Notes on the Osu System among the Ibo of Owerri Province, Nigeria
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7549871 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Leith-Ro, Sylvia Leith-Ro (corresponding author), Sylvia Leith-Ross (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1937 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 206-220 |
| Publication date | 1937-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Africa (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-9720 • E-ISSN: 1750-0184 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1155783 |
| OpenAlex | W2060750555 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
Opening Paragraph The Ibo of Owerri Province form a compact mass living in what are perhaps best termed village-areas, straggling ‘garden cities’ covering a large area of ground, and where huts either stand in little unprotected bunches or in walled compounds with farmlands and forest between. The few towns, in the European sense of the word, that exist are semi-artificial and date from after the British occupation. Schools and churches are multiplying quickly, but the bulk of the dense population is still pagan and illiterate. It is composed almost exclusively of farmers who, in certain districts, are also oil-nut gatherers. These Ibo are intensely democratic, recognizing no central tribal authority and though coming apparently from the same stock and speaking the same language (although with strong dialectical differences) are curiously individualistic. Their compatriots, living in another village-area only a few miles away but unrelated by ties of kinship, are considered as ‘foreigners’', all bearers of the worst possible characters and capable of the darkest crimes. Daily habits, methods of farming, methods of building, taboos, religious conceptions, vary bewilderingly so that the investigator finds, after months of work, that he has still nothing but bits and pieces that form no coherent whole. All he can do is to pick out a few of the pieces which seem to him significant and describe them to the best of his admittedly limited knowledge in the hope that others may find the links between them
Genealogy · Geography · Kinship · Nothing · Population · Sociology · African history and culture analysis · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropology · Demography · History
Igboland Before and During the Iron Age
From Colonial to Postcolonial Mythologies—Influence on Igbo Ethnic Identity
Ibo Oracles and Intergroup Relations
Casteism and Marriage in Igbo Society
Igbo historiography
Testing the Boundaries of Marginality
The Changing Nature and Patterns of Traditional Marriage Practices among the Owerre-Igbo, a Subgroup of the Igbo of Southeast Nigeria
Ibos in London
The Aru Igbo Trust Network and Slave-dealing in Igboland and the Lower Southeast Niger Basin
Contesting identity
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,15 |
| Citation span | 1958 - 2025 (68) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |