Ozikoroclan in the archive
Mgbo
Recorded in Ebonyi. A place page gathers every related history, image, recording and document rather than opening only one article.
Connected writing
Histories about Mgbo
The archive links no published history to Mgbo 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 Mgbo
These are published records whose own words name Mgbo. A mention is not a history of Mgbo, which is why they are listed here rather than with the histories about it.
Read as: Mgbo, Ngbo, Mgbolizhia. 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 Mgbo
| Region | Ebonyi |
|---|---|
| State | Ebonyi |
| Local government | Ohaukwu |
| Division | Northeast Igbo |
| Ethnic group | Igbo |
| Recorded as | clan |
Mgbo is an Igbo clan of Ohaukwu local government area in Ebonyi State, with ten traditional communities. Its people speak Mgbolizhia, and the name is written Mgbo — the n the old records printed in front of it is not part of it.
Ekwashi is where the clan begins: the ancestral settlement, the place the traditions of Mgbo root in. From it the communities branched, and the ten that stand now are Ekwashi, Umuogudu Akpu, Umuogudu Oshia, Ukwuagba, Amoffia, Umuezeaka, Okposhi Eshi, Okposhi Eheku, Umuakpu and Amaeku.
The clan was organised around farming and around a society that ran without a single ruler. Authority sat with the elders of each community, disputes went to them, and what held the ten together was descent and the obligation to answer when one of them was attacked. Mgbo's reputation for answering is the thing its neighbours remember.
The people speak Mgbolizhia, and the name of the speech is the name of the people. The land is farm country — yam, cassava and rice — on the northern side of Ebonyi.
Sources
Forde & Jones (1950), The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples of South-Eastern Nigeria, Table XIII and notes
Archive records
Photographs, oral testimony and documents connected to this community would appear here with provenance.
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