Idoma

The Idoma are a Volta-Niger people south of the Benue River, east of its Niger confluence in central Nigeria, speaking Idomoid tongues related to Igala and Alago. They never formed a single kingdom: their twenty-odd communities, each governed by elder councils and a sacred chief called the Oche, were settled by migrants of several origins, including Igala Idah and the Igbo marches.

Many clans remember an older homeland named Apa, part of the Jukun-led Kwararafa confederacy, from which they fled northern pressure around 1700.

The Idoma were renowned as hunters and warriors. Their blacksmiths purified fighters after a killing with the ritual washing of the ogwu, while villagers smelted iron, waved cloth and carved masks. Their religion honours the high god Owoicho through the Alekwu ancestral spirits and the earth cult Aje, with the annual Alekwu festival drawing ancestors back among the living.