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Abam

Recorded in Abia. A place page gathers every related history, image, recording and document rather than opening only one article.

Connected writing

Histories about Abam

The archive links no published history to Abam yet. Its neighbours’ histories are not shown here, because a link to another community is not a history of this one.

Named in other records

Histories that mention Abam

These are published records whose own words name Abam. A mention is not a history of Abam, which is why they are listed here rather than with the histories about it.

Named in the title · AbamParade of Masks: Okerevinwe, Oweremba, Aka Leke, Adachinwa, Abam, Jack, Oyiaro, Oki. Photograph by G.I Jones, 1930s in Ikwerre Igbo area, present-day Rivers state.Read article →Named in the title · AbamAro and Alliances with Warrior Groups (e.g., Abam, Ohafia, Edda)Read article →Named in the text · AbamThe Northeastern Igbo: A History of Warrior Traditions and Cultural UniquenessRead article →Named in the text · AbamIgboland (Alaigbo): A Regional Breakdown of Ethnic Divisions, Tribes, and Sub-TribesRead article →Named in the text · AbamThe Great Dispersion: Why the Efik Left Arochukwu and the Religious Dispute over the “Long Juju”Read article →Named in the text · AbamThe Ngbagba Ikoro Masquerade: Celebrating the Igbo Heritage of AbiribaRead article →Named in the text · AbamThe Fall of Arochukwu: The Aro Confederacy as Nigeria’s Last Independent Kingdom Under British Rule in 1902Read article →Named in the text · AbamNkpor: Origins, Migration, Institutions, Shrines, and Historical MemoryRead article →Named in the text · AbamArochukwu Oracle: The Spiritual Empire That Controlled Trade, Justice, and War in Precolonial IgbolandRead article →Named in the text · AbamWarriors, Raids, and Resistance: Igboland Against the Slave TradeRead article →Named in the text · AbamDrums of Captivity: Slavery and Survival in Western IgbolandRead article →Named in the text · AbamRegional Styles: Cross River Igbo vs. Northern Igbo CarvingRead article →

Read as: Abam. Counted where the name is written with a capital, because a lower-case occurrence of a name that is also an ordinary word is the word.

The record

What the archive holds for Abam

RegionAbia
StateAbia
Local governmentArochukwu
DivisionCross River Igbo
Ethnic groupIgbo
Recorded asclan

Abam is an Igbo clan of Arochukwu local government area in Abia State, and the largest in that area by land and by population. Its progenitor is remembered as Onyerubi Atita, which is why its people are also called Abam Onyerubi.

Abam and Ohafia are brother clans: one ancestry, one dialect, one warrior tradition. The men were fighters by trade as much as farmers — Abam companies were hired for war and for police duties across Igboland and beyond, and it was Abam who first danced the ikpirikpi ogu, the war dance Ohafia and Abiriba later made their own.

The clan was one of the warrior powers of the Cross River country. With Ohafia, Abiriba, Edda, Alayi, Igbere and Ututu it formed the military bloc that the Aro drew on for their expeditions, and one reading of the history is that without those clans there would have been no Aro confederacy at all.

None of that is the whole of Abam. Its land is among the most fertile in Abia — oil palm, rubber, rice, cassava and cocoa — and its people farm it and trade it. Abam's sons and daughters have settled far from home, and the towns that trace descent from Abam are found across Ikwuano, Bende and beyond.

Sources

Wikipedia, "Abam"

Archive records

Photographs, oral testimony and documents connected to this community would appear here with provenance.

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The full register entry