Umukabia

Umukabia's founding father was a man named Ukabia (sic. 18th Century) who is thought to have migrated from the neighboring Imo state. It is possible as the names allude that he has also founded other Umukabia villages around Igboland and these villages have known to have visited each other. Most families in Umukabia are a descendant of the ancestor Ukabia; others may have migrated into the area.

Ukabia Uga is the founding father of Umukabia and may have lived sometime between the 16th and 17th century. Umukabia's ancestral deity is Alumeze, which is the blood union of all of Ukabia's descendants.

Although Umukabia as an autonomous community is quite populous, it is an exogamous community, which means that marriages and any romance occur outside the village apart from kindred villages like Nkata Alike. Sometime in the past, a ritual referred to as "Isu Ogwu" was performed to initiate endogamy [marriage within the village or intermarriage]. However, no one has as yet dared to challenge the taboo of endogamy.

Funerals and Burial Rituals

Funeral and rituals that pertain to them date back to the culture and traditions that bind Umukabia with other villages in Ohuhu. Prior to the use of morgues and the refrigeration system for preservation most funerals occurred within forty-eight hours following the passage. Currently, most funerals are elaborate and sometimes quite expensive and can run into hundreds of thousand of Naira or thousands of dollars (Ogbuagu, 2011). There are four major market days in Ohuhu, namely, Eke, Nkwo, Orie and Afor. Passages that occur on Eke market days and not announced, because dying on an Eke market day is viewed as abomination. To this extent, passages on Eke market days are not announced until the following day. This has led to the common proverb-"A gam amugbu onwu Eke n'anya"-meaning, I shall refuse to die on Eke market, no matter what death decrees. Most funerals and interment are in the deceased compound as Umukabia has no community cemetery. Death attracts common grief as every Umukabia citizen is related by a common ancestry, Ukabia, and by a common deity called "Alumeze." In this regard, the whole community joins in the mourning and funeral arrangement and will remain with the family of the deceased for quite a while. In-laws, and friends from outside of Umukabia are also involved in these funeral rites (Ogbuagu, 2011). Traditionally, no death is without a cause. In this regard and as has been the custom, the oracles are consulted to inquire into the origins of this death. If the deceased was not a "good citizen" often the family is left to deal with the funeral on its own and no family wants this. In the days gone by, if the deceased was determined not to be a good person, or had committed abominable acts while alive, they were thrown into the "evil forest." Currently, Christianity has whittled most of this culture away. Consistent with how most cultures view death of young persons, the death of a child is particularly painful and it goes against the cultural norm for a parent to bury their child rather than vice versa. In Umukabia of yore and even today to a large extent, most parents are forbidden to see the face of their dead child, especially if the deceased is a young adult. In that case, the only duty of the surviving parent would be to point out a burial site and the child is interred there, without fanfare and with much grief as this death indicated an effervescence of normal and linear expectations of development within the family and human cycle (Ogbuagu, 2011).