NOTES ON EXTERNAL RELATIONS:

While it is true that Awka travellers did not, as a rule, settle down permanently in their places of sojourn, we do encounter among some peoples traditions that their ancestors came from Awka, or at least learnt the art of working metal from travelling Awka smiths.

Amụzụ: The town of Amụzụ in Mbaise has a tradition that their town was founded by migrant blacksmiths from Awka. Another version of the traditions states that Awka smiths did not found the town per se, but settled among the indigenous people and taught them the art of blacksmithing. Amụzụ means ‘Smiths’ Quarter’.

Illah: In the town of Illah in Delta State, the sub-village of Ụmụogwu was traditionally founded by an Awka blacksmith.

The following tradition was collected by Professor Isichei at Illah in 1974:

‘There were blacksmiths in this very village where we are, Ụmụogwu. The first man was from Awka. His trade was black-smithing. He came first of all to stay at Ajaji, Nwabikwu’s quarter....Then he came to a certain place behind Edem. There he lived.... He lived with them and started his smithing. The shrine is there. All his descendants are known as Ụmụogwu.’


Igbide: The Isoko clan of Igbide has a tradition that its founder came from Awka. The ethnographer, R. E. Bradbury mentions this in his 1957 book, The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-Speaking Peoples of South-western Nigeria. This tradition is also referred to in a number of works by foremost Isoko historian, Professor Obaro Ikime.

Isheagu: The town of Isheagu in Delta State, according to the traditional history of its people, descend from a man named Ngwu from the Ifite Quarter in Awka. He was a smith and a hunter. In the traditions, Ngwu is said to be a brother of Eze Awka (King of Awka), who along with the Eze Idu (King of Benin) and Eze Aboh (King of Aboh) was one of the greatest kings known in those parts. Here the tradition gets a little confused: Awka of old was a republican polity and had no kings. The great ‘Eze Awka’ was apparently the Eze Nri, who in distant parts could have been mistaken as the suzerain of Awka. Awka formed one of the pillars of Nri’s hegemony; the men of both towns were travellers, bore the ichi marks on their faces, practised some magico-medicine, and their towns were located not too far from each other. Not surprisingly, people in distant parts sometimes mistook one of them for the other. For example the town of Aku near Nsukka has a tradition that they descend from a prince of Nri named Ijija, and that when they died, their spirits went back to Nri. Yet the Odo masquerade in Aku, which represents the dead ancestors of Aku people, has this lamentary cry: ‘E shi m Awka ooo!’ – ‘I hail from Awka!’

Till today, the Isheagu people of Delta State salute themselves thus: ‘Ụmụ Awka na Ifite’ - ‘Offspring of the Awka people of Ifite’.