Identity

- Agwu = what English calls the Holy Spirit — Umeh's 1981 Cambridge thesis, independently affirmed by G. I. Jones and by Nnabuchi (1987). Agwu is part and parcel of Chukwu; the female principle of the trinity.

- Agwu Isi Ora/Oha — "Agwu, head of all that exist (save God)." Dialect drift corrupted Agwu isi oha → Agwu Nshi/Agwu Nsi. Properly toned, Nsi = prime-mover/primer (cf. nsi egbe, gunpowder — the primer without which a gun cannot fire); mis-toned it means "poison" — a "well organised technique of giving a dog a bad name," per Nnabuchi's protest which Umeh endorses.

- The name Agwu carries endlessness: Agwu, Agwu, Agwu — the Everlasting Spirit (compared to Osiris, "ruler of everlastingness").

- Nne Agwu — the Mother Holy Spirit, the totality subsuming the three branches: Agwu Dibia, Agwu Mmili, Abia Nkita. Also praised as Aka Ogeli / Nne-Chukwu-Nwanyi — the Divine Lady Mother Spirit.

- Agwu defended against scholarly mislabels: not a "trickster" (Isichei), not "ambivalent" or a cause of mental illness (Onwuejeogwu), not "a grumbling goddess" (Alutu). Agwu does no evil; what looks like Agwu-madness is Kpakpankpa Agwu or the Ayagha Agwu shaking an unwilling, divinely-called candidate into accepting Dibiahood — the trouble ends at compliance.

- Onwero onye obuna ga-abu mmadu, Agwu aha-ama — nobody becomes a true (enlightened) human without the Holy Spirit's touch. And the Item dictum: Agwu adighi, mmadu agwu — without Agwu, mankind perishes.

- Manifestations: the green snake Akege/Aka ege ("God's Spirit") — a lucky omen at any hour; masquerades Ulaga and Ojionu (whose name = "one who fells the iroko by word of mouth"); praised as Egbe n'enu, Onyunyo n'ana — "Kite up in the sky, shadow down on the ground" (the saviour Cosmic Kite).