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Okpu Agha
An Igbo elder of Öka (Awka) wearing an okpu agha, or “war hat” as noted here by Northcote Thomas, 1910-11. Northcote Thomas’ album, MAA Cambridge.
As a defence against … weapons the Ibo had devised fibre ‘crash’ helmets or okpu agha. Those … are entirely plaited out of the coarse fibre in the stems of Colocasia antiquorum. Dalziel remarks: ‘The Ibos use caps or helmets and a kind of armour woven from the fibre got from the petioles.’
– M. D. W. Jeffreys (1956). “Ibo Warfare.” Man, Vol. 56 (June, 1956). p. 78.
