Okpu: Ancestral Houses in Nembe and European Antiquities on the Brass and Nun Rivers of the Niger Delta

This study considers the important institution of the the Okpu, from a historical perspective but always with an eye to its future, treating it as a living cultural phenomenem. The Okpu are here compared, at a primary level, to the pyramids of ancient Egypt. They are the burial site of ancestors over which shrines, mausoleums, houses or monuments are erected, and represent a major cultural resource among the Nembe people of the Eastern Delta. The study also provides an account of the artifacts left behind by European visitors to the Brass and Nun rivers, in order to present a rounded view of the Nembe in the Niger Delta. It traces how the earliest Okpu were simple structures and the rise of their sophistication in the early twentieth century coincided with the intrusion of Western ideas and Christianity which put the values underpinning the Okpu in retreat. However despite this intrusion, the author concludes the Okpu tradition is complex and changing, has adapted itself to history and remains strong.