Photograph by Eliot Elisofon
Nwaobiala (1925)
Nwaobiala began with a âmiraculous birthâ that occurred before October 1925. The term âNwaobialaâ can be translated into âchild from the heart/center of Ala (the land)â. In Igbo culture, it believed that Ala (the earth deity) has influence in the form of a newborn child. It seems Ala sent a warning through the âmiraculous birthâ of a child about the peopleâs transgressions.
Igbo women have long used egwu (song/dancing) to publicly shame local male authorities and voice their grievances and demands (it is part of the Igbo custom of âsitting on a manâ). Nwaobiala employed this tactic against colonial power: the British first began seeing Nwaobiala, bands (several hundred) of dancing women, in November 1925 somewhere near Atta in Okigwe district. Nwaobiala would sweep public spaces (pathways, market places, and shrines) while gathering information about the homes of warrant chiefs and other colonially affiliated men. After discovering where these men lived, Nwaobiala would enter their compounds and begin another dance/song while expressing their demands.
Some of the notable demands of Nwaobiala include: demands for cleanliness of compounds and markets; and returning to the traditional culture of girls being naked. Because there is a connection between contamination and child-birth in Igbo culture, Igbo women perform purification responsibilities which include cleaning of pathways (paths between villages or between the village and a shrine). Traditionally, women created pathways (ama) but as colonial needs took priority, government road construction ran counter to, crossed through, or destroyed the womenâs pathways. The âunpurifiable roadsâ were a direct threat to womenâs power and interests. Â
In terms of demanding the nudity of girls and according to translation of the demands, Nwaobiala believed, âthat no girls or young married women should wear cloth until they were with first child, but go naked as in old daysâ and âthat women must be kept naked so that privates must be kept warm by the sun.â As Christian missionaries took root in Igbo land, they urged girls to wear clothing and subsequently encouraged young girls/women to participate in the market. Traditionally, clothing was a symbol of maturity and the market was a place for mature women. As a result, the social value of cloth-wearing older women declined.
In conclusion, Nwaobiala understood how Christianity and colonial power threatened Indigenous culture, economic practices, and power structures. They sought to rectify this through collective power and traditional forms of protest (egwu). However, the British did not acknowledge Nwaobialaâs egwu as a protest due to their colonial mindset and patriarchyâthey did not believe women could demonstrate without men. The Nwaobiala protests were the precursor to the 1929 Ogu Umunwaanyi, The Womenâs War.
Additional Information: According to Uche U. Okonkwo Nwaobiala was present in Akpuje and Owelli towns of Awka, in the Onitsha Province of Ihiala, Nnewi, and Nobi town: in Ohazara, Okigwe, Bende and Umuahia. Even more, âwomen from Owerri province came to Ihiala [and] from Ihiala, they visited Nnewi, and from Nnewi they proceeded to Nobi.â
Sources:
Hodgson, Dorothy Louise.. "Wicked" women and the reconfiguration of gender in Africa. Portsmouth, N.H. : Heinemann ; c2001. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.99037.0001.001.
Okonkwo, Uche U. (2020). Herbert Macaulay As The Father of Nigeriaâs Nationalism: A Historical
Misnomer and Misogyny Regarding the Role of Igbo Women in the Decolonization Process. Journal of International Women's Studies, 21(1), 172-184.
















