THIRTY-TWO FOLK-TALES OF THE EDO-SPEAKING PEOPLES OF NIGERIA.
These stories were collected in the northern part of the Ẹdo area in 1909-10, and are mainly from the Ọra and Kukuruku tribes; Irua lies in the Eša country a little to the south-east of the Ọra-Kukuruku boundary; but the difference is practically unimportant; they might well be reckoned to the Agbede group, whose near neighbours they are.
The Ọra country is bordered on the south by the Ọdo proper, on the west by the Yoruba at Ifọ on the north by the Kukuruku, who also form part of the eastern boundary, together with the Eša. Ọra and Eša are both very near, linguistically, to the Ẹdo proper; Eša was subject to Ẹdo till some sixty years ago when Adolo, king of Ẹdo, fought his elder brother, who had established himself in the Eša country, and was defeated. There is a good deal of intermarriage between Ọra and Eša women and Ẹdo men.
The Kukuruku appear to have a Sobo element, which fled from the south of the Ẹdo area to escape the exactions of the king of Ẹdo; they are dwellers mainly in the hill country, but how long they have been established there it is difficult to say; their language is split up into numerous tongues so diverse that towns a few miles apart cannot understand one another. The list of the kings of Ọkpe suggests that the separation of the Ẹdo and Kukuruku may go back six hundred years; but this does not necessarily apply to other sections of the Kukuruku.
