Dioka people believe up to this day that in all Igboland that theirs is the most ancient town and that no other town surpasses them in antiquity.
Chapter 1 – An Ancient Dioka Town
Dioka as a town is very long in history. Other people have stories of where they came from, but Dioka has none according to some people.
There is indeed a mystery with regard to the origin of the first Dioka people, that nuclear group around which other people attached themselves to form Dioka town.
These first Dioka people were known as first settlers. To them others came and joined them, and all fused together to become Dioka of today. Dioka is bounded on the north by the town of Amaigbo, on the east by Agbana, on the west by Okperi and on the south by Isiagu. They were skilled in iron work.
They knew how to smelt rod from iron ore and to make steel. They had the knowledge of the mixing of metals. They worked in iron, brass, bronze and copper. They made knives, axes, hoes, etc. They knew foundry work. They made ornaments of iron, copper and ivory with great skill. They were potters and wove cloth. They made their own war implements, machetes, swords, daggers, etc.
These early Dioka people lived in villages of thatched houses of intricate design and beauty. Their grass roofs were particularly skillfully made. Their mud walls were decorated with paintings, and their floors were washed with mud water and rubbed with large smooth pebbles until they shone like mirrors. The wooden pillars called “okpo” that held the sides of houses were beautifully carved.
They invented a calendar of their own. They did not know writing. They developed their own style of architecture from the scratch. While other people around them lived in round huts called “odo”, they built oblong houses. Their men carved exquisite sculptures of man and nature. and the women painted vivid wall pictures.
They composed music and invented musical instruments like the “ogene” gong, “oja”, the flute, etc. In as much as some men were into blacksmithing, some were into agriculture, cloth-weaving, etc.
In Dioka, the woman’s place has long been in the kitchen. This has something to do with the upbringing of girls. The female child is given toy dolls to emphasise femininity, motherhood and domesticity.
Chapter 2 – Dioka in Pre-colonial Era
Dioka was an amalgam of peoples. according to different scholars. They came from different places, at different times and became welded into one people. Son or daughter was governed by definite rules of conduct from the cradle to the grave.
Those rules of conduct were definite, detailed and covered every aspect of a Dioka man’s life, so that, by their existence, they attested to the antiquity of Dioka town, for they must have taken centuries of usage, and of trial and errors, before they could have become so generally accepted and enforced, as law, among the people.
Right from the time he was born till he died, the Dioka man was subjected to rules. His whole social life, his whole economic activity, his participation in the politics of his town, his religion had all their own sets of rules, which he must observe.
It was this fact of personal discipline and orderliness, more than anything else, that made the Dioka man different from people of other cultures in Igboland.
These rules of conduct in Dioka land are:
1. Pregnancy
When a pregnant Dioka wife was eight months gone, she began to got ready for the birth of her child. As soon as she entered her ninth month, the first sacrifice was made to God for her to facilitate easy birth. The family members (the umunna) were present. Before the sacrifice was made, the closest relation of the husband took the woman aside and asked her if she had had any act of adultery to confess.
If she said “No”, the sacrifice proceeded; but if she said “Yes”, then, she should name the person with whom she had had extra-marital intercourse. The sacrifice was postponed, and a day was fixed for the ceremony of cleansing.
A message was sent to the man named and his family, and the cost of reparation named. The cleansing would be done and the woman was ready for confinement and could then be delivered of her baby safely. A woman who committed adultery and refused to confess was believed to have very difficult labour and could die in it. The shame of confession was believed to keep a woman on the straight and narrow path.
2. The birth of the child
When the child was born and the umbilical cord was cut, the women at the ‘mgbuland’ (birth place) washed the child; and as soon as the baby cried, the husband was sent for. He would ask the sex of the baby. The women would tell him anyi, (we), meaning a girl; or unu (you), meaning a boy. He went back to his obu to thank God. The child was taken to his mother’s ogbolodo (hut), not yet to the obu, the father’s ancestral parlour. In those days men and women did not live in the same house, much less in the same room.
Men had their obu where they stayed in the day time and received visitors.
Besides, they had a private room insice their obu where they retired at night. Wives had each their own house called ogbolodo or mkpuke. A wife went to the husband’s house only when invited.
The woman lay with her child in mgbo, wooden bed made of planks. The child was placed on some akwaete clothes beside the mother. Or where there was no cloth, some plantain leaves were used as a mat. On the 8th day (izu nabo) after the birth, after the umbilical cord had fallen off, the Dioka child was circumcised. In the male, it consists of removing the foreskin of the penis; in the female, removing the clitoris, called mgbama (the betrayer).
The purpose of female circumcision was to make a girl less libidinous and, therefore, harder to be deceived by men when grown up, to make her a more independent person. On the 12th day (izu nato nwa), umunna-ime uno, the inner family, not yet the extended family, were invited. Palmwine and a quantity of fufu and onugbu soup were provided in the obu.
This was to celebrate the survival of the child for three native weeks. Prayers were said. The mother and her child did not appear.
Ahmad Nwabuzor is a Nigerian author and storyteller with a strong passion for writing and sharing meaningful stories. He is a graduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), where he studied English and Literary Studies.
He writes across different forms of storytelling, including cultural narratives, emotional fiction, and moral stories that teach life lessons. His storytelling style is rooted in African life and shaped by a deep interest in how traditions influence people’s choices and emotions.