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The Ijaw (also known by the subgroups "Ijo" or "Izon") are a collection of peoples indigenous mostly to the forest regions of Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States within the Niger Delta in Nigeria. Some are found in Akwa Ibom and Ondo states also in Nigeria. They are believed to be one of the earliest inhabitants of southern Nigeria.

The Ijo people number about 14,000,000. They have long lived in locations near many trade routes, and they were well connected to other areas by trade as early as the 15th century [1].

Linguistic relationships

Template:Main The Ijaw speak nine closely-related Niger-Congo languages, all of which belong to the Ijoid branch of the Niger-Congo tree. The primary division between the Ijo languages is that between Eastern Ijo and Western Ijo, the most important of the former group of languages being Izon, which is spoken by about four million people. There are two prominent groupings of this language. The first group is nominally termed "Western Ijaw" or Izon, and consists of "Western" Ijaw speakers (Kaiama, Bomadi, Ekeremor variety), the Nembe dialect of Ijaw and Kolokuma (Yenagoa and the vicinity). This group, since 1996, mainly constitutes Bayelsa State, but spills over to Delta, Edo and Ondo States.

The other major group is Kalabari. Kalabari is an "Eastern" Ijaw language but the term "Eastern Ijaw" is not the normal nomenclature. Kalabari is the name one of the clans of the Ijaws that reside on the eastern side of the Niger-Delta (Abonnema, Buguma, Degema etc who form a major group in Rivers State, hence their involvement in the fight for greater oil control. Other "Eastern" Ijaw clans are the Okrika and Ibani (the natives of Bonny, Finima and Opobo). They are neighbours to the Kalabari in present day Rivers State of Nigeria.

Traditional occupations

The Ijaw were one of the first of Nigeria's peoples to have contact with Westerners, and were active as go-betweens in trade between visiting Europeans and the peoples of the interior, particularly in the era before the discovery of quinine, when West Africa was still known as the White Man's Graveyard because of the endemic presence of malaria. Some of the kin-based trading lineages that arose among the Ijaw developed into substantial corporations which were known as "Houses"; each house had an elected leader as well as a fleet of war canoes for use in protecting trade and fighting rivals. The other main occupation common among the Ijaw has traditionally been fishing. Ijaw is a large language group spoken by people who are predominantly in the Niger Delta states (Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Ondo and Akwa Ibom) of Nigeria. It is divided into East and West Ijaw. The East Ijaw comprises Nkọrọ, Kalabari, ọkrika, and Ibani dialects, all spoken in Rivers State; and Nembe-Akaha (Akassa), spoken in Bayelsa State.

Lifestyle

The Ijaw people live by farming and hunting, supplemented by fishing and trading. Yams and palm oil are processed for export. While some villages (those to the east) had chiefs and a stratified society, other villages had no centralized leader until the arrival of the British.

Marriages are completed by the payment of dowries, which increase in size if the bride is from another village (so as to make up for that village's loss of her children). Funeral ceremonies, particularly for those who have accumulated wealth and respect, are often very dramatic. Traditional religious practices center around "Water spirits" in the Niger river, and around tribute to ancestors.

Religion and cultural practices

Although the Ijaw are now primarily Christians, with Catholicism being the variety of Christianity most prevalent among them, the Ijaw have elaborate traditional religious practices of their own. Veneration of ancestors plays a central role in Ijaw traditional religion, while water spirits, known as Owuamapu figure prominently in the Ijaw pantheon. In addition, the Ijaw practice a form of divination called Igbadai, in which recently deceased individuals are interrogated on the causes of their death.

Ijaw religious beliefs hold that water spirits are like humans in having personal strengths and shortcomings, and that humans dwell among the water spirits before being born. The role of prayer in the traditional Ijaw system of belief is to maintain the living in the good graces of the water spirits among whom they dwelt before being born into this world, and each year the Ijaw hold celebrations in honor the spirits lasting for several days. Central to the festivities is the role of masquerades, in which men wearing elaborate outfits and carved masks dance to the beat of drums and manifest the influence of the water spirits through the quality and intensity of their dancing. Particularly spectacular masqueraders are taken to actually be in the possession of the particular spirits on whose behalf they are dancing.

Food customs

Like many smaller groups in Nigeria, the Ijaws have many local foods that are not widespread in Nigeria. Many of these foods involve fish yams and plantains. Some of these foods are:

• Polofia — A very rich soup made with yams and palm oil
• Kekefia— A pottage made with unripened plantains, seafood and palm oil
• Fried fish and plantain — Fish fried in palm oil and served with fried plantains
• Gbe — The larvae of the raffia-palm tree beetle that is eaten raw, dried or pickled in palm oil

Ethnic identity

Formerly organized into several loose clusters of villages which cooperated to defend themselves against outsiders, the Ijaw increasingly view themselves as belonging to a single coherent nation, bound together by ties of language and culture. This tendency has been encouraged in large part by what are considered to be environmental depredations that have accompanied the discovery of oil in the Niger delta region which the Ijaw call home, as well as by a revenue sharing formula with the Federal government that is viewed by the Ijaw as manifestly unfair. The resulting sense of grievance has led to several high-profile clashes with the Nigerian Federal authorities, including kidnappings and in the course of which many lives have been lost.

Ijaw-Itsekiri conflicts

One manifestation of ethnic assertiveness on the part of the Ijaw has been an increase in the number and severity of clashes between Ijaw militants and those of Itsekiri origin, particularly in the town of Warri. While the Ijaw and the Itsekiri have lived alongside each other for centuries, for the most part harmoniously, the Itsekiri were first to make contact with European traders, as early as the 16th century, and they were more aggressive both in seeking Western education and in using the knowledge acquired to press their commercial advantages; until the arrival of Sir George Goldie's National Africa Company (later renamed the Royal Niger Company) in 1879, Itsekiri chieftains monopolized trade with Europeans in the Western Niger region. Despite the loss of their monopoly, the advantages already held by the Itsekiri ensured that they continued to enjoy a superior position to that held by the Ijaw, breeding in the latter a sense of resentment at what they felt to be colonial favoritism towards the Itsekiri.

The departure of the British at independence did not lead, as might have been expected, to a decrease in tensions between the Ijaw and the Itsekiri. With the discovery of large oil reserves in the Niger Delta region in the early 1960s, a new bone of contention was introduced, as the ability to claim ownership of a given piece of land now promised to yield immense benefits in terms of jobs and infrastuctural benefits to be provided by the oil companies. Despite this new factor, rivalry between the Ijaw and the Itsekiri did not actually escalate to the level of violent conflict between the two groups until the late 1990s, when the death of General Sani Abacha in 1997 led to a re-emergence of local politics.

The issue of local government ward allocation has proven particularly contentious, as the Ijaw feel that the way in which wards have been allocated ensures that their superior numbers will not be reflected in the number of wards controlled by politicians of Ijaw ethnicity. Control of the city of Warri, the largest metropolitan area in Delta State and therefore a prime source of political patronage, has been an especially fiercely contested prize. This has given birth to heated disputes between the Ijaw, the Itsekiri and the Urhobo about which of the three groups are "truly" indigenous to the Warri region, with the underlying presumption being that the "real" indigenes should have control of the levers of power, regardless of the fact that all three groups enjoy ostensibly equal political rights in their places of residence.

Oil conflict

The December 1998 All Ijaw Youths Conference crystallized the struggle with the formation of the Ijaw Youth Movement (IYM) and the issuing of the Kaiama Declaration. In it, long-held Ijaw concerns about the loss of control of their homeland and their own lives to the oil companies were joined with a commitment to direct action. In the declaration, and in a letter to the companies, the Ijaws called for oil companies to suspend operations and withdraw from Ijaw territory. The IYM pledged “to struggle peacefully for freedom, self-determination and ecological justice,” and prepared a campaign of celebration, prayer, and direct action 'Operation Climate Change' beginning December 28.

In December 1998, two warships and 10-15,000 Nigerian troops occupied Bayelsa and Delta states as the Ijaw Youth Movement (IYM) mobilized for Operation Climate Change. Soldiers entering the Bayelsa state capital of Yenagoa announced they had come to attack the youths trying to stop the oil companies. On the morning of December 30, two thousand young people processed through Yenagoa, dressed in black, singing and dancing. Soldiers opened fire with rifles, machine guns, and tear gas, killing at least three protesters and arresting twenty-five more. After a march demanding the release of those detained was turned back by soldiers, three more protesters were shot dead including Nwashuku Okeri and Ghadafi Ezeifile. The military declared a state of emergency throughout Bayelsa state, imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and banned meetings. At military roadblocks, local residents were severely beaten or detained. At night, soldiers invaded private homes, terrorizing residents with beatings and women and girls with rape.

On January 4, 1999 about one hundred soldiers from the military base at Chevron’s Escravos facility attacked Opia and Ikiyan, two Ijaw communities in Delta State. Bright Pablogba, the traditional leader of Ikiyan, who came to the river to negotiate with the soldiers, was shot along with a seven-year-old girl and possibly dozens of others. Of the approximately 1,000 people living in the two villages, four people were found dead and sixty-two were still missing months after the attack. The same soldiers set the villages ablaze, destroyed canoes and fishing equipment, killed livestock, and destroyed churches and religious shrines.

Nonetheless, Operation Climate Change continued, and disrupted Nigerian oil supplies through much of 1999 by turning off valves through Ijaw territory. In the context of high conflict between the Ijaw and the Nigerian Federal Government (and its police and army), the military carried out the Odi massacre, killing scores if not hundreds of Ijaws.

Recent actions by Ijaws against the oil industry have included both renewed efforts at nonviolent action and militarized attacks on oil installations but with no human casualties to foreign oil workers despite hostage-takings. These attacks are usually in response to non-fulfilment by oil companies of memoranda of understanding with their host communities.

References

• Human Rights Watch, “Delta Crackdown,” May 1999
• Ijaw Youth Movement, letter to “All Managing Directors and Chief Executives of transnational oil companies operating in Ijawland,” December 18, 1998
• Project Underground, "Visit the World of Chevron: Niger Delta," 1999

External links

• The Ijaw Language Dictionary
• The Ijaw Language Dictionary Online
• Ethnologue: Ijaw Linguistic Tree
• Ijo People
• American Museum of Natural History: The Art of the Kalabari Masquerade
• The Warri Crisis: Fueling Violence - Human Rights Watch Report, November 2003