ABSTRACT:

It is a truism that culture like one's skin is an irremovable part of one's identity. However, as one can bleach one's skin to assume another colour, so also a cultural group can borrow or superimpose alien culture or cultures on its own indigenous culture to marginalize the latter. The thrust of this research, therefore, is to bring to the limelight those aspects of the Igbo cultural identity – language, customary practices, architectural designs, food, dressing, etc., which have been choked by alien cultures. It will also deal with the negative cultural practices: the outcast system, disinheritance and dispossession of women, ritual killings and the others, which are not only thriving but prevalent in Igboland despite more than a century of Christian evangelization. Also the factors which encourage either their sustenance or destruction will be highlighted.