ABSTRACT
The coordination of political action in government does not depend directly on the solidarity and co-operation of lineages on the one hand or on the paramount authority of a chief. The five compact politically independent village communities severally claim exclusive rights over a surrounding tract of territory which is exploited by its component groups for farming and the collection of forest products. Priests of major village cults resident in the ward were normally admitted on succession to their ritual offices in the same way as patrician heads. The Ogbolia of Biko-Biko in the thirties was also the priest of the village cult of Obasi Oden and a member of the priests council. Indigenous government in Umor was effected through the loosely co-ordinated deliberations, judicial decisions, and executive acts of self-perpetuating spirit cult associations, the ritual powers and moral authority of which were in some cases buttressed by physical coercion of recalcitrants.
