One of the most prominent sons of Isiugwu Ohafia, the late Dr. Kalu Uke Kalu, and his British wife, Barbara Hazel during an outing in his Isiugwu Ohafia country home
Continued from Volume I
By Uduma Kalu
The next is Ndi Ucheji. What is today Ndi Ucheji is an amalgam of four compounds: Ndi Orieke. (There is a town in Ohafia with such name), Ndi Owa Oku, Ndi Okoro and Ndi Uche Ji. Isiugwu people called them Ndi Ama Uduara. Their square, was the Ama Uduara.
The four compounds have today merged into one. But before then, they were different compounds and the Ama Uduara was their public square.
Every Isiugwu compound, like other compounds in Igboland, has its public square, ifu ezi. The Ama Udara people have today been submerged into Ndi Ucheji due to a historical factor (war) which we shall recount later on.
Many people see Ndi Ucheji as the custodian of the Ekpe masquerade. But it is not really true. What happened was that the founder of Ndi Okoro had asked the Udumali that if the Ekpe would visit him, he would present him with a human being. Then, it was a fashion to use human beings as sacrifice. The Udumali was said to have agreed.
The reason was that once the Ekpe left the Okpukpu Ekpe, the tree under which it is decorated and donned, it would meander its way to Ndi Agwu to pay homage to the royalty and receive royal blessings.
From there, it would move to Ndi Emele. But because it left the Okpupku Ekpe with a cutlass, Okoro had asked that once he presented the Ekpe with a human gift, it would no more carry the cutlass. Instead, a broom would be given to it. It was to become a friendly masquerade. This was agreed. When the Ekpe visited him, Okoro presented a slave to the Ekpe which with a stroke
of the knife, sliced off his head. Immediately, the knife was removed from its hand and a bunch of broom was given to it. Till today, the Ekpe, immediately after its royal blessing at Ndi Agwu, goes to Ndi Okoro next, instead of Ndi Emele, to receive a bunch of broom.Ama Uduara is now eclipsed by Ndi Ucheji. It is said that Okoro descendants founded Ndi Okoro Oku. The different compounds have also become part of the Ndi Ucheji’s umudi.
EBEM OGO
Ndi Agwu. We have already discussed how this compound, which is the head of the Isiugwu Ohafia community, was founded.
Ndi Agwu is followed by Ndi Eziukwu. It was founded by Oji, nicknamed Echele -Oji Echele. He came from Okposi. A native doctor to the Udumali, he was to appease or calm (Igbuju) the land for the Udumali. He lived next to Udumali, at Ndi Eziukwu. From Ndi Eziukwu, he moved to Ndi Oji. Ndi Oji is the head of Ebem Ogo, and is the largest and most populated in the town. Invariably, Oji founded two compounds in Isiugwu and both see themselves as one.
The next is Ndi Okpo. Its founder, Okpo, is said to have come from Ihechiowa.
Ndi Agwu Okoro Oku Compound, which is between Ndi Okpo and Ndi Oji, is said to have come from Ndi Okoro when they were displaced by war, along with Ndi Orieke, then of Uzo Okpuru, the Cherubim area, Ndi Okoro. They are in Ndi Ucheji.
ISIUGWU, OHAFIA MATRILNEAL AND PATRILINIALINHERITANCES: The Origin
As noted in the reason why Emele Oke left his maternal uncle, Mba, Ohafia, indeed has maternal inheritance but it is not wholly matrilineal as it is trumpeted. It is therefore wrong to describe the people as matrilineal as Dr. Philip Nsugbe wrote in his book, Ohafia, the Matrilineal People of the Igbo.
Njoku Ukariwe would say Ohafia’s matrilineal culture is not to the core.
Ohafia, Ukariwe said, is a mix of both matrilineal and patrilineal inheritances.
The matrilineal family, called Ikwu, owns farm lands in Isiugwu and other Ohafia towns.
However, patrilineal families, called Umudi, own the compounds (ezi) and also farm lands. This can be found in Ohafia towns of Asaga, Okon, Akanu, Amaekpu etc. In Isiugwu, the umudi has no farm lands. It is the ikwu that has lands.
If the Udumali could not give inheritance to his maternal brother or nephew, Emele, it tells a lot about the inheritance formula in Ohafia.
Royalty in Ohafia is paternal. It is only in Ebem that the monarchy is maternal, and even then, the Ezieogo is a man. He emerges from his maternal family. Even the heads of the maternal families, ikwu, are all male.
The umudi inherits the royalty and owns the ezi, the compounds. The man’s children own their father’s houses.
After the burial of a man, during the imawa Akwa, tying of clothes, it is the umudi that does that. Umudi is the paternal lineage of the man. It is usually his compound people. Imawa akwa is the sharing of the man’s property to his children. The first son takes his share, followed by the second, the daughter takes, then others. An okwara umudi, an uproot man, is appointed to oversee the sharing.
HOW IKWU BEGAN TO TAKE A MAN’S PROPERTY AFTER HIS DEATH
In explaining how the ikwu began to take their men’s property in Ohafia, Ukariwe said it happened long ago. The case was about a murder committed by a man. His father was approached to solve the son’s murder case. The solution involved the replacement of a child for the murdered person’s family by the murderer’s father. But the father asked his son, the murderer, to go to his mother’s people for the replacement. It was his sister that brought out her child for the replacement. The man then decreed that his mother’s family would be inheriting his property. And it had come to stay. Ohafia, Abam, Abiriba, Edda practise this culture.
A closer look at this story actually creates some loopholes. First, did the sister have the power to offer her child for exchange? How did the rest of the community begin to take after the murderer’s practice? How did the new practice affect the existing structure?
Indeed, the Ohafia migratory story shows that the people in their journey to the Ohafia land, met with largely matrilineal people within the Niger Delta, such as the Ikwerre where they stayed for some time and with the Ijaw.
The Ikwerre, an Igbo sub ethnic group, along with some ijaw groups, have strong matrilineal influence. It is not a surprise that the Ohafia would have such influence too. The people have dialectal inflexion associated with the Ikwerre and Etche of Rivers state.
However, a much plausible explanation can be found in books about the Cross River basin peoples of Eastern Nigeria where the Ohafia people fall into.
Among the northern Cross River people, such as the Ejegham, the story of the rich man and the murder story Ukariwe recounted is paraded and it is common among the peoples of this zone even up to the northern parts of the Cross River basin, the Adamawa and the Taraba states, even into the central and some southern regions of the African continent.
The new Ohafia migrants therefore inherited a culture prevailing among the peoples they met, conquered, assimilated and lived with.
It means that the Ohafia, while winning over the land and its original peoples, lost much of their original culture to the natives. The ikwu inheritance influence was part of it.
IKWU INHERITANCE
Ukariwe said when a man died, some of his maternal members would lock up the man’s house. They would take the property of the man, leaving the man’s house for the children empty.
If the man bought a land outside his Ulo ezi, compound house, and was silent on who takes charge of it, the ikwu could farm it. That leads to conflict today between the ikwu and the man’s children.
Such practice, Ukariwe noted, is no more in existence. In most other Ohafia towns today, the children take their father’s property, no matter where it is located.
The changes are happening because of laws enacted by government, and the influence of modern development. Sometimes, negotiations between the man’s ikwu and his children take place in cases the man is silent on how to share his property.
The elder gave an illustration on how even in Isiugwu, the children are taking over their fathers’ properties, even those ones he built outside the village.
It was a house owned by an Isiugwu Ohafia man in Enugu. The ikwu wanted to take over the house. But the children sold the house, against the cultural practice. The children went to court and the court threw its weight behind the children. The children won. And the matter died a natural death. It means that any house built by the man belongs to his children being his immediate umudi.
But Ukariwe said such practice of the ikwu inheritance is changing greatly in Ohafia. It is becoming unreasonable that a man, his wife and his children would struggle to acquire property only for the maternal family to take it. Some men are now writing their own wills or telling their umudi and others on how they want their properties shared.
He said it is important that a man leaves a will behind on how to share his properties to avoid any rancour. He can call his umudi too, among others, if unwritten, and tell them how he wants to share his property.
THE MAN OJI
Oji, said to have come from Okposi, was said to have been a native doctor, who was brought in by Mba to appease the land. The appeasement called Igbuju Ali was the practice done when a person wanted to settle in a new place. Ndi Oji people are the ones that perform the Nwachukwu dibia ceremony before Isiugwu people would plant azima. It is a re-enactment of the igbuju ali.
0 Comments