THE STONE AT UKPAKPHAI STREAM JUNCTION.
Dr John Odior Anaweokhai
Erua, Odia and the Ogbona Connection to Ancient Benin
There are histories written in books, and there are histories written upon the landscape.
Some histories survive in manuscripts and archives. Others survive in the names of rivers, streams, hills, paths, and ancient settlements. And some survive in stones—silent witnesses that generations have passed without completely erasing.
Among the oral traditions of Ogbona is the story of a remarkable stone at the junction leading to Ukpakphai Stream, on the old route towards North Ibie. The stone is said to have borne the natural impressions of human hands and fingers. To those who inherited the tradition, these were not merely accidental markings in rock. They were the marks of two extraordinary men of an earlier age—Erua and Odia, remembered as men of valour associated with the ancient Benin Kingdom.
Whether the impressions were actually made by these men cannot presently be established scientifically. But the tradition itself is important because it places two remembered Benin warriors on a geographical corridor that later became part of the ancestral landscape of Ogbona.
The Men of the Benin Kingdom
Long before the modern boundaries of Edo State were drawn, the Benin Kingdom was a formidable political and military power. Its influence extended far beyond the walls of the royal city.
The kingdom’s greatness was not sustained by the Oba alone. It depended upon an elaborate network of chiefs, warriors, guilds, farmers, craftsmen, messengers, and communities whose loyalty and military service enabled the monarchy to project power over a vast territory.
Among the figures preserved in oral memory are Erua and Odia, remembered as men of exceptional courage.
The Ogbona historical tradition describes them as legendary men of valour who performed exploits in the protection of the Benin Kingdom.
Their reputation is also consistent with the wider military character of sixteenth-century Benin. Historical research identifies an Odia as a senior Benin military commander during the reign of Oba Esigie, including participation in the Benin–Idah conflict. That does not prove that this particular Odia was the same man preserved in the Ogbona tradition, but it demonstrates that the name belongs to the historical military world of Benin.
The Making of the Great Earthworks
The story of the Benin earthworks is itself larger than the familiar image of a single “Benin Moat.”
Archaeological research has demonstrated that the Benin earthworks constituted an extensive system of ditches and embankments constructed and modified over different periods as the kingdom expanded. They were defensive structures, territorial markers, and instruments of political organisation.
Benin tradition associates an important phase of the earthworks with Oba Oguola, while the much larger urban defensive system was later expanded under Oba Ewuare.
But there is an even older layer in Benin tradition.
Some historical accounts derived from the traditions recorded by Jacob Egharevba associate early wall-and-ditch construction with the reign of Ogiso Ere and mention Erinmwin as a person who constructed earthen ramparts for his sovereign.
This means that the history of Benin’s earthworks should not be reduced to one ruler, one generation, or one act of construction.
It was a civilisation-wide enterprise that developed over time.
And oral tradition remembers that enterprise not only through kings, but also through the men who served them.
It is within this world that the tradition of Erua and Odia acquires significance.
The Departure
According to the Ogbona oral tradition, Erua and Odia eventually left the Benin Empire.
The reason given by tradition is striking: the high-handedness or excessive pride of the ruler of the time.
This is a recurring motif in African oral history. A powerful king may command absolute authority, but even a warrior of extraordinary loyalty possesses a point beyond which loyalty becomes impossible.
Erua and Odia, having served the kingdom and earned reputations for courage, are said to have reached such a point.
They departed.
Their departure was not necessarily the flight of defeated men.
It was the departure of men who carried with them something more valuable than possessions—their experience, their courage, their knowledge of warfare, and their memory of the great kingdom from which they had come.
They moved away from the centre of Benin power.
And eventually their journey brought them into a landscape that would one day become part of the ancestral geography of Ogbona.
The Stone at Ukpakphai Junction
The old route towards North Ibie was not merely a road in the modern sense.
For travellers of that period, streams and stones were landmarks. Forest paths were remembered through physical features. A large rock could become a place of rest, orientation, assembly, or remembrance.
At the junction towards Ukphaikpai Stream, oral tradition says that Erua and Odia encountered a large stone.
There, according to the tradition handed down through generations, the stone bore impressions resembling human hands and fingers.
The marks became associated with the two warriors.
Perhaps they rested there.
Perhaps they placed their hands upon the stone.
Perhaps they pushed against it.
Perhaps the marks were entirely natural, and subsequent generations interpreted them through the story of the men.
We cannot know without geological and archaeological examination.
But the important thing is that the landscape remembered them.
The stone became a kind of ancestral monument without being deliberately constructed as one.
It said, in the language of oral tradition:
They passed here.
From the Warriors to the Founders
This is where the story intersects with the foundation tradition of Ogbona.
Ogbona oral history identifies Imhakhena as the ancestral founder of the community, together with his siblings Unone, Arua and Uralo ,they joined their parents, Anwu and Alokoko in founding Avhiawu.
The Ogbona historical tradition itself explicitly places these ancestral founders alongside Erua and Odiah in its discussion of men and women remembered for their courage and contribution to their people of Avhiawu in particular and Etsako or Afenmai in general.
The traditional chronology therefore creates an intriguing possibility.
Erua and Odia belonged to an earlier generation associated with the Benin world.
They moved away from the centre of the kingdom.
Their journey became embedded in the landscape.
Later, Imhakhena and his mother established themselves in the territory that would become Ogbona.
Thus, the story of Ogbona does not begin in isolation.
It can be remembered as part of a much larger movement of people, warriors, families, and communities across the old Benin sphere.
Ogbona and the Benin World
This does not mean that Ogbona should be described simply as a “Benin settlement”. That would be an unnecessary simplification. Perhaps, a settlement of the descendants of the people who migrated from Benin would be more fitting.
Nonetheless,
Ogbona has its own ancestral identity, traditions, institutions, and historical memory.
But communities do not develop in historical vacuums.
The ancient Benin Kingdom interacted with surrounding peoples through warfare, migration, trade, political relationships, and cultural exchange. The movement of individuals from Benin into neighbouring territories was therefore part of the broader historical process through which communities were formed and transformed.
The tradition of Erua and Odia gives Ogbona an especially vivid link to that wider history.
The two men are remembered not merely as travellers.
They are remembered as men who had stood within the military world of a great African kingdom.
They had known Benin’s power.
They had participated, according to tradition, in the world that produced the great defensive earthworks.
And when they departed, they carried that history with them.
The Meaning of the Handprints
Perhaps the most powerful element of the story is not whether the stone actually preserves the fingerprints of Erua and Odia.
It is what the story means.
A footprint says:
Someone passed here.
A handprint says something more intimate:
Someone touched this place.
For generations, people could pass the stone and imagine the hands of men who had lived centuries earlier.
The stone therefore became an interface between history and memory.
The marks did not need to be scientifically proven to have cultural meaning. They became part of the community’s mnemonic landscape—a physical object through which an otherwise distant past remained present.
This is how oral history often works.
It does not preserve the past like a photograph.
It preserves the past through places, names, stories, symbols, and inherited meanings.
The Question of the Benin Moat
There is nevertheless a historical question that deserves further research.
Ogbona tradition associates Erua and Odia with the construction of the Benin earthworks.
Archaeological scholarship, however, does not currently identify them as the established builders of the Great Benin earthworks.
The evidence points instead to a long process of construction and expansion, associated with different periods and rulers.
Consequently, the safest historical interpretation is not that Erua and Odia personally dug the Great Benin Moat.
Rather, oral tradition may preserve their association with the military organisation, defense, or constructional culture of the Benin Kingdom.
They may have been warriors who participated in the defense of the earthworks.
They may have supervised men engaged in military works.
They may have belonged to a military institution whose activities included fortification.
Or the oral tradition may have compressed several generations of Benin military history into the lives of two celebrated heroes.
Those possibilities remain open.
The Journey Continues
If the story is true in its broadest traditional sense, then the stone at Ukpakphai represents more than a curiosity.
It represents a point on an ancient human journey.
From Benin.
Through the forest.
Across streams.
Along paths that existed before modern roads.
Into the territory that would eventually become home to another community.
And finally into the memory of Ogbona.
Erua and Odia may therefore be remembered not simply as men who left Benin.
They may be remembered as carriers of a fragment of Benin’s military civilisation into another ancestral landscape.
And somewhere along that journey, at the junction towards Ukpaikphai Stream, the two warriors are said to have left their hands upon a stone.
Whether nature made those marks or men made them, generations of Ogbona people gave them a meaning.
The stone became their witness.
The stream became their landmark.
The road became their route.
And the story became part of the memory of a people.
A Legacy Worth Investigating
Today, the stone should not merely be remembered in conversation.
It deserves to be located, photographed, measured, georeferenced and examined.
A geological examination could establish whether the impressions are natural erosional features, weathering patterns, or genuine anthropogenic markings.
An archaeological survey could determine whether there are nearby traces of an old pathway, settlement, military position, or other human activity.
Most importantly, elderly custodians of Ogbona history should be interviewed independently and asked the same questions:
– Where exactly was the stone?
– What was the traditional name of the stone?
– Who first told the story?
– What were Erua and Odia said to have done in Benin?
– Which Oba was ruling when they left?
– What was the nature of their disagreement with the Oba?
– Where did they travel after leaving Benin?
– Did they remain together?
– What was their relationship with the ancestors of Ogbona?
– How does the story connect chronologically with Imhakhena?
– Were the marks said to be fingerprints, palms, footprints, or something else?
– When was the stone last seen?
– Who can identify its former location?
These questions may transform an interesting family story into a properly documented Ogbona oral-history record.
And that, in my view, is the real significance of the tradition.
The objective should not be to prove the story at all costs. The objective should be to preserve the story faithfully, identify what can be corroborated, distinguish what remains traditional belief, and allow archaeology and historical scholarship to test the physical evidence.
If the stone can still be found, that physical location may be the most important piece of evidence in the entire Erua–Odia tradition.
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