The Igboland and Culture
Igboland encompasses most of Southeast Nigeria and is home to the Igbo people. The Niger River divides this region into two unequal sections: the eastern (which is the largest) and the midwestern (which is the smallest). The river, on the other hand, has not served as a barrier to cultural unity; rather, it has served as a convenient means of connection in an area where numerous villages claim various origins. On all sides, the Igbos are bordered by various tribes (the Bini, Warri, Ijaw, Ogoni, Igala, Tiv, Yako and Ibibio).
The historical roots of the Igbo people have been the topic of much speculation, and no significant work has been done on this subject in the last fifty years: like any group of people, they are eager to find their beginnings and reconstruct how they got to be who they are. …their experiences under colonialism and since Nigeria’s independence have highlighted the truth of their group identity, which they aim to enshrine in historical records
The analysis of the available sources (fragmentary oral traditions and cultural characteristic correlation) has led to the idea that Igboland has a core area, and that waves of immigrant populations from the north and west began to settle on the core area’s border as early as the ninth century. The inhabitants of this core area — Owerri, Orlu, and Okigwi — form a belt, and they have no history of arriving from anywhere else. In the recent past, migration from this area tended to be in all directions, and the Igbo culture became increasingly homogenized as a result. Other people invaded Igbo territory about the fourteenth or fifteenth century, in addition to this trend of migration from this main area.
Many of these people still have qualities that distinguish them from conventional Igbos, such as geographical marginality, royalty, a hierarchical title system, and the amosu heritage (witchcraft). For a long time, some Igbo-speaking people claimed they were not Igbo, and the phrase was used as a derogatory epithet for their ‘less cultured’ neighbors. The term is presently used to denote Igbo territory, domestic speakers of the language, and the language spoken by them in three different ways.
How The Igbos and Europeans Met
The entrance of the Portuguese in the mid-fifteenth century brought the first encounter between Igboland and Europe. The Niger coast served as a crossroads for African and European traders from 1434 to 1807, beginning with the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and lastly the English. At this point, the emphasis was on trade rather than empire building, with the primary commodity being Igbo slaves. With the abolishment of the slave trade in 1807, a new age of trade emerged, focusing on industry (palm products, timber, elephant tusks and spices).
The British began to mix aggressive trading with aggressive imperialism at this era. They refused to be confined to the seaside because they considered the hinterland as fruitful. In the year 1900, the territory that had previously been the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, which included what was formerly known as the Niger Coast Protectorate, was established by the British Niger Company. The British Foreign Office handed over control of the territory to the Colonial Office. Igboland was treated as a British colony even before it was officially invaded. There were twenty-one British military missions into Igboland between 1900 and 1914 (when Northern and Southern Nigeria were merged). Igbo males were forced to pay tax for the first time in their history in 1928 — they were no longer subject people.
In the early twentieth century, this attempt to seize political influence and control of Igboland was greeted with resistance and cultural dissent. A nativistic religious movement (the ekumeku) arose, generating a brief but furious messianic fervor. Rumours that Igbo women were being assessed for taxation ignited the Aba Riots of 1929, a major women’s uprising never seen before in Igbo history. Imperialism, on the other hand, could not be stopped, and once it began, Igbo culture would never be the same.
Igboland is the homeland of the Igbo people, and it encompasses the majority of Nigeria’s south-eastern region. The Niger River which divides this region into two unequal sections: the eastern and midwestern regions. The river, on the other hand, has not served as a barrier to cultural unification, but rather as a method of contact.
History of the Igbos
With over 20 million people living in Nigeria and another million outside the country, the Igbo people are one of Africa’s most populous ethnic groups. Their farming communities span from delta swampland in the southern coast through tropical rain forest to open grassland near the north, stretching between the Niger River in the west and the Cross River in the east. Because the Igbo region is an aggregation of self-contained cities and villages isolated from one another by dense bush, the Igbo language comprises hundreds of dialects.
It would have been inappropriate to refer to the Igbos as a single people before the twentieth century; they were made up of over two hundred distinct groupings. Despite their obvious similarities in customs and traditions, each group may have been deemed a separate civilization with at least twenty to thirty communities. An Igbo individual traveling thirty miles through Igboland could have had a hard time making himself known. During the colonial period (1900–1960), however, many Igbo people left their homes and converged in cities, workplaces, and institutions of higher learning. Many people learned that what they thought were various languages were actually dialects of the same language, and that Igbo speakers shared the same underlying culture and sociopolitical order. In this way, the concept of common Igbo identity is a twentieth-century invention.
(Origins of the Igbo people Pottery dated at around 4500 BC )
According to an Igbo creation myth, the earth’s surface was covered in water in the beginning, and no humans lived on it. Then one day, Chukwu (God) formed the first human family, which included Eze Nri, his wife, sons, and daughters. Because the ground was flooded, Eze Nri and his family were trapped on top of an anthill . Because the ground was flooded, with nowhere to go. Chukwu (God) looked down and felt sorry for their plight. “Take this, it is edible,” he added as he handed Eze Nri a piece of yam. Eze Nri and his family tried the yam and enjoyed it.
They were hungry again the next morning, so Eze Nri begged God for more yam. “Plant this and you will have an abundance of yams,” Chukwu (God) said as he handed him some yam seeds. Eze Nri gratefully welcomed the yam seeds. ‘But the land is covered with water,’ he murmured to Chukwu (God) as he glanced around. Chukwu (God) told him to send for Awka blacksmiths, who arrived with bellows and blew until the soil was completely dry. Eze Nri was then instructed by Chukwu to sacrifice his first son and daughter and plant yam seeds in their graves. Eze Nri obeyed, and yam and cocoyam tendrils emerged from the children’s graves shortly after. Eze Nri eventually collected yams and cocoyams and distributed them to the Igbo people.
The belief of the Igbo people in a supreme god (Chukwu) who created everything and commanded obedience is established in this story. It also implies that religion has traditionally played an important role in Igbo culture. The myth emphasizes the origins of agriculture, the age of family, and the significance of iron work in the formation of the Igbo community. Above all, because this myth made no mention of migrations from distant places — as opposed to African origin traditions — it suggests that the Igbo people have lived in their current location for a very long time, which archeology supports.
Nature of the Igbos and Religion
Igbos are hardworking, friendly, and well-educated people who have played a significant part in Nigeria’s political growth.
(Igbo traditional music instrument)
The Igbo people have a vibrant and rich cultural past that reveals a lot about them, and the majority of them are Christians. Due to dialects and boundaries among the eastern states in particular, their cultures are further divided into many groups, and a good example of this is their traditional way of greeting visitors, which is usually offering kola to guests, even before they made their mission known.
The Igbo people have a melodic music style that incorporates various percussion instruments, such as the Udu, which is essentially a clay jug, the Ekwe, which is a hollowed log and the Ogene, a hand drum. Opi, a wind instrument comparable to the flute, Igba, and Ichaka are among the other instruments. They also have a musical style known as Ikorodo, which consists of a vocal performance accompanied by a variety of musical instruments.
(Ikoro a simple communication drum that is used in Igbo land)
Highlife, a fusion of jazz and traditional music famous in West Africa, is another musical form popular among the Igbos.
Some major towns and cities in Igboland
The Igbo people inhabit the majority of the cities and towns in eastern Nigeria. Enugu City — The Coal City, Owerri, Onitsha, Asaba, Anambra, Abia, Abakaliki, Yenogoa, Orlu, and other major cities are among them.
Calabar — The People’s Paradise, Port Harcourt, Uyo, Eket, Bonny Island, Ikot Ekpene, and Abak are some of the other cities and towns in South-Eastern and South-South Nigeria.