Yakurr

The Yakurr (also Yakö and Yakạạ) comprises five urban settlements in Nigeria. They were formally known as Umor, Ekoli, Ilomi, Nkoibolokom and Yakurr be Ibe. Due to linguistic problems encountered by the early European visitors, the settlements have come to be known by their mispronounced versions – Ugep, Ekori, Idomi, Nko and Mkpani (Okoi-Uyouyo, 2002). In the latter, it is a product of Yakpanikpani (Lokạạ word for tricks), a name, which Enang (1980) says was given to them by the Ugep people after being tricked in a conflict.

Location

Yakurr lies between latitudes 50 401 and 60 101 north of the equator and longitudes 80 21 and 60 101 east of the Greenwich Meridian and 120km (75 miles) northwest of Calabar the capital of Cross River State, Nigeria. They are found in the present day Yakurr Local Government Area and constitute the largest ethnic group in the State.

The people share their northern and eastern boundaries with Assiga, Nyima and Agoi Clans of Yakurr Local Government Area, the southern boundary with Biase Local Government Area and the western boundary with Abi Local Government Area.

By 1935, before the national census became a matter of political intrigues, Yakurr had a population of 22,000 and 38,000 by 1953 Forde (1939, 1950, and 1964; Hansford "et al". 1976; and Crabb 1969). The population of Yakurr based on the 1991 national census was rejected by the local and state government due to discrepancies. The 2006 census result by the Nigerian government is awaited to know the current population.

Lokạạ is the language spoken by the Yakurr. The language is of the Bantu linguistic family. Bantu, which means “the people”, is a linguistic classification of a group of closely related languages spoken in the linguistic boundary known, as the Bantu line, which runs from the south-eastern area of Nigeria, through Central and Eastern Africa to Southern Africa. Some people have often misunderstood Bantu to be a racial classification, which it is not. The Lokạạ language is described by Iwara (1988) as one of the major languages of Cross River State, comparable, in terms of number of speakers, with Efik, which enjoys the special status of a "lingua franca" in the State.

The Yakurr exhibits a very high degree of social heterogeneity, but linguistic, political, religious and cultural homogeneity. In the absence of written records, linguistic, political, religious and cultural homogeneous patterns are the most dependable evidences of establishing descent and biological connections.

All Yakurr people share a common tradition of overland migration and ancestry. The ancestral homeland of the Yakurr people is “Akpa”, said to be a shortened form of "Lẹkanakpakpa". This area is believed to correspond with the Cameroon–Obudu range as it stands today. The Yakurr cites the Okuni, Nsofan and Ojo people as their neighbours at Lẹkanakpakpa. The traditions of Okuni, Nsofan and Ojo corroborate the Yakurr claim of having lived together at Lẹkanakpakpa, which is referred to as “Onugi” by the Okuni and Nsofan people and Lẹkpamkpa by the Ojo people.

The migration of Yakurr from their ancestral homeland started at about AD 1617, when a misunderstanding between the Yakurr and their neighbours, arising from the violation of a burial custom forced their neighbours to wage a war against them, leading to them being driven from their homeland.

The migratory history of the Yakurr people, as given by Ubi (1986 and 1978) is that, between 1617 and 1677, the Yakurr migrated from that ancestral homeland to look for a new homeland following a military defeat from Akpa. About A.D. 1660, some Yakurr migrants founded new homelands in their present locations. These locations are Idomi and Ugep. Between 1677 and 1707, some other Yakurr migrants founded the towns of Ekori and Nko. Between 1707 and 1737 yet another wave of Yakurr migrants founded Mkpani settlement.

The reasons for the relocation of populations in new settlements by the Yakurr is mainly due to competing demands for land resources, as a result of growing populations in one hand and unresolved conflicts in the other. This development is aided by the patrilocality of marriages and strong patriarchy in the family system. It was thus easy for patriclans to relocate to new settlements. This has produced a slight parallelism in names of patriclans and strong parallelism in names of matriclans in all the Yakurr settlements.

See also

*Leboku

References

*Crabb, D. W. (1969) "Ekoi Bantu Languages of Ogoja", Oxford University Press, London.
*Enang, S. B. (1980) "Mkpani Pre-Colonial History", University of Calabar B. A. History Project.
*Forde, D. (1950) "Double Descent Among the Yakö” in Radcliff-Brown, A. R. and Forde, D. (eds.) "African Systems of Kinship and Marriage", Oxford University Press, London.
*Forde, D. (1939) "Kinship in Umor” "American Anthropologist", Vol. 41, pp. 530-540.
*Forde, D. (1964) "Yakö Studies", Oxford University Press, London.
*Hansford, K.; Bendor-Samuel, J. and Stanford, R. (eds.) (1976) "Studies in Nigerian Languages", Summer Institute of Linguistics, Accra.
*Iwara, A. U. (1988) "Reading and Writing Lokạạ", Institute of African Studies University of Ibadan, Ibadan.
*Okoi-Uyouyo, M. (2002) "Yakurr Systems of Kinship, Family and Marriage", Bookman, Calabar
*Ubi, O. A. (1986) “Analysis of Two Bronzes from a Nigerian Asunaju Shrine: A Rejoinder” "Africana Marburgensia" xix, pp. 7-8.
*Ubi, O. A. (1978) "The Yakurr: A Reconstruction of PreColonial History", University of Lagos PhD History Thesis.