Isu-Orlu

The article lists Orlu among the local government areas the Isuama people inhabit.

Isu-Orlu heads the Isu-Ama, the largest of the four main divisions of the Southern Igbo area.

With Isu-Mbieri, Ugiri and Ikeduru it forms part A, headed Western or Isu.

The group, like Isu-Mbieri, is divided into six regional sections said to have no relation to one another. The northern one brings together Umuma, Ishiekenesi and Dikenafai with five smaller village groups; the southern section is that of Isunjaba, with Amandoba, Umuarka, Ekwe, Atta and Okwudo and six further groups. Ebeji-Echi-Asa covers Eziachi and Umuowa together with Orlu, Umunna and Amike; Nkwerri-Amibo, Isu-Ofe-Iyi and Mbama complete the list, the last of them with Amozari, Umunkwo and Amaraka.

The northern belt held by the Isu, Osu and Abaja-Ehime is described as the most densely settled part of the area, carrying 600 to 1,000 people to the square mile, with density falling away to the south of it. Settlement is dispersed in hamlets, the village is normally the largest autonomous unit, and the Administration's 'clans' are groupings of villages which, apart from the Ngwa, claim no common descent.

The Isu-Ama are said to combine features of the neighbouring Northern and Western (Southern Ika) Igbo and of the Eastern (Cross River) Igbo. They keep the Ọzọ title system of the Nri-Awka country but have no Mmo dances, using instead masked dances of the kinds called Okorosia and Ekeleke, taken from the Ika and Riverain Igbo, or Okonko, taken from the Cross River. Houses are of solid mud, and many men go away for part of the year as traders and craftsmen, or as healers and casual labourers. The group is said to have no tradition of migration from elsewhere, unlike its neighbour Oru. Afigbo places the sacred spot Ama-Igbo at Orlu and reports the tradition that the Isuama, the Cross River Igbo and the Ohuhu-Ngwa all settled there before dispersing, so that where such people meet it is the Orlu man who breaks the kola and takes the first share. He names the Nkwerre, entered among the Isu-Orlu sections, as smiths who dominated the Southern Igbo, Ogoni and Ijo country before encroaching on Awka and Abiriba ground.