The Uneme Age-grades before c.1370 A.D (I)

The term, ''Age-grade'' also known as age group may be defined as a system by which persons of relatively the same ages are selected and graded into a group. In essence, the main cultural parameter used for this form of grading is the chronological or biological ages of the persons concerned. In Uneme-Nekhua however, while the founding age groupings might have been based on this mode of grading., the process of selecting members of subsequent age groupings is based on grouping of the first sons of every wife of members of the same age grade into one age grade while the next set of sons are grouped into the next lower grade, the same happens to daughters of women in the same age grade.

It is important to note that this mode of grading cuts across sex, involving both Uneme men and women. This was a common feature of the sociopolitical culture of all Uneme Villages and Clans in Benin City during this period. This age-grade system was also a practice of other ‘Edoid’ communities and various other ethnic and sub-ethnic groups in Nigeria in the pre-colonial periods.

The Uneme people were able to revive and adapt this vital aspect of their culture which they had brought from their Edoid homeland in the Niger-Benue confluence to their new places of settlement in ancient Benin along with most of their pre-existing settlement patterns. They resuscitated this age-grade system and encouraged it to blossom in their emergent places of settlement before c.1370 A.D thus influencing surrounding communities.

The main reason for the retention and development of their age-grades system in Benin stemmed from the great value and importance, which they had continued to attach to this major institution in their socio-political culture. Other reasons concern the fact that the age-grades had continued amongst others to;

1. Allow for a much easier differentiation of the elders from the youths or children in each of the indigenous Uneme communities in Benin at the time;
2. Promote solidarity and the unity of members of each of the sets of the age-grades, through regular socio-political and allied cultural interactions between the members, especially as expressed in their constant inter-personal relations, official meetings, exchange of idea and experiences, and collectively solving certain problems common to the age-sets or to the entire Uneme community
3. Enable the heads of the various Uneme villages and clans in Benin at the time to know the numbers of the different sets of the age-grades existing at every given period in each of their communities, thus easing the problems of general identification, recognition, delegation and distribution of communal roles and duties among the diverse sets of the age-grades for the advancement and progress of the Uneme society; and
4. Encourage the grooming and graduation of new age sets to take on leadership responsibilities, after the passing away of the older sets, thus ensuring that no gap existed in the leadership and hierarchies in each of the component Uneme communities