Umunoha is not a very old town, it’s a recent settlement dated about early 18th century.
According to oral tradition, the location of the town was somewhat occupied by people believed to be Isu, that is until the arrival of an Amadioha priest by name of Okechi Nnoha, Okechi came from Ozuzu Echie (in present Rivers State), and in a series of protracted wars he displaced the indigenous people most of whom fled to Umuaka and he shared the land amongst his children, he is most likely to have won the war with Aro help.
Nobody knows why he came there but around the territory of Umunoha there has always been an Igwe shrine (a shrine to the sky deity) which Okechi did not destroy but took it over, he installed the Amadioha oracle in the shrine and within a short while the Igwekaala shrine became the chief arbitrator of justice within the area. The merging of the Amadioha cult with that of Igwe at Umunoha has led some to erroneously identify Amadioha as the same entity as Igwe, but they’re not.
The shrine was located within a sacred groove around which the town of Umunoha was built. It was protected by a society known as Mbaranigwe.
Umunoha’s main market is Orie Amaigwe which like all Southern igbo markets sells once in 8 days, the traditional week.
Some Igbo scholars are of the view that the people who established Igwekaala oracle were heretics as they presumed to imply that Igwe was greater than Ala whom was the epicenter of Igbo traditional Religion. But however amongst the Oru and the Isu, there seem to have been a high degree of reverence given to Igwe, the Oguta who are an Oru people, the king is a chief priest to Igwe known as Ezeigwe.
The Umunoha however viewed the Isu with contempt whom they referred to as Nde Mbakeshi (uncivilized people)
Umunoha is well known for her Mmanwu (which came from Oru, by Oru/Olu I mean the actual Oru or Riverine Igbos such as Oguta and Ndoni)
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