How were Igbo communities organized before European colonization?

Before European colonization the Igbo were organized as autonomous local communities, often in self-contained villages or federations of village communities. Members of each group shared a common market and meeting place, a tutelary deity, and ancestral cults that supported a tradition of descent from a common ancestor or group of ancestors. Authority in the village group was vested in a council of lineage heads and influential and wealthy men. In the eastern regions these groups tended to form larger political units, including centralized kingdoms and states.