Perebo Kalabari is the eponymous ancestor of the Kalabari, the founding forebear from whom the clan and its several settlements take their name. Remembered in oral genealogy as a son of Meinowei, he stands among the ancestral dead, the duein, whose commemoration binds the living lineages to their origins. Traditions of the founding ancestors of Elem Kalabari are recited to establish the descent and precedence of the wards and houses of the city-state.