clan in the archive
Ohuhu or Igbo
Recorded in Abia. A place page gathers every related history, image, recording and document rather than opening only one article.
Connected writing
Histories about Ohuhu or Igbo
The archive links no published history to Ohuhu or Igbo 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 Ohuhu or Igbo
No published record in this archive names Ohuhu or Igbo in its own words.
Read as: Ohuhu or Igbo. 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 Ohuhu or Igbo
| Region | Abia |
|---|---|
| Division | Southern Igbo |
| Ethnic group | Igbo |
| Recorded as | clan |
Its people are the Ohuhu, who stayed on the western bank of the Imo when the ancestral migration divided.
It is a composite clan of three constituent clans: Umuhu, returned with fifteen local communities and about 2,000 men; Umuokpara, with six communities and roughly 1,800; and Okaiuka, with about 1,900.
The three clans have separate derivations. Umuhu is said to come from Ihite and Okaiuka from Obowo, both of them Isu-Ama groups, while Umuokpara traces its origin to Ibeku, the clan listed next. Umuhu is made up of Isingwu, Onhia and thirteen further local communities, and Umuokpara of Ezeleke, Ekenobisi, Obodi, Umunwauwau and two more.
In the tradition recorded for the section as a whole, the ancestors of the Ohuhu-Ngwa took part in a movement from the Abaja area of Owerri towards the Imo river. Those who crossed the river became the Ngwa, while the Ohuhu are the people who stayed behind on the west bank.
Afigbo reports the tradition that the Ohuhu-Ngwa Igbo were among those who first settled at Ama-Igbo in Orlu before dispersing east, and places them, with the Ngwa and the Cross River Igbo, among the groups whose secret societies show borrowing from the Benue-Congo peoples.
Sources
Forde & Jones (1950), The Ibo and Ibibio-Speaking Peoples of South-Eastern Nigeria, pp. 42-44, Table V and notes; Afigbo (1981), Ropes of Sand: Studies in Igbo History and Culture, pp. 13-14 and 20
Archive records
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