(pop. 1953 - 759; 1963 – 5240
By DR.CHRISTOPHER.G.
OKOJIE, OFR, DSc (Hon)
It will
serve a useful purpose to remember right at the onset that there are two parts
to every Esan district: the royal family and the common people. They were quite distinct, for nearly
all the ancient ruling houses came from Benin City or its suburbs. The head of
the ruling houses was and still is, the ONOJIE, who with his family, servants
and brothers inhabited EGUARE, the administrative CAPITAL of the district.
Another important thing an enquirer must take notice of is the use of the word
BROTHER by Esan people. It can mean anything from a male blood relation to a
very good friend. Secondly OBA's SON can mean a BINI and, in fact, it was
recently, a common thing for any Bini, outside the city, to describe himself as
the OBA's SON!
HISTORY:
With the internecine land dispute between Emu
and Orowa which has been on for some forty years, one has to be careful over
the history of this small but isolated Community of Orowa and I would like to
refresh the memory of the reader over what I said in my letter from the Author
"Maurice Friedman warned - "Every Ethnographer records rules and regulations.
When he publishes them they become part of a record upon which, sometimes to
the dismay of the recorder, people may draw in support of a legal or political
argument ...”
If the enquirer was in Emu he would be told
that the founder of Orowa was ODIN, a brother of OZE of Emunekhua, meaning that
Orowa is an outgrowth of Emu but in Orowa everybody exudes with astonishing happiness,
"We came from Iriwa (Uruwa!)”. Between the two versions lies the truth.
There is indeed a close relationship between
Emoa, the Iyasele's quarters in Orakhuan (Eguare) Emu and Orowa. First, the
majority of the founders of Emoa came from Afuda Irrua. Secondly the great
warrior ADOKPANRU himself who’s ancestral home was the same Irrua, was very friendly
with the people of Emoa. Emu and Ubiaja went to war over the correct procedure for
disposing of a killed leopard in Esan; but for the prowess of Adokpanru Ubiaja
with its large population could have swamped Emu. Uwagbo who was the first
Onojie of Emu, showed his appreciation by giving Adokpanru, a title and a piece
of land separated from Emu by Ogbezomon. Naturally a majority of the people who
followed him to this new area where he could wax in glory without incurring the
jealously of anybody, were birds of the same feather - Uruwa people! This
settlement became Orowa, still not far from the name of their ancestral home.
II. Today the Orowa Community consists of:-
1. Idunmodin which is the name of its Eguare.
2, Idumu-Akhiuwa.
3. Idumun-Oniha, the seat of the second man
to the Onojie.
4. Ukpoke and
5. Idumu-Ihaza.
IV.
Present Onojie:
Good natured Atayeho Ojoba II joined his
ancestors in the early hours of Friday 15th January, 1993. He was born in 1905.
Though he did not have much education, his travels to Lagos, Kaduna, Calabar,
Port Harcourt, Benin and the then British Cameroons enriched his experience and
wiseness in the Whiteman’s ways. He ruled for thirty-five years.
His son and heir Prince Syril Aidenojie
attended S1; John Bosco's College Ubiaja and did his advanced level at Obokon
Advanced School from 1983 to 1984 after which he joined Esan South-East Local
Government Council as a Clerical Assistant. He attended the Local Government
Staff
Training School, Bekuma, Akoko Edo Local
Government Area in 1988; he returned to his job and advanced to Grade Level 7
before his father died. He was installed as AIDENOJIE Onojie of Orowa. He began
the all important Burial Ceremonies on the 2nd of December, 1993.
NOTE
A word about dates particularly as shown
against the reigns of Obas on whom most Esan narrators hang their information.
Often tired they say it was during the reign of Oba, or the year Oba Esi passed
through to Idah or Oba Osemwede had just ascended the throne, a few years
before the Nupes destroyed Ukhun or Idoa etc. Because he in Esan much of our
oral transmission of history is accompanied with names of the Obas who were
then sitting over the destiny of Benin and appendages, I took great pains in
getting the complete list of these Oba I cannot vouch for the dates of their
reigns which were available at Benin Museum. There are therefore few dates
outside the nineteen hundreds, I could put across to the reader with any degree
of confiders these few we owe to our early contact with the Portuguese the
first whom, Ray de Sequere rather than Juan D'aveiro who was the second visited
Benin in 1472 during the reign of Oba Ewuare who is so import in Esan history.
There is also written evidence for dates of the Idah” of 1515 to 1516, a period
the Esan famous Oba Esigie was ruling Benin.
With painstaking efforts I found songs,
poems, proverbs involved Enijie, warriors, medicine men, wars fought, names
foreign to Esan language Enijie ruling neighbouring towns etc. useful in
estimation of dates. There is a famous Ukele dance song in Irrua: "De o
iyi Ogun Osemwede k. Oba!" This tied up the ruling Ojirrua, Ogun, at the
time Osemwede became Oba.
