EMERGENT MASCULINITIES: THE GENDERED STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN SOUTHEASTERN ...

510 Pages·2013·4.56 MB·English

EMERGENT MASCULINITIES: THE GENDERED STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN
SOUTHEASTERN NIGERIA, 1850-1920
By
Leonard Ndubueze Mbah

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

History – Doctor of Philosophy

2013
ABSTRACT

EMERGENT MASCULINITIES: THE GENDERED STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN
SOUTHEASTERN NIGERIA, 1850-1920

By

Leonard Ndubueze Mbah

This dissertation uses oral history, written sources, and emic interpretations of material
culture and rituals to explore the impact of changes in gender constructions on the historical
processes of socio-political transformation among the Ohafia-Igbo of southeastern Nigeria
between 1850 and 1920. Centering Ohafia-Igbo men and women as innovative historical actors,
this dissertation examines the gendered impact of Ohafia-Igbo engagements with the Atlantic
and domestic slave trade, legitimate commerce, British colonialism, Scottish Christian
missionary evangelism, and Western education in the 19th and 20th centuries. It argues that the
struggles for social mobility, economic and political power between and among men and women
shaped dynamic constructions of gender identities in this West African society, and defined
changes in lineage ideologies, and the borrowing and adaptation of new political institutions. It
concludes that competitive performances of masculinity and political power by Ohafia men and
women underlines the dramatic shift from a pre-colonial period characterized by female bread-
winners and more powerful and effective female socio-political institutions, to a colonial period
of male socio-political domination in southeastern Nigeria.
DEDICATION

To the memory of my father, late Chief Ndubueze C. Mbah, my mother, Mrs. Janet Mbah, my
teachers and Ohafia-Igbo men and women, whose forbearance made this study a reality.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my profound gratitude to Professor Nwando Achebe, for providing me
the opportunity to pursue a doctoral degree in African History at Michigan State University. She
recruited me from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, upon the completion of my B.A. in History
in 2007. Thank you Professor Achebe and Professor Folu Ogundimu for providing me a home
away from home at Michigan State University, and supporting me in every manner possible
throughout my career as a graduate student at MSU.
I could not have gone to college in Nigeria, following the passing of my beloved father,
had not my dear sister, Chinyere Okpalugo, stepped in to bear all of the costs for my college, as
well as those of my siblings. I wish to use this medium to thank my sister for her steadfast love
and kindness. In the same vein, I thank my family for all their moral support and prayers,
particularly my mother, Janet Mbah, whose night vigil prayers at the alter of our Holy Mother,
and whose unceasing Holy Mass bookings, provided me a formidable source of strength. I thank
Menna Baumann for all her love, support and understanding. I also thank Joseph Davey for his
friendship, and for being a brother I could always rely upon.
My academic journey thus far has been made possible by a number of mentors. I heartily
thank Prof. Onwuka Njoku, for his intellectual support and guidance, for introducing me to the
Ohafia community and facilitating my ethnographic research, and for our numerous international
phone calls during which he provided me profound clarity and emic perspectives to make better
sense of my ethnographic material. I also thank Professors Uchenna Anyanwu, Okoro Ijeoma,
Egodi Uchendu, Esedebe, and J.O. Ahazuem, who provided the bedrock of my professional
training as a historian, at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. I want to thank my dissertation
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committee: Professors Nwando Achebe, Peter Alegi, James Pritchett, and Gordon Stewart. I
benefitted immensely from my classes and intellectual exchanges with Professors David
Robinson and Walter Hawthorne.
The research and writing of this dissertation was made possible by a number of good
people. Funding came from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, MSU’s
College of Social Sciences, and the Department of History. I wish to thank my cousins, Chinelo
Igbokwe and Bernard Mbah, without whose support the London leg of my research would have
been impossible. I hereby express my profound gratitude to all of the Ohafia women and men,
who gave freely of their time and energy to provide the rich ethnographic material upon which
this dissertation is based. I thank my three research assistants, Chief Ndukwe Otta, Elder Uduma
Uka, and Mr. Ifeanyi Ukoha, who guided me through every inch of the rough and tumble field.
I thank Peter Limb, MSU Africana bibliographer, for finding several rare publications for
me. I wish to thank Robbie Mitchell, Kenneth Dunn and Alison Metcalfe, special materials
manuscript curators at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Their wonderful assistance
made my research on the Church of Scotland Mission archives most fruitful and efficient. I thank
the staff of the British National Archives, who made my two-month archival research very
productive and stress-free. I also thank the under-paid but cheerful staff of the Nigerian National
Archives Enugu and Ibadan, for patiently working with me, to mine as much as possible from the
endangered archives of my beloved country. I wish to use this medium to solicit the support of
scholars of Nigerian history and academic and cultural heritage agencies, in preserving these
Nigerian archives. Last but not least, I thank Dr. Hedda Baumann for painstakingly proofreading
this dissertation.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ix
INTRODUCTION 1
The Periodization of Ohafia-Igbo History: A Window into Changes in Gender
Construction and Gendered Power 5
Gendered Memories and the Periodization of Ohafia-Igbo History 18
Sources 21
Written Sources 22
Men’s Words, Women’s Worldview:
Oral Sources, Historical Ethnography, and Positionality 31
Literature Review 43
Writings on Ohafia and Igboland 43
Literature on Gender and Masculinities in Africa 51
Discourses of African Matriliny: A Brief Survey of Literature 73
A Brief Note on How this Dissertation Engages with the Scholarship on the
Atlantic Slave Trade and African Slavery 81
Summary of Chapters 85

CHAPTER ONE: ORIGIN STORIES: HISTORICIZING THE SOCIAL
CONFIGURATION OF OHAFIA-IGBO SOCIETY 89
Traditions of Origin, Migration and Settlement 89
Matriliny and Gendered Power: A Historical Background 101
Anyi Eri Ala a Nne - We Eat Through the Mother: Matriliny, Economy
and the Breadwinner Concept 108
Ancestral Worship and Ududu Veneration: The Construction and
Maintenance of a Matriarchy 117
The Matrifocal Definition of Ohafia-Igbo Citizenship 123
Ikwu Nwe Ali - The Matrilineage Owns the Land: Gendered Implications of Changes in
Property Ownership and Inheritance Among the Ohafia-Igbo, 1850-1920 132
Ohafia: A Matrilineal Igbo Society? 143
Conclusion 149

CHAPTER TWO: THE GENDERED SOCIO-POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF
THE OHAFIA-IGBO, 1850-1900 150
Defining the Problem: The Notion of Invisible and Docile Women 151
Uke (the Age Grade): A Distinct Ohafia-Igbo Socio-Political System 155
Uke: A Mechanism of Gendered Socialization 157
Uke Ji Ogo: The Age Grade System of Gendered Political Organization 163
Ezie Ogo, Nde-Ichin and Akpan: The Men’s Court, 1850-1900 169
The Men’s Court and Its Power Limits 173
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Ezie Nwami, Ndi-Ichin and Ikpirikpe Ndi Inyom: An Outline of the Socio-Political
Make-Up and Prerogatives of the Women’s Court, 1850-1900 176
Ikpirikpe Political Enforcement Strategies between 1850 and 1900 191
Rituals as Institutions of Government 204
The Fallacy of Women’s Invisibility: The Publicity of Female Political Organization 214
Conclusion 221

CHAPTER THREE: PERFORMING UFIEM: THE SOCIO-CULTURAL CONSTITUTION
OF NDI IKIKE (WARRIOR) MASCULINITIES, 1850-1900 209
Igba Nnunu (To Kill a Bird): Gendering through Games 225
Post-Igba Nnunu Man Making Games 234
How Ndi Ikike (Warriors) Became Ndi Ikom (the Real Men) 239
O Chi Udo Eje Ogu [He That Goes To War With A Rope]: The Transformation of
Igbu Ishi [To Cut A Head] from a Defense Mechanism to Ufiem Habitus 242
The Organization of Warfare 255
Ohafia Inter-Group Relations: Beyond Warfare 263
A Celebration of the Head Was a Celebration of Masculinity: The Ite-Odo Society and the
Construction of Ndi Ikike Social Hegemony in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries. 270
The Myth of Cannibalism 280
The Geography of Masculinity 286
Iri-Aha: The Reproduction and Performance of “Tradition,”
Hegemony, and Identity, 1850-1920 297
Conclusion 303

CHAPTER FOUR: INSTITUTIONS OF MASCULINITY, 1850-1900 304
Secret Societies as Institutions of Masculinities 305
Theorizing Gender Construction through the Lens of Ohafia Secret Societies 320
Men of Spirits: An Overview of Ohafia Dibia Institution, 1850-1900 322
Dibia Hierarchies and Conceptions of Dibia Masculinity, 1850-1900 329
The Initiation Process and the Performance of Dibia Masculinity 332
Theorizing Dibia Masculinity and Dibia Power Through Umerogwu Performance 342
Di Nta: The Gendering of an Economic Activity, 1850-1900 352
Historicizing Nde Ofia (Hunters’) Narratives as a Lens into Socio-Political Change
and Ogaranya Masculinity Performance among the Ohafia-Igbo 363
Igwa Nnu: The Masculinity of Yam Production 369
Conclusion 381

CHAPTER FIVE: TRADERS, CONVERTS, WAGE LABORERS, COLONIZED:
EMERGENT MASCULINITIES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF OGARANYA
MASCULINITY, 1900-1920 383
Ogaranya Masculinity and the Making of Spiritual Slaves, 1900-1920: An Introductory
Background to Changing Constructions of Ufiem in the Early 20th Century 385
Ohafia Material Culture and the Memorialization of Historical Change: A Conceptual
Background to Changing Constructions of Ufiem in the Early 20th Century 391
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Upstarts and Warrant-Chiefs: Kalu Ezelu Uwaoma and the Redefinitions of Ufiem
in the Early 20th Century 393
Christianity and Missionary Education: The Making of Presbyterian Masculinities,
Male Breadwinners and “Good Christian Wives” 412
Women Reconfiguring Ufiem: Long Distance Trade and Ogaranya Masculinity
in the Early 20th Century 436
Conclusion 451

CONCLUSION 453

APPENDIX: GLOSSARY OF TERMS 461

BIBLIOGRAPHY 465

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Map of Igboland 90

Figure 2: Map of Ohafia-Igbo and their Neighbors 91

Figure 3: Murral Painting at Obu Ndi Idika, Mgbaga, Elu Village, Ohafia,
Photographed by Author. 288

Figure 4: Murral Painting at Obu Ndi Idika, Mgbaga, Elu Village, Ohafia,
Photographed by Author. 288

Figure 5: Murral Painting at Obu Ndi Ezera, Asaga Village, Ohafia,
Photographed by Author. 289

Figure 6: Obon Preparation, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author. 307

Figure 7: Obon Preparation, Asaga Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author. 308

Figure 8: Site of iwa anya/itu ogwu ritual and umerogwu burial and ressurrection
performance, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author. 338

Figure 9: Umerogwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author 343

Figure 10: Umerogwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author 343

Figure 11: Nde Apupa, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author. 347

Figure 12: Nde ughara mmonwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author. 348

Figure 13: Onye ughara mmonwu, Okon Village, Ohafia, Photographed by Author. 348

Figure 14: Chief Torti Kalu of Amuma Village, Ohafia: Wild Animal Skulls Trophy
on the wall of his living room. Photographed by Author. 357

Figure 15: Ite Nde Ofia (Hunters’ Pot) at Amuma, Ohafia. Photographed by Author. 358

Figure 16: Trophies of Ogbuka Ogbuka Abaa of Isigwu: Buffalo Horn, Rotax Bullet,
Traditional Hunter’s Night Head-Light and Modern Head-Lamp.
Photographed by Author. 358

Figure 17: Chief Torti Kalu’s Performance of Igwa Nnu at Amuma, Ohafia, 1952. 380

Figure 18: Family Tree Sketch of Unyang Uka 446
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INTRODUCTION

th
This dissertation is a study of gendered identity formation and social change in 19 and
th
20 century Ohafia, the only matrilineal society among the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria.
Comprised of twenty-six villages (two of which are now almost extinct), Ohafia has a current
population estimate of 125,000. It covers about 110 square miles of territory in the western part
of the middle Cross River region, and marks the eastern limit of Igboland. Various non-Igbo
1

ethnic communities bound Ohafia in the north, south, and west. Between the 16th and 18th
centuries, the Ohafia-Igbo people borrowed and adapted institutions and practices such as secret
societies, an age-grade system of political administration, and a matrilineal kinship system from
2
their non-Igbo neighbors. The adaptation of these institutions and their roles in the dynamic
constructions of gender identities between the 19th and 20th centuries, center Ohafia-Igbo
individuals in complex processes of social change in southeastern Nigeria. As this study will
show, Ohafia pioneered the expansion of the Igbo ethnic group into the Cross River region
between the 1500s and 1650s, and were at the center of militant slave production in the Bight of
3
Biafra, between the 1650s and 1850s. As a frontier Igbo community, the Ohafia-Igbo evidence
the social changes that followed British colonial and European missionary penetration of

1

NAI CSO 26/3 File 29196. C.J. Mayne, “Intelligence Report on the Ohafia Clan, 1934,” 58;
Philip Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 1,
10; Onwuka Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo Society (Nigeria: Whytam Press, 2000), vi. Mayne’s
estimate of Ohafia population in the 1930s was 24, 556. Nsugbe’s 1960s estimate was 69,000.
Ohafia Local Government website shows 125,000 for 1999.
2

Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo, 15; Chukwuma Azuonye, “The Narrative War Songs of the
Ohafia Igbo: A Critical Analysis of their Characteristic Features in Relation to their Social
Functions” Ph.D. Thesis, (London, 1979), 22; Monday Abasiattai, Akwa Ibom and Cross River
States: the Land, the People and their Culture (Calabar: Wusen Press, 1987), 50.
3
See chapters 1 and 3.
1