EMERGENT MASCULINITIES: the GENDERED STRUGGLE for POWER in SOUTHEASTERN NIGERIA, 1850-1920 by Leonard Ndubueze Mbah a DISSERTAT
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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. iii 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 iv 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. v 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 vi 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