local hero among his people. He writes that “my
exertions . . . gained me honor amongst Ohaffia people. They therefore passed a law to the effect
that I was to be the adviser to the bulk of Ohaffia people.”

1494

Kalu’s position as community

adviser enabled him to play two major roles that transformed him from an ex-slave into a
community leader, namely, the expulsion of two corrupt Native Court officers from Ohafia and
the establishment of the Church of Scotland Mission. During the British occupation of Ohafia in
1901-02, the village of Ebem had put up a militant resistance, in spite of Kalu’s intervention,
upon which Ebem was sacked.

1495

In order to keep Ebem permanently pacified, the British

1492

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 163-164; J. C. Anene, Southern Nigeria in Transition
(London: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 231.
1493
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 9; Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 164. Two other
ex-slaves of Ohafia origin, Uduma Uwara of Ebem and Nnanna Uka of Amangwu, had guided
the column from Unwana to Ohafia.
1494
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 164.
1495

Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. Ebem Village Ohafia.
Aug. 3, 2010; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Elu Ohafia.
Aug. 10, 2010; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 96-97. The people of Ebem village continue to
blame Kalu for not protecting them from British forces.
397

government established a Native Court
Nkporo and Abam.

1497

1496

at Ebem in 1905-07, with jurisdiction over Abiriba,

Mr. Vincent of Sierra Leone was appointed Clerk of the Native Court

(C.N.C), and Mr. Cobham, a Calabar man, was made a Court Messenger and Interpreter.

1498

Ohafia oral testimonies and the reports of British colonial officers attest that Mr. Vincent and
Mr. Cobham were harsh, unscrupulous and morally bankrupt, and that they imposed a reign of
terror on Ohafia people.

1499

1496

The Native Courts Proclamation of 1900 and 1901 made this possible. The colonial
administration appointed local people to these courts and gave them authority or warrants to
serve as local adjudicators. These appointed rulers came to be known as Warrant Chiefs. Hence,
A.E. Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 37, argues that the
warrant chief system was synonymous with the Native Court system in the Eastern Provinces in
the period 1891-1929. Also see, Adiele E. Afigbo, “The Warrant Chief System in Eastern
Nigeria: Direct or Indirect Rule,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 3, 4, (June 1967);
Obaro Ikime, “Reconstructing Indirect Rule: The Nigerian Example,” Journal of the Historical
Society of Nigeria 4, 3, (1968); I.M. Okonjo, British Administration in Nigeria, 1900-1950 (New
York, 1974). Each Native Court was assigned a clerk and messenger, both of whom spoke
English, and served as primary mediators between the local people and the president of the
Native Court (the District Commissioner). Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 59-61,
shows that the court clerk was the most senior ranking African official of the Native Court, and
as Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 104 and Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs, 180 argue, these court
clerks made themselves de facto District Commissioners, and abused their powers vagrantly.
1497
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 27.
1498

See Major W.A.C. Cockburn, “Annual Report on Bende District for the Year Ended 31st
December, 1910,” provided in Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 68-84; Nna Agbai
Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010.
1499
Cockburn, “Annual Report on Bende District, 1910;” Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 164165; Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 70-71; Agwu Kalu, L.N. Chika, and
N.O. Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia: An Unpublished Work by Isiama Parish of
the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria,” (2005), 3; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, dig.
voice recording. August 4, 2010; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice
recording, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu
Village and his cabinet members., Group Interview by author, Oct. 25, 2011; Anaso Awalekwa,
ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by author,
Nov. 17, 2011; Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. Dec. 10, 2011; Nna
Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Elu Village. Aug. 10, 2010.
Ohafia elders recall that Mr. Vincent often used the court messenger, Mr. Cobham to extort
foods and livestock from the people, that he routinely sexually harrassed girls and married
398

The Ohafia community turned to their adviser, Kalu, who pioneered a litigation against
Mr. Vincent.

1500

The Native Court officers were tried at Bende Native Court, convicted and

imprisoned for three months with hard labor for unnecessary brutality, ill-treating the natives,
obtaining money under false pretenses, and unscrupulously using the authority of the court for
personal aggrandizement.

1501

Kalu writes that he then “lectured [Ohafia elders] on the necessity

of educating their children by establishing and supporting schools,”

1502

and sent an application

to the headquarters of the United Church of Scotland for a Missionary. Jones noted that the
peoples of Bende district welcomed missionaries, because they believed that “if the young men
of [their] village were educated, that is, could speak or write English, they could obtain the same
superior employment as [court clerks and messengers, who were seen as] more favoured
Africans.”

1503

Historians Geoffrey Johntson and Ogbu Kalu indicate that Kalu further led a

delegation to Rev. Rankin at Arochukwu, stating that if Rankin helped to keep Mr. Vincent

women, and often subjected Ohafia men to public flogging and imprisonment at the flimsiest
excuse. In once incident, he imposed a fine of £30 on Isigwu village for failing to supply
mandatory labor, and when the fine was not paid, he routed all adult men in Isigwu and locked
them up in the Native Court. In another incident, Mr. Vincent locked up two age-grades from Elu
village in a cramped cell at the Native Court for failing to complete before dusk, a mud house he
had mandated them to build. Ohafia people resisted Mr. Vincent by breaking down the walls of
the prison cells and forcibly releasing the detainees, boycotting his requests for water and
firewood supply, and publicly disparaging him with a derogatory nickname, ajagirigwe (crooked
iron) because of his rickety bicycle. However, Mr. Vincent often found protection and support
from Major Cockburn, the District Commissioner. After the removal of Mr. Vincent, Iruobam
Jumbo took his place, while Mr. Jonah became the Interpreter. Jones, Annual Reports of Bende
Division, 88.
1500
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 140; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 113.
1501
Cockburn, “Annual Report on Bende District, 1910;” Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 106.
1502

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 165. The coming of the C.S.M to Ohafia was more complex
and is examined below.
1503
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 50.
399

away, Ohafia people would accept a missionary and support the opening of new schools.

1504

In

response, Rev. Robert Collins was sent to Ohafia and in 1910, under Kalu’s auspices, a residence
was erected for the Scottish missionary, while a new church that compelled admiration from
European visitors was completed in 1924.

1505

The residence of Rev. Robert Collins continues to serve as the official home of
Presbyterian ministers in Ohafia. This house was prefabricated in Edinburgh, Scotland, shipped
from Liverpool to Calabar, manually transported to Ohafia by Ohafia age-grades, and erected by
European carpenters and masons.

1506

Even though the missionary residence and church were a

result of four years of monthly contributions of 6 pence and 1 shilling by all adult Ohafia men
and women,

1507

Ohafia people point to these structures as a legacy of Kalu’s performance of

ogaranya masculinity, because in addition to mobilizing local support for these projects, he

1504

Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 42-43; Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the
Igbo,” 70-71; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author. August 4, 2010; Nna Agbai Ndukwe,
oral interview by author. Aug. 10, 2010; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, Ufiele.
October 27, 2011.
1505
UPC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letter from Collins,
Robert to Mr. Ashcroft, dated 8th April 1921,” 70-71; UPC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins
Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letter from Collins, Robert to Mr. Ashcroft, dated 24th
November 1924,” 76; UPC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar,
Letter from Collins, Robert to Mr. Ashcroft, dated 5th August 1925,” 148.
1506
UFC, Foreign No. 21, MS. 7676: “Letters from Valentine to Collins, dated 10th August and
31st December 1910,” 179, 357; Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,”
140; Elder Agwu Kalu, Ohafia, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. May 18, 2012;
Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 71.
1507
UPC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letters from Collins,
Robert to Mr. Ashcroft, dated 14th and 17th July 1920,” 29-32; UPC, West Africa, MS. 7793:
“Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letter from Collins, Robert to Mr. Ashcroft, dated 28th
September 1920,” 39-40; UPC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar,
Letter from Collins, Robert to Mr. Ashcroft, dated 16th September 1921,” 98-99; UPC, West
Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letter from Collins, Robert to Mr.
Ashcroft, dated 21st February 1925,” 106; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Elder
Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Amaekpu Village. May 18, 2012.
400

made the most substantial financial contribution, and went as far as paying the salaries of school
teachers appointed by the Mission, when the community proved incapable of affording the
money.

1508

Kalu also built the first modern storey-house with corrugated iron roof in Ohafia in

1916, in effect single-handedly establishing a house that rivaled the mission residence funded by
the community. Jones noted that such houses were considered “permanent building” by the
British, and were so cost-prohibitive, that the British government discontinued the provision of
such houses to colonial officers between 1904 and 1906.

1509

As he rose to leadership stature among his people, Kalu also gained upliftment from the
British colonial administration, when he was appointed the first warrant chief of Ohafia in 1910,
in recognition of his support in the Aro expedition, the collection of taxes, and the expansion of
missionary work and legitimate commerce in the region.

1510

As a warrant chief, Kalu sat in the

Native Court council at Ebem to hear cases, but his reputation as a competent negotiator and
ogaranya led communities and individuals to bring cases to his compound.

1511

The District

Officer, James Watt invited Kalu to settle a land dispute between the Ohafia village of Ebem and
the neighboring Cross River-Igbo town of Ozu-Abam in 1920, and Rev. Collins often enlisted
his services in the settlement of marital and inter-village disputes, in one incident, charging Kalu
with mediating a dispute involving twin mothers, the village of Abia, and the Native Court in

1508

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 144; Ndukwe, “From
Slavery,” 34-35, 59-60; Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview
by author. August 4, 2010; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu. Aug. 10, 2010;
Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, October 27, 2011.
1509
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 54.
1510

Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929.”

1511

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010; Ogbuka Abaa,
oral interview by author; Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 144.
401

1512

1918.

Kalu earned money serving as a warrant chief. According to Jones, in addition to

sitting fees and monthly salaries, warrant chiefs received remuneration from litigants, to serve as
their attorneys and spokesmen, when the bench retired to consult on their verdict.
received payments for the various cases he resolved, outside of the Native Court.

1513

Kalu also

1514

Chief Kalu performed ogaranya masculinity and his wealth in money, people, land, and
material things symbolized the head he had cut to accomplish ufiem among his people. By 1916,
he owned more than 50 slaves, married 12 wives, had numerous concubines, and many children,
who worked on his various farms and plantations, processed and purchased palm produce for
him, and traded these at the Itu market on the Cross River.

1515

He sent his sons to the best

school in southeastern Nigeria at the time: the Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar.

1516

Chief Kalu invested heavily in land. In 1915, he established a cocoa and oil palm plantation at
Ajakparata, in Isiugwu village, Ohafia, which became the center of his trading and farming
operations.

1517

He built various farm houses (ulue ubi) on distant farms and charged Ohafia

people (mostly women) rent on a daily basis for the storage of food and farm tools in these
houses.

1518

By the mid-1920s, Chief Kalu owned one quarter of the land in Elu village, which

1512

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 143; Ndukwe, “From
Slavery,” 35; Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166-167.
1513
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 26.
1514

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 168.

1515

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166; Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia, 1900-1979,”
30; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 40, 49, 53; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, Ufiele
Village. Oct. 27, 2011; Ogbuka Abaa oral interview by author, Dec. 10, 2011.
1516
Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 49. One of his sons Agwu Eke became a marine engineer (died in
1964), while another, Uma Eke was a senior staff of University of Nigeria Nsukka (died 1997).
1517
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 54.
1518

Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 56.
402

he acquired through purchase, inheritance, pledges for loans, and supervision of colonial projects
such as road construction and the dredging of rivers.

1519

Chief Kalu viewed his extensive wealth-in-people as a symbol of his ogaranya status,
and thus worked towards the expansion of his household. For instance, he was baptized as a
Presbyterian in 1918, and in 1919, he became an evangelist of the Church of Scotland Mission
(C.S.M.) When the C.S.M insisted that Chief Kalu should divorce all but one wife so that he may
fully embrace his new status as a Presbyterian masculinity,

1520

he left the C.S.M, invited the

Salvation Army Mission to establish a church and school in his compound, and switched over to
the Church of Christ, where he was made a Church Elder in 1920.

1521

By that singular move,

Chief Kalu drew more than half the C.S.M membership away. This forced the C.S.M to reinstate
him as an evangelist, allowing him to keep his harem of wives, on the condition that he officially
wedded one of them, who had been made into a “good Christian wife” by Scottish woman
missionary, Miss Arnault at Arochukwu.

1522

However, Chief Kalu exploited his position as a
1523

Presbyterian minister, and the right-hand man to Rev. Robert Collins,

1519

to rescue and adopt

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 164; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 53; Nna Agbai Ndukwe,
oral interview by author, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author.
1520
This concept is fully historicized below. It refers to Presbyterian conceptions of ufiem
between 1911 and 1920, with an emphasis on monogamy, the privileging of the conjugal family
over the matrilineage, and the making of a Christian church spear-headed by male elders, who
were rewarded with women transformed into “good Christian wives.” See CO520/124: “Colonial
Office: Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, April to May, 1913;” Johnston,
Of God and Maxim Guns, 84, 221-233; Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166-167; Johnston,
“Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 148.
1521
Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 40-41; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 118; Chief K.K. Owen,
oral interview by author; Elder Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author.
1522
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 41; Chief K.K. Owen, oral
interview by author; Elder Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author, May 18, 2012.
1523
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 144.
403

numerous abandoned twin children, and added many socially ostracized twin mothers to his
household, as more wives and concubines.

1524

According to Njoku, Chief Kalu’s large

compound was a safe haven for twin mothers and twins between 1911 and 1920.

1525

Ohafia-Igbo people express Kalu’s ogaranya masculinity through various stories. Ohafia
elders recall that Kalu was so wealthy and had so many dependents that his wives cooked in
drums instead of pots, and that “ofe Nna Kalu gbaa uka, umu ogbenye erijuo afo” [When Nna
Kalu’s food went sour, the poor had a feast].

1526

Similarly, in 1922, Chief Kalu obtained a

permit from the British government to purchase a gun in order to hunt predatory animals on his
plantations.

1527

However, he employed his gun as a symbol of his ogaranya status, like Ohafia

brave hunters before him. On every Eke market day, Chief Kalu stepped out to the top porch of
his mansion and fired four gun shots to announce the beginning of the native four-day week.
Through this constant ritual of ogaranya, Kalu inscribed himself within the social imagination of
Ohafia rhythm of daily life.

1528

Chief Kalu demonstrated that ogaranya performance entailed social legitimation of
economic and political power. He reflects Uchendu’s description of a “Big Man” among the
1524

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 49-50; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 117; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010.
1525
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 117.
1526

Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. August 4, 2010; Chief
Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo
of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members., Group Interview by author, Oct. 25, 2011;
Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea-Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group
Interview by author, Nov. 17, 2011; Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author. Dec. 10, 2011; Nna
Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010.
1527
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 168.
1528

Chief Uche Anya Elekwa, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording. Aug. 14, 2010;
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010;
Ezie-nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview.
404

Igbo, as a man who commanded prestige, respect and obedience, because he “helps others to get
1529

up.”

From the 1930s, he began to purchase lorries to facilitate transportation of goods and

people between Ohafia and various markets in the region. He called his lorries, “community
vehicles” and contrasted them with the “pleasure cars” of European colonial and medical officers
that visited the region in the 1930s, because his lorries were intended to facilitate the upliftment
of Ohafia people.

1530

However, Kalu was also an opportunist, unhindered by social mores. For example, when
he returned to Ohafia in 1900, he used to steal animals sacrificed to deities, and from these, he
established a livestock farm, and raised money to purchase membership of the dibia guild.

1531

After Kalu became a dibia (iwa anya), he was able to rise to the highest rank of the dibia
profession through manipulation. He noted that the Ohafia people had consulted him as a dibia to
forecast the day that the W.A.F.F column would depart Ohafia. Having obtained the relevant
information from Captain Mowatt, Kalu made “incantations” and “declared the day, and when
[the W.A.F.F] actually left [on] that day, [his] fame as a prophet became very much.”

1532

Similarly, before the establishment of the Ebem Native Court (1905-07), Kalu was one of the
most important British agents in the northeastern part of Bende district.

1533

According to oral

accounts, Kalu extorted gifts and taxes from Ohafia villages by parading an albino who
1529

Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 14.

1530

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 168. Kalu indicates that this same logic had informed his
dredging of the Uduma stream to facilitate canoe transportation, his philanthropic payment of
teachers’ salaries, his opening of public water pumps in the landlocked villages of Elu and
Amaekpu, and his efforts to open a trading station of the United African Company in his
compound in Ohafia.
1531
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 162.
1532
1533

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 164.
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 27.
405

impersonated an European officer.

1534

In his Intelligence Report following the Bende-Onitsha

Hinterland Expedition, the Acting District Commissioner, Mr. F. Hives noted that it was
common to find such “blackmailing” impostors (mostly runaway Bonny and Opobo slaves) who
paraded men disguised in police uniforms, and held judiciary courts of their own from one
community to another, extorting exorbitant court fees.

1535

The District Commissioner of Bende, Major W.A.C Cockburn noted in 1910 that because
the Ebem Native Court was difficult to access during the rainy season, British officers were
unable to visit it regularly, and as such, the warrant chiefs emerged as the principal authorities in
Ohafia, and did as they pleased.

1536

According to Ohafia elders, after Kalu’s appointment as a

warrant-chief, because he was the only Ohafia person that understood and spoke English, he
often misinformed the people that the British District Commissioner (D.C.) had demanded
contributions of goats and yams from them. After stockpiling these contributions for a period of
time, Chief Kalu then chose a specific day to embark on a tribute trip to the D.C. at Bende or
Nkporo. Usually carried on a hammock, Chief Kalu was accompanied by a company of young
men who served as carriers. Upon his return, Kalu sometimes informed Ohafia people that the
D.C. was displeased with the quantity of their contributions, and was making preparations for a
military invasion. The various villages would then make further contributions and send them to

1534

Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 23; Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and
his cabinet members. Group Interview by author, Oct. 25, 2011; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author, dig. voice recording, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010.
1535
F. Hives, “Intelligence Report: Bende-Onitsha Hinterland Expedition, 1905,” document
provided in Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 62-67.
1536
Cockburn, “Annual Report on Bende District, 1910.”
406

Chief Kalu’s home at Elu village.

1537

It was through these practices that Kalu constructed his

political power over indigenous political authorities. Indeed, Isichei’s indication that ogaranya
masculinities usurped the political power of local authorities in southeastern Nigeria

1538

did not

become true of the Ohafia-Igbo until colonial rule.
While Kalu’s political career transcended and outshone those of other warrant chiefs
representing other Ohafia villages, Mayne noted that these men also exercised political power
beyond the capacity of ezie-ogo/ndi ichin (men’s court) and ikpirikpe ndi inyom (women’s
court).

1539

He emphasized that whereas the ezie-ogo “had no autocratic power whatsoever in his

village [before 1910],” the colonial administrative system vested executive power “in one man
known as the Warrant Chief.”

1540

Njoku also writes that, “the administrative system based on

the native courts and warrant chiefs raped the foundations of Ohafia traditional system of
government . . . [because it] concentrated legislative, judicial and executive powers on the
warrant chief.”

1541

Mayne continued:

The arrival of the British who, forthwith proceeded unknowingly to sap the
foundations of the only conceivable mode of government the people knew [was]
viewed with extreme disfavour . . . The people had not intended their representative,
who was of no “locus standi” to be an intermediary between the British and
themselves. It was their impression that he was required to appease the anger of the
“whiteman” and the irony of the situation was only comprehended when it was too
1537

Godwin Nwankwo Uko, ezie-ogo of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members. Group
Interview by author, Oct. 25, 2011; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu Ohafia.
Aug. 10, 2010; Nna Kalu Awa of Nde Torti Compound, Amuma Village Ohafia, oral interview
by author. Nov. 26, 2011; Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author. Aug. 4, 2010; Chief
Ikenga Ibe, in Group Interview with Nde Ichin (ten elders of) Amuma Ohafia. Nov. 26, 2011;
Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, Nde-Ibe village, Ohafia. November 3, 2011.
1538
Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 105.
1539

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 68.

1540

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 13.

1541

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 103.
407

late and the representative had not only usurped the position of the indigenous
figureheads but had virtually made himself their ruler. This representative better
known as the “Warrant Chief” has been the link between the people and the
1542
Government.
Mayne may well have been writing about Warrant Chief Kalu Ezelu himself, who
came to limelight when he was able to appease the British, expunge the corrupt court clerk
Mr. Vincent, and facilitated the coming of the Presbyterian mission, but soon transformed
himself from a warrant chief of Elu village, into a de facto ruler of Ohafia people. In 1927,
Mr. Chubb wrote that the Ohafia “people are splendidly ruled by Chief Kalu-Ezelu. The
Chief’s hereditary right to occupy the post is open to question as he is of mixed Aro blood
but he is one of the few outstanding chiefs in the Division and it is hoped will be of great
assistance to the Local Administration.”
1544

28

1543

The introduction of direct taxation in 1927-

was an opportunity which Chief Kalu exploited to secure British legitimation of his

authority over the entire Ohafia region.

1545

He proved himself a competent tax collector, and

came to be seen as “a loyal servant of the Government.”

1546

Mr. Chubb writes that Chief

Kalu collected taxes from various Ohafia villages including Elu, Ebem, Isiwgu, Asaga,
Okagwe, Nkwebi, and Akanu, and was responsible for about 85% of the total taxes collected
in Bende Division in 1928. Chief Kalu also summoned adult men, who failed to pay taxes to

1542

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 68-69.

1543

Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929,” 17.

1544

CO583/159/12: “Introduction of Direct Taxation in Southern Provinces, 1928.”

1545

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 69; Chubb, “Assessment Reports:
Bende Division, 1927-1929,” Minute No. 69/1927.
1546
Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929,” 6.
408

the Ebem Native Court, “and as a result of this action the balance was collected
immediately.”

1547

By 1930, after the abolition of the warrant chief system following the Igbo Women’s
War of 1928, Chief Kalu had established himself as the wealthiest individual in Ohafia and a
staunch ally of the British administration. He went on fishing trips with Captain Mowatt and
Mr. Weir, British district officers of Bende Division, and he described Mr. Watt, the Resident
Commissioner of Owerri Province as his friend.

1548

Mr. Weir contracted the construction of

Ohafia-Abiriba and Ohafia-Aro roads to Chief Kalu in 1928,

1549

and in the 1930s, he

contracted Chief Kalu to build the court messengers’ houses, the Ohafia post office, and the
native administration dispensary.

1550

In 1938, Chief Kalu decided to immortalize himself by

writing an autobiography titled, “The Autobiography of Mr. Eke Kalu, Ohaffia’s WellHonored Son.” This was published in the British-run journal, The Nigerian Field, Journal of
the Nigerian Field Society 7, 4 (October 1938). Following his publication, the British
colonial government under the auspices of Governor Sir Bernard Bourdillion, issued Chief
Kalu with a certificate of honor in the name of his Majesty King George VI.

1551

Mayne was right in pointing out that Ohafia people viewed the usurpation of power
by warrant chiefs with disfavor. He also noted that in spite of the usurpation of power by
warrant chiefs, the indigenous system of administration “still functioned to a considerable

1547

Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929,” 8.

1548

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 164-167.

1549

NAE, UMPROF 5/1/90: “Arochukwu-Bende-Afikpo Road, 1921;” Kalu, “An Ibo
Autobiography,” 168.
1550
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 169.
1551

Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 59-60.
409

1552

extent.”

In his quest for social mobility, political power and ogaranya status, Chief Kalu

had committed nso ala (abomination) by cohabiting with ostracized twin mothers and
adopting twins.

1553

Fed up with Chief Kalu’s one-person revolution, Ohafia elders petitioned

the District Officer of Bende district, and brought the following charges against Chief Kalu:
he was violating Ohafia customs through social contacts with twin mothers; he extorted
money from Ohafia people under false pretenses; he refused to give back land held on pledge
even after the owners were prepared to redeem the pledge; he appropriated individual land
for himself under the pretext of engineering projects for the colonial government; he engaged
in the torturing of Ohafia people; he owned slaves and engaged in slave trading; he had
murdered some Ohafia people; and lastly, he was not eligible to become the ruler of Ohafia
because his father was from Arochukwu.

1554

Ohafia elders presented some human skulls to the District Officer as evidence that
Chief Kalu had committed murder, and further exhumed a dead body from the forest and
bargained with one of Chief Kalu’s wives (whom Kalu had refused to grant divorce) to
testify that he had killed the individual.

1555

Fearing that he would not get a fair trial at

Bende, Chief Kalu without consulting the District Officer of Bende, transferred his case to a

1552
1553

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 69.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 117.

1554

Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929,” 7-17; Kalu, “An Ibo
Autobiography,” 166; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 61-64; Chief Uche Anya Elekwa, oral interview
by author. Aug. 14, 2010; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu. Aug. 10, 2010.
1555
Eke Kalu, “An Autobiography”, 166-167; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 63; Chief Uche Anya
Elekwa, oral interview by author. Aug. 14, 2010; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author,
Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010. Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 148,
writes that it became common practice between 1911 and 1940 for Presbyterian masculinities
such as Chief Kalu (who was an elder and minister of the Church) to use their vote in the
Presbytery, to deny their wives divorce, in contrast to what obtained in the pre-colonial period.
410

higher court, administered by his friend, Mr. James Watt, then the Resident Commissioner of
Owerri Province. Chief Kalu’s subversion of the District Commissioner’s authority left him
chagrined, but as Kalu writes, he apologized to the former and informed him that “the
Government was trying to reward [his] good deeds with death,” and that the District
Commissioner was biased against him.

1556

At Owerri, Mr. Watt ruled that Ohafia elders had

made the allegations out of jealousy. However, when Chief Kalu returned to Ohafia, he
found his compound demolished, his servants and slaves scattered, and his money and
property looted. Only his matrilineage, Umu-Ubia showed solidarity.

1557

At the end of

colonial rule, Chief Kalu was sued to court in the 1960s by some Ohafia people who sought
to reclaim land he had seized from them during colonial rule.

1558

Chief Kalu’s social mobility and ogaranya performance reflects a major shift in
gendered power distribution among the Ohafia-Igbo between 1900 and 1920. His life history
provides a window into the marginalization of women from spheres of socio-political power.
It was possible for a male individual to rise from slavery to warrant chief status under
colonial rule, but became increasingly difficult for women to exercise political power. Kalu’s
story indicates that Africans were major agents of socio-political change in Southeastern
Nigeria, and that they accomplished this by exploiting the opportunities presented by
domestic slave trade, legitimate commerce, Christian missionary evangelism and British
colonial rule. However, this African agency in social change was gendered because, men
enjoyed better opportunities over women.

1556

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 167.

1557

Eke Kalu, “An Autobiography”, 167.

1558

Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 61.
411

Just as the colonial political system sidelined women, Ohafia mission-run schools did
not admit girls until the 1940s. Jones’ observation that the new economic and political
opportunities presented by British colonial rule were open primarily to those who were able
to read and write, was particularly true for the Ohafia-Igbo, where men alone emerged as the
new elite who filled the ranks of teachers, pastors, church elders, clerks, interpreters, and
accountants between 1901 and 1920. Chief Kalu’s life history provides but a window into
these historical processes, for he was not alone in being the only upstart that was arbitrarily
made a warrant-chief,

1559

nor was he the only ogaranya that helped his community to get

uOgbu Kalu and Johnston indicate that the quest for Presbyterian masculinity among young
men, was the most important factor that enabled Christianity to spread to all but one of the 26
Ohafia villages between 1911 and 1921.

1560

This new elite of Ohafia men, also strove to

perform ogaranya, and the social processes of their empowerment shed more light on the
disempowerment of women.
Christianity and Missionary Education: The Making of Presbyterian Masculinities, Male
Breadwinners and “Good Christian Wives”
A number of factors combined to create a favorable environment for the spread of
Christianity to Ohafia in the early 20th century. These include British colonial conquest,

1559

Uduma Uwara of Ebem and Nnanna Uka (a.k.a Atiyonu) of Amangwu, the ex-slaves who
had led the British to Ohafia were also compensated with warrant chief appointments. Similarly,
on the recommendation of Rev. Robert Collins, his personal friend, Nna Ugbo Iro was made the
warrant chief of Eziafo village. Also, Mazi Uche Ibe became the warrant chief of Okon village in
1913, not because his lineage provided the office of ezie-ogo but because, he had served as a
court messenger in Ibibio and was one time a personal servant to the missionary, Mary Slessor.
See NAE, File No. OW 7045: K.A.B. Cochrane, “Handing Over Note to H.M. Llyod;” Johnston,
“Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 142; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 101.
1560
Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 72; Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A
Study in Church Developments,” 144-148.
412

competitive evangelization among various Christian missions, environmental factors, and
indigenous agency. The Aro expedition made expansion of missionary influence to the Cross
River Igbo possible.

1561

Following the expedition, the British colonial administration

encouraged missionaries to establish missions among the Cross River Igbo in order to stem
barbarous practices.

1562

Asaga as a missionary.

Thus, in 1904, the C.S.M sent Rev. Uwa Akpan Essien from Ikot Ana to

1563

Ogbu Kalu noted that the C.S.M missionaries utilized the services of

the District Officer to maintain their presence,

1564

and Njoku writes that Ohafia people saw

British officers and Scottish missionaries as one and the same.

1565

Against this background,

subsequent confrontations between Ohafia people and the British colonial administration
following the Aro expedition, led many Ohafia people to believe that a village that accepted
Christianity would find favor with the colonial administration.

1566

For instance, the British

colonial government held the villages of Ebem, Asaga and Eziafo as troublesome, following

1561

CO520/8: “Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, May to August, 1901,” 717-722;
United Free Church of Scotland, “The Recent Expedition Against the Aros,” The Missionary
Record of the United Free Church of Scotland (1902), 453; Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns,
26, 39; Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 139-143; Jones, Annual
Reports of Bende Division, 48; Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 55.
1562
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 40.
1563

Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Asaga Village,
Ohafia, April 13, 2012; Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 26.
1564
Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 52, 55.
1565

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 118. Also, after the arrival of Rev. Collins to Ohafia in 1911,
D.Os and court clerks respected his opinions and constantly visited his manse at Elu Ohafia.
1566
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 116.
413

their militant resistance during the Aro expedition, and it was not until they embraced
Christianity did British military patrols cease in these communities.

1567

Similarly, before the Bende-Onitsha Hinterland expedition, during which the village of
Asaga was punished for their alleged involvement in the Obegu massacre, and their decapitation
of a court messenger sent to issue a court summons, Owerri Provincial Commissioner, Frank
Hives sent a note to Rev. Essien, informing him of the expedition and advising him to leave
Ohafia.

1568

On leaving Asaga, Rev. Essien took along with him a local teenage boy named Ibe

Mba, who later went on to become a houseboy to Rev. J.K. Macgregor, the principal of Hope
Waddell Training Institute at Calabar. Mr. Ibe Mba brought Rev. Macgregor back to Asaga in
1908 to revive the mission, eradicate headhunting and human sacrifice, and make Asaga friendly
to the British.

1569

The Ibe Mba and Rev. Macgregor mission failed, but it sheds light on the

sentiment that the acceptance of Christianity alleviated the worst realities of colonial rule. Hence
writes Jones,
The relatively sudden expansion [of Christianity] had little to do with any
evangelizing drive on the part of the missions or with a sudden mass conversion
to Christianity on the part of the people. The drive certainly came from the people
but from both pagan and would-be Christian elements. To them, a church and its
school . . . provide[d] the key to the power of the European, the power which
already enabled Efik, Bonny, Sierra Leoneans and other educated Africans to
1570
oppress them.

1567

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 96-116; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, Asaga
Village. August 10, 2010; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author. Ebem, Ohafia. August
3, 2010; Chief K.K. Oyeoku, oral interview by author, Ebem village. Aug. 2, 2010.
1568
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 142; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 112; Hives, “Intelligence Report: Bende-Onitsha Hinterland Expedition, 1905.”
1569
Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga, April 13, 2012; Johnston,
“Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 142; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 112.
1570
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 36.
414

Johnston writes that conversion to Christianity among the Ohafia-Igbo was the response
of the people to British pacification.

1571

The conversion of Abia village to Christianity is

illustrative in this regard. In 1918, the village of Abia protested that smoke from the kitchen fires
of twin mothers, who were forced to live on the outskirts of the village, was blowing into the
village and contaminating their community. They went on to destroy the compounds of twin
mothers, and the Native Court intervened and arrested the male elders of the community. Rev.
Collins asked Chief Kalu to resolve the problem and the latter proposed that if Abia accepted a
church and school, he would get Rev. Collins to release the chiefs and elders of Abia from the
Native Court prison. The offer was accepted and Abia became a Christian community.

1572

Mutual competition among Church of Scotland Mission, the Church Missionary Society,
the Niger Delta Pastorate, the Methodist Mission, the Qua Ibo Mission (these were the so-called
‘Big Five’) and the Roman Catholic Mission, also influenced the spread of Christianity to
Ohafia.

1573

The rivalry for territories among these missions, particularly between the United

Free Church of Scotland (later renamed Church of Scotland Mission) and the Catholic Church
began in Calabar in the 1890s, and in a bid to avoid “Unchristian rivalry between Christian
Sects,” the British colonial administration reached an agreement with the various Christian
missions, and defined “separate spheres of Missionary influence.”

1571

1574

The limited human and

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 142.

1572

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 120; Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church
Developments,” 143; Ndukwe, “From Slavery,” 35.
1573
See Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 48 for discussion of competition and
compromise between C.S.M (Mary Slessor) and C.M.S/N.D.P (Bishop Tugwell) over Bende and
Itu, from where the C.S.M then reached Ohafia.
1574
th
th
CO520/49: “Colonial Office: Southern Nigeria Original Correspondence, 14 Sept.-18
Nov. 1907,” 293-304; Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 136. For the map of the resultant
415

material resources of the missions encouraged this compromise, and the result was that the
C.S.M gained monopoly over the territories mostly in the inland Cross River and east of the
Cross River (including Ekoi, Umon, Okoyong, Ikot Ana, Akunakuna, Unwana, Itu, Ikorofiong
and the Cros River Igbo towns of Arochukwu, Isu, Ututu, Ohafia, Abiriba, Abam, Igbere, Uburu,
Okposi, Edda, and Afikpo [Ezza, Izzi, and Ikwo.])

1575

Every advance of Christianity to the Cross River region was made by a combination of
African and missionary initiative.
1577

as a “pestilential district,”

1576

The Scottish missionaries viewed the Cross River region

and thus, forged a policy to develop a native agency. Between

1846 and 1888, this had entailed the thorough conversion of the Efik of Calabar (such as Akpan
Essien Uwa), who were then sent out as preachers and teachers to the Cross River, to endure
hardships that most Europeans could not survive.

1578

On the eve of the British expedition

against the Aro, the C.S.M staff comprised of ten men and four women, who were always on
leave, in addition to a number of Efik teachers and preachers.

1579

It came as no surprise then that

Africans themselves played a major role in the spread of Christianity to their communities. Mr.
Ibe Mba noted above exemplifies indigenous agency in the early attempts to spread Christianity
to Ohafia. He rose to become one of the early modern elites of Ohafia, and an icon of

spheres of missionary influence, see CO583/162/13: “Reports on Education Departments of
Northern and Southern Provinces and Colony, 1927.”
1575
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 21-26; Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 4857; Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 62.
1576
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 26
1577
1578
1579

Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 10.
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 26-27.
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 28.
416

Presbyterian masculinity.

1580

However, neither him nor Chief Kalu were pioneers in this

endeavor.
The initial efforts to establish Christianity in Ohafia owed a lot to Native agency. The
story begins with two unlikely figures — dibia from Asaga village, Ohafia (Agwu Dibia and
Onugu Igbeke), who had embarked on a divination and healing trip (ije ogwu/isiara ogwu) to
Ikot Ana between 1902 and 1904.

1581

These men attended a Christian service at Ikot Ana, and

became fascinated by what they regarded as an intriguing and powerful cult. In a bid to acquire
the cult’s esoteric power, in order to enhance their social standing as dibia in their home
village,

1582

Agwu Dibia and Onugu Igbeke rushed back home and convinced the male elders of

their community, under the leadership of ezie-ogo Ajadu Uma, to provide 30 brass rods for the
invitation of this new cult. In response, the C.S.M sent Rev. Akpan Essien Uwa (accompanied by
his wife Edet Essien, and assistants Enebiere Ana, Madam Ofia Ojoi, and Asukwo Nja) to
Ohafia, where he began a church and school at one of the patrilineage compound obu meeting
houses (obu nde Uma Oden) in 1904.

1583

As earlier noted, this mission was cut short by the

1580

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 112; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author,
dig. voice recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia, April 13, 2012. Mr. Ibe Mba, like Chief Kalu Ezelu
Uwaoma, was one of the first individuals to marry a wife (Miss Ucha Onum of Asaga) trained by
Presbyterian missionaries in 1922. The marriage of “good Christian wives” was a marker of
Ohafia Christian elitism between 1911 and 1930. This is examined below.
1581
Agwu Kalu, L.N. Chika, and N.O. Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia: An
Unpublished Work by Isiama Parish of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria,” (2005), 1; Elder
Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Asaga. April 13, 2012.
1582
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 111.
1583

Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 85; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 111; Johnston,
“Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 142. According to Elder Ukpai Onum
Ndukwe (ocit.), accommodation for Rev. Essien was provided by Chief Mba Ndukwe Okorie,
the father of Ernest Ibe Mba, whom Rev. Essien adopted in 1905.
417

Bende-Onitsha Hinterland expedition, and the subsequent effort by Ernest Ibe Mba to revive the
mission through Rev. Macgregor in 1908 failed.
A number of African Christian converts also sought to establish a church independent of
the C.S.M. Between 1909 and 1910, Rev. Nnanwugbuom, an Aro man, started holding church
services in Amankwu village, Ohafia, and soon after, extended his operations to the larger
village of Ndi Uduma Awoke. He resisted the oversight of Rev. Rankin, the resident missionary
at Arochukwu, until Rev. Robert Collins arrived at Ohafia in 1911 and through his connections
with the male elders of these villages, established schools in these communities and implanted
teacher-ministers, who took over Rev. Nnanwugbuom’s churches.

1584

Johnston also recorded a

similar case where, in 1910, an Ohafia man from Akanu village went to Arochukwu and Itu in
search of employment, and was converted to Christianity. He returned to his hometown and
began a church, and when Rev. Collins visited the community in 1911, they rejected his
application to establish a church and school.

1585

The village of Akanu canvassed for the establishment of a school in 1915, only after their
neighbors, Ebem, Asaga, Isigwu, and Nde Uduma Ukwu had established schools in their own
communities.

1586

As Jones, Nsugbe, Njoku, and Johnston have observed with regard to the

Ohafia-Igbo, it was rather intense competitive rivalry for development among the villages that

1584

Rev. Eke Uduma, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia Under Rev. Robert Collins”
(Unpublished Manuscript); Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 143.
1585
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 143.
1586

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 143; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 115.
418

led each community to seek out a school and accept the Christian faith.

1587

The foregoing

accounts also indicate that where the C.S.M proved successful, the ground was almost always
tilled by African fore-runners. In fact, in the case of Elu village, Rev. Rankin first sent an
Abiriba (or Ozu Abam) missionary teacher, Onuoha Kalu, to start a mission at Elu, and supervise
the building of the mission house, a year before Rev. Collins arrived.

1588

Johnston and Njoku

further write that between 1911 and 1920, churches and schools throughout Ohafia were opened
by indigenous itinerant preachers and schoolboys, who evinced their Christian zeal by starting
churches in their communities.

1589

However, the whole of Ohafia did not eagerly embrace Christianity. Chief Kalu noted in
his autobiography that between 1911 and 1920, “worshippers were feasted at the end of each
Sunday service, and when they were no longer feasted, they all relaxed from worship.”

1590

The

village of Ihenta did not accept the Christian faith and did not allow the establishment of a
church and school in their community until 1962, when the Christian Women’s Guild mounted a
1587

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 51; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 121-123;
Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo Society, 32, 36; Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in
Church Developments,” 144.
1588
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 141; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, 113; E.I. Mba, Condensed History of Church in the Wild Wood, 1904-1953
(Ohafia: SKA Press, 1973); Ebi Agwu, A Short History of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria in
Asaga Ohafia (Ohafia: Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, 1999); Eze Onuoha Uma, Guidance and
Destiny, 4; Kalu, Chika, and Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 4-5; Elder Ukpai
Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga, Ohafia, April 13, 2012.
1589
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 141- 142, 144; Njoku,
Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 119. Onuoha Kalu opened churches and schools in Elu and Amaekpu in
1910. A church and school was opened in Oboro village in 1913 with the assistance of an Asaga
man, who was living there. Male Ohafia schoolboys and itinerant preachers also established
churches and schools in the following villages: Asaga and Nde Uduma Ukwu (1915-16), Amuma
and Amangwu (1916), Eziafor and Nde-Ibe (1917), Nde Anku (1917-18), Abia (1918), Nkwebi
(1919), Nde Orieke (1920), Ufiele (1921). Rev. Collins organized the churches and schools after
they had been opened.
1590
Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 167.
419

vigorous campaign to install a school teacher and minister there.

1591

Okon, the renowned home

of dibia practitioners (see chapter 5) stands out in its resistance to Christianity. While at Asaga,
Rev. Essien had converted two Okon men (Torti Oke and Omoka) to Christianity in 1905. These
men could not make any head-way in Okon, and therefore went to the neighboring village of
Amuma, where they opened a church.

1592

The Ibe Mba/Macgregor mission also went to Okon in

1908 after they were rebuffed by Asaga, and similarly made no headway.

1593

In 1909, another group of C.S.M missionaries led by Rev. Gardiner (from Unwana) and
Rev. Rankin (from Arochukwu) made presents of tobacco, clothes, sugar, and other items to the
leaders of Okon to allow them to establish a mission there, but these entreaties were rejected.
Another effort by the same team in 1910, this time accompanied by Rev. Cruickshank and Dr.
Luke was similarly thwarted.

1594

After the C.S.M accepted to cite a major mission station in

Ohafia, following the petition by Chief Kalu Ezelu, they made one more visit to Okon in 1910.
This time, the party included Rev. Robert Collins and the leaders of the C.S.M in the region
(Rev. Macgregor, F.A. Foster, S.A. Sinclair, Rev. Ward, and educationist Mr. E.B. Jones). This
forceful representation was similarly turned down by Okon village. The ezie-ogo, Chief Okwara

1591

Kalu Awa, ezie-ogo of Ibina, oral interview by author, Ibina (Ihenta). Dec. 12, 2011; Chief
Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author, Ufiele Village. October 27, 2011; Johnston, “Ohafia
1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 141.
1592
Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga. April 13, 2012; Uduma, “The
Advent of Christianity in Ohafia;” Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church
Developments,” 142.
1593
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 142; Elder Ukpai Onum
Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga Village, Ohafia, April 13, 2012; Njoku, Ohafia: A
Heroic Igbo, noted that two Abiriba men, Onuoha Kalu and Ezikpe Onuoha, also accompanied
Macgregor and Ibe Mba on this mission.
1594
Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 70; Kalu, Chika, and Nkata, “The
Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 2; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author,
Asaga, Ohafia, April 13, 2012.
420

Uma Efere, advised the missionaries to cite their station at Elu, since it was the first point of
settlement for the Ohafia.

1595

Upon reaching Elu, the missionaries were welcomed by Chief

Imaga Agwunsi (the ezie-ogo of Elu village) and the upstart, Chief Kalu Ezelu.

1596

It was not until Mazi Uche Ibe, an Okon man who had served Mary Slessor as a
houseboy, returned in 1912 and was made a warrant chief (1913), that he used his new authority
to establish a school in Okon in 1916.

1597

However, the major factor that led Okon to embrace

Christianity was the outbreak of ibi (elephantiasis of the scrotum), influenza (which had spread
from Sierra Leone through Ghana to Lagos and Eastern Nigeria, following the world wide
pandemic at the close of W.W. 1), yaws and small pox epidemic between 1918 and 1920, which
killed thousands of Ohafia people.

1598

Rev. Collins indicates that this quadruple epidemic was

1595

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 142; Kalu, Chika, and
Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 3; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by
author, Asaga Village, Ohafia, April 13, 2012; Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Elder
Agwu Kalu of Amaekpu Village, Ohafia, oral interview by author. May 18, 2012.
1596
Kalu, Chika, and Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 3-4; Kalu, “An Ibo
Autobiography,” 165.
1597
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 142-143.
1598

UFC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letters of; Letter
from Collins, Robert to Mr. Ashcroft, dated 7th May 1920,” 17; Dibia Agwu Arua, oral
interview by author; Elizabeth Isichei, Igbo Worlds: An Anthology of Oral Histories and
Historical Descriptions (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978), 231-232.
In the November 1920 Record of the UFC, it is stated that “as many as 20, 000 people have been
swept away in the Ohafia district by small-pox.” Rev. Collins stated that this figure was
exaggerated, and that while the death rate was certainly high, it was not as high as 20,000. See
UFC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letters of; Letter from
Collins, Robert to Mr. Livingstone, dated 10th November 1920,” 41-42. E.E. Ecoma writes that
80% of the inhabitants of Calabar went down with the influenza. See, E.E. Ecoma, “Binding the
Wounds: Presbyterians and the Health of the Nation,” in Kalu, ed., A Century and Half of
Presbyterian Witness in Nigeria, 179.
421

so bad that most people were unable to plant their farms, resulting in a famine.

1599

As noted in

chapter 4, the local dibia had no known cure for these diseases, and many of them died from
them. Because the epidemic began in the mission-run school at Asaga, Ohafia dibia interpreted
the diseases as a curse from the ancestors because the young had abandoned their traditional
religion.

1600

The C.S.M saw the epidemic as an opportunity for evangelization. The young English
missionary doctor, J.W. Hitchcock was sent to Ohafia from Uburu, accompanied by Mr. Dean,
Mrs. Christie, and Mrs. Gardiner. They set up a healing camp at a dispensary in Rev. Collins’
compound, where many of the patients were taken to be healed by Dr. Hitchcock and baptized by
Rev. Collins, after several dibia had failed to restore them to good health.

1601

The missionaries

labored to the verge of death, and according to Rev. Collins, most of the afflicted Christian
converts recovered from the smallpox because they were “sensible,” while the “heathens” who
“followed the advice of witch doctors” died in their numbers.

1602

The failure of the traditional

dibia to curb this pandemic which spread from Asaga village to Okon in 1918, and the ability of
1599

UFC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letters of; Letter
from Collins, Robert to Mr. Valentine, dated 28th September 1920,” 39-40.
1600
Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author; Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author.
1601

UFC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letters of; Letter
from Collins, Robert to Mr. Ashcroft, dated 28th April 1919,” 563; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic
Igbo, 117. Hitchcock was contracted to Calabar in 1911, and took over from Dr. David
Robertson. He settled at Uburu in 1912, where he set up a hospital and following Robertson’s
departure in 1916, Hitchcock became singularly responsible for all the medical work of the
C.S.M in Southeastern Nigeria. He died at Itu in 1919 after contracting the pox in Ohafia. See
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 194-196; Letter from Collins, Robert to Mr. Ashcroft, dated
28th April 1919, 563; Ecoma, “Binding the Wounds: Presbyterians and the Health of the
Nation,” 179.
1602
UFC, West Africa, MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letters of; Letter
from Collins, Robert to Mr. Livingstone, dated 10th November 1920,” 41; UPC, West Africa,
MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letters of; Letter from Collins, Robert to Mr.
Valentine, dated 28th September 1920,” 39-40.
422

European missionaries to heal the sick, led the villages of Asaga and Okon to embrace
Christianity en masse.

1603

Johnston writes, “the campaign was a massive demonstration of the

mastery of Western medicine over a disease which had baffled traditional methods. European
doctors were in direct competition with traditional practitioners. They had to show the
superiority of their methods.”

1604

What is most significant in the evangelization mission of the C.S.M in Ohafia is that from
the onset, it was an all-male affair, and was marked by concerted efforts to convert various forms
of ufiem, including dibia (the bastions of traditional religion), and old (ezie-ogo) and new
(warrant chiefs) male political leaders.

1605

The administration of the C.S.M in Ohafia equally

reflected the emergence of men as opposed to women in leadership positions within the church.
Ohafia-Igbo men saw the mission as an opportunity to attain socio-political authority over
women and non-Christians, and the C.S.M encouraged their ambitions. This is evident in the
organization of the church leadership and the definition of its functions between 1911 and 1920,
as shown below.
The Ohafia mission district consisted of a hierarchy of emergent masculinities. At the top
were the resident European missionary, Robert Collins and his wife, Elizabeth Collins. Historian
of Igbo religion and Christianity, Ogbu Kalu described Rev. Collins as “a judge with

1603

Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author; Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author;
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 117.
1604
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 197.
1605

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 142, noted a singular
exception in the case of Ufiele village in 1921, where Adada Ufiele, a lady from Amuma
facilitated the opening of a church in 1921.
423

consummate abilities, a creative and an endearing human being.”

1606

Every scholar that has

written about Rev. Collins has emphasized the fact that he had great personal charm, worked
tirelessly for 22 years in Ohafia, and expanded the mission to territories which the regulatory
body of C.S.M, the Calabar Mission Council had not envisaged.

1607

Johnston argues that Rev.

Collins “functioned like a typical Ohafia elder. The successful missionary had to be a successful
chief, one who was skilled at settling disputes, and who had influence in the right quarters.”

1608

Rev. Collins and Chief Kalu Ezelu were the two most powerful individuals living in Ohafia
between 1911 and 1920. Both of them rose above the Native Court clerks,

1609

and were

subordinate only to the District Officer, whose power and influence was limited to the periods he
visited the community. It was the duty of Rev. Collins to transform boys into Presbyterian
masculinities,

1610

and most Ohafia men who emerged as school teachers and ministers between

1916 and 1920 served as Rev. Collins’ houseboys between 1911 and 1915.

1611

Below Rev. Collins was a number of trained teachers of Efik origin responsible for the
management of the central school at Elu and the supervision of untrained teachers of Ohafia
origin in the various villages. These untrained teachers had finished Standard VI, but were not
1606

Ogbu Kalu, “The Battle of the Gods: Christianization of Cross River Igboland, 1903-1950,”
Ohafia Review 1, 2 (1985), p.15.
1607
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 145-146; Kalu, “The River
Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 71; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 118.
1608
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 146.
1609

Ibid.

1610

Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga, April 13, 2012, stated that
Rev. Collins “moulded the character of the schoolboys and his houseboys, so that they aspired to
become like him.”
1611
Prince Ikpo Kalu Ukoha, oral interview by author, Ebem. 19th May 2012; Mrs. Margaret
Eke Anya (daughter of Rev. Nnochin Ebi), oral interview by author, Amaekpu. May 18, 2012;
Elder Ukpai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga, Ohafia, April 13, 2012; Kalu, Chika, and
Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 8; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 119.
424

able to proceed to Hope Waddell Training Institute at Calabar for teacher training. Native
teachers also served as itinerant preachers and personal interpreters for Rev. Collins, who
preached in Efik language.

1612

For example, Mr. Nnochin Ebi served as Rev. Collins’ interpreter

for over 20 years, and later became an ordained Minister of the church.

1613

According to Elder

Ukpai Ndukwe, one had first to be a teacher before becoming an ordained minister, and many of
the first generation native teachers emerged as Presbyterian ministers between 1916 and
1614

1920.

Such teachers-cum-ministers, who were pioneers of educated Christian converts’

elitism include Rev. Awa Ugbaga, Rev. Kalu Oyeoku, Rev. Onuoha Kalu, Akaji Eke of
Amaekpu, and Ula Ogboku of Elu.

1615

Johnston aptly described them as “emergent aristocrats,”

who served forty odd years in the ministry and died loaded with honors.

1616

The mission work of the C.S.M completely depended on these local teacher1617

ministers.

School teachers and headmasters such as Mr. Kalu Owen of Elu, Mr. Okoko

Okorie of Nde Anku, Mr. Nnochin Ebi of Amaekpu, and Mr. Ngwoke Awa of Okon, were
Presbyterian masculinities who enjoyed a lot of prestige in their local communities in the
1920s.

1612

1618

They were the first class of Ohafia people to own bicycles, wear European-tailored

Kalu, Chika, and Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 6.

1613

Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya (daughter of Rev. Nnochin Ebi), oral interview by author,
Amaekpu. May 18, 2012; Kalu, Chika, and Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 8.
1614
Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author. Such teachers turned ministers
include Onuoha Kalu, Otisi Agwu Otisi, N.A. Udu, U. Ikenga, O.A. Olugu, and Ikpo Anya.
1615
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 119.
1616
1617

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 147.
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 85.

1618

Chief Uche Anya Elekwa, oral interview by author. Aug. 14, 2010; Nna Agbai Ndukwe,
oral interview by author, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010; Elder Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author.
425

suits, and build modern houses in demonstration of their ogaranya status.

1619

They had constant

supplies of imported canned foods and candies, which they distributed to little boys to entice
them to school and church.

1620

Their opinions became paramount in the affairs of their local

communities, and whereas the young had looked up to ndi ikike as role models between 1850
and 1900, becoming a school teacher, minister, or government clerk became the objective of
young men of high ambition between 1911 and 1920.

1621

Young male Christian converts and schoolboys, demonstrated their religious zeal, loyalty
to schoolteachers, and commitment to education by destroying the female ududu housed by their
mothers, while the male ududu housed in the patrilineage obu houses remained intact.

1622

This

Christian war against matriliny led Nsugbe to conclude that “the ritual headship vested in the
female head of the matrilineage [was] likely to vanish [due to ] the Christian faith. Then the dead
[Ohafia ancestral matriarchs would] have lost their traditional hold upon the hearts of their living
daughters and sons, who [would] now have to learn to remember and honor their ancestors no
longer through [ududu pot monuments], the vehicle of old beliefs and old values but through

May 18, 2012; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga. April 13, 2012;
Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author; Chief K.K. Oyeoku, oral interview by author, Ebem.
1619
Ibid.
1620

Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu. Aug. 10, 2010.

1621

Mr. I. Ukoha, oral interview by author, Ebem. Oct. 27, 2011; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral
interview by author, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by
author, Asaga Village, Ohafia, April 13, 2012.
1622
Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author; Mama Docas
Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by
author; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group
Interview by author; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral
interview by author; Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief Emeh Okonkwo,
oral interview by author; Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author; Chief K.K. Owen, oral
interview by author; Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author.
426

their Christian substitutes. Then the sacred pots [would] vanish with the warmth of the traditional
bedroom fire, and the ancient devotion that had once sustained them and their guardians.”

1623

These schoolboys and young converts were militant soldiers of the C.S.M. As early as
1912, they had successfully mounted a vigorous campaign to bring back twin mothers and their
children from the outskirts of Elu village into the community.
wives’ twin children,
and British officers.

1625

1626

1624

When husbands killed their

the schoolboys were the first to report such incidents to Rev. Collins

They championed the desecration of sacred streams in Okon village (by

stubbornly fishing in the rivers), and refused to participate in secret societies and age grade
ceremonies in Asaga village, which they viewed as fetish traditions.

1627

Njoku suggests that

these young militants also consisted of the under-privileged and deprived such as twins and ujo,
to whom the Christian message of equality and social justice was very appealing.

1628

Education was perhaps the most significant factor in the making of Presbyterian
masculinities (church elders, teachers, preachers, ministers, and first-generation educated elite),
1623

Nsugbe, Ohafia: A Matrilineal Ibo, 123.

1624

The Missionary Record of the United Free Church of Scotland, Shelfmark U.402 (1908),
21-23; The Missionary Record of the United Free Church of Scotland, Shelfmark U.402 (1913),
19-21; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Asaga
Village, Ohafia, April 13, 2012; Elder Agwu Kalu of Amaekpu Village, oral interview by author,
May 18, 2012; Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Elu Ohafia. Aug. 10, 2010.
1625
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 49. Mayne noted that the killing of
twins occurred almost every month in the first two decades of the 20th century.
1626
A popular incident in this regard was the case of Ikpa Ngele, who killed his wife’s twin
children, and following the report of he incident by Amaekpu schoolboys, Mr. James Watt, the
D.O. ordered all twin mothers on the outskirts of Amaekpu village to return home in 1913. Ibid;
Kalu, Chika, and Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 7.
1627
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 120. In Asaga, the elders refused to allow these Christian
converts access to farming land, upon their refusal to take part in age grade ceremonies.
1628
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 117. This was equally true for many parts of Igboland. See
Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 119-121; Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors
and Kings, 87.
427

the emergence of men as bread-winners, and the marginalization of women from leadership
positions and lucrative ventures, between 1911 and 1920. Johnston writes, “for 120 years the
school, whether it was a simple mud-and-thatch shelter or an elaborate complex, like the Hope
Waddell Training Institution, was the characteristic mark of the Presbyterian Church.”

1629

Upon

the introduction of Christianity to Ohafia, the villages built and maintained their own schools and
raised the money for the payment of teachers’ salaries.

1630

contributions to the erection of new schools and churches,

While women made financial

1631

Ohafia Elder of the Presbyterian

mission and local historian, Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, averred that “there is no record attesting that
a girl was among the intakes into any of the schools opened by the missionaries between 1911
and 1921.”

1632

Until 1928, there was no female representative in the colonial Board of

Education (this consisted of four representatives from the CMS, RCM, UFCSM, and Wesleyan
Mission) and female education was outside the primary objectives of both missionaries and
colonial officers until 1922.

1633

While the C.S.M provided the staff for the village schools and offered supervision, the
colonial government initially did not play a role until 1917, when it provided an inspection

1629
1630

Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 160.
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 51; Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 39.

1631

Elder Agwu Kalu of Amaekpu Village, Ohafia, oral interview by author. May 18, 2012;
Ezie-Nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview; Chief Uduma
Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, Amuke Village. Nov. 24, 2011; UPC, West Africa,
MS. 7793: “Collins Robert, Missionary in Calabar, Letter from Collins, Robert to Mr. Ashcroft,
dated 16th September 1921,” 98-99.
1632
Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga, Ohafia, April 13, 2012. This
was affirmed by Elder Agwu Kalu of Amaekpu, oral interview by author. May 18, 2012.
1633
CO583/166/6: “Colonial Office: Nigeria Original Correspondence; Reports on Education
Departments of Northern Provinces, Southern Provinces and Colony, 1928” 7. The Christian
missions were “unwilling to nominate women as their representatives.”
428

system and regulated education standards.

1634

The Education Ordinance and Regulations of

1917, which captures both the limitations of missionary education and the bigotry of the colonial
government, described African teacher-ministers as “men of undesirable character” and “boys
who have left school with the smallest smattering of education and are unable to read and write,
[but have] set up so-called schools in the villages which are merely a means of extorting
fees.”

1635

The Education Ordinance concluded that there was a need to control “private venture

Christian schools by way of registration, license or permit [to ensure] closer supervision . . . over
all persons, other than British subjects, who desire to undertake either missionary or educational
1636

work in the Colonies.”

The ideology of Presbyterian education until the 1920s was that Africans were a simpleminded people, for whom learning was not of much use, whereas the colonial government
pushed for what it called “industrial education” (carpentry, brickmaking, bricklaying, tailoring,
printing, and bakery.)

1637

The result was that key jobs such as district minister positions,

medical services personnel, and school management were reserved for Europeans, while
Nigerian men constituted ill-trained teachers, preachers, catechists, interpreters, and clerks, who
assisted Europeans.

1638

The first indigenous Ohafia headmaster emerged only in 1928.

1639

However, the literary and industrial education provided men, enabled them to become
1634

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 47-51; Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166; Elder
Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga. April 13, 2012; Chief K.K. Oyeoku, oral
interview by author, Ebem. Aug. 2, 2010.
1635
CO583/56: “Nigeria Original Correspondence, 8 February – March, 1917,” 152.
1636

CO583/56: “Nigeria Original Correspondence, 8 February – March, 1917,” 151, 160.

1637

Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 109; CO520/8: “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original
Correspondence, May to August, 1901,” 297-313, 321-330.
1638
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 113, 118, 120.
1639

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 148.
429

entrepreneurs (masons, carpenters, tailors, and printers) and constitute the educated elite
(teachers, preachers, ministers, clerks, policemen, and railway workers) between 1916 and
1640

1920.

The ultimate manifestation of Presbyterian masculinity for the Ohafia educated elite was
the marriage of “good Christian wives.”

1641

Between 1917 and 1922, such Christian wives were

trained at Slessor Memorial School, Arochukwu by Scottish female missionaries Mrs. Arnot,
Susan McKennell, and Marion Gilmour.

1642

According to Johnston, whereas McKennell was

mainly responsible for missionary work in the district, the school fell to Mrs. Arnot, known as
Ezinne (the good mother), who like Mary Chalmers of the Edgerly Memorial Girls School in
Creek Town, believed that the training of girls for marriage was of paramount importance.

1643

In 1922, the Ohafia Girls’ School (O.G.S) was established at Asaga village, and Miss. Marion
Gilmore took charge of its administration, with the assistance of Mrs. J.D. Moffat, Miss Barclay,

1640

The first generation policemen from Ohafia included Sgt. Major J. Eme Amogu, Sgt. John
Emea Awa, Captain Job Ume Iro, Inspector Ginger Uma Ntima, Sgt. Ibem Anya, and Inspector
Sam Ama. Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga, April 13, 2012. In the
1940s, the first generation university-trained Ohafia men such as Prof. O.I. Uduma and Prof.
Ezera were welcomed home with ikoro beats and masquerade parades. Ezie-ogo Vasco U. Iro of
Nkwebi Village, in council with elders of Nkwebi Village, Group Interview with author, at ObuNta Kwebi. Nov. 17, 2011.
1641
Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga Village, April 13, 2012; Chief
K.K. Oyeoku, oral interview by author, Ebem. Aug. 2, 2010; Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya, oral
interview by author, Amaekpu. May 18, 2012; Elder Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author. May
18, 2012. The following women were the first set of girls trained at O.G.S and they all married
Prebyterian masculinities: Miss Nkacha Emetu of Ebem (married Rev. Ume Olugu), Miss Ucha
Onum of Asaga (married Mr. Ernest Ibe Mba), Mrs. Sarah Olugu, Mrs. Anya of Ebem, Mrs. Ugo
Ebi Arua of Amaekpu, and Mrs. Maduekwe (married Ojo Maduekwe).
1642
CO583/166/6: “Reports on Education Departments of Northern Provinces, Southern
Provinces and Colony, 1928” 47-48; Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 227.
1643
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 228.
430

Miss Reid, Mrs. McLachlan, and Miss Flemming.

1644

Its goal according to Elder Ukpai

Ndukwe, was to train “good Christian wives for the new Ohafia educated elite.”

1645

In the

tradition of Presbyterian women missionaries, the O.G.S was a boarding school that combined
Christian education and domestic science, to instruct girls in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord and in the arts of a Victorian household.

1646

Young Ohafia women were trained in the following skills: bible reading in Ohafia
dialect, singing Christian hymns, cooking, dress washing, dress cutting, dress weaving and
dressmaking, personal hygiene, gardening, soap-making, palm oil processing and the extraction
of palm kernel oil.

1647

It was not until the 1940s, when girls began to be admitted into the

general primary schools that O.G.S incorporated instructions in English language, elementary
reading and writing. But even then, it was only up to Standard IV, at which point girls moved on
to the Presbyterian School, Asaga to complete Standard V and VI.

1648

Johnston noted that

unlike the men, Scottish female missionaries took little or no interest in training an African
staff.

1649

By this he meant the absence of African women trained to substitute the European staff

as missionaries, teachers, and ministers. Thus, the girls trained at O.G.S between 1922 and 1930
1644

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 49; Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya, oral
interview by author, Amaekpu. May 18, 2012; Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church
Developments,” 145.
1645
Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga, April 13, 2012; Kalu, Chika,
and Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 7. Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 227,
also writes that the objective of the O.G.S was “the preparation of girls for marriage.”
1646
The Missionary Record of the United Free Church of Scotland (1906), 116-117.
1647

Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya, oral interview by author, Amaekpu. May 18, 2012; Elder Agwu
Kalu of Amaekpu Village, Ohafia, oral interview by author. May 18, 2012; Elder Ukpai Onum
Ndukwe, oral interview by author; K.K. Oyeoku, oral interview by author.
1648
Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya, oral interview by author. According to Mrs. Eke Anya, even
during this latter period, O.G.S. did not abandon its emphasis on wife training.
1649
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 223.
431

were mostly employed as matrons within the school, and their duties were restricted to
supervising young female students in various domestic science exercises.

1650

late 1940s that the first crop of Ohafia female teachers and tailors emerged.

It was not until the

1651

By this time

however, Ohafia people were organizing communal scholarship programs to send their young
men to Britain and the United States of America, for post-graduate studies and medical
training.

1652

Above the local teacher-minister class of Presbyterian masculinities were the ordained
church Elders. Rev. Collins chose educated (ability to read and write) men of influence,
especially those who were socially perceived as ogaranya to become church Elders in order that
their influence would attract people to church.

1653

Elder-hood was the final reward for educated

Christians who accomplished Presbyterian masculinity. Elder Agwu Kalu stated that “there were
no female elders in the church. It was only men. The Presbyterian church was a man’s world. It
was very masculinist . . . It was not until the 1970s that we started having female elders little by
little. It used to be an all-male affair.”

1654

Pioneer elders were placed in charge of congregations,

1650

Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya, oral interview by author, Amaekpu. May 18, 2012. Such women
included Miss Nkacha Emetu of Ebem, Miss Ucha Onum of Asaga, Mrs. Sarah Olugu, Mrs.
Anya of Ebem, Mrs. Ugo Ebi Arua of Amaekpu, and Mrs. Maduekwe.
1651
Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya, oral interview by author, Amaekpu. May 18, 2012; Elder Ukpai
Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, Asaga, April 13, 2012; K.K. Oyeoku, oral interview by
author; Elder Agwu Kalu of Amaekpu Village, Ohafia, oral interview by author. May 18, 2012.
1652
Kalu, “The River Highway: Christianizing the Igbo,” 69.
1653

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 118; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author,
Asaga. April 13, 2012; Elder Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author, May 18, 2012. We have seen
this in the case of Chief Kalu.
1654
Elder Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author. May 18, 2012.
432

and worked directly under Rev. Collins’ supervision.

1655

In every village, or group of villages

depending on the size of the church, was an elder, or group of elders, charged with the
management of the village churches. The Elders were assisted by teachers and ministers, but they
had the final say in all decision-making situations.

1656

Johnston writes that “In Ohafia . . . the elders took a more prominent part in the affairs of
the church than they did in Ibibio country.”

1657

While they were few, the church Elders had a lot

of power vested in their hands. By 1930, about 33% of the total population were Christian
converts,

1658

including more than 700 communicants,

1659

and the social laws regulating the life

of these Christian converts were governed by twenty church Elders in 1924.

1660

Between 1914

and 1924, Elder Ukoha Kalu was solely responsible for the Christian congregation at Amuke and
Amangwu villages.

1661

Warrant Chief Eke Kalu (discussed above) served as the Elder of Isigwu

and Elu villages between 1915 and 1918, when he was replaced by Elder Ula Ogboko and Elder

1655

Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 84; Elder Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author.
Amaekpu. May 18, 2012; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author. April 13, 2012.
1656
Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 145; Elder Agwu Kalu, oral
interview by author, Amaekpu Village. May 18, 2012.
1657
Johnston, Of God and Maxim Guns, 84.
1658

Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 70.

1659

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 145.

1660

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 145-148.

1661

Uduma, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia.”
433

1662

Otum Onuoha.

Amaekpu village also had two Elders ordained in 1917: Igu Uduma and Awa

1663

Emele.

The elders were responsible for the management of the congregations and the affairs of
the whole parish. Their major business in session was the settling of marriage cases and
disciplining of sexual offenses — duties hitherto fulfilled by Ikperikpe Ndi Inyom (the Female
Court).

1664

It was the Elders who upheld the Church mandate on monogamy, as a prerequisite

for true Presbyterian masculine identity, and they often denied Ohafia women permission to
obtain divorce, contrary to what had obtained in the pre-colonial period.

1665

They also settled

land disputes and regulated permissions for litigants to proceed to the Native Court — duties
hitherto fulfilled by the traditional Village Assembly.

1666

Moreover, the Elders sometimes

constituted a diocesan court including Rev. Collins, teachers and ministers, in which Collins
assumed the position of a bishop, leader, supervisor, judge, and dispenser of sacraments, and this
1667

system remained intact until the 1930s.

The social principles introduced by Christianity and Western education, including
condemnation of the dibia guild, ancestral worship, secret societies, age-grade activities,
polygamy, headhunting, and new yam festivals,

1668

undermined indigenous avenues of ufiem

1662

Kalu, “An Ibo Autobiography,” 166-167; Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by
author, Asaga Village, Ohafia, April 13, 2012. As noted above, Chief Kalu also became an Elder
of Church of Christ in 1920, and simultaneously, a Minister of the Church of Scotland Mission.
1663
Kalu, Chika, and Nkata, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia,” 7.
1664

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 147.

1665

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 148.

1666

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 147.

1667

Johnston, “Ohafia 1911-40: A Study in Church Developments,” 149.

1668

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 112.
434

attainment. As a result, many Ohafia-Igbo people channeled their energies, from the military
defense of their villages, slave production, headhunting, and agriculture to western education,
leadership in the Christian missions, and colonial service — opportunities which women were
denied.

1669

Christianity and Western education thus facilitated the subversion of both male and

female indigenous political systems, and enabled male educated Christian converts and church
elders to usurp the political prerogatives of preexisting institutions. Mayne observed in 1931 that,
The indigenous rulers, now, however, once again [in addition to the warrant
chiefs]behold a menace that threatens danger to themselves, namely, the
expansion of Christianity. They perceive that whereas in the past, their position
was not challenged by reason of their extensive knowledge of the laws and
customs of their forefathers that now this is insufficient, for with civilisation,
education has come, which is represented in their villages by the Christian
1670
element [converts], who no longer are content to listen to the voice of age.
Ohafia-Igbo women also attest that Christianity undermined their political authority, by
transferring their duties, including arbitration and intervention in divorce and the regulation of
social mores (ilu) to the male Christian church elders.

1671

1669

Njoku, “Inter-Village Trade in Ohafia, 1900-1979,” 29; Chubb, “Assessment Reports:
Bende Division, 1927-1929,” 2-3, 6, 20-23. Mr. Chubb writes that following Christianity, Ohafia
became a “tractable and law-abiding people,” and that in pursuit of western education and trade,
they paid little attention to agriculture, with the result that they suddenly became “the poorest in
[Bende] division.”
1670
Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 69.
1671

Ezie-Nwami Ogbonne Kalu Kalu, oral interview by author, Uduma Ukwu Village.
November 17, 2011; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author;
Ezie-Nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom
of Akanu Village, Group Interview; Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, Elu Village,
August 18, 2011.
435

Women Reconfiguring Ufiem: Long Distance Trade and
Ogaranya Masculinity in the Early 20th Century
The disparity in economic and political status between men and women from 1900 to
1920, surely invites the term burgeoning patriarchy, to define the greater socio-political power
Ohafia men suddenly came to enjoy over women. As Ohafia women became increasingly
marginalized from the dominant socio-political positions of power in their society between 1900
and 1920, they sought through their struggles, to redefine preexisting conceptions of gendered
spaces, roles and opportunities.
This chapter argues that the expression of female power and authority in this period
increasingly took the form of performing ogaranya masculinity, as the following case studies
suggest. Whereas the accomplishment of ndi ikike masculinity by women who went to war and
cut a human head (chapter 3), was not clearly motivated by the quest for political and economic
power (since women were politically and economically powerful) between 1850 and 1900,
women’s quest for ogaranya status was both an economic and political endeavor, in view of their
increasing loss of economic and political power under British colonial rule and missionary
influence between 1900 and 1920. Thus, lacking access to Western education and Presbyterian
masculinity, Madam Chief Otuwe Agwu first became a dibia (thereby performing masculinity),
then married a wife (thereby becoming a female husband and later, grand-father), and performed
ogaranya masculinity. Similarly, in her quest for social mobility beyond the colonial service,
schools and churches, Unyang Uka became a long distance trader in slaves and legitimate
commodities, amassed great wealth, and in performance of ogaranya masculinity, married a lot
of wives (elite polygyny), between 1900 and 1920.
Amadiume and Achebe have demonstrated that the fluidity of the Igbo gender system, in
which biological sex did not always correspond to gender, meant that gender roles were not

436

rigidly masculinized or feminized, and thus, women could play roles usually monopolized by
men, or be classified males, by fulfilling masculine social obligations.

1672

By performing

ogaranya masculinity between 1900 and 1920, Ohafia women did not become men; rather, they
were socially perceived as ufiem (masculine). The distinction between manhood and masculinity
is an important one, and as shown in the introduction, a number of scholars have made this
differentiation. Lindsay and Miescher define manhood as indigenous notions explicitly related to
men’s physiology, often recognized in terms of male adulthood.

1673

Thus, among the Ohafia-

Igbo between 1850 and 1900, boys were socialized into manhood through gendered games such
as igba nnunu (to shoot a bird), joining secret societies, and marrying a wife (chapters 3 and 4).
Lindsay and Miescher define masculinity as a cluster of norms, values, and behavioral patterns
expressing explicit and implicit expectations of how men should act and represent themselves to
others.

1674

Thus, Ohafia women, such as Madam Chief Otuwe Agwu and Unyang Uka, who

represented themselves as ogaranya between 1900 and 1920, were accorded the honor and
privilege reserved for individuals who accomplished ufiem.
Achebe draws upon Judith Halberstam’s definition of female masculinity as “women
1675

who feel themselves to be more masculine than feminine,”

in contrast to the notion that

masculinity is the social, cultural, and political expression of maleness, and argues that the

1672

Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 185-186; Achebe, Farmers, Traders,
Warriors and Kings, 206-215; Achebe, “And She Became a Man,” 52-68; Achebe, The Female
King, 97-223. Hence, while women could perform masculinity by becoming female sons in
Nigeria for inheritance purposes, female husbands in Kenya and Nigeria, honorary men and
chiefs in colonial Lesotho, and what Achebe has theorized as female kings in Nigeria, these
scholars argue that they never attained what Achebe coined as “full manhood.”
1673
Lindsay and Miescher, “Introduction," 4.
1674
1675

Lindsay and Miescher, “Introduction,” 5.
Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998), xi-4.
437

concept refers to notions and intersections of gendered power, legitimacy, and privilege within
society.

1676

Whereas Halberstam describes female masculinity as masculinity without men,

Achebe posits that female masculinity does not oppose maleness, but rather flourishes and
expresses itself in heterosexual culture. The life histories presented here further complicate the
idea of female masculinity as women who feel themselves to be more masculine than feminine.
Whereas this description perfectly captures the self-representations of Unyang Uka, it does not
fit with Madam Chief Otuwe Agwu, who became a dibia, female husband, and ogaranya, not
because of a desire to “become a man” like Ahebi Ugbabe

1677

studied by Achebe, but rather, as

a means to achieve the ultimate manifestation of Ohafia femininity (to become a matriarch and
ancestress of her matrilineage) in a period of colonial and missionary backlash. Therefore, I
define female masculinity as women’s social representations of masculine distinction in the
process of self-advancement.
My research assistant, Uduma Uka, described Madam Chief Otuwe Agwu as his female
grandfather.

1678

Chief Otuwe had married Uduma Uka’s grand-mother from Umuahia patrilineal

Igbo society around 1930, and according to Ndukwe Otta, “because she paid the bride-price,
thereby fulfilling the customary obligations to make the woman a wife, all the children that
woman begot belonged to her and her matrilineage.”

1679

Born in Ohafia around 1885, Chief

Otuwe was the first daughter (ada) of her parents, and as such, in line to become ezie-nwami
1676

Achebe, The Female King, 2.

1677

Achebe, The Female King, 197-217. Ahebi actively wanted to become a man. She became a
female headman, female warrant chief, female husband, female king, and even tried to realize
full manhood by producing a masked spirit.
1678
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, dig. voice recording, Ebem
Village, Ohafia. Aug. 14, 2010. The logic behind this description will become clear in a moment.
1679
Ndukwe Otta and Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, dig. voice recording, Ebem
Village, Ohafia. Aug. 14, 2010.
438

ikwu (matriarch of her matrilineage). She had married a husband around 1905, but did not have a
child. This meant that upon her death, there would be nobody to raise an ududu (ancestral pot
and matrilineage deity) monument in her honor, which would enshrine her as an ancestral
matriarch of her matrilineage.

1680

Without ududu, she would not be a powerful spiritual force

after death, she would not be ministered to and fed by any descendants, and she would have no
legacy — in effect, she would not be a powerful Ohafia matriarch. It was to remedy this that
Chief Otuwe married a wife.

1681

Amadiume argues that the practice of female husband among Nnobi people of
southeastern Nigeria, was a mechanism through which women acquired wealth and formal
political power and authority, until British colonial rule empowered men (particularly warrant
chiefs who became ogaranya) to dispossess women of their rights to wives and children.

1682

Achebe argues that Ahebi Ugbabe’s adoption, kidnapping and marriage of other men’s wives in
Enugu Ezike during the colonial period, was part of a complex process of constructing a
powerful and mythical image, as well as controlling women who provided sexual services to
male visitors in her court.

1683

Whereas Achebe distinguishes female wives from female

1680

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author. See chapter 2 for
discussion of ikwu and ududu.
1681
Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, Elu. August 10,
2010; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga Village,
Ohafia. September 16, 2011.
1682
Amadiume, Male Daughters and Female Husbands, 123-132. Amadiume defined this as the
“helplessness of women against modern institutions” such as colonial courts and Christian
churches. She concludes, “From my observations during fieldwork, Christianity did not seem to
have deterred men from accumulating as many wives as their wealth allowed them. This was was
not the case with wealthy women.” Women who became ogaranya in Nnobi during colonial rule
could no longer marry wives; rather they married wives for their sons. In contrast to Nnobi, the
practice of female husband among the Ohafia-Igbo did not cease with colonial rule.
1683
Achebe, The Female King, 209-211.
439

slaves,

1684

Amadiume problematically defines becoming a female husband as igba ohu, a phrase

that refers to enslavement.

1685

As chapter one of this dissertation shows, while indigenous Ohafia-Igbo women critically
described wives of female husbands as “slaves of the matrilineage,” such wives were not in fact
slaves, but rather enjoyed privileged status in their husbands’ homes, hence they are known as
nwannediya (husband’s sister).

1686

Moreover, indigenous Ohafia women criticized nwannediya

as “slaves of the matrilineage,” because they symbolized the wealth of a matrilineage.

1687

Nwannediya symbolized wealth because it was very expensive to marry a wife from patrilineal
Igbo society, and the practice of female husband was a performance of wealth (ogaranya) for
1688

women,

1684

as well as an effort to strengthen a dwindling matrilineage.

1689

Ohafia local

Achebe, The Female King, 211.

1685

Amadiume, Male Daughters and Female Husbands, 123. Hence, Nwokeji has taken up this
issue to argue that there were no female husbands in pre-colonial Igbo society, only female slave
owners. See Nwokeji, “African Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 58.
1686
Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 51; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 26;
Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author, Okon. August 5, 2010; Nmia Nnaya Agbai,
oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview; Mr.
Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu. August 15, 2011; Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of
Akanu Village, Group Interview with author. Nov. 3, 2011; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka,
Group Interview by author, Ebem Village, Ohafia. August 14, 2010; Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral
interview by author, Asaga Village. August 10, 2010. This also contrasts with Achebe’s
description of the uses to which Ahebi put her wives and concubines.
1687
Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author, Ndi Owom, Okon. August 5, 2010;
Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author; Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke,
oral interview; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu Village. August 15, 2011.
1688
Chief Udensi Ekea of Ndi Ekea Compound, Okon Village, oral interview by author. August
4, 2010; Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, Amangwu, Ohafia. August 15, 2011.
1689
Ibid. In chapter 1, it is clearly explained that female husbands were not able to marry wives
from within Ohafia, because an indigenous Ohafia wife had a matrilineage of her own, to which
her children belonged. Wives from patrilineal Igbo societies on the other hand, had no
established matrilineage other their Ohafia husband’s. This was the logic behind women
marrying women from outside Ohafia.
440

historian Obuba writes that nwannediya “symbolized pride in the wealth and affluence of the
family she was married into [and] even today, it costs more to marry a foreign wife than an
indigenous Ohafia wife.”

1690

The related case of Mrs. Uzo Kamalu, a wealthy trader from Okon village sheds more
light on Ohafia practices of female husband. Mrs. Kamalu had two sons but had no daughter,
which posed a threat to the continuation of her Umueze matrilineage.

1691

Around 1890

therefore, she married two wives and purchased a female slave, who produced female
descendants that sustained the Umueze matrilineage.

1692

Mrs. Kamalu’s story shows that there

was a distinction between female wives and female slaves. It also shows that female husbands
were motivated to marry wives not just because they desired to perform ogaranya masculinity,
but because it affected their social status as matriarchs of their matrilineages, and it ensured the
continuation of their matrilineage. In this case, ogaranya was the consequence, not the
inspiration for women’s quest for social mobility. Thus, McCall noted that Ohafia possessed a
latent system of potential alternatives, which enabled women to perform femininity and
masculinity simultaneously.

1693

In her effort to fulfill Ohafia-Igbo femininity (becoming a matrilineage matriarch)
therefore, Chief Otuwe had first to acquire wealth, and this resulted in various gender
transformations. After mgbe ogarelu abuo (the second smallpox epidemic, 1918-1920), when
some Ohafia dibia were embracing Christianity, Chief Otuwe purchased membership of the

1690
1691
1692
1693

Obuba, The History and Culture of Ohafia, 51.
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010.
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010.
McCall “Portrait of a Brave Woman,” 129-130, 134.
441

dibia guild.

1694

As noted in chapter four, because the dibia guild was an institution of ufiem,

monopolized by men, the few women who became dibia were socially perceived as men. In an
expression of Chief Otuwe’s initiation (iwa-anya) into the dibia guild, which was an expensive
endeavor, the Ohafia say that she performed male bravado — o kere ike eleghe ikom.

1695

As part of her performance of dibia, she undertook ije ogwu, which was the spiritual
pilgrimage of the dibia to a distant and unknown community, where he must prove his expertise
and gain popularity. Between 1850 and 1900, ije ogwu was a proof of dibia bravery, because the
high incidence of slaving and headhunting rendered the roads unsafe for travel, and dibias who
fulfilled ije ogwu thereby dramatized their power and immunity.

1696

The relative peace and

security assured by British colonial presence, as well as improved means of transportation, made
it easier for Chief Otuwe to successfully fulfill this objective in 1920, in Port Harcourt. Jones
writes that between 1901 and 1940, “Bende [Ohafia administrative district] was [part of] the
Owerri province and looked to Port Harcourt for its provincial headquarters.”

1697

Chief Otuwe’s choice of Port Harcourt, and her ability to quickly establish a reputation as
Anyanwu N’enye Ihe (the sun that brings light to the world) in this urban colonial environment,
characterized by colonial and missionary stifling campaigns against dibia practices (which they

1694

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga Village, Ohafia.
September 16, 2011.
1695
Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, Elu Village. August
10, 2010; Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga Village,
Ohafia. September 16, 2011.
1696
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 45
1697

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 12.
442

viewed as barbaric and ineffective),

1698

speaks to the effectiveness of her healing methods, and

her triumph over popular modern forms of medicine. According to Ndukwe Otta, in this period
when most dibia could not cure yaws and gonorrhea, Chief Otuwe successfully healed patients
of these ailments, and particularly excelled in enabling barren women to become pregnant.

1699

Through her dibia practice, Chief Otuwe accumulated significant wealth, and took steps
to fulfill two more gender transformations, namely, ogaranya (wealth and elite masculinity) and
female husband. First, she returned home to Ohafia, in the fashion of the successful onye ikike
(warrior), and became one of the first women to independently purchase a plot of land in the
society, and build a modern four-bedroom house with zinc-iron roofing.

1700

She thus equated

herself with a few distinguished men in her community, who had attained ogaranya masculinity
through gender-biased missionary education and colonial wage labor. This according to Mama
Docas Kalu and Mary Ezera, was why she was referred to as “Chief.”

1701

Second, in order to

have children of her own: sons who would establish a patrilineage in her name, and daughters
who would memorialize her as a matriarch upon her death, she married a wife, in 1930.
Chief Otuwe was called “Madam” because she was one of the first Ohafia women to live
in the big city. Ndukwe Otta described her as standing six feet tall and exceedingly beautiful. She
owned a house in Port Harcourt, where she lived from 1940 until she died in 1976. Each time she
made her annual visit to Ohafia, she brought home gifts of clothes and imported food items.

1698

“Letter from Collins Robert to Mr. Livingstone, dated 10th November 1920, West Africa
(National Library of Scotland, MS.7793), 41-42.
1699
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author.
1700

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga. Sept. 16, 2011;
Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, Elu. Aug. 10, 2010.
1701
Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author.
443

Hence, she came to be known as Obia Nwami (the female grand-visitor).

1702

Madam Chief

Otuwe represents individualized female resistance to emerging male hegemony under British
colonial rule, for she was able to carve out a niche for herself, and perform ogaranya, in spite of
being denied access to Western education, leadership in Christian churches, and employment in
colonial service.
Whereas Chief Otuwe performed gender transformations in the process of fulfilling
Ohafia ideals of femininity, Unyang Uka, actively tried to become a man. Unyang Uka was an
icon of Ohafia women’s performance of ogaranya masculinity at the turn of the 20th century.
She was born around 1865 and was a contemporary of Chief Kalu Ezelu.
Her father, Uka Afijo

1704

1703

was a renowned brave warrior who performed ndi ikike

masculinity between 1850 and 1890. Uka Afijo used to capture slaves from warfare, whom he
sold to the Aro or disposed of in the slave markets at Itu, Assan and Calabar, and he always
brought back human head trophies before the ikoro at Amangwu village.

1705

In commemoration

of his bravado in warfare, he was hailed Okpodu. According to his great grand-daughter, Tessy
Uzoma, “Okpodu was an individual that often single-handedly conquered a village and razed it

1702

Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga Village.

1703

The following sketch of the life history of Unyang Uka is based on the following
interviews: Hon. Kingsley, Peoples Democratic Party Chairman of Ohafia Local Government
Area, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Ebem Village, Sept. 3, 2011; Mr. E.I.
Udensi of Ezikwu Compound, Okagwe Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ebem Village. Sept. 5, 2011; Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka) of
Amangwu, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Ohafia Local Government office,
Ebem Village, Ohafia, September 5, 2011; Grace Emehe (niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of
Johnson Emehe), oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Sept. 10, 2011.
1704
Uka Afijo of Nde Okoronkwo in the patrilineage of Ekeluogo, Amangwu village, Ohafia.
1705

Grace Emehe (niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnston Emehe), oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia, Sept. 10, 2011.
444

to the ground with fire.”

1706

Another of his great grand-daughter, Grace Emehe said that “Nna

Afijo Okpodu’s reputation influenced Unyang Uka so much that she started behaving like a
man.”

1707

Unyang Uka’s mother was Nne Agbaeze. She was a wealthy farmer and trader, said

to be a generous philanthropist, who often feasted her community.

1708

Unyang Uka had an elder

brother, Nna Johnson Emehe, and a younger sister, Afo Uka. Nna Emehe was pampered by his
mother, and became a Presbyterian minister around 1917.

1709

Unyang Uka on the other hand

stood over six feet tall, behaved like a man, and assisted her father in his slave trade venture in
1710

the 1890s.

She married a brave warrior named Nna Agwu around 1885, and they had a

daughter, whom Unyang Uka named Unyang Agwu, after herself. Tessy Uzoma stated:
Because she behaved like a man, she named the woman after herself . . . You
know a husband usually named a child, but my grand-mother insisted . . . After
her father passed away, [Unyang Uka] started purchasing slaves, male and female.
She would sell most of the male slaves and distribute most of the female slaves as
wives to her maternal male cousins and relatives. She also married a lot of wives
herself and distributed them. So, if you come to our village, Amangwu, today, you
will find half of the village are descendants of Unyang Okpu Agu [Unyang Uka]
and her wives. She had four girls and one boy [biologically]. My mother, Ugoaha
Udonsi Ibe was her second daughter. She was born in 1922. In 2012 she would be
90 years. Her age grade is Nchina. Because Unyang Okpu Agu had only one son,
who also had only one son, she believed that she could marry many wives, who
would bear her many sons . . . Our ikwu [matrilineage] is Ibe-Obobi of Umuaka.
Umuaka is the largest matrilineage in Ohafia and it has seven ulue [units]. Our
own ulue is Ibe-Obobi, and we are the head of Umuaka matrilineage . . . Unyang
1706

Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka) of Amangwu, oral interview by
author, dig. voice recording, Ohafia Local Government office, Ebem Village. September 5, 2011.
1707
Grace Emehe (niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia, Sept. 10, 2011.
1708
Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author. In
describing such an individual, Ohafia people say, okpodugbushiala ulo mmuo [he that razed
peoples’ homes to the ground with fire].”
1709
Grace Emehe (niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral interview by author,
Amangwu, Sept. 10, 2011. Tessy Uzoma described him as effeminate, and “not a warrior.”
1710
Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author.
445

Uka was a major reason why Ibe-Obobi grew into the largest ulue in Ohafia. She
married many wives and distributed them to her matrilineage brothers across
Ohafia. Men that did not have money to afford wives came to her and she gave
them wives. All those children belonged to her and the Ibe-Obobi matrilineage . . .
That is how she started behaving like a man. She was a husband of many wives
1711
and father of many children.

Figure 18: Family Tree Sketch of Unyang Uka
Uka Afijo & Nne Agbaeze
↓
↓
↓
Nna Johnson Emeghe (Son)
Unyang Ukah (Daughter)
Afo (Daughter)
↓
↓
↓
Sam Emehe (Son)
Unyang Agwu (Daughter)
Ugoaha Udonsi Ibe (Daughter)
Grace Emehe (Daughter)
↓
Ogbonne Unyang (Daughter)
Lawrence Okoro (Son)
Hon. Tessy Uzoma (Daughter)

After her father passed away, Unyang Uka took over the slave trade business, and on one
of her business trips to Opobo around 1895, she met the ex-slave, Kalu Ezelu,

1712

who furnished

her with loads of corral beads. Unyang Uka thus began to trade in corral beads and slaves, and by
1713

1905,

she had developed a prosperous trade between the slave port of Opobo and the

hinterland market of Bende. She also established a widespread reputation as a wealthy moneylender, who always took her debtors to the Native Court at Bende. All my respondents stated that

1711

Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author.

1712

Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author. Hon.
Uzoma is not certain of the date 1895, but stated that Kalu had introduced himself to her
grandmother as the ex-slave of King Jaja, and pleaded with her never to return to Opobo, so that
his identity as Jaja’s ex-slave would not be discovered. From Kalu’s autobiography, we know
this must have been between 1887 exile of Jaja and 1899 when he fought in the Eket war.
1713
The date provided for this is “the time of uso Asaga,” which is the exodus of Asaga village,
during the Bende-Onitsha hinterland expedition of 1905-1907. Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand
daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author; Grace Emehe (niece of Unyang Uka,
daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral interview by author, digital voice recording.
446

Unyang Uka was business savvy, and it was never her practice to settle disputes with people
through palavers. She always took people to court, and came to be feared as a trouble-maker.

1714

It is not clear when or if Unyang Uka’s first husband, Nna Agwu passed away. But
sometime before 1922 (when Ugoaha Udonsi Ibe, her second daughter was born), Unyang Uka
met and married the then kotuma (Clerk of the Native Court - C.N.C) of Bende, Mr. Cobham.
Jones informs us that the Bende Native Court was established around 1907, and by 1911, it was
handling about 4,162 civil cases annually.

1715

At the center of the Court was the clerk, who

recorded the cases in full, kept a roster of warrant chiefs sitting on the bench, and documented
court judgments on which appeals were based. C.N.Cs were corrupt individuals who often
manipulated court information to the advantage of preferred litigants,

1716

and after 1914 when

the Indirect Rule system came into effect, the British District Commissioner ceased to attend
Court sittings, and the C.N.C became D.C. afu anya (the D.C. who was seen physically).

1717

The C.N.C was salaried at £4 by 1911, and for many miles around, he was regarded as a de facto
governor.

1718

Unyang Uka was older than Mr. Cobham, and their marriage strategically

enhanced her respectability, as she came to be seen as a great ogaranya, not to be trifled
with.

1719

This marriage enabled Unyang Uka to expand her money-lending scheme beyond

1714

Hon. Kingsley, oral interview by author; Mr. E.I. Udensi of Ezikwu Compound, Okagwe
Village, oral interview by author; Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka),
oral interview by author; Grace Emehe (niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral
interview by author.
1715
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 27.
1716
1717
1718

Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 28, 60; Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 104.
Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 104.
Jones, Annual Reports of Bende Division, 61.

1719

Mr. E.I. Udensi of Ezikwu Compound, Okagwe Village, oral interview by author; Hon.
Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author; Grace Emehe
447

Ohafia to Bende, where she lived with her kotuma husband between 1910 and 1925. Her
marriage to the kotuma also helped her to ensure that her debtors always paid their loans.
Otherwise, she had them arrested and locked up in the Bende Court prison

1720

— an ordeal that

was most emasculating to Igbo men, who had no prisons until colonial rule.
Female husband, female father, giver of wives to men, peopler of Ibe-Obobi matrilineage,
wife of kotuma, wealthy merchant of slaves and corral beads, renowned money-lender, and
imprisoner of men, Unyang Uka was famed for her performance of ogaranya masculinity in the
first three decades of the 20th century. Every year, in the month of December, Unyang Uka made
a historic voyage from Bende to Ohafia. Like British colonial officers of her time, and like Chief
Kalu Ezelu, she was always carried by young men on a hammock. According to Tessy Uzoma,
Six men carried her in a hammock from Bende to Ohafia. Upon reaching Ohafia,
the male age-grades of the first village would carry her to the boundary of the
next village, and it would continue like that until she reached her own village,
Amangwu. They carried her over hills and streams . . . My mother’s older sister
told me that the men used to carry Unyang Uka over their shoulders and did not
rest until they reached another village . . . She always came home during
Christmas. And whenever she came home, she had an entourage of male slaves
carrying her several metal trunk boxes filled with European goods and money.
She traded some of the European goods and gave out many as gifts to her people.
Upon her arrival, the ikoro would start beating, and people would be shouting,
“Ada ukwu alaole!” [Our great daughter has returned!] Because of her
performance of ogaranya, she was no longer considered a woman. So, the ikoro
(niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral interview by author, dig. voice
recording. It is not been possible to establish how Unyang Uka’s masculinity performance
affected Mr. Cobham, but they lived happily together and grew old together.
1720
Mr. E.I. Udensi of Ezikwu Compound, Okagwe Village, oral interview by author; Hon.
Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author; Grace Emehe
(niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral interview by author. Tessy Uzoma
stated that many of Unyang Uka’s debtors came from far away places to take loans from her, and
did not always pay back the loans promptly. So, after she married the cotuma, when her debtors
failed to pay, Mr. Kobom sent Native Court policemen to arrest and imprison her debtors.
Unyang Uka also arrested and imprisoned her maternal brothers and in-laws, who failed to pay
their debts, for while she was kind; she was a no-nonsense person when it came to business. As a
result, whenever her homecoming was announced, all her debtors ran away from the village, and
stayed in hiding until she left.
448

was always sounded for her, and they dressed her head in okpu agu [warriors’
leopard cap of bravery]. She was always wearing okpu agu; that is why she is
remembered as Unyang Okpu Agu. Instead of wearing a head-tie like other
women, she wore the okpu agu, with abubo ugo [eagle fathers] attached to it.
Okpu agu and abubo ugo were great things in Ohafia, reserved only for men who
had performed igbu ishi. I am not aware that she cut a human head but her status
1721
in the community earned her that honor. She stood tall and huge like a man.
It was through these performances that Unyang Uka, according to Tessy Uzoma,
“transformed herself into a man.”

1722

As shown in chapter three, the ikoro was never sounded

for women in Ohafia, except for the few that accomplished ndi ikike masculinity, such as
Unyang Olugu, who demanded that the ikoro should not chant praises to her husband but to
“Unyang Olugu, killer-that-gave-the-honor-to-her-husband.”

1723

As indicated at the beginning

of this chapter, Ohafia material culture practices were transformed at the turn of the 20th century,
because of the changing constructions of ufiem through ogaranya masculinity performance. For
such individuals as Unyang Uka, Chief Kalu Awa Kalu stated that “even though [they] did not
cut a head with a machete, [they] had actually cut a head, one that is visible and materialistic [“O
gbu ghi nke mma; mana o gbuu nke a fu anya.]”

1724

Unyang Uka’s wealth symbolized the head

she had cut to attain ufiem. In memorialization of her unprecedented wealth (rivaled only by
Chief Kalu Ezelu), Unyang Uka was nicknamed Unyang Pon-Pon (the Female Chief of British
Pounds), the logic being that she did not deal or talk in shillings; but in pounds.

1721
1722
1723
1724

1725

According to

Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author.
Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author.
Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs,” 408.
Chief Kalu Awa Kalu, oral interview by author.

1725

Hon. Kingsley, oral interview by author; Mr. E.I. Udensi of Ezikwu Compound, Okagwe
Village, oral interview by author; Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka),
oral interview by author; Grace Emehe (niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral
interview by author.
449

Grace Emehe, Unyang Uka further built a modern house with zinc roofing in Port Harcourt in
the late 1920s, and was one of the major people that funded the building of St. Mary’s Catholic
Church in that colonial city in the 1950s. Her house in Port Harcourt was a rallying ground, rest
house, and home-away-from-home for all Ohafia persons that visited the city.

1726

Tessy Uzoma

added, “If you went to Port Harcourt, you must visit Unyang Okpu Agu’s house at No. 96 Agri
Road. Students, government workers and traders from Ohafia stayed at her house.”

1727

Unyang Uka passed away in old age in 1959, and her husband died 11 years later. Her
granddaughter, Tessy Uzoma recalls that when she visited Unyang Uka in the late 1950s,
She had become very fat; because her breakfast always consisted of quaker oats,
various meat dishes and a big bottle of Guinness stout . . . We would be playing
outside and waiting for her to finish eating so that we could have her left-overs.
Once she was done, we would rush, everybody grabbing what he or she could . . .
She died at 96 years old . . . There was something we used to do when we wanted
to steal her money. She had a lot of money in those days. She would pack all her
pounds and shillings under her blanket in her very big bed. If she saw you
walking towards her bed, she would yell at you, “Hei! Hei! Gbaa emetukwa
blangidi aka! [Hey! Hey! Do not touch that blanket!] She used to call the blanket,
blangidi. Sometimes, she would have us children sit around her, and she would
bring out a very big basin filled with money, and remind us why she was called
Unyang Pon Pon. One day, we went into her room and brought out her money
and put it another room, and she did not say anything. That was how we knew she
was in her last hours. On the second day, she asked for a Catholic priest, who
used to come every morning and give her Holy Communion. That morning, when
the priest came to celebrate mass for her and administer her communion, she
asked the priest to call all her children that were around. We came and stayed with
her. After she took her communion, at night she went to sleep and did not wake
up again. That was how she died. Throughout the period I knew her, I never saw
1728
her tie a wrapper, like other women did.

1726
1727
1728

Grace Emehe (niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral interview by author.
Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author.
Hon. Tessy Uzoma Odum (grand daughter of Unyang Uka), oral interview by author.
450

Conclusion
This chapter has historicized the socio-political processes that shaped emergent
masculinities among the Ohafia-Igbo in the first two decades of the 20th century, as well as their
roles in changing constructions of ufiem through ogaranya performance. It argues that the
performance of ogaranya masculinity was a manifestation of the complex gendering of identities
and the gendered performance of power among the Ohafia-Igbo between 1900 and 1920.
Miescher has forcefully argued that in African colonial contexts, it became difficult to
distinguish a single hegemonic masculinity, for there were many conflicting versions of how real
men should behave.

1729

This chapter acknowledges the diverse notions of masculinity prevalent

in Ohafia between 1900 and 1920. However, it demonstrates that through the articulation of
wealth as igbu ishi, ogaranya became the dominant form of masculinity, such that political
leaders, church elders, educated elite (Presbyterian masculinities), wealthy traders, and dibia all
sought to perform ogaranya.
Second, the chapter clearly links changes in gender constructions to changes in gendered
power between 1850 and 1920. It demonstrates that whereas the hegemony of ndi ikike
masculinity between 1850 and 1900 did not translate to superior political power and authority
over women, the hegemony of the emergent ogaranya masculinities between 1900 and 1920
entailed the usurpation of the socio-political authority and privileges of both male and female
traditional institutions. Hence, ogaranya translated itself into political power. Individuals who
attained ogaranya walked in the corridors of political power, as warrant chiefs, court clerks,
teachers, ministers, and wealthy traders.

1729

Miescher, Making Men in Ghana, 2.
451

Third, the chapter conceptualizes African agency in self-making and social change as a
gendered struggle for power because, the historical processes of social mobility and the
opportunities for the attainment of socio-political power among the Ohafia-Igbo between 1900
and 1920 varied for men and women. The institutions that produced Presbyterian masculinities
also produced subordinate “good Christian wives.” Whereas chapters 2 and 4 demonstrate
Ohafia-Igbo women’s popular mechanisms of power negotiation such as rituals, boycotts, strike
actions, deserting their homes en-masse, making war upon men, and revolutionary yam
cultivation, this chapter shows that women’s power struggles were also individualized, and
represent gendered resistance to a patchwork of European and African patriarchies that emerged
between 1900 and 1920. The case-studies of Madam Chief Otuwe Agwu and Unyang Uka attest
that; because women were denied access to Western education, leadership positions and
decision-making voices in the Christian churches, and employment within formal colonial
economy, they invaded traditional male spaces such as dibia and long distance trade, and were
able to utilize these opportunities to perform ogaranya masculinity, like the warrant chiefs, court
clerks, District Officers, and Presbyterian masculinities of their day.

452

CONCLUSION
Ohafia’s unique socio-political institutions and kinship system in terms of southeastern
Nigeria, force the scholar of Igbo history to abandon a search for an original Igbo identity, reexamine existing interpretations of Igbo cultural practices, and confront this West African
society on its own terms. From the perspective of one, such as myself, who is from a patrilineal
Igbo society, it is an ideological juxtaposition that a warrior society such as Ohafia was equally a
matrilineal society with strong mother-centered systems of inheritance, economic production,
and religion. Against this background, there are tensions in Ohafia men’s and women’s narrative
interpretations of their society’s past. What may seem like I privilege women’s voices over
men’s, was in reality an endeavor to unearth the socio-political power and historical agency of
Ohafia-Igbo women, which has been clouded in both archival sources and published literature.
Moreover, the gendered tensions in Ohafia peoples’ historical narratives led me to rely
upon a reflexive methodology, in the sense that I present up-front, male and female voices,
which at first appear to be contradictory, rather than bury such gendered conflicts. I then try to
reconcile these tensions. For instance, when some Ohafia male collaborators stated that women
were subordinate to men in the pre-colonial period, the evidence they presented to justify their
statement was always premised on the notion that women did not fight wars. This is why the
same male collaborators also affirmed that women were breadwinners in the pre-colonial period,
and that women’s political institution of ikpirikpe was more powerful and effective than its male
counterpart. Thus, the issue is that of a difference in men’s and women’s subjective
interpretations of what constituted power, and what may be characterized as definitive to Ohafia
social identity (a heroic or a matrifocal society). By situating Ohafia men’s and women’s
narratives within existing studies on female power and authority, as well as patriarchy in

453

southeastern Nigeria, I have put forward theoretical exegeses, while being faithful to my sources.
As a result, what appear to be contradictions soon become, upon interrogation, different ways of
seeing and understanding the socio-political transformations that took place in this society.
This dissertation seeks to think with the Ohafia-Igbo, and in so doing, moves beyond
established historical research methods to historicize a pre-colonial period in Southern Nigeria
for which archival sources are thin. By relying upon oral histories as well as indigenous
interpretations of current ritual practices, material culture and gendered linguistic expressions
(idioms and proverbs), this study centers Ohafia-Igbo people in the complex processes of sociopolitical change in southeastern Nigeria. Thus, “Emergent Masculinities” interrogates the
shifting meanings of the Ohafia-Igbo concept of mgbe-ichin (olden days), in the contexs of their
migration and settlement, slave production, legitimate commerce, British colonialism and
Christian missionary evangelism, and links this to the dynamic articulation of masculinity
performance through the idiom of igbu ishi (to cut a head). Secondly, through an examination of
contemporary gendered performances (war dance, dibia festivals, and women’s rituals), this
study captures Ohafia men’s and women’s subjective interpretations of their own history and
their place within it, beyond discourses. Thirdly, borrowing from the example of other scholars,
this study locates indigenous historical time markers that shed light on Ohafia historical
experiences, such as mgbe ogharelu (time of smallpox epidemic), mgbe uke Emeago (in the reign
of Emeago age-grade: the yam revolution), mgbe uso lama (in the time of the cattle exodus), and
mgbe ochichi Nna Kalu (in the reign of warrant chief Kalu, which speaks to changing
conceptions of ogaranya masculinity in the 20th century).
In a similar vein, while engaging with established social science theories of masculinity,
this dissertation centers the Ohafia-Igbo concept of ufiem in examining the complex relationships

454

between different avenues of social mobility in the society from the pre-colonial to the colonial
period. Indeed, Ohafia provides a rich laboratory for testing existing social science theories and
forging new ones. I wish to bring up three specific examples. The first is the geography of
masculinities. This concept was inspired by the physical distribution and gendered uses of Ohafia
material culture complex such as the ikoro wooden war drum, the patrilineage obu meeting
houses, and shrines, which defined men’s and women’s access to public spaces, and symbolized
the competitive struggle over socio-political visibility between men and women. As I argue in
chapter 3, this gendered landscape was a product of masculinity performance, as well as an
instrument in the forging of the hegemony of warrior masculinities in the pre-colonial period. On
the other hand, Ohafia women’s transformation of public spaces into the most effective platform
for dramatizing their ability to exercise power over both men and women, locate the public
sphere as a context for understanding the gendered struggle for power in this society.
The second concept I wish to revisit is ogaranya masculinity. Ogaranya is a general Igbo
word for a wealthy individual. However, this is its first deployment to analyze the gendering of
identities and the performance of power in southeastern Nigeria. Ogaranya masculinity enables
me to show how what was once a marginal form of ufiem in the pre-colonial period (as evident in
the status of yam farmers and hunters, who were defined as subaltern ujo by warriors), became at
the turn of the 20th century, a dominant form of gendered power performance. Ogaranya
flourished within the structures of British colonialism, Christianity, and Western education, and
aptly captures the designation, emergent masculinities, because it showcases the new sociopolitical power and privileges, which men suddenly came to enjoy at the turn of the 20th century.
The concept also sheds light on gendered power struggles and female agency, in the sense that it
reflects Ohafia-Igbo women’s ability to carve out new spaces for themselves beyond imperial

455

structures of social mobility. The concept of ogaranya masculinity raises the question: was
wealth gendered male in Ohafia-Igbo society? The answer is yes. While women were
breadwinners in the agro-based economy of the pre-colonial period, the few individual men who
amassed great wealth were bestowed with ufiem honors and privileges. It was this principle that
shaped ogaranya masculinity performance at the turn of the 20th century. Did the few men who
attained ogaranya status in the pre-colonial period displace women as primary breadwinners and
politically dominate women? The answer is no. Ogaranya were marginal to dominant definitions
of socio-political power until the first two decades of the 20th century.
The third is my theory of institutions of masculinity, through which I historicize the
gendering of African institutions as well as the limits of their political influence. This theory
goes hand-in-hand with my concept of masculinization, and is premised on the fact that practices
and institutions (such as okonko, yam cultivation, hunting, dibia, amali assembly, the war dance,
and Ohafia geography of masculinity), which most scholars of Igbo history assume to be
evidence of patriarchy, because they were male-dominated, have never been historicized. By
analyzing how particular institutions were borrowed and put to use in the constructions of new
forms of ufiem in Ohafia between 1850 and 1920, this dissertation seeks to historicize such
institutional practices, as well as their gendered adaptations. Moreover, the historical tradition of
gendering institutions informed Ohafia engagements with the Atlantic slave trade, British
colonialism, Christianity, and Western education. We see this in the changing performances of
ogaranya masculinity in the contexts of yam cultivation, dibia practice, hunting, okonko secret
society, long distance trade, and later in the colonial period, through Presbyterian masculinities,
elite polygy, Western education, and service in the colonial government.

456

In effect, masculinization is a concept that enables me to show continuity and change
over time, as well as challenge the tendency to define colonialism as the ethnographic baseline
for identity formation and social change in African societies. Also, the concept of
masculinization enables me to examine the agency of Ohafia-Igbo men in historical change as
well as the limits of male power and privilege. Some practices such as hunting, yam cultivation
and okonko secret society became transformed into avenues for performing alternative forms of
ufiem (such as ogaranya) besides warrior masculinity and negotiating social mobility in OhafiaIgbo society, in contrast to how these institutions were put to use in other societies. However, the
gendered adaptation of these institutions did not enable Ohafia men to exercise socio-political
power over women, as evident in the limited political prerogatives that okonko gained locally, as
well as the yam revolution. Lastly, masculinization is not based on the notion that these
institutions were originally feminine. The concept emphasizes the changing processes of
historical usage of institutions, rather than an original state, because individuals were changing
the meanings of institutions even as they used them.
Uchendu writes, “The Igbo world is a world . . . in which others can be manipulated for
the sake of the individual’s status achievement — the goal of Igbo life.”

1730

However, there is a

troubling tendency among some scholars of African history, Western and African, to project the
image of pre-colonial Africa as comprising of aggregated communities, bound by collective
identities such as kinship, and devoid of individualism. In fact, individualism is portrayed as
alien to African societies until the modern and capitalist influences of European colonialism. In
this vein, social change is constructed as externally derived. This dissertation shows that by
looking at internal historical processes and institutions within African societies in the pre-

1730

Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, p. 20
457

colonial period, it becomes clear that individual competition and self-realization was one of the
most important factors for social change. Thus, Azuonye concluded that “the principal
preoccupation of Ohafia cultural traditions is with the ideal of personal success.”

1731

“Emergent

Masculinities” argues that constructing dynamic individual and collective identities for political
purposes was a real and immediate necessity in both pre-colonial and colonial Africa. The
gendered character of this identity formation based on individual negotiations of social
constraints, underlines the dramatic shift from a pre-colonial period characterized by more
powerful and more effective female socio-political institutions, to a colonial period of male
socio-political domination in southeastern Nigeria.
This dissertation makes important contributions to African gender studies. First, it is a
pioneer study of changing constructions of masculinity in pre-colonial Africa. Second, by
demonstrating that women occupied dominant positions of economic and political power in
matrilineal Ohafia-Igbo society until 1900, this dissertation invites a reconsideration of the
existing scholarship on female power and authority in southeastern Nigeria. For instance, a
number of scholars have argued that Igbo women played a major role in the agro-based economy
of the pre-colonial period and that they possessed powerful political institutions, even if these
were ad hoc in nature. However, this study reframes the scholarship by positing Ohafia women
as breadwinners and portraying their political institutions as central, rather than marginal to total
society. Third, by analyzing the relationship between the changing constructions of masculinities
through institutionalization and performance, and female performance of political power, this
dissertation brings the scholarship on African women into a deeper conversation with the
burgeoning studies on African masculinities. My work clearly links changes in gender

1731

Azuonye, “The Heroic Age of the Ohafia Igbo,” p. 23
458

constructions to changes in gendered power between 1850 and 1920. It shows that whereas the
hegomony of ndi ikike masculinity between 1850 and 1900 did not translate to superior political
power and authority over women, the hegemony of the emergent ogaranya masculinities between
1900 and 1920 entailed the usurpation of the socio-political authority and privileges of both male
and female traditional institutions. I have demonstrated that upon British colonial rule, the agegrade-based political institutions of akpan and ikpirikpe declined in political significance as
formal political institutions of government in the society. Their place was taken by warrantchiefs, court clerks, and Presbyterian church elders. However, women continued to draw upon
time-tested strategies to resist male domination, and negotiate socio-political privileges,
including the performance of female masculinity.
“Emergent Masculinities” redefines current understandings of Ohafia matriliny, by
bringing a gendered lens to Nsugbe’s structuralist analysis of Ohafia kinship system. It also
contributes to preexisting scholarship on African matrilineal societies generally, by arguing that
the changes that attended Ohafia kinship system were not merely a result of the imposition of
Western capitalist culture, colonialism and Christianity, but were rather based on changing
practices of inheritance and lineage affiliation at the individual level. Thus, I conclude that
lineages were practices. Finally, this study contributes to studies on the agency of noncentralized African societies in slave production, the transformation of African slave systems as
a result of the repercussions of the Atlantic slave trade, and the reality that individuals, not just
political groups, were able to successfully resist slavery and gain the highest categories of social
mobility (by joining okonko secret society and becoming political rulers), irrespective of kinship
systems. Perhaps, an area of future research which this dissertation provides grounds for is the

459

impact of Ohafia militant slave production on the ratio of male-female slaves produced from the
Bight of Biafra, and destined to the New World.

460

APPENDIX

461

APPENDIX
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Ufiem — Masculinity/dynamic social representations of respectable manhood status.
Ujo — Coward and weak male/ one who embodied fear/victims of ufiem.
Igbu Ishi — To cut a head (the dominant idiom of expressing ufiem accomplishment)
Ogaranya — Igbo term for a wealthy individual; elevated into a form of masculinity in OhafiaIgbo society, such that ogaranya were bestowed with ufiem honrs and privileges, and
women who accomplished ogaranya status were socially perceived as men.
Ikom — Adult male.
Inyom — Adult Female.
Ndi Ikike — Warriors.
Iba Mba — The Warrior’s Boast (a social performance of ufiem accomplishment)
Ikoro — Wooden war drum.
Ibiri Ikoro — To dance before the ikoro upon ufiem accomplishment.
Iri Aha — Ohafia War Dance.
Abu Aha — Ohafia War Songs.
Ite-Odo — Warriors’ Society’s Pot of Bravery (decorated with human skulls)
Ite Nde-Ofia — Hunters’ Guild’s Pot of Bravery (decorated with skulls of dangerous animals)
Igba Nnunu — To kill a hummingbird (symbolic admission of a boy into the world of men)
Ifu Nso — To experience first menstruation (symbolic definition of a girl as woman)
Idoru Nna — To deify an accomplished ufiem upon death through the raising an ancestral pot
monument.
Okerenkwa — The Brave Warrior’s Dance performed during idoru nna.
Ihiwe Ududu — To deify a deceased Ohafia female ruler of the matrilineage through the raising
an ancestral pot monument.

462

Ududu — Sex-differentiated ancestral pot monuments.
Umudi — Patrilineage.
Ikwu — Matrilineage.
Ezie-Nwami Ikwu — Matriarch of the matrilineage.
Onu-Agba — Patrilineage stone shrine.
Fijoku — Personal yam deity within patrilineage compound.
Kamalu — Personal deity of god of war within patrilineage compound.
Uduma — Personal goddess of fertility.
Ikwan — Ohafia god of war.
Orie — Ohafia goddess.
Nde Ichin — Male and Female Elders.
Uke — Age Grade System.
Obu — Patrilineage meeting house.
Obi — A man’s living room.
Uluenta/Ulote — Boys’ living quarters.
Ezie-Nwami — Female Ruler, coronated in the fashion of a king.
Ezie-Ogo — Male Ruler, coronated in the fashion of a king.
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom — The Female Court.
Akpan/Umuaka — The police force of the Men’s Assembly.
Okonko, Ekpe, Akan, Obon — Exclusively male secret societies.
Dibia — Medicine men/diviners/spirit mediums.
Umerogwu — Social performance of spiritual and physical immunity by dibia.
Igwa Nnu — The social performance of the masculinity of yam wealth.

463

Uzo Iyi — Women-led virginity testing ritual and land purification.
Ije Akpaka — Women’s ritual sanction of warfare, which authorized men to go to war.
Ibo Ezi — Women’s collective strike, boycott and mass desertion of their homes in protest.
Ikpo Mgbogho — Women’s social ostracization and punitive death sentence accompanied by
“sitting on a man.”
Iyi Ose — Women’s ritual purification and social reincorporation of an ikpo mgbogho victim.
Ichu Aja Izu Orie — Women’s ritual inauguration of crop planting.
Mgbe Ichin — The olden days.
Mgbe Ogarelu Mbu — In the time of the first smallpox epidemic (1890s)
Mgbe Ogarelu Abuo — In the time of the second smallpox epidemic (1918-1919)
Uso Asaga — In the time of Asaga Exodus (during the 1905-07 Bende Hinterland Expedition).
Uso Lama — In the time of the cattle exodus (c. 1909)
Mgbe ochichi Nna Kalu — In the time of the warrant chieftaincy of Kalu Ezelu (1911-1927)
Mgbe Uke Emeago — In the time of Emeago Age Grade (1918-1920s)

464

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465

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CO520/26. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, October – December,
1904.”
CO520/31. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, June – August, 1905.”
CO520/36. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, June – August, 1906.”
CO 520/38. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, December 1906.”
CO520/47. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, June 12 – July 22, 1907.”
CO520/49. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, Sept. – November 1907.”
CO520/105. Dispatch No. 493, August 23, 1911.
CO520/107. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, 9 Oct. – 30 Nov. 1911.”

467

CO520/115. Dispatch No. 398, May 1912.
CO520/123. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, March 1913.”
CO520/124. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, April – May 1913.”
CO520/126. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, July 1913.”
CO583/8. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, December 1913.”
CO583/12. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, April 1914.”
CO583/30. “Southern Nigeria Protectorate Original Correspondence, February 1915.”
CO583/34. “Nigeria Original Correspondence; Dispatches, 16 June – 31 July, 1915.”
CO583/49. “Nigeria Original Correspondence, October – November, 1916.”
CO583/56: “Nigeria Original Correspondence, 8 February – March, 1917.”
CO583/162/13. “Nigeria Original Correspondence; Reports on Education Departments of
Northern and Southern Provinces and Colony, 1927.”
CO583/166/6. “Nigeria Original Correspondence; Reports on Education Departments of
Northern Provinces, Southern Provinces and Colony, 1928.”
CO583/159/12. “Nigeria Original Correspondence; Introduction of Direct Taxation in Southern
Provinces, 1928.”
FO2. “General Correspondence Before 1906, Niger Coast Protectorate.”
FO84/775. “Slave Trade: Africa (West Coast) Consular, January – December 1849.”
FO84/816. “Slave Trade: Africa, West Coast (Consular), January – December 1850.”
FO84/858. “Slave Trade: Africa, West Coast (Consular), January – December 1851.”
FO84/920. “Slave Trade: West Coast of Africa (Consular); January – December 1853.”
FO84/950. “Slave Trade: West Coast of Africa (Consular); January – December 1854.”
FO84/975. “Slave Trade: Bight of Biafra (Consular), January – December 1855.”
FO84/1001. “Slave Trade: West Coast of Africa, Bight of Biafra, January – December 1856.”
FO84/1030. “Slave Trade: Bight of Biafra, January – December 1857.”

468

FO84/1061. “Slave Trade: Bight of Biafra, Bight of Benin, January – December 1858.”
FO84/1087. “Slave Trade: Bight of Biafra, January – December 1859.”
FO84/1701-1702. “Africa: Slave Trade, West Coast, 1885.”
FO84/1750. “Africa (Slave Trade) West Coast, January – December 1886.”
FO84/1881. “Africa, West Coast, 1888.”
FO84/1882. “Africa (Slave Trade), West Coast, 1888.”
FO84/2019. “Africa (Slave Trade) West Coast, 1890.”
FO84/1941. “Africa (Slave Trade), West Coast, 1889.”
FO84/2020. “Africa (Slave Trade), West Coast, 1890.”
FO541. “Confidential Print, Slave Trade Abolition.”
The Daily Telegraph Supplement, Saturday, June 24, 1899.
Nigerian National Archives (NAE), Enugu
ABADIST 14/1/267. “Report on Political and Social Organization in the Owerri Division.”
AD/495/B49 Arodist 1/1/7. “Okonko Sceret Society.”
Calprof. 14/4/951. “Annual Report Bende District, 1909.”
Calprof 4/10/31. C/40/21; Calprof 5/16/46; Calprof. 5/8/97. C145/7; Calprof. 5/8/228. C277/18;
Calprof. 14/756; Calprof. 5/14/85; Calprof. 5/16/46. “Dispatches: Aro Expedition.”
CSE 1/85/6197A. I.R.Heslop, “Intelligence Report on the Nkalu Clan, Orlu District, Okigwi
Division, Owerri Province.”
CSE 12/1. “Annual Reports on Owerri Province, 1918-1934.”
CSE 12/1/332. “Owerri Prof. Annual Report, 1931.”
SCE 12/1/334. File EP1308A. “Annual Report Owerri Province, 1932.”
C22/1927. ABADIST 2/1/11. “Palm Produce Development.”

469

E7021. J.G.C. Allen, “Intelligence Report on the Ngwa Clan, Vol. 1, 1933.”
ESO 1/13. Southern Nigeria Despatches No. 238: Conf. Report, 24/5/1905.
MINLOC 17/1: “Secret Societies.”
OW 342/27, ABADIST 8/11/2. L.T. Chubb, “Assessment Reports: Bende Division, 1927-1929.”
OW 7045. K.A.B. Cochrane, “Handing Over Note to H.M. Llyod.”
Presbynig 1/1/6. Calabar Mission Council Minutes, 84, 153 of 23/10/1913, and 186 of 7/5/1914.
RIV PROF. 8/8/433. “Okonko Club: Activity of.”
UMDIV 3/1/98. Church of Scotland Mission Abiriba.
UMDIV 3/1/656. “Ukekwe Society and Okonko: Proclamation as Unlawful.”
UMDIV 7/1/70-100. “Native Court Records.”
UMDIV 7/1/84. “Bende District - Selection of H.Q. for.”
UMPROF 5/1/90. “Arochukwu-Bende-Afikpo Road, 1921.”
Nigerian National Archives (NAI), Ibadan
CSO 26/3 File 29196. C.J. Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934.”
CSO 26/3-97. “Assessment Reports on Bende Division, 1919-1926.”
Jones, G.I. Annual Reports of Bende Division, South Eastern Nigeria, 1905-1912
(Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1986)
Major W.A.C. Cockburn, “Annual Report on Bende District for the Year Ended 31st December,
1910.”
Hives, “Intelligence Report: Bende-Onitsha Hinterland Expedition, 1905.”
Interviews and Personal Communications
Adanneya Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Uduma Ukwu Village.
November 17, 2011.

470

Anaso Awalekwa, ezie-ogo of Ndea- Nku Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011
Chief Agba Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amafor, Akanu, Ohafia. Nov.
4, 2011.
Chief Agwu K. Eme, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Ukike, Elu Village.
August 15, 2010.
Chief Agwu Ojo Agwu, oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon Village, Ohafia. Sept.
22, 2011.
Chief Agwunsi Ocho, retired teacher, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Okon.
September 22, 2011.
Chief A.N. Iro (JP), oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ekeluogo, Akanu, Ohafia.
Nov. 4, 2011.
Chief Egbe Abba Iro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Oboro Village. Nov. 17,
2011.
Chief Egbe Okafor, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga Village. Aug. 12,
2010.
Chief Eke Emetu Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Obu Ndi Anaga, August
11, 2010.
Chief Emeh Okonkwo, oral interview by author, digital voice recording. Ebem, Ohafia. August
3, 2010
Chief George Bassey, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village, Ohafia.
May 2, 2012
Chief Ikpo C. Ndukwe (O no okpokoro eme nka of Ebem), oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Nde Ado Compound, Ebem Ohafia. August 3, 2010, April 6, and May 2, 2012.
Chief Imagha Oka, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Edem Compound,
Okon, Sept. 26, 2011.
Chief Imaga Torti of Nde Edem Compound, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Okon. Sept. 26, 2011.
Chief Isaac Onyeani secretary to the late ezie-ogo of Nde Uduma Ukwu), oral interview by
author, hand-written notes, Nde Uduma Ukwu Village, Ohafia. Nov. 17, 2011.

471

Chief Kalu Awa Kalu (ezie-agba [2nd in command to ezie-ogo of Ufiele), oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Ufiele Village, Ohafia. October 27, 2011
Chief Kalu Imaga, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Edem, Okon Village.
September 26, 2011.
Chief Kalu Ukariwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, of Nde Odo, Akanu,
Ohafia. Nov. 6, 2011.
Chief Kevin Ukiro, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia.
August 10 and 12, 2010.
Chief K.K. Owen, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village. Aug. 12, 2010.
Chief K.K. Oyeoku, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Ebem Village. August 2, 2010.
Chief Obasi Kama, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Edem Compound,
Okon, Ohafia September 26, 2011.
Chief Olua Iro Kalu, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Ebem Village, Ohafia. August
3, 2010.
Chief L.U. Ufere, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Uduma Ukwu Village.
Sept. 15, 2011.
Chief Obasi Kama, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Sept. 26,
2011.
Chief Oji Ijeoma (security for nkwa ndi inyom Akanu), oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Akanu Village, Ohafia. Nov. 3, 2011.
Chief Okoro Ekeanya Ibe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Edem, Okon.
September 26, 2011.
Chief Oluka Mba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde-Ibe village, Ohafia. Oct.
27, Nov. 3, 2011.
Chief Olugu Utuma, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Imaga, Elu, Ohafia.
August 15, 2010.
Chief Onwuka Kalu Agwu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Obu Nde Idika,
Ebem. August 3, 2010.
Chief Priest Idika Aso (chief priest of obu nkwa), oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Obu Nkwa Shrine, Asaga Village. August 12, 2010.

472

Chief Udemele, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ekeluogo, Akanu Ohafia. Nov.
4, 2011.
Chief Udensi Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ndi Ekea Compound, Okon
Village, Ohafia. August 4 and 5, 2010.
Chief Uduma Justman, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Ebem Village. August 2,
2010.
Chief Uduma Nnochin Ogbuagu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuke
Village. Nov. 24, 2011
Chief Torti Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma Village, Ohafia.
November 26, 2011
Dibia Agwu Onuma [Provost of Ohafia-Arochukwu Native Herbal Doctors (Ebube Dike)
Union], oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ihenta (Ibina). December 12,
2011.
Dibia Agwu Arua, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village, Ohafia.
August 4, 2010
Dibia Akirika, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Edem Compound Okon,
Sept. 26, 2011.
Dibia Azueke Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Idika Okoro, Okon.
September 22, 2011
Dibia Echeme Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Ukike, Elu.
August 18, 2011.
Dibia Eke Uma, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Edem Compound, Okon,
Sept. 26, 2011.
Dibia Kakarere (Oyibo) oral interview by author, video-recording. Okon Village, Ohafia. Sept.
22, 2011.
Dibia Kalu Eke, oral interview by author, video-recording, Nde Idika Okoro, Okon Village.
September 22, 2011.
Dibia Kalu Ekea, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Ekea Compound, Okon,
Sept. 24, 2011.
Dibia Kalu Uko, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Ohafia, September 14,
20, and 26, 2011

473

Dibia Ndukwe Uche Dimgba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon, Ohafia.
September 22, 2011.
Dibia Uduma Uchendu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Akanu, Ohafia. Nov. 2,
2011.
Dibia Uko Ebebe, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Okon Village, Ohafia.
September 14, 2011.
Elder Agwu Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amaekpu Village. May 18,
2012.
Elders of Nde Oka compound, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon Village,
Ohafia. September 14-15, 2011.
Elders of Nde Nbila compound, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording, Okon.
September 15, 2011.
Elders of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu, Ohafia, Group Interview by author, digital voice
recording. Nov. 2, 2011.
Dibia Chikezie Emeri of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu Village (60 years/Akajiaku)
Nna Kalu Akuma of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu Village (82 years/Amashiri)
Nna John O. Idika of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu Village (74 years/Bianko)
Nna Uma Ukariwe Uma of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu Village (74 years/Bianko)
Dibia Uduma Uchendu of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu Village (82 years/Mba-Ishiagu)
Nna Alhaji Idika of Nde Odo Patrilineage, Akanu Village (56 years/Egwu-Ano)
Elders of Umu-Anya Patrilineage, Ndi Imaga Compound, Elu Ohafia, Group Interview by
author, digital voice recording, Elu Village. August 14, 2011
Chief Uche Anya Elekwa [Head of Umu-Anya; fulfills rite of isuyi nzu isi in Elu] (86
years, Uke Obimba)
Chief Awa Anya Elekwa (Born 1936, Uke Azummini)
Chief Idika-Uma Anya (85 years, Uke Ugwumba)
Mr. Ofor-Okoro Anya [Served as interpreter for the Elders] (50 years) + 3 others.
Elder Ukpai Onum Ndukwe, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Asaga, Ohafia, April
13, May 15, 2012.
Evangelist Okezie, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Nde Ufere Compound, Eziafor.
November 11, 2011.
Ezie-nwami Mmia Abali of Eziafor Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording.
Dec. 17, 2011.
Ezie-Nwami Ogbonne Kalu Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Uba
Patrilineage of Nde Okorocha Compound, Uduma Ukwu Village. November 17, 2011

474

Ezie-Nwami Ucha Oji Iwe of Elu Village and her Cabinet, Group Interview by author, digital
voice recording. October 25, 2011
Nne Grace Kalu of Nde Kalu Compound
Madam Ikediya Okenu of Nde Uka Ibe Compound
Mrs. Uche Kalu Ebi of Nde Aja Compound
Nne Ucha Ezichi of Nde Imaga Compound
Nne Ochonu of Nde Aja Compound
Madam Celina Kalu of Nde Anaga Compound
Nne Mary Kalu of Nde Imaga Compound
Unyang Opele of Nde Imaga Compound
Ezie-ogo Anaso Awalekwa of Ndea-Nku and Members of the Men’s Court, Group Interview by
author, digital voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011.
Chief Arua Kalu [oldest man in Ndea-Nku] of Nde Ole Compound (98 years/ Uke Lucky)
Chief Agwu Otuu [ezie umuaka society] of Ndea Lekwa Compound (70 years/ Uke
Okpetemba)
Chief Egwuonwu Lekwa (65 years/ Uke Ugwumba)
Ezie-ogo Kalu Awa of Ibina (Ihenta), oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ibina
(Ihenta) Village. December 12, 2011
Ezie-ogo Kalu Ukoha of Amuma, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amuma.
November 30, 2011.
Ezie-ogo Godwin Nwankwo Uko of Amankwu Village and his cabinet members, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amankwu Village. October 25, 2011
Ezie-ogo U. E. Imaga of Elu Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, August
15, 2010.
Ezie-ogo Mba Odo Okereke (Modok) of Akanu Village, oral conversation with the author,
Akanu. October 15, 2011
Ezie-ogo Mecha Ukpai Akanu, the Uduma Anaga 2nd of Amangwu Village, oral interview by
author, digital voice recording. Aug. 18, 2011
Ezie-ogo O.K. Anya of Ufiele, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ufiele Village.
August 21, 2010.
Ezie-ogo Okorie Kalu of Isiugwu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu.
December 10, 2011.
Ezie-ogo Okpan Ncheghe of Ndi-Orie-Eke Village, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Dec. 15, 2011.

475

Ezie-ogo Ukonu Okoro Ekere of Eziafor Village, oral interview by author, digital voice
recording, Dec. 17, 2011.
Ezie-ogo U. Nwojo of Okagwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Okagwe
Village. August 17, 2010.
Ezie Uka Uduma Uka (Okpere Oha 1 of Akanu-Ukwu Autonomous Community), oral interview
by author, digital voice recording. Nov. 6, 2011.
Ezie-ogo Ugbu Uduma of Nde-Amogu Village, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ihenta (Ibina) Village. November 11, 2011.
Ezie-ogo Vasco U. Iro of Nkwebi Village Ohafia, in council with elders of Nkwebi Village,
Group Interview with author, at Obu-Nta Kwebi, dig. voice recording. Nov. 17, 2011
Chief Ota Eke [council speaker], Eziukwu Compound (88 years/ Uke Ejindu)
Chief Ezema O. Iwe of Nde Ibe Compound (77 years/ Uke Okezie)
Chief Agwu Ojo of Nde Agu Compound (91 years/ Uke Onyiwa)
Chief Kalu Amadi of Nde Ibe Compound (88 years/ Uke Ejindu)
Chief Ike Eke of Nde Ufere Compound (88 years/ Uke Ejindu)
Chief Agwu Kalu Amogu of Nde Agu Compound (82 years/ Uke Amasiri)
Chief Azu Agqu of Nde Echem Compound (82 years/ Uke Amasiri)
Chief Ndukwe Kalu Agwu of Nde Ibe Compound (82 years/ Uke Amasiri)
Elder Josiah Onum EKpe of Eziukwu Compound (70 years/ Uke Ekwueme)
Chief Igwe Okike of Nde Okoro (68 years/ Uke Emeago)
Chief Ojike Onuma of Nde Echem Compound [Court Messenger] (60 years/ Ugwumba)
Elders of Umu Mkpara Awa [4 men]
Members of Nkwebi Autonomous Development Union [5 men]
Grace Emehe (niece of Unyang Uka, daughter of Johnson Emehe), oral interview by author,
digital voice recording, Amangwu Village, Ohafia, September 10, 2011.
Hon. Kingsley, Peoples Democratic Party Chairman of Ohafia Local Government Area, oral
interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village, September 3, 2011.
Ijeoma Onyeani, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isiugwu, Ohafia. December
12, 2011.
Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom of Akanu Village, Group Interview. November 3, 2011
Madam Lovina Kalu, Nde Alulu of Amafor Compound (53years, Uke Ugwumba)
Mrs. Nnenna Emeri, Nde Odo Compound (52 years, Uke Anyafumba)
Nne Agwu Ukpai, Nde Okoro of Ekeluogo Compound (53 years, Uke Ugwumba)
Mrs. Eunice Kalu, Ezi Ndea Mba of Ibina-Ukwu Compound (53 years, Uke Ugwumba)
Madam Comfort Ukoha, Ezi Nde Okoro of Ekeluogo Compound (60 years, Uke Okezie)
Mmia Nnaya Bassey, Nde Odo Compound (45 years, Uke Akumba [“Ohu Ali”])

476

Madam Ugoenyi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Unua Nnechi, Elu.
August 18, 2010.
Mama Docas Kalu and Mama Mary Ezera, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Elu. August 10, 2010
Mama Mary Ezera, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Ohafia. August 3,
2010.
Mama Orie Emeh and Chief Mrs. Grace Ojieke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording,
Ebem Ohafia. August 3, 2010.
Mecha Ukpai Akanu, ezie-ogo of Amangwu Village and Members of the Men’s Court, Group
Interview by author, digital voice recording, Amangwu Village. August 18, 2011
Mr. Arunsi Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amanguw Village. August
15, 2011.
Mr. Davidson Kalu Oki, oral interview by author, Okon Village, Ohafia. August 5, 2010.
Mr. E.I. Udensi, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village, Ohafia. Sept. 5,
2011.
Mr. Elvis Osonwa, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Umachi, Akanu.
October 29, 2011.
Mr. Enwelu Agwu Uduma, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Amaekpu, Ohafia.
August 16, 2010.
Mr. I. Ukoha, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem village, Ohafia. Oct. 27,
2011.
Mr. Kalu Udensi (ezie-akpan of Nde-Ibe village), oral interview by author, hand-written notes,
Nde-Ibe, Ohafia. October 27, 2011.
Mr. M.A. Igwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amaekpu, Ohafia. August 16,
2010.
Mr. Onu Idika Kalu, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Okagwe Village. August 25,
2011.
Mrs. Margaret Eke Anya, oral interview by author, dig. voice recording, Amaekpu. May 18,
2012.
Mrs. Nnenna Obuba, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Amaekpu. Aug. 15, 2011.

477

Mrs. Orie Udo Eke, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Asaga Village, Ohafia.
April 30, 2012.
Mrs. Uka Kalu, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. July
29, 2010.
Nmia Nnaya Agbai, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Village, August 18,
2011.
Nna Agbai Ndukwe, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Elu Ohafia, August 10,
2010.
Nna Ibem Kalu Agwu, carpenter and sculptor (erected the statue of heroic ancestor, Olumba Ezi
Akuma at Amuma Village), oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Uduma Awoke
Village. October 25, 2011.
Nde Ichin (Elders) of Amuma Village, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording,
Amuma. Nov. 26, 2011.
Nna Kalu Awa of Nde Torti Compound, Amuma Village.
Chief Torti Kalu of Nde Torti Compound, Amuma Village.
Chief Kalu Ibem of Nde Ibe-Anya Compound, Amuma Village.
Pa Okoro Okoro of Nde Torti, Amuma Village.
Chief Ikenga Ibe of Nde Torti Compound, Amuma Village.
Mr. Nsi Kalu of Nde Okpo compound, Amuma Village.
Ten Elders of Akpan, Amuma Village.
Nde Ichin of Nde Edem Compound, Group Interview by author, digital voice recording. Okon.
Sept. 26, 2011
Chief Obasi Kama of Nde Edem Compound
Chief Imagha Oka of Nde Edem Compound
Chief Okoro Ekeanya Ibe of Nde Edem Compound (75 years/Akajiaku)
Dibia Eke Uma of Nde Edem Compound (75 years/Akajiaku)
Chief Okoro Obuba of Nde Edem Compound (50 years/Enyimba)
Chief Kalu Imaga, ezie ezi of Nde Edem Compound (87 year/Oka-Omee)
Dibia Moses Enwere Oka of Nde Edem Compound (50 years)
Chief Imaga Torti of Nde Edem Compound (95 years/Anyafumba)
Ndukwe Otta, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Ebem Village. August 2, 2010.
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, Group Interview by author, Ebem Village, Ohafia. August
14, 2011.
Ndukwe Otta and Elder Uduma Uka, oral conversation with author, Asaga Village, Ohafia.
September 16, 2011.

478

Nwabueze Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Isigwu, Ohafia. December 10,
2011.
Nwannediya Mmonwu-Oti, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ndi Owom, Okon.
August 5, 2010.
Nwadiala Oti-Mmonwu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ndi Owom, Okon.
August 5, 2010.
Ogbuka Ogbuka Abaa, oral interview by author, Nde Oji Compound, Isiugwu Village Ohafia.
December 10, 2011.
Oyidiya Ukpai Nwankwo, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Nde Agwu, Elu.
August 18, 2010.
Prince Igwe Oji (self-styled traditional prime minister of Akanu village), oral interview by
author, digital voice recording, Akanu Village. November 2, 2011.
Prince Ikpo Kalu, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ebem Village. May 19, 2012.
Prof. Onwuka Njoku, oral conversation with author, University of Nigeria Nsukka, July 12, 2010
Prof. Onwuka Njoku, phone conversation with author, Lansing Michigan to Enugu Nigeria,
March 22, 2013.
Rev. Dr. Ndukwe, oral interview by author, hand-written notes, Presbyterian Church Manse, Elu.
August 20, 2011.
Rev. Dr. Uma Onwunta, Former Principal Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, oral
interview by author, hand-written notes, Umuahia, Nigeria. August 23, 2011.
Tessy Uzoma Odum, oral interview by author, digital voice recording, Ohafia Local Government
Council Office, Ebem Village, Ohafia. Sept. 5, 2011
Video recording of umerogwu (magic) performances by author, clips DSCN 1672, DSCN 1673,
and DSCN 1674, Okon Village. September 26, 2011.
Video recording of ije iwa (massive food production) by author, clips AVI-5.AVI, Okon.
September 22, 2011.
Unpublished Sources
Azuonye, Chukwuma. “The Narrative War Songs of the Ohafia Igbo: A Critical Analysis of their
Characteristic Features in Relation to their Social Functions.” Ph.D. Thesis, University of
London, 1979.

479

Chima, Agwu D. “The Age Grade System in Traditional Ohafia up to 1935.” B.A. Thesis,
University of Nigeria Nsukka, October 1996.
Kalu, Agwu, Chika, L.N. and Nkata, N.O. “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia: An
Unpublished Work by Isiama Parish of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria.” 2005.
Kalu, Grace U. “Women in Social and Economic Change in Ohafia, 1945-1990.” M.A. Thesis,
University of Nigeria Nsukka, 2005.
Kalu, Nwoke C. “Cassava Revolution in Ohafia Up to 1990: A Historical Analysis of Economic
Change.” B.A. Thesis, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, July 1991.
Korieh, Chima Jacob. “Widowhood Among the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria.” M.A Thesis,
University of Bergen, Norway, June 1996.
Ndukwe, Mberi. “From Slavery to the Order of British Empire: A Biography of Chief Eke Kalu
Uwaoma of Ohafia.” B.A Thesis, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, October 1998.
Odimmegwa, Augustine Chukwuemeka. “Widowhood and the Dignity of Womanhood in
Igboland: A Pastoral Challenge to the Discipleship of the Roman Catholic Church in
Igboland.” January 1, 2010.
Oji, Oji K. “A Study of Migrations and Warfare in Ohafia.” B.A. Thesis, University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, 1974.
Rev. Eke Uduma, “The Advent of Christianity in Ohafia Under Rev. Robert Collins.”
Unpublished Manuscript.
Sarr, Assan. “Land and Historical Change in a River Valley: Property, Power and Dependency in
the Lower Gambia Basin, Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.” Ph.D. Thesis, Michigan
State University, 2010.
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