With the exception of a handful of districts, the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria were one of a few African societies that did not organize into kingdoms. Unlike Nigeria’s Yoruba and Hausa peoples—who constructed large, centrally administered empires—the Igbo organized their communities into federations of independently governed villages.
Each Igbo village consisted of several clusters of blood relations or families:
First, a person belonged to the smallest social unit known as uno, or house. This was a natural family, consisting of a man, his wife or wives, and their children. The second group was the umunna, or lineage, composed of a number of related houses. Finally a group of lineages formed a compact village or town, obodo. (Ohadike, p. xxiii)
The “house” or family consisted of a husband, his wives, and his children. The husband, who was usually the family head, lived in an obi (hut), in which he received his guests and housed the family deities. Each wife lived in her own house with her unmarried children. When adult males married, they raised their own homestead, usually in the vicinity of the lineage. Adult females, on the other hand, married into other villages, usually within the federated group, where they become members of other “houses.” There had to be no blood ties between marriage partners, a principle that was strictly observed.
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