Mbaise

Named by Afigbo as one of the components of the Isu-Ama Igbo, the group whose traditions place its dispersal from the Orlu area.

Mbaise is a name Afigbo uses for one of the components of the Isu-Ama Igbo. He glosses Isu-Ama as the Isu who had gone abroad and lists its parts as Mbama, Mbieri, Ikeduru, Osu, Ehime, Ugboma and Mbaise.

Afigbo also records how such a name came to be more than a label. Under colonial administration the district officers pressed the clan councils to federate, so that they could pool their financial resources and undertake visible development projects; some did, and Mbano and Mbaise are two of the units Afigbo says came into being that way, while many other councils refused out of local jealousy or want of political vision (Afigbo 1981, printed p. 323).

The traditions of these groups, Afigbo reports, point to migration eastwards from the general area of Orlu. Ama-Igbo in Orlu is a revered place to many communities in the group, and the traditions hold that the Isuama, the Cross River and the Ohuhu-Ngwa Igbo were all settled there before they dispersed; when members of the group meet, the Orlu man present breaks the kola nut and takes the first share.

No other source in this file uses the name Mbaise. Forde & Jones's Isu-Ama table has no entry under it, so this entry carries no community count, no headcount and no towns, and it rests on Afigbo alone.