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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Culture / Igarra Etuno People (152 Views)
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Igarra Etuno People by Etunoelite: 3:33pm On May 08 |
[b][/b] IGARRA IS THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT HEADQUARTER OF AKOKO EDO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA. IT IS MADE UP OF DIFFERENT QUARTERS UGBOBO, UTUA, AND UFFA. THEY ARE KNOWN AS ANETUNO AND SHARE CULTURE AMD LANGUAGE SIMILARITY WITH THE EBIRA PEOPLE OF KOGI STATE. IGARRA IS MADE UP OF DIFFERENT CLANS AND EACH CLAN IS HEADED BY AUTONOMOUS CLAN HEADS WHO REPRESENT AUTHORITY AND POLITICAL HEAD OF THESE CLANS. THESE CLAN HEADS INCLUDE; OSHEMI, OSHEMDASE, OTARU, OSHIDU, OTU. EVERY INDIGENE OF IGARRA OWES ALLEGIANCE TO THEIR CLAN HEADS AND ARE HIS SUBJECTS. THEREFORE FOR ANY DECISION TO REMAIN BINDING ON THE ENTIRE IGARRA PEOPLE IT MUST BE A UNANIMOUS DECISION OF THE AFOREMENTIONED TRADITIONAL HEADS. HISTORY. Different accounts has been given at different times in the origin and history of igarra. While some re mere fictions or outright conjectures and fabrications others re mixture of wild guesses, sheer imaginations and admixtures of observable truths. As we all know lack of writing culture in pre colonial Africa has made Africa rely on oral accounts of events. Although oral accounts re subject to bias of the narrator and suffer distortions in the course of transmission from one generation to the next. In igarra particularly narrators bias is always present owing to the tendency of the narrator to infuse into such accounts some claims aimed at portraying the narrators clan as being superior as a result of the chieftaincy and traditional rulership controversy which has plagued the community in recent times. Nearly all of these igarra historians find themselves in the trap of embarrassment when the logical variances, chronological disparities and self contradictions in there works re highlighted. THE ACCOUNT Etuno people were one of the component tribes which made up the admixtures of different people found in the ancient but famous KWARARAFA confederacy headquartered in Wukari the capital of present day Taraba state. The ethnic heterogeneity there logically suggests that Etuno people only sojouned there amongst other ethnic groups. At the fall of the Kwararafa confederacy due to war and conquest each of this heterogenous ethnic groups were forced to seek new abodes as independent communities. For this discuss we will streamline these migrations to that of the "OSHUKU " ethnicity which took a southward pattern of which ETUNO belongs and share cultural affinities with. This took place between 1740-50's arrival date of the Etuno and other Oshuku people in their present igarra, koton Karfi, okene e.t.c.( Further available records led credence to a further sojourn of oshuku ethnic groups in opoto land (present day idah in kogi state). Oral accounts transmitted through generations unanimously holds that while in opoto land there arose Amongst the OSHUKU sojourners a figure known as OSHEMI who on account of the more or less confederate system In place aspired to the throne of the Attah of igalla land. But that the failure of his ambition led to the quest to have the OSHUKU descendants continue with the original southward search for a permanent abode deviod of multi ethnic demographics and it's attendant intra-confederal power struggles. This decisions was well received by his fellow kinsmen amongst which was a group of veteran hunters who took it upon themselves to first go on a survey mission to yet uninhabited swathes land on the opposite side of River Niger. A group of veteran hunters under the leadership of AGBOGUMOZA which also included AUSERE and IGU set out on the adventure and after many years of survey discovered the present day Etuno land which to them was a final destination owing to the fact it poses a natural fortress with the expansive stretches of the rocky hills which will shield them against the rampant inter ethnic invasions characterized by Brutish pre colonial era. They took the reports back to their kinsmen in Opoto land and with the consent of OSHEMI who has by initiative become the rallying point of the OSHUKU people, the journey towards this now defined destination began in conception but would take another approximately one hundred years to complete. After the demise of OSHEMI his male children began to form splinter groups which would migrate in somewhat radial directions to become the various OSHUKU descendants scattered over many southern and north central states of Nigeria today. The residual splinter groups would however Carry on with the southward march. This residual splinter groups was split into non-antagonistic loyalty between the two eldest children of OSHEMI who relied on the advise and experience of AGBOGUMOZA and his hunting party which served as compass of the entire movement. On getting to the axis now known as okene (previously obaji) the hitherto pregnant wife of the younger one of the two OSHEMI sons got delivered of a baby. The heavily superstitious cultural philosophy of those times inspired in most of the migrant the notion it was a sign from God that they had reach their destination. So most of them settled there in Okene. However few of them held onto the initial destination of hope and would continued their journey to igarra and on arrival they named the place 'Ete onoo' which translates to "This is the said land" 'Ete ono yi' Would later be compressed to Ete onoo' and further shortened to Etuno. NOTE: NO WHERE IN THE CHEQURED HISTORY OF IGARRA WAS THERE ANY FIGURE LIKE "ARIWO OVEJIJO" WHO LED IGARRA PEOPLE FROM IDAH THE NAME IS A CORRUPTED FORM OF "ARIWO OBEJOJO' WHICH MEANS "SOUND OF SOUP" IN YORUBA. IT WAS A NICKNAME FOR A YORUBA MUSICIAN AND THE NAME WAS ONLY SMUGGLED INTO IGARRA HISTORY. THE STORY ABOUT THE USE OF MAGIC WAND TO CROSS THE RIVER NIGER TOLD TO PORTRAY THE SAID PRINCE FOUNDER AS A SUPERNATURAL BEING WAS A MYTH. AS CANOES WERE USED AS A MEANS TO CROSS THE NIGER AT "ITOBE" because it took place in the 70's. |
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