noobsaibot2:
Nvosi

Mmamma. Ogwe ke m nhie Akuma Imo. I will like to document your use of “nze”. Can you tell me the tone pattern?

Noobsaobot2, allow me to ask, which part of Ngwa are you from? It will help me in cataloging terms and communities that use said term. You don’t need to share the exact village. Just the obodo will be fine. For example, is it Ibeme or Akuma Imo or Nsulu or Ndiakata, etc.

cheruv:
You can simply send it direct to my mail
ruechangparavita@yahoo.com

Done.

AjaanaOka:
I never factored in 'edi' in my calculations. Reason is, 'edi' (HH), for us, in my axis, doesn't refer to the leopard (or any Big Cat, for that matter) at all.

Edi, for us, is the African civet or African civet cat, which, despite the name, isn't a true cat. Édí (same tone structure) is also the civet in Edo (I'm using Melzian's dictionary of the Bini language). Couldn't find a listing for civet in the Yoruba dictionary at my disposal, so I can't currently comment on that language.

My opinion is that, where Édí refers to the leopard, what occurred was a semantic shift where a word originally used for one animal began to mean a totally different animal which shared some attributes with the animal it was originally supposed to mean. The civet after all has a coat spotted exactly like a leopard's.

Hm. Considering we are all part of the YEAI family, a semantic shift would make sense, if it turns out that the “edi” for leopard is only seen in a subset of communities while for the greater YEAI family, it refers to something else.

So perhaps in our axis, we went from calling the civet as “edi” to “edi abali” as “edi” started to become a synonym for “agu”. Hmmm.

AjaanaOka:
Hm. I see. Fair points. However, have you considered that some of the changes that occur as languages diverge into dialects and distinct languages, tonal changes could be one of them?

Certainly, tonal shifts do indeed occur. We have a good example of one in present day.

ịsụ in ịsụ asụsụ. From what I have observed, for most Igbo-speaking communities, the tone structure is HL, but as the diaspora dialect developed, the tone structure has shifted to HM. So for the diaspora, the root /sụ/ has shifted from low to high.

So I can accept an LL =~ LH development for “ekpe” in some communities.

But a tonal shift “ekpe” [HL] =~ “ekpe” [LL] plus a phonetic shift “ekpe” =~ “ẹkpẹ” =~ “ịkpa”, is difficult to reconcile while the “unshifted” term is still seen and used in various contexts.

i.e. “Nwa ekpe” (Echie), “Ekpe Aru” (Ngwa), etc.

Unless if we consider that “ekpe” (leopard) entered the lexicon recently (relatively speaking), and “ekpe” (left hand) is not a cognate for “ekpe” (leopard).

I might even take it one step further and claim that tone is a more important feature than phonetics and so we (or perhaps I) will expect it to change far less frequently within a language branch than between branches. In other words, the farther back in time we go, yes, tone shifts can be expected, but for language communities that are perhaps 3,000 years old or younger (my estimate for internal Igbo-speaking glottochronology), I expect far more consistency in tone (more often than not) and greater inconsistency in phonetics or displacement of words altogether.

So this reasoning has left me doubting Echeruo’s etymology.

By the way, AjaanaOka, thinking about your interest in “nze” for “eje”, how/where does “edi” [HH] fit in your mind?

Well, this is certainly unexpected. I say “aka ịkpa” [HH LL]. How come I don’t recall the same sense of tone structure when I think of “aka ekpe”?

All this time, I’ve been thinking that “ekpe” and “ikpa” are not cognates, only to find out today that their tone structure is supposedly the same. On top of that, “ekpe” used the “ẹ” which can often be consistently reconstructed to “ị” or “a” in other lects. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve been hearing “aka ekpe” correctly all this time.

Long story short, what I thought I’ve been hearing is “aka ekpe” [HH LH], without “ẹ” and with the Igbo grammatical feature of a tone glide on the [L] tone that makes it come off as more of a [M] tone.

This is interesting, but back to the main reason why I bring it up. I don’t think I quite agree with the interpretation of it being a cognate for the term for “leopard”. In fact, if it turns out that “ekpe” and “ikpa” are indeed cognates, it adds even more reservation for me because it is unlikely that “ikpa” is a cognate for “leopard”.

By the way, the tone structure for “leopard” that I know is “ekpe” [HL]. So you can see why I had reservations thinking “ekpe” in “aka ekpe” was [LH] all this time.

AjaanaOka:
Something I saw in Michael Echeruo's dictionary of the Igbo language, which made a lot of sense to me. Echeruo says the etymology for aka ekpe (left hand) is 'leopard's paw.' Now I knew from other sources that there's a folk belief that the leopard's front left paw is more powerful than its right, and that in hunting, the hunter has to be careful about approaching the animal from its left side.

See this West African "How and Why" folktale for example. :https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/books/africa/barker/whyleopard.html

The left side probably became associated with leopards from this belief/association; and the term "aka ekpe" for "left hand" could conceivably have come from this belief.

Echeruo, however, doesn't list 'ekpe' separately, as a standalone word meaning 'leopard' in his dictionary. If it ever existed in Igbo, it probably died out, only leaving a reminder in the phrase 'aka ekpe' that it once did.

Hm. Interesting. I have my reservations on that, but I will have to hold from speaking them for one reason. I am uncertain of the tone structure for “aka ekpe”. I actually have to ask (because I don’t use “aka ekpe” in speech) what is the tone structure? In my mind, I’m thinking “aka” (HH) “ekpe” (Gliding High to Mid, High), from what I’ve recalled hearing from other Igbo speech communities (though it’s possible also that my recollection is completely off base).

AjaanaOka:
PS: I once saw a comment on Facebook from a gentleman claiming to be Echie, where he was listing the names of animals in Igbo and he listed leopard as 'nwaekpe'. I just spent the last half-hour trying to find it, but couldn't....

Yeah. “Nwa ekpe” or “nwa ekpekele” is what I know as another term used by Echie. This is also why I asked about tone structure. The tone structure for this is actually H HL/HLLL. For some reason, I am not getting the same sort of feeling about tone from “aka ekpe” that I get from “nwa ekpekele”.

AjaanaOka:

Oh, I ask because of a claim made here on this thread by an Ngwa poster that Nze is the Ngwa word for leopard. Struck me as odd at first.

Well, my head is constantly on the look-out for possible connections, that's all.

Ah, I see. Unfortunately, I can’t confirm “nze”, but I can certainly see how that would have made it interesting.

AjaanaOka:
Agụ (which survives in Yoruba as ẹkụ). Ekpen (in Edo) which turns up in Ibibioid, and at least in the form 'aka ekpe' in Igbo.

I’m curious about your statement in bold here. How did you arrive at the connection between the two?

AjaanaOka:
Hi, ChinenyeN. I am want to you this because you are also Ngwa, and are well-informed about the people. It would be most interesting if this was true - does "nze" mean "leopard" in Ngwa, as noobsaibot2 claims?

“Nze” sort of rings a bell, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. As far as what I know as “common knowledge” though, the term “agu” (with an aspirated/nasalized voicing) is what is used for “leopard”.

Why do you ask? What would have made it most interesting?

Edit: We also use the term “edi”, though we more commonly see it for specific cats like “edi abali”. But “edi” and “agu” can be interchanged. Perhaps “nze” is yet another term that has likely been displaced by either “edi” or “agu” or both. But I don’t recall “nze”, though it sounds familiar.

cheruv:
That means it'd be something like Árị̌m...
I know about èsè and ùkóm rituals and which of the genders they're done for
Is there any Ńgwà online dictionary in PDF i can lay my hands on? I've heard that there's one written by a Nwosu fellow but it's quite difficult getting my hands on it

Send me an email. I will help you get it.

cheruv:
1] what's the tone marking for "arịm"? So that I can be properly guided in pronunciation

I've heard two tone structures, but the most common I know is High Mid. So that is the one I go with.

cheruv:
2] what arịm also play a role in death? If not, which forces do?

Arim are only involved after death, during the reincarnation process. As far as I know, there are no specific forces/deities involved in death. Death is handled by the living. It is the responsibility of the most capable child to hold the okwukwu (the elaborate funeral rites) and cannonize the dead so they become "nde Iche". Cannonization for men is done with Ese, and cannonization for women is done with Ukom, where they basically have to perform a rite of recounting the lineage ancestors until they get to the individual who is being cannonized.

AjaanaOka:
I've been toying with a little essay on a linguistic analysis of the Four Days. If I ever finish it and post here, I'll mention you.

As always, I will definitely await whatever you have, nwanne.

cheruv:
Please if you can... Can you elaborate more on Arịm and other aspects of Ngwa spirituality??
This is the first time as an Ngwa I'm coming across this term

Cheruv, ị nụ ññaa ye? Sure, I can expand a little more on nde arịm. Like virtually all other Igbo-speaking communities, Ngwa worldview includes reincarnation. However, for us, there are beings (or forces) that guide the reincarnation process. Abụ we nde arịm. They come in two forms, arịm ọma and arịm ọkpọkọrọ imi.

In Ngwa, the color indigo (uri) is a highly valued color. I'm still not entirely sure why. Depending on how you lived your life, you will either make contact with arịm ọma (if you were a good person) or arịm ọkpọkọrọ imi (if you were a bad person). The arịm ọma supposedly will adorn your being in the color indigo and other ornaments, rewarding you in the process of reincarnation and ultimately guiding you to reincarnate with eke ọma (a.k.a good chi). The arịm ọkpọkọrọ imi do the exact opposite. There is no rewarding, and the process for reincarnation supposedly can be long and arduous. You will ultimately reincarnate without a good chi and supposedly must work even harder in your next life to be successful and a good person.

Nowadays, people do not put much stock those traditional values, so it isn't taught and reinforced anymore. You have to find people who are really into Omelala Ngwa that will be able to share and inform on some of these things.

As the years go by, I’ve found it increasingly funny when Nigerians make mention about how a community lost its language or dialect over a 300 - 500 year timespan. The reason I find this funny, especially for us in the Lower Niger region, is due to the plethora of dialects that exist in our area.

300 - 500 years is not enough to wipe out Defaka dialect, despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered by Ijo.

300 - 500 years is not enough to wipe out Obulom dialect, despite being so small that they are considered a minority within a minority (Okrika).

300 - 500 years has not been enough to wipe out Ogoni dialect despite the fact that they trade so heavily with Ijo.

1000+ years has not been enough time to wipe out Obolo dialect despite their extensive history with the overseas trade and relations with both Igbo, Ijo, Ibibio and Central Delta.

YET, when it comes to Igbo, suddenly a community is susceptible to losing their language and dialect.

If there is one thing that the linguistic situation in the Lower Niger has shown us, it is this:

Unless you are so infinitesimally small that you go unnoticed, it is unlikely that your community will lose its language or dialect within a 300 - 500 or even 1000 year timeframe. Instead, what we witness are untold levels of multilingualism in the Lower Niger. However, all communities have a primary dialect and it is likely that they have had that dialect for at least 300 - 500 or even 1000+ years.

So what am I saying? That Oguta is Igbo-speaking primarily suggests that they did not acculturate within the last 300 - 500 years. Rather, it is more than likely that has been their language and dialect perhaps for 1000+ years now. Any suggestion to the contrary simply cannot be supported by the linguistic situation in the Lower Niger, unless there are oral traditions to corroborate it.

And to the best of my knowledge, Oguta has no oral traditions to corroborate an Ijo affiliation (as in a migration from the Central or Western Delta). There are likely some Oguta wards that did, but as a community in it’s entirety, Oguta itself has offered no such traditions to corroborate an Ijo affiliation, to the best of my knowledge. Please furnish it, if you have seen it.

ChinenyeN:
The oral traditions of these communities suggests that there have been some Ijo-speaking settlements in the area as far back as the 15th century. There is a caveat to this though, but I can get into it in another post.

Now here's the caveat I wanted to get into that I think might be of interest to you and in some way might support the 300 year conclusion.

Ijo people don't talk about this, and I'm not sure why, but there is something only they themselves have done in the Niger Delta; ascribe their own names to other communities.

And it's more than just ascribing the names. There exists a pattern that cannot be ignored, and it is with the suffix -ni.

And it's more than just the pattern in the names that cannot be ignored. It's also the pattern with where these names are ascribed, and that is primarily within the Eastern Delta.

Ibani - Okoloma
Igoni - Khana, etc.
Idoni - Obolo

Finally, the main point I want to drive home. Afakani - Defaka.

The Defaka people, though being an Ijoid-speaking community, are historically considered non-Ijo. This piece of information, coupled with the naming pattern as well as the known history behind some of these names has some significant implications.

Implication #1: Many of the Eastern Delta communities which we consider Ijo today, are perhaps historically non-Ijo. There are different ways this has played out in oral traditions. Either the communities are situated by the time the Ijo move into the Eastern Delta or that they and the Ijo arrive at around the same time and jointly establish the community in question. Whichever the case, these communities have non-Ijo founding elements.

Implication #2: We begin to wonder about when Ijo actually came in contact with some of these communities. In this case, we are using Defaka as a case-in-point. According to Defaka oral traditions (which are corroborated by the Nkoroo and some other Ijo communities), the Defaka have perhaps only been in contact with Ijo for around 300 years (interestingly, it corresponds with your timeline). Do you know what makes this particularly strange? Both Defaka and Ijo have oral traditions of expanding from the Western Delta to the Eastern Delta, however known contact between Defaka and Ijo occurred in the Eastern Delta according to the oral tradition that I am aware of. That is significant. It suggests that the Defaka were already in the Western Delta and had to have expanded out of the Western Delta before the Ijo moved in. So we begin to question the timeline for when Ijo actually entered the Delta. With this current understanding, it seems unrealistic that Ijo would have been in the Western Delta with Defaka for 1000+ years without oral traditions concerning their contact, because the two speech communities would have certainly competed for resources both being highly aquatic.

Implication #3: The evidence of early settlement in the Western Delta perhaps is actually that of the early Defaka or other Ijoid (or non-Ijoid marine-type cultures). Linguists suspect that there used to be other Defaka dialects that went extinct in some way. We can then suspect that the Defaka in the Eastern Delta are remnants of an earlier Defaka language community that occupied the Western Delta. If the Ijo were in the Western Delta either earlier or at the same time as Defaka, then we would have ended up with a different linguistic situation. The dating for Ijo and Defaka branches would be later (as in, younger) due to new language branches forming from their contact and competition for resources, potentially overriding the previous branches. However, no such evidence of that occurred, suggesting that the Western Delta was either vacant by the time the Ijo arrived or sparsely occupied and the incoming Ijo overwhelmed and assimilated them.

All of these implications lead to a simple conclusion: The fact that Ijo's closest linguistic relatives in the Delta (Defaka) are 3000 years separated linguistically means that the Ijo could not have entered the Delta that long ago. Ijo presence is in fact recent. How recent is still to be determined. But if we go by what is known about Defaka and Nkoroo, that’s perhaps 300 years in the Eastern Delta. This is the caveat that invites further investigation.

There’s actually a lot here to digest, but I guess I can walk backwards from the conclusion.

Conclusion: Ijo people have been native to Nigeria for approximately 300 years.

I’m not so sure about this conclusion. However, I will say is that it is interesting your timeline estimate in this conclusion lines up relatively well with the period of socio-political shift that occurred in many Ijo-speaking communities (18th century). The emergence of many of the cultural and social features we think of as “archetypal Ijo” is actually rooted in this period of social and political change; even the amanyanabo kingship system and war canoe house system. I personally refer to this 18th century and later period as the “modern Ijo period”.

Now, between your genealogical report and what I call the “modern Ijo period”, there are two ways we can look at this. It’s either an eerie circumstantial coincidence or ridiculously good evidence to support some parts of your conclusion. I say “some parts” because the estimate of 300 years runs contrary to what has currently been established regarding Ijo-speaking settlements in the Niger Delta. At best, the 300 years might explain parts of the most modern Ijo settlement histories, but it does not explain the archeological finds that suggest a settlement history going back to the 11th century AD (see Archaeology and Culture History in the Central Niger Delta by Abi Alabo Derefaka). There are also historical and linguistic angles we need to consider.

On the history end, we have (thanks to documentation by the Portuguese and others) corroboration for the existence of a number of communities we consider Ijo that goes farther back than the 300 year estimate. Kalabari and Bonny is known as far back as the 16th century. Ifoko (Elem Ifoko) in the 17th century. There are others. The oral traditions of these communities suggests that there have been some Ijo-speaking settlements in the area as far back as the 15th century. There is a caveat to this though, but I can get into it in another post.

On the linguistic end, the branch called Ijoid actually consists of two branches—Ijo proper and Defaka. Defaka is only tentatively included because linguists suspect a distant relationship between Defaka and (what is assumed to be) proto-Ijo. This piece of linguistic information is interesting because it would mean that the Ijo-speaking communities are no longer an isolate. This suggests evidence of other dialects of Ijoid (particularly of Defakoid) that have gone extinct or assimilated in one way or another.

There’s one final point that I would add, and this is more so a personal belief. I am of the school of thought that a single proto-Ijo language branch entered into the Delta by way of the Niger River and initially pushed west (settling the Western Delta) and remained there for quite a while. I suspect that the Eastern Delta waterways did not exist yet (at least not as we know them today). This is supported by both oral traditions and linguistics.

According to Defaka oral traditions, their people’s earliest remembered settlement is in the Iselema area in Warri area of the Western Delta. According to most modern Ijo-speaking settlements, they trace their settlement origin back to either Central or Western Delta, which are practically at the mouth of the Niger River entrance to the Delta.

Linguistically, the Ijoid branch has a dating of 3000 BP, suggesting that Defaka and Ijo proper began separating at that time. They will have to have been separated for a while in order for Defaka to be considered “distantly related” to Ijo. Yet, they both ended up in the same Niger Delta region suggesting they independently took similar routes to get here. For a highly aquatic culture, the Niger River is the most viable candidate for a waterway that two disparate groups can independently take and yet arrive at the same contiguous location. So I suspect a north to south migration history for the Ijoid branch and not an east to west one. I believe an east to west is difficult to defend, especially in a 300 year window considering both Ijo and Defaka’s closest linguistic relatives, oral tradition and possible routes to arrive at the same location.

But I do think the 300 year window is certainly good corroboration for the effects of a booming trade culture at the time.

Nice topic. I guess now would be as good a time as any for me to share some things.

I want to start with that language family tree in the first post. There is only one point I want to drive home. Language family trees do not encode any temporal information. So when you look at these language family trees, it's not actually saying anything about time. It's all about genetic relationship, a.k.a. language features.

Let me make a comparison with the human family tree. The human family tree shows genetic descent of people, but it also encodes a sense of time. We know for instance that a father and a mother are older than the descendent children. We know that grand parents are even considerably older than the descendent children. Ultimately, we understand that the further up you go in a human family tree, the further back in time you are. Language family trees have the exact same concept as human family trees, minus the concept of time. So, going all the way up to Dogon does not actually mean that Dogon is the oldest branch. A different tool (glottochronology) is used by linguists to get a sense of time for when languages diverge. In the case of Dogon, even though it is high up in the language family tree, it actually has a time of 4000 BP (Before Present), making it as young as Bantu. While Mande, which is lower down the tree than Dogon actually has a time of 6000 BP, making the Mande group of languages considerably older than the Dogon group of languages.

Long story short, the language family trees are only used to show relatedness or divergence with no sense of time or scale. So, in the case of Ijo, how do we interpret this tree? Basically, as such:

Ijo language belongs to a yet unknown branch (call it proto-Ijoid) that originally diverged with similar features as Dogon and to a lesser extent Mande. Do we have an idea of when proto-Ijoid diverged? No. However, linguists do have some theories about modern Ijo that might shed some light on proto-Ijoid, and this is where it gets interesting for Ijo.

The surviving Ijoid branch has a dating of 3000 BP. That is young. From a linguistic perspective, 3000 BP suggests that the surviving Ijoid lects, diffused into the Delta rather recently. Now, typically, I will always state that we can separate the movement of language from the movement of people. However, Ijo is a rather special case. Ijo has some language innovations that are simply shocking, compared to the rest of the Niger-Congo group. These innovations, plus the fact that Ijo lexicon fully reconstruct fishery terminology, suggests that the branch which Ijoid belongs to has been isolated from the rest of the typically agrarian Niger-Congo family for a very long time. Maybe, in fact, for reasons unknown to us, it's been isolated since its inception. This makes modern Ijo rather special in the sense that we can maybe guarantee that the movement of the language equates to the movement of the people. In other words, Ijo people entered the Delta rather recently. It might be interesting to re-examine Ijo oral traditions with this linguistic understanding.

But what does this say about proto-Ijoid? The linguistic analysis suggests that proto-Ijoid was isolated elsewhere and not within the Niger Delta. One linguist, Roger Blench, believes there is a possibility that proto-Ijoid resided further east. How far east is uncertain. I suspect Blench may not have been thinking of Sudan, but since Blench did not explain any further than "east of the Delta", we cannot know for sure. Perhaps he did.

I say, if we can eventually identify a confluence for proto-Niger-Congo, then we can probably suggest that the Ijoid branch got isolated somewhere near there.

Anyhow, I see there are two specific questions in the original post. I can really only provide an supposition to question #1. In short, the proto-Niger-Congo has an estimated date of 10,000 BP. The Ijoid branch was isolated for such a long time and was able to successfully remain isolated for perhaps seven of those 10,000 years. If we take this isolation along with the highly acquatic lexicon, we can see that the proto-Ijoid branch likely did not compete for resources with their agrarian counterparts. So it's possible that proto-Ijoid had limited contact with other Niger-Congo branches until it entered the Delta. That would explain how the language could have been preserved the way it was.

To answer the main question of this topic. I'll echo what RedboneSmith said. "Igbo" is primarily a linguistic grouping. Secondarily a "cultural" grouping and tertiarily an "ethnic" grouping.

The linguistic grouping is easy to see. It's not hard to identify a community that shares the same lingusitic innovations as modern Igbo. It is rather distinctive, once you analyze the lexicon and SAVO constituent order. Most Igbo speech forms are closely related, suggesting one primary proto-Igbo branch that survived in the area.

The cultural grouping only has relevance for modern Igbo-speaking people. I say this because we no longer engage with over 90% of our pre-colonial culture. All that is left is just a handful of things that survived into present day like iri ji, igo oji, ofo, etc, because they were shared by enough people and given enough relevance. However, even among these surviving elements, we see that not all Igbo cultures engaged in it. Is it iri ji? There are at least three communities I know of that do not historically do it. Is it igo oji? There procedure is rather different from community to community, and there are different beliefs with respect to the relevance of certain kola with specific numbers of lobes. Is it ofo? I know of at least two communities that do not have this "Igbo staff of office". Any reasonable person who encounters this will quickly understand that culture is a less-relevant tool for identifying what is "Igbo" and what is not. It's only because of the remnants that survive that we can even claim such a thing as "Igbo culture". Considering how independent the communities were, I would not be surprised if pre-colonial Igbo culture ended up being vastly different between specific regions, or possibly within a 5 - 10 kilometer radius.

Finally, the ethnic grouping is so much in contention that it is obvious all Igbo-speaking people do not share the same idea of what it means to be "Igbo". This ethinc grouping is relevant primarily for the group of communities that inhabit what is currently called the "SE geopolitical zone", and even then, it is still an afterthought for some communities.

Out of these three factors, linguistic, cultural and ethnic, the only consistent way to define Igbo is as a "lingusitic group". It is the only definition that is relevant to all Igbo-speaking communities.

ChebeNdigboCalm:
You say that Igbo people do not have common ancestry. That is wrong.

We've reviewed this on this forum for over a decade and still continue to rehash it? C'mon, IgbuduMonkey is right. The people known as Igbo today are not of common ancestry. No intellectual gymnastics can change that. Let me help make it clear to you.

According to the field of linguistics, all surviving Igbo speech forms are traced to a shared linguistic innovation that is dated between 4,000 - 6,000 years ago. In this very forum, we also identified that this linguistic innovation occurred outside of what we now call "Igboland". However, there has been continuous human habitation in "Igboland" for at least 50,000 years. How do you account for those inhabitants that predate the innovation of proto-Igbo language and had been living in "Igboland" for over 50,000 years? You cannot. Your only option is to accept that modern Igbo speakers are of mixed ancestry.

1) Original inhabitants of what is now "Igboland", who could have been either different people or the same people. We may never truly know.

2) Original Igbo-speaking population that entered the region perhaps 3000 - 4000 years ago and linguistically overwhelmed original inhabitants

3) All other incoming populations between 3000 years ago to present day that eventually adopted an Igbo speech form (there are so many oral traditions for this that I should not even have to review it).

Simply put, there isn't a single claim of "common Igbo ancestry" that can withstand even basic scrutiny.

Actually, you know what. Thinking about it now, I'm tempted (just out of curiosity) to revisit "Old Calabar" in the Cross Rivers axis. If Kalabari migration was westward, then from how far east did they actually come? Were they actually an Ijaw group or did they acculturate? I've always dismissed the Old Calabar/Duke Town, because Kalabari is so obviously Ijaw, but what if? I mean after all, Tombia and Finima are supposedly related to Andoni. The Abua, Odual, Obulom, etc made it all the way into Central Delta. Who's to say those were the only Delta Cross migrations?

AjaanaOka:
ChinenyeN, this might interest you.

I’m coming back for this. I definitely have some things I want to say (some of which have been on my mind for some time now).

RedboneSmith:
What does Ochichi mean in the Etche/Ikwerre land? Does it mean rulership?

They use “ochichi” in the Ikwerre/Echie area for “government” or “rulership”, but whether or not that is the meaning of the ancestor’s name is another story. We would have to ask the Ishimbam clan for more details. Contrary to the common pan-Ikwerre narrative, the Ochichi tradition was originally exclusive to the Ishimbam and related offshoot communities. It got incorporated into the traditions of other communities once they all started integrating as an “Ikwerre group”. So far though, no Ishimbam person that I know has been able to tell me the meaning. Perhaps I just haven’t met the person(s) who know.

Also, I just thought of a good (though extreme) example that helps place this discussion of Ala in context. In almost every Igbo-speaking community I know of, suicide is a transgression against Ala. It requires a ritual cleansing process to bring the community back in good standing. However, it is such a grave transgression that traditionally, people of the community are afraid to even touch the body—almost as though the desecration is contagious, putting the fertility of the land at greater risk. The community has no way to cleanse this abominable act while the body remains unburied, and the community cannot bury it.

However, (in the communities that I know of) a stranger has the capacity to touch and bury that body. They can carry the transgression just long enough for the community to perform its due diligence and cleanse the land so that things can once again return to normal. The stranger can only do this, because the Ala of the desecrated community is not their (the stranger’s) Ala. As such, the stranger is not subject to the rules and customs surrounding taboos against the land.

Ala has no real dominion over non-indigenes. Ala buu nnaa (Ala is not one). So we need other deities such as Ekwesu to assume such roles. Ekwesu is very much like Ala, except it can apply to indigenes and non-indigenes alike.

Nye ngwetra oji ngwetra ndhnu. A ntata ma ndhnu ma ahu nsinu ikhne.

There's not much literature on this, and I don't know why. In any case, you are very correct. It's true each Ala is distinct. I can use Ngwa as a case-in-point.

One of the first things we learn in Ngwa is that each ezi la ulo has its own Ala Ezi. The Ala Ezi of one ezi la ulo has no dominion over the Ala Ezi of another. Also, generally, one needs to possess a lineage ofo in connection with their Ala Ezi. It is the only way to acknowledge a right to represent the ezi la ulo in any Ala Ezi custom or ritual. In Ngwa, a hierarchical network of lineage ofo goes in tandem with the hierarchical domains of Ala. Prior to colonization, the highest level of authority or autonomy was generally the Obodo. Even for communities like Ngwa that developed much larger-spanning ethnic consciousness, the Obodo still remained the highest level of authority and autonomy for most of the day to day. So the Ala Obodo is the highest level of deification for Ala.

So with that, we see that in the traditional worldview, Ala is not a single being. Ala is not even the same being. However, in the modern worldview Ala has been receiving treatment as though it is a single entity that everyone worships in their own way. This treatment is thanks to two things:

1. Contact with Europeans has led to (what I interpret as) Igbo people's desire to personify our deities. Ala has received such personifications and is treated as just one being, Ala, and the Ala of various communities are effectively ignored.

2. The recent development of an Igbo ethnic identity has forced the regression of various clan, village and family-specific aspects of culture in order to highlight pan-Igbo aspects. Because Ala is explained as an "Igbo deity", the precolonial idea that there is more than one Ala has effectively been lost in favor of the pan-Igbo idea of Ala as a single "Earth Goddess” which we all collectively venerated.

If we really wanted to understand Ala in the traditional worldview, we should first acknowledge two things.

1. Ala cannot be personified.
2. Ala is not one.

Once we acknowledge these two things, we need to accept what Ala truly represented—law and order in the natural world—cosmic order for short (particularly centered around how it guards, protects, regulates and ensures fertility of the land, and consequently the fertility of the people).

To really explain this, I’ll touch on something we discussed years ago here on NL. There are two classes of deities in the region—oracular and non-oracular. Ala belongs in the class of non-oracular, along with others like Ekwesu, Eke, Chi, etc. These deities cannot be well-understood if we personify them. Instead, they need to be understood in the context of the individual relative to the community (i.e. “the world” in precolonial times). A series of mores, code of ethics, conduct, etc regulates an individual’s behavior with respect to their community (not another community, hence, not the same Ala). In the traditional worldview, the various Ala are responsible for establishing those various community mores or codes of ethics and conduct. The other non-oracular deities then have the role of enforcing or reinforcing the expected conduct. So if we personify Ala, we must personify every Ala that exists, because they are not the same.

In fact, if we want to make all of this simple, we can think of each community as it’s own cosmic domain. The rules of your cosmic domain in Aro do not apply to my cosmic domain in Ngwa. We are effectively living in different parts of a multiverse.

Unfortunately, this aspect of cosmology (ritual authority, really) is barely touched on, even in passing. Only a few authors I have seen have remarked on it in passing. Austin Echema is one, Professor Oriji (who is Ngwa, so I would expect him to be aware of this) and U.D Anyanwu and Jude Aguwa (The Igbo and the Tradition of Politics). Judging by the name alone, I suspect that Jude Aguwa is Ngwa (or from a nearby community). Anyanwu probably is from southern Igbo areas as well. So I’m not surprised that their book on political authority m would touch on this dynamic of Ala in some way.

Aside from these aforementioned authors, I am not aware of any other extensive literary work that has acknowledged this feature of Ala like they have.

Oh my goodness, 9Pluto, you too? This is becoming too much. 9Pluto, I hope you can see that people are putting words in my mouth, now everyone wants to argue with me about something I didn't say. I can't physically keep this up all day.

9Pluto:
Except you are being mischievous or trying to divert attention from the crux of this thread. What is all this noise about Agbaye/Agbayi? When does the anglicized spelling of words start denoting it's meaning or interpretation. I would have expected you to maybe find out the meanings of these names but your are here obstinately telling us Agbaye isn't Agbayi. If another person spell Agbai, you would still tell us it means a different name. Same way you would say Woke isn't Nwoke, Nwike isn't Wike, Eze isn't Ezeh etc

This isn't even what I was talking about. At this risk of having to repeat myself yet again, my statement was that I have not met any Opobo people that have used Agbayi in place of Agbaye and Agbaye in place of Agbayi. I have not met any Opobo people that would consider Agbayi and Agbaye interchangeable. Simple. I already said that if they do, then we can start to look into how Agbaye would fit in all this. I can't believe how many times I've had to repeat this.

9Pluto:
I also find amusing your preponderance to ijawnize the eastern Delta with Ndoki as Aminadokiari, Andoni as Idoni (the interesting thing here is this hasn't been found in any European account except in the typical fabrications).

SMH. I can only repeat myself so much.

9Pluto:
Nice attempt at telling us how the ijaws escorted the Ngwa man Alagbarinye from imo river en route Bonny. You are doing a great job propagating the ijaw myth of origin.

Like, this isn't even what I've actually said. You're putting words in my mouth too now?

9Pluto:
Any student of history knows that ijaws originated from the western Delta and are recent migrants to the eastern Delta. Igbos were already in Bonny before the Brass people arrived. The brass then were definitely not ijaws.

Yes, this is also true.

Like honestly, I don't have the energy to keep up this back and forth with everyone. Nor do I have the energy to track down all the words everyone is trying to put in my mouth. It's gotten tiring.

Eastlandx:
The only nonsense here is the thing you wrote above.
Let me say it again, there is no difference between Agbaye & Agbayi.

You keep saying it, but not once have you shown an instance in which Agbaye is the confirmed as same name as Agbayi in Opobo community. Anyhow, whatever. At this point, you're only just making me go round in circles repeating myself. I no longer care to do that.

Eastlandx:
Does Opobo speak central igbo or the Ndoki Dialect of Igbo?

Opobo speak primarily Ndoki with heavy Isu influence.

Eastlandx:
If you are sincere to yourself, you know there is no difference between Agbaye& Agbayi.

You really just want me to repeat myself. I will repeat myself for the third and last time. If you can find Opobo people who can confirm that they call "Agbaye Fubara House" as "Agbayi Fubara House" for example, then it would be settled that the two are the same name. If there's no difference as you claim, then this shouldn't be a difficult feat. There are plenty of Opobo people on NL outside of the politics section. Run a poll, let us all see the results. I've already told SlayerForever, that I can give concession to this if that were the case and it would open up more doors for research. But you're here making me repeat myself three time in a row. Honestly, what is this nonsense?

Eastlandx:
Then what's the difference in the pronunciation of "yi" & "ye" ?

I've already explained this to SlayerForever. Opobo people are predominantly Igbo-speaking, yet no confirmation that their dialect interchanges "Agbayi" with "Agbaye". Even with my own personal interactions with Opobo people, I've not encountered such. I gave SlayerForever the concession that if we can identify instances in which such a dialectal feature is present, then we can consider it. Until that time, asking what the difference between "yi" and "ye" is sounds like we're trying to makeup a fake dialectal feature to suite the narrative.

Eastlandx:
What the difference between Chinwa in imo state & Chinwo in Ikwerre?

We both obviously know that the difference is dialect. In some dialects of Ikwerre, nwọ is the cognate for nwa. Where is your question leading, if I may ask?

Igboid:
You are shameless.
He provided a rational rebuttal you couldn't challenge and you resorted to face saving tactics.
Lol!

I deliberately did not respond to him because he chose to coat his response in Alagoa nonsense, which I will no longer tolerate from you all. If you took the time to read, perhaps both you and he are free to see that my response to him is embedded in my response[s] to SlayerForever. That is all I have to say on that. I have no interest in engaging in fruitless back and forth with you. If that is what you came for, then enjoy talking to yourself on this thread from here on in.