Mgba Akpukpa
Akpukpa (ikpapka or Oka) means corn or maize. This wrestling contest bears this name because it took place during the month of July and early August, when the dominant foodstuff is maize.
Mgba Akpukpa took place every other year after the men had concluded their own contests in May and June. The girls were accompanied by strong boys (Umu Okoro) and newly married women (Umu Nchekwa). It was a competition everyone wanted to win. If there was a fight (which was not uncommon), the boys served as the girl’s body guards.
The Umu Okoro and Umu Nchekwa from both sides served as umpires. The bouts were graded beginning from young girls of about seven years of age to young women who would be joining their husbands anytime between August and December of that year.
The twenty-seven villages in Afikpo were grouped in a particular way for wrestling purposes for both men and women. Although the women also went round the villages in turns like the men for the contests, their own wrestling grounds were not at the Ogo square like the men, but in open spaces outside the Ogo.
It was necessary for betrothed girls to wrestle at the village squares of their intending husbands. If a girl should verbally abuse or insult another girl in the stream or on the farm, the offended girl would challenge her offender to a bout during the inter-village wrestling contests.
Unlike for men, there was no drumming for the women. However, the women had songs which they sang enroute to and from the wrestling grounds.
Any boy (Nwokoro) or newly married woman (Nchekwa) who was unfair as an umpire was challenged to a bout. Therefore, weaklings had no place as umpires. Besides, this made bad refereeing very rare. The costume for the wrestlers was a loin cloth folded to a manageable width worn over a pant then around the waist and secured at the waistline. The rest of the body was bare.
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