The Obudu geo-cultural area is home to six clans: Bette, Obanlikwu, Bendi, Utuwang, Ukpe-Alege, and Utanga-Becheve, all of which thrived as independent villages with a strong culture of kinship.

This was described as light-skinned people with soft bunching hair, clad in long-flowing gowns, armed with spears, mounted on horses, and with a large following of black servants.

[5] Extant literature suggests that these could have been Fulani, the Chamba, or Portuguese slave raiders, all three of whose imperialist expeditions in sub-Sahara are recorded to have peaked in the 18th and early 19th century.

[6] Another narrative suggests that progenitors of Obudu arrived at a place remembered as Onikal in the Cameroon country, before proceeding to Ulanga, from where the Igenyi dispersed them.

At any rate, the mild variation in mutually intelligible dialects of its clans suggests splinter group movement, separate migratory experiences, and marginal variance in time of arrival.