Christianity and Awka socio-religio-cultural identity crisis: Areas of conflict

Abstract

The problem of religious and cultural conflict still baffles many scholars of religion, sociology and anthropology. This article was designed to investigate and x-ray critically the religious values, beliefs and practices among the Awka people of Nigeria that were involved in the socio-religious conflict. Findings showed that the issues involved in the conflict were the Imo Awka festival, burial rites (ikponye aja n’ili- dust-to-dust rite), and okuko onye uwa (hen sacrificed to family deity to validate a marriage bond). It was recommended among others that the church and Awka people should in the way of resolving conflict situation use the least expensive method without much acrimony. The main aim of this research was to shed some light on the consequences of this socio-religio-cultural conflict. The method applied in the research work was historiophenomenological approach with the review of related literature.