The Role of Igbo Women in Oral Literature Transmission: Evidence from Anambra and Imo States

This study investigates the role of Igbo women as primary transmitters of oral literature in selected communities across Anambra and Imo states, South East Nigeria. Existing scholarship on Igbo oral literature has historically centred male griots and communal storytelling in public forums, inadvertently marginalising the substantial contribution of women in domestic and semi-public transmission contexts. Adopting an ethnographic research design, the study conducts forty-two in-depth interviews with female oral literature practitioners including mothers, grandmothers, and female community educators aged thirty-five and above from six communities. Observation data from children's storytelling gatherings, naming ceremonies, and women's market associations supplement the interview corpus. Findings reveal that women serve as the principal custodians of lullabies, riddles, children's counting songs, moonlight folktale sessions, and agricultural work songs, constituting over seventy percent of informal oral literature transmission episodes documented in the study. The research further identifies a generational contraction, with women under forty engaging significantly less frequently in oral transmission activities, attributing this to time pressures from formal employment and urbanisation. Recommendations include community incentive programmes to recognise women as cultural educators and the establishment of women's oral literature circles supported by local government cultural departments. Keywords: Igbo women, oral literature, transmission, cultural custodians, South East Nigeria.