Bende is the middle belt of Abia and one of the state's two colonial divisions: Ndi Bende, the people of the old Bende Division of the Owerri Province, whose towns include Bende itself, Item, Igbere, Alayi, Ozuitem and Uzuakoli. The 1929 tax protest began inside the division, at Oloko, and the Aba Commission that followed reported across it. The division's courts, schools and mission stations made it one of the most recorded parts of the present state, and Uzuakoli carries the memory of the Methodist mission's leprosy settlement and research centre and the college that grew beside it. Alayi is known for pottery, a women's craft of a very old kind. The masquerade and the festival year here are kept as they are across Igbo land, with Iri ji, age grades and wrestling. The photographs in this gallery are from a Bende cultural festival. Photographs, via Wikimedia Commons: A masquerade at a Bende cultural festival - Peddykal, CC BY-SA 4.0. A chief in Bende - Peddykal, CC BY-SA 4.0. Licences: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Its address is /culture/bende on www.buzzbuntu.com.