The Ika people (Ika-Igbo: Ṇ́dị́ ị̀ká) are a subgroup of the Igbo people in Anioma, Delta State. Their population is about 240,000. The Ika people are found in north west of Anioma, Delta State. They share borders linguistically in the west with the Edo speakers, in the north with the Ishan speakers, in the East with the Aniocha language speakers and in the south with the Ukwuani speakers

Geography

Geographically, the Ika speaking people are found in the north west of Delta State. They share borders linguistically in the west with the Edo speakers, in the north with the Ishan speakers, in the East with the Aniocha language speakers and in the south with the Ukwuani speakers.

Politically, Ika speakers are mainly found in two local government areas, Ika North East and Ika South local government areas, both created in 1991 from a single Ika Local Government Area, in Delta State. Ika South and Ika North East local government areas, occupy a land area of 117.45 square kilometres (Delta State Government website, 1999) with a total population of about 240,000 people. There are other Ika speaking people that are political outside the Ika North east and Ika South local government areas. The exact population of speakers of the Ika language or those with Ika as mother tongue is not known since this information was not included in the 1991 census result (1991 census). Ika people do not have any shared physical characteristics distinguishing it from other ethnic or language groups in Delta State.

In this work, Ika North East and Ika South local government areas of Delta State, will be referred to as the Ika community although there are some Ika language speaking areas (i.e. Igbanke) outside these two local government areas. The Ika community is made up of eleven independent groups, which I will refer to as clans, and a metropolis. All eleven Ika clans speak a common language, the Ika language, with a cluster of dialects, which belongs to the Igboid group (Williamson 1968). There are however, no significant differences between these dialects but mainly phonological and lexical variation.

Origin of the name Ika

Although earlier colonial documents have referred to the present Ika people as Ika speaking people (Marshall 1936, Whiting 1936, Simpson 1936, Denton 1937, and Stanfield 1936), the present Ika people have not always been the only group known by the name, Ika. Forde and Jones (1967) used the term Ika for a wider community, which included the present Ika group. Ika was used by Forde and Jones (1967) to represent the inland parts of the four groups that make up the western Igbo group (Aniocha, Oshimili, Ika and Ukwuani) found in present Delta State away from the shores of the river Niger. The remaining members of these groups that are on the shores of the river Niger i.e. Asaba, Aboh and others were referred to as Riverain Ibo (Forde and Jones 1967: 49-50). Within this Ika group the present Ika community was classified as Northern Ika along with Aniocha and Oshimili while the Ukwuani group was classified as Southern Ika (Forde and Jones 1967). However the origin and meaning of the name Ika and when only the present Ika community and their language began to be known and referred to by that name, which they retain until today, is not clear.

Ika Structure: Clans, villages (Ogbe), quarters (Idumu) and family units (nmunne)

Clan is used in this work to refer to the shared belief in a common lineage (or agbon) of descent held by members of each of the eleven Ika clans who occupy a certain land area. For instance Marshall (1936: 3) regarded Ute-Okpu clan as a "true clan" since all the units traced their "ancestry to a common origin." A lineage is regarded as a unilineal descent group composed of people who trace their genealogies through specified links to a common ancestor (Bates 1996). Although members of a clan may sometimes not be able to tangibly prove a blood relationship, it is the case that clans " derive from lineages that become too large or too dispersed to keep track of their genealogies" (Bates 1996: 218).

The concept of kings and kingdom in the Igbo speaking areas is a more modern concept (Nwaubani, 1994). Unlike clan, the concept of kingdom is more territorial. Kingdoms are not necessarily made up of groups with shared belief in common origin or groups that perceive each other as siblings. For instance, the Old Kingdom of Benin consisted of both the Edo and non-Edo speaking groups, which are not linguistically or genetically related to each other (Osae and Nwabara 1977). However, there are instances where descent groups and territorial groups intertwine (Tosh 1978). In describing how some kingdoms were formed, Isichei (1983) stated that:

"In some areas, where the celebrated kingdoms developed, a change seems to have taken place which often follows a similar pattern, whereby a multiplicity of small-scale states, whose 'priest-kings' were sometimes rulers of little territories…gave way to unified kingdoms (1983: 129)."

There has been no reliable documentation or account of such pattern of formation of kingdoms in the Ika area. There is no word in Ika language for 'kingdom' the closest word is ali (land). The different Ika clans, refer to the physical area or territory they occupy as ali, e.g. ali Owa, ali Abavo e.t.c. However, among each Ika clan people do not perceive their physical land space as being separate from the people and their ancestors. Although there is a coinage such as ali eze (King's land) it still is not the equivalent of kingdom. Each of the Ika clans refer to themselves as nmu nne (siblings). For instance the members Abavo clan refer to themselves as nmu Abavo (children of Abavo) based on their belief in a common lineage of descent, which unites all the villages that make up ali Abavo (abavo clan). This applies to all the eleven Ika clans with or without kings.

The concept and belief held by the various Ika clans about their land, is no less powerful than that embodied by concept of kingdom. Members of each Ika clan have always regarded themselves and their land from the point of view of their belief in shared lineage of descent which created that collective consciousness causing them to refer to themselves as nmu nne (relatives or siblings) or clan. During the colonial period, there was a rise in new kingdoms (Nwaubani 1994). Any area with a king began to be regarded as a kingdom. Groups, such as in the Igbo speaking areas like some Ika clans that previously had no monarchical system, followed this pattern mainly because of the independence that the concept of kingdom implies (Intelligence report on Mbiri clan, 1932; Denton 1937). When kingship systems were created where there were previously none, in order to make administration easier for the colonial administrators, a kingdom was also created (Nwaubani 1994). However the concept of a land (ali) emphasised in clan concept made up of siblings has always been there, since the prehistoric times, in the mind of the people unlike kingdom whose emphasis is basically political.

Although I refer to the Ika collective group (all eleven clans) as a community, they are sometimes regarded as an ethnic group or tribe (Bates 1996; Lewis 1996; de la Gorgendiere 1996; Jenkins 1997). Bates describes tribe as:

"a decentralized descent-and kinship-based grouping in which a number of subgroups are loosely linked to one another… There is no centralized system of authority, decision making, or social control, but potential exists to unite a large number of local groups for common defense or warfare… The internal organization is similar in principle to that of the lineage or clan. Just how the lineages are expressed and maintained varies from society to society. One system is for two or more clans to see themselves as related, even though each group generally will act autonomously in managing its affairs. However, the sense of common identity can be called into play for defense" (1996: 219).

A tribe can be seen as sometimes containing several independent clans or what Bates (1996) called subgroups that are not necessarily related through shared lineage of descent (Gutane 2001). However, in this work, I will refer to Ika as a community instead of tribe or ethnic group due to the fluidness of the meaning of tribe and the emotion they sometimes evoke.

All eleven Ika clans are bound together by shared language, custom, culture and an unclear but strong belief in their oneness, though not like that which exists within individual clans. The Ikaness of all the clans is grounded in subjective and emotionally charged identification (Dahl 1996) which manifests itself in their belief system in the form of the gods such as o¤`zun (the god of iron) and in festivals like Igwe (New Year) and Iwa-igi (New yam festival) and general cosmology. Further, their share language, the Ika language, concretises their legendary sameness of origin. Ika clans are made up of villages and villages are made up of several quarters or idumu in the Ika language.

As in most parts of Nigeria, a village or Ogbe (Ika word for village) in the Ika area is sometimes geographically identifiable. Apart from modern government records of village boundaries, in most cases village boundaries are marked historically by certain natural markers like trees, hills, rivers, etc. A typical Ika village, or ogbe, consists of residential areas and a considerably vast farming area. Ika villages are made up of several quarters or Idumu (in the Ika language). The quarter (idumu) is made up of a family (nmu) or several family units depending on the size of the family. When a family gets too large for its present site it expands geographically forming a new quarter or Idumu (Marshall 1936: 6).

Ika villages or ogbe sometimes claim a common descent that could be described as nonunilineal (Bates 1996). This descent is usually narrowed down to a specific ancestor on the level of quarters, Idumu, which is usually made up of a unilineal descent group within a village. For instance Jegbefume, the Obi of Abavo, who ruled between 1910 and 1953 married fifty wives and had about two hundred children. These number of wives and children may have made up a substantial population of a quarter in the Abavo village called Ogbe-Obi which is the village of the royal family and since polygamy was a way of life the other quarters of Ogbe-Obi village may have been populated by other branches of the royal family (Amokwu and Jegbefume n.d).

The typical Ika family unit or nmunne consists of both immediate family unit directly linked by blood ties and the extended family unit linked by distant family ties which could sometimes be a 'fictive kinship' (Freed and Freed 1976: 148). This term will be used in this work not to indicate that the relationship or kinship is not real or genuine to the people involved, since it is as real to them as the extended family system, but that it is not biologically determined.

The non-biologically determined family tie is normal in many quarters (idumu), village (ogbe) and clans. It is usual for a family for a different ethnic or language group to migrate to an Ika village and is of good behaviour, participating in village activities and rituals, it is then accepted by the neighbours or the quarter, and later by the village elders. Finally, the family members are then accepted as members of that village thereby becoming entitled to all the benefits of membership (Forde and Jones 1967). Marriage is another way of establishing kinship between families (migrant or not) of different lineages. When a marriage takes place both families involved consider themselves related by marriage. However, the conditions (such as marriage) on which their relationship is built is most often forgotten after a generation or two, if there continues to be active positive interaction between both families, with both families considering themselves as simply related. According to Marshall (1936) it is indeed not clear at what stage a family, nmunne, evolves into Idumu, quarter.