The other Igbo experts (ch.3 catalogue)
Adepts are marked by the prefixes Di, Okwa, Nne, Nna, Oka. The catalogue (23 listed):
- Di-bu-Uno — master of the household; compound architecture: Ofe (man's house; innermost = Ime Ofe), Mkpuke (each wife's house), Uno Aja (thick-walled storied "castle" protecting women/children in war and slave-raid eras), the sacred Obi outside the walls. (Umeh's grandfather: 3 Ofes, 25 Mkpukes, 1 Uno Aja, 1 Obi.)
- Di Ji — yam master (a man wants sons who are Dibia, Di Ji, or Di Uzu; all three = Ogalanya, true wealth).
- Di Uzu / Nne Uzu — blacksmith (one of only two adeptships styled "Nne"; Ndaghali mulu Uzu — Ndaghali mothered smithing). Agulu adighi, Igbo ataa aja — without Agulu (the smith-peoples: Agulu, Awka), Igbo would eat sand. Otutu aha-adanari Awka — the hammer never falls from an Awka man's hand.
- Di Mgba — wrestling champion; founding myth of Elo, who wrestled and defeated the Spirits at Ize Mmuo with his flutist Olubulu, stole back the akwukwo ndu (leaf of life), escaped via serial ogwu-transformations (seven kernel shells; a pool of water) and the spirits' cast procrastination (Mboloma) — origin of the obala azu groove on the human back, of Eje Ana travel-ogwu ingredients, and of the four-holed flute. Variant: Ojaadiili, who threw his own Chi and died.
- Di Odo — master of the yellow peace-powder Odo; survives in Ohafia's Ite Odo society, where war heroes "come down" from Dikeship into pots of peace.
- Dike — hero/strongman (Di + ike, husband of power); Western Igbo: Odogwu. Ethic of moderation: O bu onye ujo ji ndu ya na Dike — it is the coward who preserves both his own life and the hero's; the Dike who never accepts his tiredness is carried past his father's gate to the grave. Head-hunting quality rules (nose retained; no women/children/corpse heads); igbu ichi endurance as heroism's gateway; Dim Orachi's story — the one praise that moved him: "Defeater of men whom women defeat."
- Okamelulo — the wise counselor; onye nje nje ka onye isi awo malu ife — the traveled one knows more than the grey-haired; but what an elder sees seated, a child cannot see from the iroko top.
- Oka Ekwu — orator (the Igbo Kwenu! — Yaa! greeting, properly stopped at three); O kwoli ile oma ka ejuna ji-aga n'ogwu — with a good tongue the snail crosses thorns.
- Okwa Egwu — master musician (portrait of Mmuodum Ezeulum, "dancer of four hundred dances," who refused marriage to keep his adeptship).
- Okwa Akuko — master historian (could hold audiences dusk-to-dawn for weeks; the ndi ita of Aguleri recorded by Achebe's team).
- Okwa Oja — master flutist; the four-holed Oja Ologhilipoto's design encodes the four-day Izu, the twin pyramids, and the crossroads; the flutist elevates Dibias, masquerades and dancers to higher planes — music is the link with the Spirit world.
- Di Mkpa — adept kidnapper (quality rules as with Dike); also Di Nta (hunter), Di Ochi, Didi, Dikwu-Odo, Di Uga, Okwa Mkpu, Nne Mbe/Nna Aghugho (master of cunning), Di Ndudu, Di Okpa, Di Ayi (age-grade champion).
- Overarching point: no expert attains or keeps expertise without the Dibia — onye enwero ogwu ada-eje mgba (no one enters a wrestling contest without ogwu); the Dibia creates the patron deities (Alusi) and ogwu that all professions run on.
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The circle
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