Legend · Pre-colonial (the palace says about the 14th century) · Tradition
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The palace of Owerri says the city began when an elder brother fled at night with a torch after a fight over the head and heart of a cow. This is the town's own tradition, not documented history.
This is the story Owerri tells about itself. It comes from the palace of the Eze Owere, the town's traditional ruler, and it's oral tradition handed down in the royal family. Nobody wrote it down at the time, and there's no outside record to check it against. It's worth reading as the town's own memory of where it came from.
The palace says Owerri was founded around the fourteenth century by a man called Ekwem Oha. His mother was Arugo. He came from Umuori village in Uratta, which is now in Owerri North, and he was the first son of Oha, a man the palace describes as an aristocrat and the very picture of royalty.
When Oha died, custom demanded a funeral cow, and it was the first son's job to provide it. Ekwem couldn't afford one. So he asked his younger brother, Ndum, known as Ndumoha, to buy it. Ndum did.
The trouble started at the sharing. Certain parts of a funeral cow, including the head and the heart, go to the first son. Ndum said they should come to him instead, since he'd paid for the animal. Ekwem refused. The two brothers quarrelled, and the elders of Uratta were called in to settle it. They went with tradition: the parts belonged to the first son, whoever had paid.
Ndum didn't accept it. According to the palace, he started planning to kill his brother so he could have his way. The plot leaked, and Ekwem knew he had to run.
Ekwem left in the dead of night with his family, some supplies and his household helpers. They went first to Egbu, a neighbouring town where his sister was married. She was afraid Ndum would come looking for him there, so she told him to keep going, find land where no one lived, and settle there for good. She also told him that when he got there, he should beat a drum so she'd know where he was.
They travelled on in the dark by the light of an owa, a traditional torch, and reached a hilltop. It's still called Ugwu Ekwema, Ekwema's hill. There, the palace says, they finally breathed out and said "Owerela ihe maraya aka", which it translates as "he has taken what is his right". The name of the town, Owere, comes from that cry. Ekwem beat the drum, and the next morning his sister found them, then went back home to Egbu.
When the British came, they wrote Owere as Owerri, and that's the spelling on maps today. The palace notes that people still say it as Owere. It also says the neighbouring towns are older, some by centuries. In its telling, Owerri was the newcomer that got lucky. The British later made it a divisional headquarters, then a provincial one, and in 1976 it became capital of the new Imo State.
The palace isn't the only source on the founding families. A study of transport among Owerri communities in pre-colonial times, published in AJOSDEMAR, also says Ekwema's sons founded the Owerri quarters, including Umuororonjo, Amawom, Umuonyeche, Umuoyima and Umuodu. It doesn't tell the story of the cow. That part rests on the palace alone.
The palace says Owerri's main festival grew out of the first two meals on that hill. The first morning, the family sat together and ate roast old yam with oil bean salad, shared out among themselves rather than served. They gave thanks for getting there safely through a thick forest the palace says was full of dangerous animals and snakes.
Then they needed water. They knew the Otamiri River rose at Egbu, but the forest was too thick to see where it ran. Ekwem heard the sound of running water and sent his men to follow it. They found the Otamiri close to where Emmanuel College stands today, and ran back to the hill excited. The palace says they described the morning sun flashing on the water as ogbu amuma, like lightning. Ekwem had a path cleared to the river and fed his men corn porridge.
Those two meals became Oru Owere, the town's festival. The palace is firm that it is not a new yam festival. The yam they ate was old, because the new yam hadn't been harvested yet. The festival runs from June to mid-August, and its main days fall on Orie market days. It's meant to be a season of peace. People don't quarrel or fight, they don't weep aloud when someone dies, cannons aren't fired, and people are expected to settle their own disputes without needing anyone else to step in.
At the grand finale, age grades march in procession through the old city, starting from Ugwu Ekwema. After the Eze breaks kola, the first thing served to guests is roast old yam, as it was on the first morning on the hill.
