Arochukwu

Arochukwu is the head clan of the Aro, in Arochukwu local government area of Abia State. Its nineteen towns are what the Aro tribe's name grew from, and its oracle, the Long Juju of Chukwu Abiama, is what made the Aro a power across the south-east for two centuries.

Arochukwu is a clan before it is a town. Its nineteen settlements each descend from one of nine patrilineages called otusi, seated in nine parent towns, and each of those had a headman of its own lineage over it. The other ten settlements were founded later from the first nine.

The clan's power came from the oracle of Chukwu Abiama, called the Long Juju, whose priests settled disputes from across the South-eastern Provinces. Traffic in that authority made Aro traders, moneylenders and agents of the oracle's influence present in towns far from Arochukwu — which is why Aro settlements are found in some 250 places across the south-east and beyond.

The town is Igbo. Its founding is remembered in the union of Eze Agwu, who came from Abiriba, with Nnachi, who came from Edda, and with the Akpa who came from the east of the Cross River; the Aro-Ibibio wars that followed are the ground the kingdom stands on. The name is written Arochukwu, and the old form Arochuku is the earlier spelling of it.