Family, Kinship, and Village Associations in Ngwa Land

Abstract

The human family is a group of people who are closely related by blood. Kinships in the human community exist as a result of closely knit family ties. In a village, which is a rural settlement of a group of people, that may or may not be biologically related, associations do exist which are platforms on which religious, social, and economic status of individuals and the community in general can improve their lot. Some of the objectives of this paper are: to demonstrate that the Ngwa community places great value in the human family, that kinship relations are highly respected in Ngwa land, and to show that the formation of associations enhances the development of the individual in Ngwa land. The primary source of data for this paper is obtained through in-depth interviews with twenty Ngwa people, aged 50-60 years. The framework on which this paper is carried out is Ethnography of communication. This theory is concerned with the linguistic and sociocultural rules that are operational amongst a group of people. Some of the findings of this paper are: that the family in Ngwa land is the basic association that an individual belongs to, that the family shapes the kinship relation that an individual has, that social organizations are training grounds to persons in Ngwa land, that kinship relations create a strong bond amongst families in Ngwa land, that kinship relations in Ngwa land leads to a communal welfare system where everybody cares for one another.