16/12/2023
THE ORIGIN OF IKO FESTIVAL AMONG THE GROUP OF COMMUNITIES IN AFIKPO
Literarily, the word Iko has two meanings. Iko means friendship, thus, it finds expression in names like Ikodiya (a wife and friend to her husband), Ikonne (mother’s friend). Iko also means feast. Thus, we have Iko udumini (rainy season feast) and Iko okochi (dry season feast). In Ehugbo group of communities, Iko is celebrated in remembrance of a young lady who died in the farm when she and her friends were hired for okwu oha (communal group mound making). In Ehugbo, Iko is celebrated among the village groups starting with Nkpoghoro, Ugwuegu, Ohaisu, Itim, Ibii and terminates in Onu Ogo Onyeani in Eluogo Amuro. It should be noted that Iko starts much earlier in Ozizza community. There are two accounts of the origin of Iko among the Ehugbo group of villages.
The Origin of Iko Festival
The emergence or discovery of yam deepened agricultural activities among the people of Afikpo. To make labour available for farmers, young men of the same age group organized themselves into labour groups to enable men who engaged in yam farming to have constant labour force. These groups of young men who made available cheap labour for farming were known as nde okwu oha/nde oru oha (group of mound makers). This group of men rendered their services with little amount of money from men that hired them although they were lavishly entertained. In order for them to work harder, a prize was always given to any young man who was the first to cultivate and get to the boundary of the farm in time. Isi uba (fish head) was always reserved for such a young man accompanied with several praise songs. The last to finish his portion of work among the members would be made to carry other people’s hoes. This used to be humiliating and so everybody worked hard to finish early.
As time went on, young unmarried girls decided to form their own cooperative society like the men. Thus, there existed two major groups of nde okwu oha in Ehugbo: the male and the female groups. One day, a middle aged man who was reputed to be one the greatest yam farmers in town hired the girls for communal mound making. The girls had achieved fame as being efficient and effective in mound making. In an attempt to speedily finish her portion and claim the victory as the first to round-off, one of the girls over-laboured herself and died as a result of exhaustion. Her friends who discovered that she was no longer breathing as she lay motionless on the ground raised alarm that attracted the owner of the farm and other farmers in the field.
The people consulted oracles according to Horii Mbey in order to find out the cause of the incident. The result was that the girl died of exhaustion. The owner of the farm buried the girl as was the custom in Ehugbo. Thus, Okwu Oha by the girls ended on that sad note. However, the oracle gave certain injunctions to be strictly observed by the people. One, on the eve of Iko udumini, girls from the village of the feasting group would invite their girlfriends from other village groups to the feast, during which plenty of pounded yam (foo foo) with sumptuous soup would be the main menu served on them. The aim was for the girls to consume plenty yams in retaliation for the death of their colleague who died in the race of making mounds. This process was to be carried out in all the village groups in turn, during their respective iko udumini feast.
Secondly, after the general harvest, around the end of November and early part of December, there should be another feast called Iko Okochi (dry season feast), which lasts for four days. For the same reason above, yam should be the predominant menu throughout the duration of the feast.
The second account claims that Iko was a very pretty young lady who had many suitors seeking her hand in marriage. She informed the father of the development and the father advised her to invite all of them for a general mound-making competition, with a caveat that the first to finish his portion becomes her husband. The five men came from the five (5) traditional autonomous communities in Ehugbo namely: Nkpoghoro, Ugwuegu, Ohaisu, Itim and Ozizza.
These five suitors surprised everybody especially their would-be father-in-law when the five arrived at the finishing point the same time, thus, five of them qualified to marry Iko based on the qualifying physical test. At the end of the day, Iko decided to marry the Nkpoghoro man. As soon as she gave birth to a male and having weaned the baby, she told the Nkpoghoro man, “I have paid you for your mound-making service; I am leaving”. She left for the second man in Ugwuegu. She also had a male child in Ugwuegu and left for Ohaisu. After weaning her male child in Ohaisu, she left for Itim. From Itim, she finally settled with her last husband in Ibii.
When Iko died, her children in Ibii wanted to bury their mother in Ibii, but his first son in Nkpoghoro objected with the reason that he was the first son, and that their mother must be buried in Nkpoghoro. The Ugwuegu son came with members of his kindred (umunna) to request for permission to bury his mother. Ohaisu and the Itim sons also requested for permissions to give their mother befitting burial. The elders consulted the oracle and they were told that Iko was a great woman, and that each son should celebrate the burial of their mother in grand style, starting from Nkpoghoro, the home of the first son to Ibii where the last son resided. And that her burial should always be celebrated as a memorial for her beauty and the great sons she had in all the major patrilineages in Ehugbo.
In the part two of this article, we shall discuss how each of Iko’s sons celebrated their mother’s burial in grand style using different masquerades to spice up the burial. To watch the video documentary on the different types of masquerades that perform during the Iko festivals, go to the comment section and click on the links provided. You can also subscribe to the YouTube channel in order for you to be receiving notifications on our upload.
