interesting story about Eri deserves comments. Most ceremonies, rituals and customs of the present Igbo race are based on this folktale on Eri, the founding father of the Igbo race. A few examples are pointers to this fact:
1)Before any Eze is installed in Igboland he must be given the Odudu Eze or Ofo. Ofo represents a staff of authority. The Odudu Eze is a royal scepter depending on whether the recipient is a traditional ruler or a community leader. Also, a community which had obtained the Ofo could pas it to any other sister community provided that due authority had been obtained to do so.
(a)Agulu, who was the first-born of Eri and the subsequent ruler of Eri kingdom after the death of Eri, received the Odudu Eze before taking office.
(b)Before any Eze Nri is installed, the King and his retinue come to Aguleri where they make sacrifices in the temples of Eri Kingdom before collecting the Odudu Eze. Nri rigidly observes this injunction because Nri is one of the few kings in Igboland who derived their authority from religion and close relationship with Aguleri.
2)In this era, local vernacular is used to indicate an event that happened as far back as a thousand years and more.
(a)Ube-Eri means long time ago; a time going back to the era of Eri. Mgbe-Kilidim means during the era of Kilidim; Eri-Oge means long time ago. You now know why these words are used. Eri and Kilidim existed at the dawn of Igbo history during the metal age.
(b)IDA is a word used to denote a far-off place. IDA is in Igalaland in Kogi State. Aguleri people often traveled to Ida which was a five day journey by canoe along the Anambra River. The fact that Ida is now an Igbo word used to denote a far distance shows a longstanding relationship with the Igala people.
3)Eri never had an empire of the size and status of Oyo, Benin, Sokoto Kanem Bornu and Igala empires. These empires were founded with the sword. EriKingdom was founded without the sword; without a war. The vast land area occupied by the Igbo of Nigeria were peacefully established and acquired. No village of any town can honestly claim to be aborigines of that town. This proves that Igboland was an uninhabited open country.
4)Just like the Aguleri folktale cited. Igbo mythology also believes that Eri came from the sky. We all know that no man born of human can emerge from the sky. Eri and his companions must have migrated to Igala from upland. They might have looked strange going by their dressings. Such legendary and mythical stories are told today.
5)Eebu language spoken by Eri must have Hebrew language. Eebu must have been the gradual corruption by folklore of the name Hebrew. Languages are dynamic. For instance, Aguleri dialect spoken today changed from that spoken a hundred years ago.
6)In accordance with very broad groupings in Aguleri age grade system, the middle-aged men from the ages of twenty-six to thirty-five are called Umu-Okolobia. The word Obia means a stranger, in Igbo language. This name must have been given in reference to the middle aged strangers that migrated to Igala along with Eri.
Most of the facts in the folklore appeared real and have kept us wondering if the story is a mere tale or a true story in Aguleri oral tradition which enables generations to retain the history of Eri and his migration. We urge our anthropologists to carry out more research on the background of this and other such lore’s in Aguleri tradition.
The Igbo in Creation
There are some misconceptions about how old the Igbo are in creation. This is because early writers of Igbo history did not delve into the origin of the Igbo. We all agree that God is the architect of the universe. The earth in which we live is one of the planets of the universe. The Bible has so far given the most credible history of creation.
The Bible in Genesis (1:20) tells us that God created Adam and Eve and told them to have children and populate the earth. The Garden of Eden was theirs to enjoy, with one exception. They were told not to eat the one tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Both Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit and they were driven out of the Garden of Paradise. So man began to live outside the garden. The tragedy of the fail was demonstrated when one of Adam and Eve’s son Cain killed his brother Abel. As the race increased in number, it became wicked. Finally, God destroyed it in a great flood. Only Noah found grace in God’s eyes and through the building of an ark, he and his family of eight were spared. From those eight people the race again multiplied. At Babel, man sought to defy God by building a tower to heaven, but God frustrated and dispersed them and gave them different languages.
Genesis 12 marks a change in God’s dealings with mankind. God singled out one man, Abram, who lived in city of Ur in Cheldea, and designated him and his offspring’s as His special people. God would make himself known through them. Abram’s name was changed to Abraham and he was instructed to journey to a land God gave to him (Abraham) and his children forever. Abraham begot Isaac; Isaac begot Jacob; and Jacob begot twelve sons. Jacob’s slave begot Gad and Asher. Rechel begot Joseph and Benjamin. Rechel’s slave begot Dan and Neptali. Gad begot Zehpion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi and Areli (Numbers 26:15, Genesis 46: 16).
In giving this brief narration of the early history of man as accounted by the Bible, we are interested in the factor of time. We know from archeology that the earth is about 3.5 billion years old.
There was no Biblical account of how long Adam and Eve remained in the Garden of Eden before they were thrown out. It may have been 500 years or tens of thousands of billion years, no one knows. All that was told was that when they started living outside the garden, they lived long enough to start building up the human race.
We are told that as the race increased in number, the world became more and more wicked and finally God destroyed it in a great flood. Only God knows how long the world lasted before it was destroyed. We are told that Noah lived a total of nine hundred and fifty years and after the destruction of the world he lived for four hundred and fifty years. Noah and his children built a race. It takes centuries to build a race. It may have lasted 500 million years; no one knows.
The population of the new world was multiplied by Noah and his family. From the new beginning when man sought to defy God by building the tower of Babel must have been millions of years, no one actually knows. What we know is that God frustrated them and gave them different languages.
Since Noah’s world knew how to build an ark and could build the Tower of Babel, it is safe to presume that members of their race were capable of sailing to different parts of the world which may have given rise to the settlement of the Red Indians in north and south America, the aborigines of Africa, Australia and other parts of the world including Russia, China and other countries of the Far East. It may have given rise to the much written story about the lost world of Atlantis. These developments might have taken place millions of years ago.
There is no record of time between when God dispersed the population of Babel to different parts of the world and when man was capable of recording events on scrolls around 4004 B.C. It might have taken millions of years before it became possible to record events in writing. No one can claim knowledge of how long man has existed on earth. From Biblical account we can safely conclude that after the destruction of the world, Noah and his family of eight built a new world which might have taken off either in the Middle East or in North-east Africa. If therefore there were migrations from the Middle East or North-East Africa, it must have come from south of the Nile.
A school of thought postulates that the migration of Eri and his brethren to Igboland must have taken place before or after the two notable population movements recorded in the early history of mankind. One was when God dispersed the population after the Tower of Babel episode during which the population must have used arks similar to Noah’s Ark to migrate and settle in different parts of the world. The other was during
