ETCHE; AN ENDANGERED ETHNICITY. PART 2

Some years ago I attended an interview for a scholarship where I met a pretty Etche sister. At the interview, we were given forms to fill where we asked to state our LGAs, ethnicity and spoken languages. This pretty sister walk up to me and asked, “Etche speaks Ibo language abi?”

I looked up at her in incredulity but answered calmly that the language was Etche. I had to repeat the answer at least thrice before she was convinced enough to fill it in her form.

As unbelievable as it might sound, there are still many people reading this article who still believe Etche belongs to the Ibo tribe and speaks Ibo language. I am not going to go back to the highly debatable history of our origin. But the fact remains that Etche is a distinct ethnic group with distinct language, customs and traditions.

However, it must be said that our boundary proximity with Ibo land has greatly influenced our ways of life and is threatening our survival is an ethnicity.

I have had many fights and quarrels with friends of the Ibo extraction who keep trying to prove to me that I am an Ibo man.

Not too long ago I was at a traditional marriage ceremony somewhere in Etche land. And as the items for the rites were being read out from the list, someone got up and complained that many of the items they were reading out were alien to the Etche marriage customs.

The excuse the community leader in charge of the marriage rites gave was that when their men go to marry from neighbouring Ibo states, the people there lists those items and insist that they are provided for, otherwise the ceremony won’t go on. Therefore they decided to implement same in their own lists.

Because, according to him, they can’t be giving out their daughters for less while their sons are forced to do the same thing when they go out to marry.
What a ridiculous reason to import alien customs.

Another aspect of our custom that is being threatened is our language. Our brethren are quick to drop our language the moment they find themselves anywhere away from Etche land. Even when they meet fellow Etche people, they would rather not want to be identified as Etche people like they are ashamed of their home. They are quick to adapt languages like Ikwerre and Ibo rather than speak Etche language.

This is the reason why the Etche language has become so heavily adulterated. You can hardly find someone who speaks the language fluently without interjecting Ibo or English into it.

Also, too many Etche words are disappearing and are fast being replaced by the Ibo versions of those words.

Typical examples can be seen in the names we give our children these days. Names like IFENYINWA, CHIDERA, OLUCHI, IFEOMA, IFEANYI, CHIMAMANDA, to name just a few.

These names are clearly Ibo names.

Until measures are taken to protect and preserve our identities and hand them down to new generations, the Etche ethnicity as we know it MAY NOT survive the next century.

My name is Lesley Chimezie Nwankwo
A son of Umuakrikpo, Ofeh, Omuma LGA. Etche Land.

(NOTE: I used IBO to describe the Igbo tribe of Eastern Nigeria so as not to be mistaken for the IGBO clan of Etche Ethnicity)

#eccentric✌