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Irigwe
Total population
40,000 (1985 IBS)^[1]
Regions with significant populations
Nigeria
Languages
Rigwe (Nkarigwe)
Religion
Ethnic religion, Christianity, Islam
Related ethnic groups
Afizere, Atyap, Bajju, Atsam, Berom, Tarok, Jukun, Kuteb, Igbo, Yoruba and other Benue-Congo peoples of Middle Belt and southern Nigeria

Irigwe people (Rigwe: Nneirigwe; Tyap: Á̱nietza̱fan; Hausa: Miyango^[2]) are found mainly in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State, Middle Belt (central) Nigeria. They speak the Rigwe language (also Nkarigwe), a Central Plateau language. Their headquarters is the town of Miango, west of the state capital, Jos.^[3]^[1]

Distribution

Irigwe people are found in Bassa, Jos North and Jos South Local Government Areas of Plateau State and in Kauru Local Government Area of southern Kaduna State, Nigeria.^[1]

Culture

Dance

On the dance pattern of the Irigwe, young Irigwe farmers usually leap to encourage the growth of crops at festivals related to the agricultural cycle. Other occupational guilds and professional organizations of experts, like blacksmiths, hunters, or wood-carvers, also possess their own expressive dances. Hunters may also possibly mime the movements of animals as a ritual means of controlling wild beasts and allaying their own fears.^[4]

Marriage

Walter H. Sangree wrote:

"The Irigwe marriage system in effect demands that men and women be married to several spouses in differing tribal sections during the course of their adult lives and precludes all divorce. It also ascribes patrivirilocal residence and assigns the paternity of each child a woman bears to the husband with whom she is residing at the time of the child's conception. Consequently women shift residence from husband to husband several times during the course of their lives, and unless childless they suffer intermittent separation from one or another of their dependent children. Spirit possession cults, involving nearly all the mature women of the tribe, supply both the emotional catharsis and the avenues for social integration to compensate the women for the repeated separations and social disjunctions the marriage system produces in their lives."^[5]

Leadership

Traditionally, the Irigwe is a segmented society devoid of a centralized political chieftaincy, with the highest authority traditionally accorded to the priestly elders of several tribal subdivisions which are in charge of the "all-important" ritual held for the well-being of the entire group of people or tribe.^[6]

Religion

It was reported that a majority of the Irigwe people practice ethnic religion with about 62.0% of the total population, 28.0% being Christian adherents (Independents 55.0%, Protestants 25.0% and Roman Catholic 20.0%), while adherents of the Islamic religion contain the other 10.0% of the population.^[3]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Rigwe". Ethnologue. SIL International. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
^ "Irigwe (African people)". Library of Congress. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
^ ^a ^b "Joshua Project entry on Irigwe, Aregwe people". Retrieved August 9, 2020.
^ "Irigwe people". Britannica. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
^ Sangree, Walter H. (December 1969). "Going Home to Mother: Traditional Marriage among the Irigwe of Benue-Plateau State, Nigeria". AnthroSource. 71 (6): 1046–1057. doi:10.1525/aa.1969.71.6.02a00030. hdl:1802/6724.
^ Sangree, Walter H. (Spring 1970). "Tribal Ritual, Leadership, and the Mortality Rate in Irigwe, Northern Nigeria". Southeast Journal of Anthropology. 26 (1): 32–39. doi:10.1086/soutjanth.26.1.3629268. hdl:1802/6766. JSTOR 3629268. S2CID 161662873.

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