Before there were courts, the Ekpe and Ọkọnkọ societies were the law in much of what is now Abia: in Ngwa country they enforced debts, settled disputes and policed the market, and among the Aro the Ekpe society was a governing institution rather than a performance. Both are still kept - as masquerade, as ceremony and as an authority over their own affairs - alongside the Owu masquerade festivals and the Ikoro drama festival of Ngwa land. What may be shown of them is not a photographer's decision: each society decides who may appear, when, and what a camera may carry away. This entry gathers what is public. Photographs, via Wikimedia Commons: The mask of an Ekpo masquerade - OtuNwachinemere, CC BY-SA 4.0. An Ekpo masquerade - Dappasolomon001, CC BY-SA 4.0. Licences: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Its address is /culture/ekpe-and-okonko on www.buzzbuntu.com.