Ihechiowa

Ihechiowa is an Igbo clan of Arochukwu local government area in Abia State, named for its founding ancestor Chiowa. Its seventeen villages sit on the fertile land between the Uduma and Iyi Ocha rivers, and their rulers meet at Agbor village.

The clan's full name is Ihechiowa, and it honours Chiowa, the ancestor it is named for: the name is read as the light of Chiowa, or Chiowa's own covenant land. The old intelligence reports and legal papers of the early twentieth century shortened it to the Ihe clan, and neighbours — Abam, Ututu and Aro — still say Ihe for short.

The ancestors came with the Igbo migrations across the Niger. Before they settled here they stayed at Uturu, at Ibeku and at Ihenta, which is now part of Ohafia, and that shared road is why Ihechiowa, Ohafia, Abam and Ututu keep the same speech and the same stories.

Seventeen villages make the clan, each autonomous within its own bounds under its own Eze Ogo. The seventeen together are the cabinet of Ihechiowa, and they sit at Agbor village for land cases, disputes and the keeping of the peace.

Inheritance runs both ways at once: property and standing pass through the father's line and through the mother's, the ikwu, and the maternal line is honoured here in a way neighbouring clans find remarkable. Politically the villages divide into two halves, Ikwun and Eleoha.

The clan fought in the years of the Aro confederacy and farms now — yam above all, with cassava, cocoa and oil palm on the same land. The year ends with the new yam festival, and the dances that go with it, Akang and Ovuwa among them.