Continuance and Change in an Urhobo Age-Grade Organization in Nigeria

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Periodical article

Title:	Continuance and Change in an Urhobo Age-Grade Organization in Nigeria
Author:	Otite, Onigu
Year:	1972
Periodical:	Cahiers d'études africaines
Volume:	12
Issue:	46
Pages:	302-315
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Nigeria
Subjects:	generations Urhobo Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1972.2766
Abstract:	In spite of 'external' influences on indigenous social systems, the relevance of age-grade organisations cannot even now be ignored. The main limitation of works by Schurtz, Lowie, Driberg, Gulliver, Eisenstadt and others is their near-exclusive concern with how age-grade systems were supposed to operate in the past prior to outside, mainly colonial, intervention, but put in the usual ethnographic present. The question is whether with current world-wide modernization processes, these age-grade systems do, in fact, exist today and, if so, in what forms. Presented here is an analysis of the age organization in Okpe, an Urhobo kingdom in the Midwestern State of Nigeria: Okpe socio-political system -Traditional age-grade organization in Okpe kingdom - The impact of the British and Nigerian governments - How relevant is the age-grade system today? - Conclusion. Ref.