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Kalabari Kingdom
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Kalabari Kingdom
The Kalabari Kingdom, also called Elem Kalabari (Kalabari: New Shipping Port), is the independent traditional state of the Kalabari people, a sub-group of the Ijaw tribe, eastern ijo, in the Niger River Delta. It is recognized as a traditional state in what is now Rivers State, in southern region of Nigeria.
The Kingdom was founded by the great Amachree I, forefather of the Amachree dynasty, which is now headed by the Princewill family.
According to Alagoa (2009) King Amachree I, the first king of modern Kalabari kingdom (1669–1757) came from Emakalakala in Ogbia.
King Amachree XI (Professor Theophilus Princewill CFR), passed on and was buried in November 2003. The Kingdom is currently being overseen by a Regent Chief (Dr.) C.I.T. Numbere, till a new king is crowned. Contemporary British-Nigerian novelist Victoria Princewill, a descendant of the Princewill family, has written about her Kalabari heritage and ancestral ties to the ruling structures of the region in her 2021 essay for Granta.
The King along with his Council of Chiefs, most of whom are royal princes, make up the Kalabari royal court.
According to one tradition, the Kalabari people originally came from Calabar (called "Old Calabar" by the Europeans), a site further to the east occupied by Efik people of Cross River State. This may have been a 19th-century invention. The Efik themselves say the name "Calabar" was given to their town by the Europeans. Other traditions say Kalabari was founded by Ijo settlers from Amafo, on the west bank of the New Calabar River, and that they were joined there by settlers from other communities.
The people occupied a series of islands among the mangrove swamps of the delta, where they engaged in fishing and trading. They would take the produce of the delta region up the New Calabar and Imo rivers, and exchange them for food and goods of the hinterland. In the 15th century, the early European traders noted that they alone of the delta people refused to trade on credit.
The people of Elem Kalabari originally worshipped the goddess Awoamenakaso (or Awamenakaso, Akaso), the mother of all the deities of the Kalabari clan, even when individual settlements had their own local gods and goddesses. She opposed war and bloodshed, and the Kalabari later claimed she was the sister of the British goddess Brittana, who ruled the seas. Among their neighbors, because of their "civilized" and generally peaceful behavior the Kalabari were called "Englishmen".
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Kalabari Kingdom
The Kalabari Kingdom, also called Elem Kalabari (Kalabari: New Shipping Port), is the independent traditional state of the Kalabari people, a sub-group of the Ijaw tribe, eastern ijo, in the Niger River Delta. It is recognized as a traditional state in what is now Rivers State, in southern region of Nigeria.
The Kingdom was founded by the great Amachree I, forefather of the Amachree dynasty, which is now headed by the Princewill family.
According to Alagoa (2009) King Amachree I, the first king of modern Kalabari kingdom (1669–1757) came from Emakalakala in Ogbia.
King Amachree XI (Professor Theophilus Princewill CFR), passed on and was buried in November 2003. The Kingdom is currently being overseen by a Regent Chief (Dr.) C.I.T. Numbere, till a new king is crowned. Contemporary British-Nigerian novelist Victoria Princewill, a descendant of the Princewill family, has written about her Kalabari heritage and ancestral ties to the ruling structures of the region in her 2021 essay for Granta.
The King along with his Council of Chiefs, most of whom are royal princes, make up the Kalabari royal court.
According to one tradition, the Kalabari people originally came from Calabar (called "Old Calabar" by the Europeans), a site further to the east occupied by Efik people of Cross River State. This may have been a 19th-century invention. The Efik themselves say the name "Calabar" was given to their town by the Europeans. Other traditions say Kalabari was founded by Ijo settlers from Amafo, on the west bank of the New Calabar River, and that they were joined there by settlers from other communities.
The people occupied a series of islands among the mangrove swamps of the delta, where they engaged in fishing and trading. They would take the produce of the delta region up the New Calabar and Imo rivers, and exchange them for food and goods of the hinterland. In the 15th century, the early European traders noted that they alone of the delta people refused to trade on credit.
The people of Elem Kalabari originally worshipped the goddess Awoamenakaso (or Awamenakaso, Akaso), the mother of all the deities of the Kalabari clan, even when individual settlements had their own local gods and goddesses. She opposed war and bloodshed, and the Kalabari later claimed she was the sister of the British goddess Brittana, who ruled the seas. Among their neighbors, because of their "civilized" and generally peaceful behavior the Kalabari were called "Englishmen".
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