Igbo People and cultures

Igbo also referred to as the Ibo are an ethnic group found in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Delta and Rivers State in southeastern Nigeria. Prominent towns and cities in Igbo land include Aba, Owerri, Enugu, Onitsha, Abakaliki, Afikpo, Agbor, Orlu, Okigwe, Umuahia, Asaba and Port Harcourt among others. They speak Igbo, although today a majority of them speak English alongside Igbo as a result of British colonialism. Igbo are one of the 3 most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria, the other two being the Hausa and the Yoruba people.
Migrations and the Atlantic slave trade, significantly affected their identity. Many moved to neighboring countries of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea as well as outside Africa. Their exact population outside Africa is unknown, but today many African Americans are of Igbo descent. Their occupation is predominantly farming, with the yam being the most common crop. Other staple crops are cassava, and taro. Annually they hold festivals to celebrate harvesting season.
Before colonialism, the Igbo were a culturally fragmented group with variations vivid in customs and traditions such as visual art, music and dance forms, as well as their attire, cuisine and language dialects. Various subgroups were set according to clan, lineage, village affiliation and dialect. Because of their various subgroups, the range of their culture was so pronounced. The attire of the Igbo generally consisted of little clothing as the purpose of clothing originally was to conceal private parts, although elders were fully clothed. Children were usually nude from birth till their adolescence but occasionally ornaments such as beads were worn around the waist for spiritual reasons. Uli body art was used to decorate both men and women in the form of lines forming patterns and shapes on the body.
Like Yoruba, Igbo is a tonal language. Igbo language boasts of hundreds of different dialects such as the Ikwerre and Ekpeye. Politically there weren’t many centralized hereditary customs except in kingdoms like that of the Nri, Arochukwu and Onitsha. However, this significantly changed in the 19th Century under British colonization.
Marriage usually involves asking the young woman’s consent, introducing the woman to the man’s family and the same for the man to the woman’s family, testing the bride’s character, checking the woman’s family background and paying the brides wealth. Sometimes marriages had been arranged from birth through negotiation of the two families. Polygamy is a common practice in Igbo men. Men married usually multiple wives for economic reasons so as to have more people in the family, including children, to help on farms. Igbo people now tend to enter monogamous courtships and create nuclear families.
Women traditionally carry their babies on their backs with a strip of clothing binding the two with a knot at her chest, a practice used by many ethnic groups across Africa.
Men would wear loin cloths that wrapped round their waist and between their legs to be fastened at their back.
Modern Igbo traditional attire, for men, is generally made up of the Isiagu top which resembles the Dashiki worn by other African groups. Isiagu is usually patterned with lions heads embroidered over the clothing and can be a plain color. It is worn with trousers and can be worn with the traditional Igbo stripped men’s hat. For women, a puffed sleeve blouse along with two wrappers and a head gear are worn.