ezeagu:


Not surprising that this isn't a first hand account, but a dictionary. Europeans would surely note what they were called by various African groups, so why can't anybody find Europeans being referred to as oyibo by anyone other than the Igbo people of the Niger River?

Thank you for this.

RedboneSmith:


Ajayi Crowther's Yoruba-English dictionary from 1843 contains the word oibo for white man. That's before 1850, so there.

https://books.google.com.ng/books?id=uadfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA80&lpg=PA80&dq=crowther+oibo+white&source=bl&ots=xoPXQLSoRC&sig=2yrYi9PoCLPBBrDYQ66yp4JCHuI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixyO3qzeLQAhVsDMAKHaPKDXEQ6AEIFzAE#v=onepage&q=crowther oibo white&f=false

Olaudah, born in 1745, mentioned the word in his memoir and his village people using the word as far back as the early 1700s. More than 100 years before Ajayi wrote his dictionary. So?

Mind you, from Olaudah's description, he is most likely from the Iseke village of Anambra south-Orsu area of Igboland (the area of Igboland with the most little external influences whatsoever). It is striking that this isolated village, with no cross-border influences, was using 'oyibo' in their Igbo dialect as early as the 1700s or likely even earlier than that.

Like I said before, if oyinbo makes sense in the SW so be it, Oyibo makes sense in the SE and is of Igbo origin.

Academic evidence strongly points to an Igbo origin or Igbo first usage. Anything else is mere speculation.

bigfrancis21:


Olaudah, born in 1745, mentioned the word in his memoir and his village people using the word as far back as the early 1700s. More than 100 years before Ajayi wrote his dictionary. So?

Mind you, from Olaudah's description, he is most likely from the Iseke village of Anambra south-Orsu area of Igboland (the area of Igboland with the most little external influences whatsoever). It is striking that this isolated village, with no crosbo' in their Igbo dialect as early as the 1700s or likely even earlier than that.

Like I said before, if oyinbo makes sense in the SW so be it, Oyibo makes sense in the SE and is of Igbo origin.

Academic evidence strongly points to an Igbo origin or Igbo first usage. Anything else is mere speculation.

The Olaudah Equiano illustration is far, far from convincing. Stop using it. You've used it a million times on this forum already. It is not convincing at all. Oye Eboe as uses by Olaudah is Onye Igbo and was not applied to white people in Olaudah's book. Morphing Oye Eboe to Oyibo and applying it to white people is purely your own conjecture and is not supported in any literature.

bigfrancis21:


Yes it is possible. Anything is possible. Lack of humility and a false sense of cultural superiority would not allow you to explore other possible options.

False sensecof cultural superiority? Wetin be dat? I am not even Yoruba.

If you say a man that knows a word is not a Yoruba word, and is not used in Yorubaland, but goes ahead to put it in a Yoruba dictionary because he meets that word in Onitsha. If you say this makes sense to you, then it may be the case that you are not very bright.

RedboneSmith:


The Olaudah Equiano illustration is far, far from convincing. Stop using it. You've used it a million times on this forum already. It is not convincing at all. Oye Eboe as uses by Olaudah is Onye Igbo and was not applied to white people in Olaudah's book. Morphing Oye Eboe to Oyibo and applying it to white people is purely your own conjecture and is not supported in any literature.

Olaudah doesn't even explain why he would refer to himself as 'Eboe' if 'Oye Eboe' means 'onye Igbo' in the sense of Igbo person, and not a word that may have come from 'onye Igbo'.

Furthermore, at Aboh "R. A. K. Oldfield, a European, while on the Niger River near Aboh in 1832 had recorded locals calling out to him and his entourage "Oh, Eboe! Oh, Eboe!" meaning "White man, White man!" linked to modern 'oyibo'."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyibo

It could be that both words developed from an older word, but then the question would be who was being referred to as oyibo or oyinbo before Europeans.

The orginal form of this word everyone is arguing about isn't even Oyibo or Oyinbo but rather "Oibo". And it was first used among the Yorubas.
The most accurate written records of its use I have seen so far dates to the mid 1800's

InyinyaAgbaOku:


Abi and sabi are Portuguese

Abi is not the same as Sabi
Abi and Sabi as are used in Pidgin do not mean the same thing. Sabi is Portuguese, Abi is Yoruba.
Abi is a Yoruba interrogative negate. Sabi means "to Know"

InyinyaAgbaOku:


Agbadais a Yoruba word but the style isn't yoruba

Agbada is a Yoruba word, and Agbada is a Yoruba style.
Your statement is akin to saying collared Shirts and Suits aren't German or French, simply because the very earliest collars had British/English origins?
Agbada as worn by Yorubas today has been very much Yorubanized, It is made with Aso oke, different types of pants (Kenbe, Soro, sokoto), different styled hats, etc with all sort of different motifs.

And even if you want to say Agbada is a 100% sudanic invention, a good part of Yorubaland was well within that zone of cultural exchange.

YourNemesis:


Agbada is a Yoruba word, and Agbada is a Yoruba style.
Your statement is akin to saying collared T shirts aren't German or French, simply because the very earliest collars had British/English origins?
Agbada as worn by Yorubas today has been very much Yorubanized, It is made with Aso oke, different types of pants (Kenbe, Soro, sokoto), different styled hats, etc with all sort of different motifs.

And even if you want to say Agbada is a 100% sudanic invention, a good part of Yorubaland was well within that zone of cultural exchange.

We are saying same thing.
It's not Yoruba invention.
It's borrowed, if you like, sew it with ewedu leaves

InyinyaAgbaOku:

We are saying same thing.
It's not Yoruba invention.
It's borrowed, if you like, sew it with ewedu leaves

And I am telling you it wasn't exactly borrowed, but rather, a shared clothing worn by tribes all over the western sudan, from Wolof to Dagbani to Malinke to Northern Yorubas. Each with their own versions and varieties.
Why you sound so bitter is beyond me. Maybe it is because You still borrow the wrappers of your mother's and wives' to wear while donning a color rioting woolen toddler hat.

ezeagu:


Olaudah doesn't even explain why he would refer to himself as 'Eboe' if 'Oye Eboe' means 'onye Igbo' in the sense of Igbo person, and not a word that may have come from 'onye Igbo'.

Furthermore, at Aboh "R. A. K. Oldfield, a European, while on the Niger River near Aboh in 1832 had recorded locals calling out to him and his entourage "Oh, Eboe! Oh, Eboe!" meaning "White man, White man!" linked to modern 'oyibo'."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyibo

It could be that both words developed from an older word, but then the question would be who was being referred to as oyibo or oyinbo before Europeans.

Olauda referred to himself as Eboe, because he was writing from the perspective of an "Igbo" man abroad. It was abroad that he encountered the pan-Igbo ethnic identity, and like all diasporic "Igbo" men of that period, he embraced and utilised that pan-identity.

The appearance of "Oye Eboe" as a term for a certain people "living at a distance" indicates that he was aware of an older less-inclusive meaning of that term "Eboe". A meaning that some Igbo people today still know very well. Go and ask people in Onitsha, Asaba, Oguta, etc why they still refer to Igbo people from the hinterland (i.e., "living at a distance" as "Onye Igbo" or "Nwa Onye Igbo".

I see no evidence that "Onye Igbo" metamorphosed to Oyibo and became the word for "white man". That is a hyuuge speculation.

YourNemesis:


And I am telling you it wasn't exactly borrowed, but rather, a shared clothing worn by tribes all over the western sudan, from Wolof to Dagbani to Malinke to Northern Yorubas. Each with their own versions and varieties.
Why you sound so bitter is beyond me. Maybe it is because You still borrow the wrappers of your mother's and wives' to wear while donning a color rioting woolen toddler hat.

At least, it's our invention.
Yours is borrowed entirely,

RedboneSmith:


The Olaudah Equiano illustration is far, far from convincing. Stop using it. You've used it a million times on this forum already. It is not convincing at all. Oye Eboe as uses by Olaudah is Onye Igbo and was not applied to white people in Olaudah's book. Morphing Oye Eboe to Oyibo and applying it to white people is purely your own conjecture and is not supported in any literature.

That's wrong because he rendered the meaning of the word when he used it as 'red-skinned person', leaving out room for any needless future speculations like yours. In the past, 'red skin' was the word used to refer to 'light-skin' and light-skin as a term was not popularly used then until recently. Thus we have light-skinned Igbos who were referred to as 'red Ibos' in reference to their 'red' or 'light' skin, or you have several slave runaway adverts describing physical details of runaway Ibos as 'red-skinned'. Red-skinned = light-skinned. Co-incidentally, you call yourself redbonesmith, redbone thereof being a corruption of the original 'red ibo'. I would suppose that you are light-skinned.

Second, Olaudah spelt the word just as exactly as it is pronounced. 'Oyibo' when pronounced natively by Igbos even till today is stretched at the 'i' part and it comes out as oyiibo instead, which Olaudah spelt as 'oyeeboe' with his own unique Igbo conventions created by him at that time, due to a lack of a standardized Igbo spelling system. Or I guess, when Ajayi crowther, a black man not white man, was called 'oyibo ojii' by Igbos in Onitsha he was called 'Igbo person' right?

Oyibo when used among Igbos has different meanings and is not just restricted to one usage. It means several things such light-skinned person who could be Igbo or westernized black person, white person, English language, westernization etc. In referring to Ajayo Crowther, who was dark-skinned, as 'oyibo ojii' we see the usage of 'oyibo' in this sense as referring to his European westernization or simply put, a westernized black man, given that such was quite rare at that time.

Your attempts to limit the perception or usage of 'oyibo' among Igbos is frivolous and equally laughable. You attempt to tell Igbos what their meaning of oyibo should be when you barely have any idea of its historical usage among Igbos.

Like I said before and will re-iterate for the umpteenth time, academic evidence strongly points to an Igbo origin of oyibo, not oyinbo. It is irrelevant if you choose to agree with this or not. It do not matter as Lil Uzi Vert would say.

Finally, as Ezeagu succinctly raised, how come we do not find recorded statements or articles by Europeans being called 'oyibo' by any other African tribe except by the Igbos east of the Niger?? Europeans, we know, were avid writers and well-detailed, and they came in contact with western African tribes, including Yorubas, since as early as the 16th century and if they had been called that word by Yorubas, they surely would have recorded it or noted it somewhere. But to the best of my knowledge none of such exists, save for a dictionary written by Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba himself, several years after he spent some of his years in the south east.

bigfrancis21:


That's wrong because he rendered the meaning of the word when he used it as 'red-skinned person', leaving out room for any needless future speculations like yours. In the past, 'red skin' was the word used to refer to 'light-skin' and light-skin as a term was not popularly used then until recently. Thus we have light-skinned Igbos who were referred to as 'red Ibos' in reference to their 'red' or 'light' skin, or you have several slave runaway adverts describing physical details of runaway Ibos as 'red-skinned'. Red-skinned = light-skinned. Co-incidentally, you call yourself redbonesmith, redbone thereof being a corruption of the original 'red ibo'. I would suppose that you are light-skinned.

Second, Olaudah spelt the word just as exactly as it is pronounced. 'Oyibo' when pronounced natively by Igbos even till today is stretched at the 'i' part and it comes out as oyiibo instead, which Olaudah spelt as 'oyeeboe' with his own unique Igbo conventions created by him at that time, due to a lack of a standardized Igbo spelling system. Or I guess, when Ajayi crowther, a black man not white man, was called 'oyibo ojii' by Igbos in Onitsha he was called 'Igbo person' right?

Oyibo when used amongst Igbos has different meanings and is not just restricted to one usage. It means several things such light-skinned person who could be Igbo or westernized black person, white person, English language, westernization etc. In referring to Ajayo Crowther, who was dark-skinned, as 'oyibo ojii' we see the usage of 'oyibo' in this sense as referring to his European westernization or simply put, a westernized black man, which was quite rare at that time.

Your attempts to limit the perception or usage of 'oyibo' amongst Igbos is frivolous and equally laughable. You attempt to tell Igbos what their meaning of oyibo should be when you barely have any idea of its historical usage amongst Igbos.

Like I said before and will re-iterate for the umpteenth time, academic evidence strongly points to an Igbo origin of oyibo, not oyinbo. It is irrelevant if you choose to agree with this or not. It do not matter as Lil Uzi Vert would say.

This comment is so muddled up, I don't even know where to start. All I'll say is: You are trying too hard.

InyinyaAgbaOku:

At least, it's our invention.
Yours is borrowed entirely,

Oh puleeese ... It isn't your invention when you wear Imported WOOL on western trousers, and european styled blowse on the females..
At least ours is completely African...

RedboneSmith:


This comment is so muddled up, I don't even know where to start. All I'll say is: You are trying too hard.

It is needless trying to 'save face' in the absence of any concrete facts or evidence by you.

Until you come up with verifiable evidence of the usage of oyibo before the 1700s, anything you think is mere speculation and cannot be verified by academic evidence. Until then.

Or you might as well just take the back seat.

YourNemesis:


Oh puleeese ... It isn't your invention when you wear Imported WOOL on western trousers, and european styled blowse on the females..
At least ours is completely African...

Because we made our blouses into beautiful fits, it's now European?
Better than those shapeless garments your women wear. Ours are not fat.
It remains our collective choice to choose that design, how come we didn't choose from Australia, Brazil, China or Taiwan?
Whatever happens, if you see those attires, you scream igbo but agbada is borrowed and can't really make one to say this is Yoruba or Hausa or anything

RedboneSmith:


Olauda referred to himself as Eboe, because he was writing from the perspective of an "Igbo" man abroad. It was abroad that he encountered the pan-Igbo ethnic identity, and like all diasporic "Igbo" men of that period, he embraced and utilised that pan-identity.

The appearance of "Oye Eboe" as a term for a certain people "living at a distance" indicates that he was aware of an older less-inclusive meaning of that term "Eboe". A meaning that some Igbo people today still know very well. Go and ask people in Onitsha, Asaba, Oguta, etc why they still refer to Igbo people from the hinterland (i.e., "living at a distance" as "Onye Igbo" or "Nwa Onye Igbo".

I see no evidence that "Onye Igbo" metamorphosed to Oyibo and became the word for "white man". That is a hyuuge speculation.

Your thievery and desperation are unbecoming. You clearly left out the part of his description of 'oyibo' where he first mentioned 'red-skinned people'. Like we do not have access to the book or what? Do you think this is some primary 3 school debate or what?

Clearly pointing out to you also, he mentioned that 'light-skinned' people were quite rare among his own village people, thus any red-skinned persons they saw were from outside of their village, hence the meaning of the 'from a distance' addition.

If one thing is sure, Olaudah was a very intelligent man who went from being a village monolingual African boy to an educated literate bilingual young man, who captured his life in a very correct and avid detailed manner that many so-called graduates of our time would struggle to catch up with him. He left no room for any extraneous speculations by people like you as he was sure to explain word for word, detail for detail his experiences.

InyinyaAgbaOku:


Because we made our blouses into beautiful fits, it's now European?
Better than those shapeless garments your women wear. Ours are not fat.
It remains our collective choice to choose that design, how come we didn't choose from Australia, Brazil, China or Taiwan?
Whatever happens, if you see those attires, you scream igbo but agbada is borrowed and can't really make one to say this is Yoruba or Hausa or anything

lol... It is european. Similar to what efik women wear in marriage.
It is called Blouse and Wrapper for a reason. Otherwise tell me the igbo equivalent for the word "Buba".
You call Yoruba attire fat, Yet I have seen countless Igbo men and Women who prefer wearing it to their wool and trousers or their so called "fitting" blouses..... Even Hausa will on some occasions ditch Babban riga to wear Agbada and Buba/Iro.
You didn't style anything, it came with the almost complete Westernization of your people.

Don't worry, Aso Ebi is just the beginning

YourNemesis:
The orginal form of this word everyone is arguing about isn't even Oyibo or Oyinbo but rather "Oibo". And it was first used among the Yorubas.
The most accurate written records of its use I have seen so far dates to the mid 1800's

Below is evidence of Igbos referring to a white person as 'oyibo'. This tells you that we do not limit the usage to fair people amongst us but also to Europeans or anybody light-skinned. This word may have first developed amongst Igbos as a way of referring to the light-skinned people among themselves and then expanded to include Europeans who are also light-skinned, this being another possibility. Remember Oldfield was not Igbo and had no way of writing Igbo words correctly and thus spelt what he heard the best way he could. You do not need a PhD degree to know that 'oh eboe' as written by oldfield is more appropriately 'oyibo' in modern Igbo orthography.

@bold....Oldfield's account of this event was recorded in 1832, and still predates the earliest evidence of Yoruba usage of 1843. Thus, Igbo usage still remains older.

ezeagu:


Furthermore, at Aboh "R. A. K. Oldfield, a European, while on the Niger River near Aboh in 1832 had recorded locals calling out to him and his entourage "Oh, Eboe! Oh, Eboe!" meaning "White man, White man!" linked to modern 'oyibo'."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyibo

bigfrancis21:


Below is evidence of Igbos referring to a white person as 'oyibo'. Remember Oldfield was not Igbo and had no way of writing Igbo words correctly and thus spelt what he heard the best way he could. You do not need a PhD degree to know that 'oh eboe' as written by oldfield is more appropriately 'oyibo' in modern Igbo orthography.

@bold....Oldfield's account of this event was recorded in 1832, and still predates the earliest evidence of Yoruba usage of 1843. Thus, Igbo usage still remains older.

Yoruba Usage of Oyibo predates I1943 hough.
Some Ibadan Baloguns used t to refer to White visitors during their expenditions.
For the word to be quite replete in Yoruba diction as early as then shows that the word has been extant among Yorubas for quite a while

This account was narrated during Ijaye's break away from Oyo control in 1836.

YourNemesis:


lol... It is european. Similar to what efik women wear in marriage.
It is called Blouse and Wrapper for a reason. Otherwise tell me the igbo equivalent for the word "Buba".
You call Yoruba attire fat, Yet I have seen countless Igbo men and Women who prefer wearing it to their wool and trousers or their so called "fitting" blouses..... Even Hausa will on some occasions ditch Babban riga to wear Agbada and Buba/Iro.
You didn't style anything, it came with the almost complete Westernization of your people.

Don't worry, Aso Ebi is just the beginning

Westerners also toe two piece wrapper?
Which Efik? You don't know Efik marriage dresses. If an Efik person wears a fitted blouse, it doesn't mean igbos got it from them. It will rather be the other way round.
If you like, name your imported clothing, it doesn't make it original to you.
Any body that wears a fitted blouse with two piece wrapper will make one remember igbo. How come Europeans Don wear wrappers with it? How many Europeans do you even see with that attire?

Hausas have been wearing what u ppl call agbada, even before your people so, I don't get what you mean by ditching. What you call agbada came from outside Nigeria.

bigfrancis21:


Your thievery and desperation are unbecoming. You clearly left out the part of his description of 'oyibo' where he first mentioned 'red-skinned people'. Like we do not have access to the book or what? Do you think this is some primary 3 school debate or what?

Stop throwing tantrums. It's not a primary 3 debate, but your tantrum-throwing is beginning to make it sound like one. That the men living at a distance were described as being mahogany-coloured does not in any way infer that the name "Oye Eboe" is a reference to their complexion. You assume too much, probably out of your need to make your untenable argument stick. I am yet to see a competent scholar who made a connection between "Oye Eboe" and "Oyibo". I am also yet to see a competent scholar who made a connection between the men's "mahogany" colour and the word "oye eboe". Quit assuming and present unassailable evidence. The most prominent historian of Igbo pedigree (Afigbo) and the most competent student of Olaudah's biography (Edwards) are both in agreement that "Oye Eboe" is "Onye Igbo" - a term used in olden times by some Igbo people to refer to other Igbo people who are not from their locality - who are from a "distance."

And hey, you should give Olaudah's book a rest, and stop using it as the prop of your argument. Olaudah may not even have been born in Igboland, according to present evidence. Even if he was born in Igboland, there are compelling evidence that some of the stuff that ended up in his book were copied from other non-Igbo Negroes he met in America.

So if Olaudah's all you've got you haven't got much, bruh.

There is no unassailable evidence of the use of Oyibo in Igboland before the 19th century. Fact! And even in that century, all the evidence we have come from peripheral groups like Aboh and Onitsha, who everyone knows were heavily influenced by more Westerly cultures so much so that they cannot be held up as being very representative of "Igbo".

YourNemesis:


lol... It is european. Similar to what efik women wear in marriage.
It is called Blouse and Wrapper for a reason. Otherwise tell me the igbo equivalent for the word "Buba".
You call Yoruba attire fat, Yet I have seen countless Igbo men and Women who prefer wearing it to their wool and trousers or their so called "fitting" blouses..... Even Hausa will on some occasions ditch Babban riga to wear Agbada and Buba/Iro.
You didn't style anything, it came with the almost complete Westernization of your people.

Don't worry, Aso Ebi is just the beginning

Westerners also toe two piece wrapper?
Which Efik? You don't know Efik marriage dresses. If an Efik person wears a fitted blouse, it doesn't mean igbos got it from them. It will rather be the other way round.
If you like, name your imported clothing, it doesn't make it original to you.
Any body that wears a fitted blouse with two piece wrapper will make one remember igbo. How come Europeans Don wear wrappers with it? How many Europeans do you even see with that attire?

Hausas have been wearing what u ppl call agbada, even before your people so, I don't get what you mean by ditching. What you call agbada came from outside Nigeria.

Wrapper in igbo is ukwu akwa, blouse is enu akwa

RedboneSmith:


Stop throwing tantrums. It's not a primary 3 debate, but your tantrum-throwing is beginning to make it sound like one. That the men living at a distance were described as being mahogany-coloured does not in any way infer that the name "Oye Eboe" is a reference to their complexion. You assume too much, probably out of your need to make your untenable argument stick. I am yet to see a competent scholar who made a connection between "Oye Eboe" and "Oyibo". I am also yet to see a competent scholar who made a connection between the men's "mahogany" colour and the word "oye eboe". Quit assuming and present unassailable evidence. The most prominent historian of Igbo pedigree (Afigbo) and the most competent student of Olaudah's biography (Edwards) are both in agreement that "Oye Eboe" is "Onye Igbo" - a term used in olden times by some Igbo people to refer to other Igbo people who are not from their locality - who are from a "distance."

And hey, you should give Olaudah's book a rest, and stop using it as the prop of your argument. Olaudah may not even have been born in Igboland, according to present evidence. Even if he was born in Igboland, there are compelling evidence that some of the stuff that ended up in his book were copied from other non-Igbo Negroes he met in America.

So if Olaudah's all you've got you haven't got much, bruh.

There is no unassailable evidence of the use of Oyibo in Igboland before the 19th century. Fact! And even in that century, all the evidence we have come from peripheral groups like Aboh and Onitsha, who everyone knows were heavily influenced by more Westerly cultures so much so that they cannot be held up as being very representative of "Igbo".

Onitsha is an igbo town to the core.
As a commercial city, it attracted lots of migrants, that doesn't make it unigbo.
Plus, oyibo is not known to any other group in ancient times other than igbos

InyinyaAgbaOku:


Onitsha is an igbo town to the core.
As a commercial city, it attracted lots of migrants, that doesn't make it unigbo.
Plus, oyibo is not known to any other group in ancient times other than igbos

Ekwe m!

RedboneSmith:


Stop throwing tantrums. It's not a primary 3 debate, but your tantrum-throwing is beginning to make it sound like one. That the men living at a distance were described as being mahogany-coloured does not in any way infer that the name "Oye Eboe" is a reference to their complexion. You assume too much, probably out of your need to make your untenable argument stick. I am yet to see a competent scholar who made a connection between "Oye Eboe" and "Oyibo". I am also yet to see a competent scholar who made a connection between the men's "mahogany" colour and the word "oye eboe". Quit assuming and present unassailable evidence. The most prominent historian of Igbo pedigree (Afigbo) and the most competent student of Olaudah's biography (Edwards) are both in agreement that "Oye Eboe" is "Onye Igbo" - a term used in olden times by some Igbo people to refer to other Igbo people who are not from their locality - who are from a "distance."

And hey, you should give Olaudah's book a rest, and stop using it as the prop of your argument. Olaudah may not even have been born in Igboland, according to present evidence. Even if he was born in Igboland, there are compelling evidence that some of the stuff that ended up in his book were copied from other non-Igbo Negroes he met in America.

So if Olaudah's all you've got you haven't got much, bruh.

There is no unassailable evidence of the use of Oyibo in Igboland before the 19th century. Fact! And even in that century, all the evidence we have come from peripheral groups like Aboh and Onitsha, who everyone knows were heavily influenced by more Westerly cultures so much so that they cannot be held up as being very representative of "Igbo".

It's your opinion anyway. Olaudah was clear enough when he rendered the meaning of 'oyibo' in his book as 'red-skinned' men. You're the one throwing tantrums here against the obvious.

YourNemesis:


Yoruba Usage of Oyibo predates I1943 hough.
Some Ibadan Baloguns used t to refer to White visitors during their expenditions.
For the word to be quite replete in Yoruba diction as early as then shows that the word has been extant among Yorubas for quite a while

This account was narrated during Ijaye's break away from Oyo control in 1836.

Oldfield's account is still 1832 right?

bigfrancis21:


It's your opinion anyway. Olaudah was clear enough when he rendered the meaning of 'oyibo' in his book as 'red-skinned' men.

Yeah, he was, wasn't he? Until we found documentations of a South Carolina birth, and Afigbo found striking similarities between some passages in the book and the culture of the Dahomey Kingdom... and all of a sudden the whole book doesn't sound so credible as a firsthand, eyewitness account anymore.

@ justwise biko kindly un-ban me from the travel section ...I've alot of info & question's to ask....pls n pls

Thanks in adv

RedboneSmith:


Yeah, he was, wasn't he? Until we found documentations of a South Carolina birth, and Afigbo found striking similarities between some passages in the book and the culture of the Dahomey Kingdom... and all of a sudden the whole book doesn't sound so credible as a firsthand, eyewitness account anymore.

Those were attempts to belittle his book. No one knows for sure who recorded SC as his place of birth. It may have been an error, who knows. Everything about his memoir has been verified to be correct except for the supposed paper of his place of birth. His vivid description of ancient Igboland is very accurate and still remains accurate till today.

Nevertheless, his book still remains one of the greatest autobiographies written by an ex-slave.

I have plans to financially sponsor a trans-continental movie to be made out of Olaudah's story, showcasing a vivid rendition of his early life in Igboland, his capture to his sojourn in the Western world. A movie collaboration to be made between Nollywood and Hollywood. A potential US box office hit movie. His story needs to be given life and told the more. Igbo culture will be showcased in a way it has never been showcased before. African Americans need to reconnect more to their African roots, especially those who are unaware of their Igbo ancestry.

RedboneSmith:


Olauda referred to himself as Eboe, because he was writing from the perspective of an "Igbo" man abroad. It was abroad that he encountered the pan-Igbo ethnic identity, and like all diasporic "Igbo" men of that period, he embraced and utilised that pan-identity.

The appearance of "Oye Eboe" as a term for a certain people "living at a distance" indicates that he was aware of an older less-inclusive meaning of that term "Eboe". A meaning that some Igbo people today still know very well. Go and ask people in Onitsha, Asaba, Oguta, etc why they still refer to Igbo people from the hinterland (i.e., "living at a distance" as "Onye Igbo" or "Nwa Onye Igbo".

I see no evidence that "Onye Igbo" metamorphosed to Oyibo and became the word for "white man". That is a hyuuge speculation.

You're not saying anything I wasn't saying. Olaudah's earlier part of the book was basically setting himself up with a native identity, particularly an Igbo one, it's therefore strange that in this very self conscious and detailed writing, in which he even went into and waved off the idea of Benin hegemony, that he wouldn't explain why another specific group of people were singled out as 'Eboe' as himself. The fact that Oldfield wrote what is obviously today's 'oyibo' as 'Oh! Eboe' helps the suggestion that Olaudah was also writing today's 'oyibo'.

The use of 'Eboe' in Olaudah's case might not even be 'Igbo' but many other words in the language, as well, or both languages as said before, although doubtful, may be using words from an older root.