Women and War Memories during the Nigeria – Biafra civil war

A practicality of textiles.

Abstract

From time immemorial, women have been groomed and trained to take care of domestic affairs in their families. In line with the above, during the time of the missionaries in Igbo land, some women were trained in home keeping, soap making, and cloth making before getting married to know how to take care of their immediate and extended families at large. However, this teaching and its practices which have become part of their lives, were manifested during the Nigeria-Biafra war. Women were not just passive spectators or merely helpless victims of war as some authors have claimed, rather they rendered lots of help in taking care of their family members as they were taught. The significant roles played by them as mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, aunts, cousins, nieces, sisters-in-law, mothers-in-law, sisters, wives, and daughters; physically, spiritually, and otherwise should be recorded, accentuated, and commended instead of calling attention to the moral decadence exhibited by some female folk during the war. Apart from food service, they also took charge of the clothing and textiles aspect which its lack had some negative implications that affected health and other aspects of life. It is on this ground that this study is based. This is qualitative research and the research design is historical and descriptive, I utilized oral interviews and photographs as research instruments to collect some data and also adopted the theories of functionalism and feminism for analysis. I found out that women relentlessly worked hard and used their initiative to create and improvise with some found textile objects to solve the immediate needs of their families during the war. It also reports what women did with their clothing and the scarcity of clothing. I did not fail to document the roles of textiles and jobs women did as regards textile production, to raise funds to take care of their families. The study concludes by voicing out that women were not just tag-a-long but active partakers and stayers who amid this aggression, faced the war under a deplorable condition but utilized it to display a high level of wisdom and creativity which was of utmost help to everyone during the war and after.