do you know the bini people are of the lost tribe of isreal and moved down from egypt?

Ok. That's what's up.

babaearly:

do you know the bini people are of the lost tribe of isreal and moved down from egypt?

evidence?

@ Poster, were you day dreaming?

We are all then, lost tribes of Isreal.

No, Edo is a lost tribe of the Igbo.

^^

We get the gist.

ezeagu:

No, Edo is a lost tribe of the Igbo.

chei!!! see claiming!

babaearly:

do you know the bini people are of the lost tribe of isreal and moved down from egypt?

No, but I do know that this post is nonsense.

ezeagu:

No, Edo is a lost tribe of the Igbo.

You can't be serious.

Strange stuff. Edo and Igbo are quite different cultures and linguistically very different but as you know little about Edos you make bizarre statements about Edo being a mix of Yoruba and Igbo and now a full blown "Edo is a lost tribe of the Igbo" statement. I don't know why this ever even comes up when people who've actually bothered to study Edos have identified a whole family of languages called Edoid whose origins have been associated with a migration from the area north of Akoko-Edo downwards.

PhysicsQED:

No, but I do know that this post is nonsense.

You can't be serious.

Strange stuff. Edo and Igbo are quite different cultures and linguistically very different but as you know little about Edos you make bizarre statements about Edo being a mix of Yoruba and Igbo and now a full blown "Edo is a lost tribe of the Igbo" statement. I don't know why this ever even comes up when people who've actually bothered to study Edos have identified a whole family of languages called Edoid whose origins have been associated with a migration from the area north of Akoko-Edo downwards.

Hmm, so Edo came by way of Igala as well? Nice to know Southern Nigeria's Igbo roots.

^^
Who said anything about Igala (and yes I'm familiar with that Igala from Igbo and then Igala continued migrating westwards stuff found in Igbo (but not in other) history). The whole Edoid groups together outnumber the Igala and speak a language strikingly different from theirs for supposed migration such a small distance away from them so you would have to do better than that. Also, I was actually referring to the Northern part of what is now Ondo State, where the Ukaan and Akpe languages are spoken, and not to what is now Kogi state when I referenced the area north of Akoko-Edo.

PhysicsQED:

(and yes I'm familiar with that Igala from Igbo and then Igala continued migrating westwards stuff found in Igbo (but not in other) history).

It's also found in Igala history.

PhysicsQED:

The whole Edoid groups together outnumber the Igala and speak a language strikingly different from theirs for supposed migration such a small distance away from them so you would have to do better than that. Also, I was actually referring to the Northern part of what is now Ondo State, where the Ukaan and Akpe languages are spoken, and not to what is now Kogi state when I referenced the area north of Akoko-Edo.

No, now, you did a u-turn. From the east to the north and then towards the south.

ezeagu:

It's also found in Igala history.

Never seen a reference to it in Igala history, but I'd be happy to read one.

No, now, you did a u-turn. From the east to the north and then towards the south.

Uhhh, no. When I brought up the area north of Akoko-Edo as the place Edos migrated south from I was specifically referring to the area north of Akoko-Edo where isolated languages with a small number of speakers that can't be classified in any of the known larger minority or majority groups of Nigeria are found, whether Igala, Edoid, Igboid, Yoruboid, etc. That is where Ukaan and Akpes are found and that happens not to be where the Igalas are. Although I will at this point assume you've concocted the U-turn theory just to annoy me for your amusement and stop debating this stuff in this thread.

guys, according to yoruba history. i thought the bini kingdom was from the yorubas? i mean oduduwa and his kids? . am i wrong?

PhysicsQED:

Never seen a reference to it in Igala history, but I'd be happy to read one.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0K0p8wCNKTQC&pg=PA316&dq=%22the+kings+of+the+Igala+claimed+descent+from+the+Nri+of+Igbo-Ukwu%22&hl=en&ei=-l7pTP7sGI20hAfXvJ0P&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20kings%20of%20the%20Igala%20claimed%20descent%20from%20the%20Nri%20of%20Igbo-Ukwu%22&f=false

Written by a true Igbo man, Christopher Ehret.

[center][img]http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/ehret/ehret.jpg[/img][/center]

PhysicsQED:

Although I will at this point assume you've concocted the U-turn theory just to annoy me for your amusement and stop debating this stuff in this thread.

I think you already knew this but wanted a debate anyway, say the truth.

But, anyway:

Benin traditions of the past few centuries claim Yoruba origins for their ruling family, but it appears from archeological evidence and sixteenth-century written documentation that the actual impetus for the establishment of the kingdom came from the north, most probably from the Igala.

[url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0K0p8wCNKTQC&pg=PA316&dq=%22Benin+traditions+of+the+past+few+centuries+claim+Yoruba+origins+for+their+ruling+family,+but+it+appears+from+archeological+evidence+and+sixteenth-century+written+documentation+that+the+actual+impetus+for+the+establishment+of+the+kingdom+came+from+the+north,+most+probably+from+the+Igala.%22&hl=en&ei=m2DpTMPRJ9KGhQeKsvQQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Benin%20traditions%20of%20the%20past%20few%20centuries%20claim%20Yoruba%20origins%20for%20their%20ruling%20family%2C%20but%20it%20appears%20from%20archeological%20evidence%20and%20sixteenth-century%20written%20documentation%20that%20the%20actual%20impetus%20for%20the%20establishment%20of%20the%20kingdom%20came%20from%20the%20north%2C%20most%20probably%20from%20the%20Igala.%22&f=false]Link[/url]

I even partly guessed this thing as a joke.

ezeagu:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0K0p8wCNKTQC&pg=PA316&dq=%22the+kings+of+the+Igala+claimed+descent+from+the+Nri+of+Igbo-Ukwu%22&hl=en&ei=-l7pTP7sGI20hAfXvJ0P&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20kings%20of%20the%20Igala%20claimed%20descent%20from%20the%20Nri%20of%20Igbo-Ukwu%22&f=false

Written by a true Igbo man, Christopher Ehret.

[center][img]http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/ehret/ehret.jpg[/img][/center]

I think you already knew this but wanted a debate anyway, say the truth.

But, anyway:
[url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0K0p8wCNKTQC&pg=PA316&dq=%22Benin+traditions+of+the+past+few+centuries+claim+Yoruba+origins+for+their+ruling+family,+but+it+appears+from+archeological+evidence+and+sixteenth-century+written+documentation+that+the+actual+impetus+for+the+establishment+of+the+kingdom+came+from+the+north,+most+probably+from+the+Igala.%22&hl=en&ei=m2DpTMPRJ9KGhQeKsvQQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Benin%20traditions%20of%20the%20past%20few%20centuries%20claim%20Yoruba%20origins%20for%20their%20ruling%20family%2C%20but%20it%20appears%20from%20archeological%20evidence%20and%20sixteenth-century%20written%20documentation%20that%20the%20actual%20impetus%20for%20the%20establishment%20of%20the%20kingdom%20came%20from%20the%20north%2C%20most%20probably%20from%20the%20Igala.%22&f=false]Link[/url]

I even partly guessed this thing as a joke.

^^^^

I haven't seen where the Igala historians themselves ever claimed descent of their kings from Nri. Seems more than likely that Dr. Ehret took the Igbo histories on good faith and ascribed the claim to the Igala when it originated from Igbo history. I hope you do know the Igala are widely held by historians, anthropologists, linguists, etc. to be most closely related to the Yorubas (you won't find any contradiction to this, note that I said widely held, not one or two counterclaims), not any other group, so the statement that their kings were descended from this or that kingdom would not even imply that they were actually descended from the people of that kingdom (just as the Itsekiris are not descended from Binis merely because their kings are). I simply haven't seen anything in Igala oral or written history from Igalas that claimed they were from Igbos. The one thing which cannot be disputed is that most of the Igala kings have "Igboid" sounding names and one is even named Ebele, so there is an enormous rationale for them going along with the claim that their kings are descend from Nri and I wouldn't actually dispute that they are (but once again, similarity in names between Igala and Igbo could just imply common ancestry, which we know they do have). What I said was that I don't see any claims from the actual Igalas themselves that say so.

I could certainly be wrong, but I don't see any evidence from Dr. Ehret's neat little summary that contradicts what I originally said since he seems to have a penchant for not giving references (at least in that book, I'm sure he has references at the end of chapters and direct references in his published papers). To make matters worse for this oral history (which originates from Western Igbos, not Igalas, unless, as I said, you can offer any evidence otherwise), after claiming Igala are descendants of Western Igbo migrants, it claims Yorubas are descendants of Igalas that continued migrating westwards. Population of Igalas: 2 million. Population of Yorubas: more than 35 million (actually much more in the African diaspora). I hope you can see the problem with such claims. Wherever the Yorubas originate from, it is more likely to be from somewhere in northeastern Yorubaland than Igalaland. What scholars have learned is that yes, from linguistic evidence, there appear to be migrations from the area near the southern central middle belt to the South west and Midwest , but the idea that the Yoruba+Itsekiri+Edo originated from the Igala, even with the famines the Igalas went through in their history explaining  their low modern population, is implausible on numbers alone.

Obviously though, Igala, Igbo, Yoruba, and most Southern Nigerian groups were all one group of people at one time tens of thousands of years ago.



With regard to the Igala originating the Benin Kingdom dynasty conjecture, I've already encountered it, but for one thing it doesn't relate to what I earlier stated which is that the origins of the Edoid group of languages are Northwest of Benin city proper near a non-Yoruba speaking area of what is now considered part of Ondo State.

From: Archaeology and language, Volume 27 by Roger Blench,

"Oral traditions and the prehistory of the Edo-speaking people of Benin" by Joseph Eboreime:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mqKrB5_6EtsC&pg=PA310&lpg=PA310&dq=benin+kingdom+darling&source=bl&ots=mOYezNi3la&sig=YaWb9RvWZ0e8Cq49q1TIjVKEl3U&hl=en&ei=oJXpTJ_wGYWdlgf767y5CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=benin%20kingdom%20darling&f=false

The Edoid languages show their greatest diversity in the hilly areas northwest of Benin City. Elugbe (1979) has suggested that this region is the original Edoid homeland. From this area Edoid speakers would have spread southwards to the plains, and into the Delta area. The expansion of Edo culture from Benin City probably eliminated large numbers of Edoid languages with only a small number of speakers and left the remote Delta Edoid languages isolated south of the Bini area.

The linguistic evidence indicates an early dispersal from the north-western forest margin which distributed a Proto-Edoid belt from the north, to the extreme south and the far west, where they developed the dialectical features that distinguish the the Bini and Esan (Ishan) from the Southern dialects.

From State and society: the emergence and development of social hierarchy and political centralization by John Gledhill and Barbara Bender

'Emerging towns in Benin and Ishan (Nigeria) AD 500-1500" by P. Darling:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mZJprFtufMUC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=benin+kingdom+darling&source=bl&ots=YbVNt8ah2d&sig=qKrECbQzhW6HI5BX4sU0AmtsTbE&hl=en&ei=oJXpTJ_wGYWdlgf767y5CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=benin%20kingdom%20darling&f=false

At present, interpretation of the area's earliest history rests on linguistic analyses of the Edo group of languages. In and near the hilly northernmost part of this group are found some non-Edoid, unclassified Niger-Congo languages - Ogori and Magongo (two villages), Akpes (four dialectically different villages), and Ukaan - and it is suspected that these may be relic languages from hill-based savannah settlements, possibly antedating the Yoruba/Edo/Igbo linguistic split variously estimated between 4000 and 10000 years ago. The linguistic heterogeneity of both the northernmost Edoid and the Yoruba Akokoid groups emphasizes the antiquity of this area(. . .)

Clearly, this Northwest area is not Igalaland, but where I originally located it in my previous posts.

The theory of the Igala origin of Benin was put forward by A. F. C. Ryder in "A Reconsideration of the Ife-Benin Relationship," and later by John K. Thornton in "Traditions, Documents, and the Ife-Benin Relationship" to resolve the question of why the mysterious kingdom of "Oghene,"  or "Ogane" a powerful kingdom noted by multiple European explorers to be located north, but not West, of Benin (the "sixteenth-century written documentation" Christopher Ehret mentioned), and which therefore could not have been Ife (in its present location), was said by Benin (according to European explorers' written documentation) to be the paramount kingdom in the region and the origin of Benin and other kingdoms. The Igala theory is basically that the word "Ogane" was a corruption of the word Igala (though I don't know why the ethnic group and not the kingdom (Idah) would be referred to by those paying tribute to it- that little important detail has always been ignored). Duarte Pacheco Pereira (1507, Esmeraldo de situ Orbis) wrote of a kingdom called "Hooguanee," whose ruler was regarded "among the blacks as the Pope is among us." Thornton theorizes that this Hooguanee was Ogane/Oghene. Reasonable enough. However, in Thornton's own article, he admits there is neither conclusive evidence for or against Ryder's theory.

Let me quote directly the relevant parts of Thornton's interesting conjecture:

TRADITIONS, DOCUMENTS, AND THE IFE-BENIN RELATIONSHIP John K. Thornton Millersville University

I

Historians of Nigeria have been curious for many years about the relationship between the various states of the southern zone since the sixteenth century. The fact that the area has produced a rich art, has a fairly elaborate set of tra- ditional histories, and has been the subject of some systematic archeological work means that the modern scholar has somewhat more to go on in reconstructing the region's history than just the fairly sparse and disappointing contemporary texts that came out of the early Portuguese contacts and subsequent European trade and navigation. But contemporary documentation for southern Nigeria remains much weaker than that for other African areas, such as the central African zone, Gold Coast, or the western Atlantic coast. Nevertheless, documents have raised problems in understanding the history of the area that cannot be fully solved by recourse to the other sources of information, in spite of the comparative richness of non-documentary sources.

One of these documentary problems is the issue of the Ife-Benin rela- tionship as documentated in archeology, contemporary texts, and art history. The problems raised by the relationship between these two southern Nigerian cities ultimately reflects on a much larger set of questions concerning the relationship of all the early states south of the Niger, at a period quite near the ori- gin of the state system that would predominate the rest of the pre-colonial period. Until 1965 most scholars who thought about the matter accepted the view that early Portuguese texts describing the kingdom of Benin that mentioned a mysterious interior kingdom called "Ogane" (to give one of many variants) referred to Ife, which modern traditions in both Benin and Ife name as the founding city of most of the southern Nigerian states. But that year A. F. C. Ryder published an important review of the issue that argued that the identification of Ogane with Ife was impossible, principally because the contemporary sources referred to Ogane as being east or perhaps north of Benin, whereas Ife is quite definitely to the west. Ryder went on to propose that Ogane was some other state near the Niger-Benue confluence, and further argued that the relationships suggested in the early documents required a re-examination of most scho- larly opinion about the patterns of state interaction in the whole zone. Since Ryder's article a number of scholars have taken up the debate, looking over the evidence and for the most part failing to come up with either decisive support for Ryder's position or a convincing demonstration against it. Additional archeological work and further work by art historians, while it has undermined some of Ryder's evidence (particularly his con- tention that Ife was not an ancient city or that its art was not crucial to artistic development in the region) have nevertheless failed to provide conclusive new evidence to eliminate Ryder's position or to propose unchallangeable support for it.2

In some ways, then, the debate about the Ife-Benin relationship has been a standoff that matched information acquired through written documentation against archeological, traditional and art history evidence, and its resolution would make a contribution to clarifying issues in using each of these sources. This paper is an attempt to re-examine the question pri- marily from textual evidence, and to propose some new documen- tary evidence which can shed light on the issue. In addition to supporting Ryder's position that Ogane was not Ife but rather a state (the Igala kingdom) of the Niger-Benue confluence, this documentary evidence suggests new interpretations of the regional history of southern Nigeria in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. I will also attempt to explain the way in which the various strands of traditional evidence can be reconciled with the documentation by examining, at least in part, the history of the region until the end of the precolonial period with an eye to the ideological impact of various changes and its probable impact on tradition.

II

The early and most important text material, discussed in detail in Ryder's work, came from two independent sources, the description of west Africa by Duarte Pacheco Pereira (written ca. 1507) and the account of Portuguese expansion written by the chronicler Joao de Barros (published in 1552). Pacheco Pereira maintained that he had visited Benin four times at the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, and based his information, presumably, on local informants. His account described two kingdoms in the interior 100 "leagues" east of Benin one named "Licosaguou," which was very powerful, and another close by named "Hooguanee," whose ruler was regarded "among the blacks as the Pope is among us."3 Barros, for his part, relied on reports of early Portuguese visitors to the kingdom and the account given the Portuguese court in 1540 by an ambassador of Benin to Portugal. Like Pacheco Pereira, Barros mentioned an interior kingdom which lay "20 moons" or about 250 "leagues" east of Benin named "Ogane," which was the most powerful in those parts.

Benin and its neighbors bore this king such reverence that he was regarded as the "Supreme Pontiff" and that kings of Benin sought confir- mation of their succession from him. Among the confirmation gifts was a cross like that of the Order of St. John, which led Barros and the Portuguese court to imagine that he was a Christian, perhaps even Prester John.4 This sixteenth-century evidence has been the documentary basis for most of the subsequent discussion by art historians and archeologists, and the general confirmation in the accounts (in all particulars save direction from Benin) to traditions, which archeology and art history have not challenged, has led most of them to offer this as decisive evidence of an early confirmation of the relationship between Ife and Benin. But there exists seventeenth-century evidence which contributes additional infor- mation on these interior kingdoms and which cannot be overlooked. Leading this later evidence is the Portuguese navigational guide to the west African coast published in Lisbon in 1614 by Manuel Figueiredo. Figueiredo's account seems to rely on Pacheco Pereira for much of its information, but includes material not found in the earlier text. Since Pacheco Pereira's work had not been published in Figueiredo's time (and indeed is only known to modern scholars from eighteenth-century manuscripts), he was clearly working with texts which might be better (and perhaps fuller) than the versions known today. Figueiredo repeats Pacheco Pereira in almost all particulars and in only slightly different language, except that when describing the interior kingdoms he uses different names. The powerful king whom Pacheco Pereira called "Licosaguou" is named "Miosaque" by Figueiredo and the Pope-like ruler of the other state, "Houguanee", was called "Agare."5 Although "Agare" might be arguably the same name as Barros' "Ogane," it is somewhat farther afield from Pacheco Pereira's "Hooguanee."

Accepting, however that the manuscript traditions of all the sources might contain copyists' corrup- tions as well as problematic spellings of foreign names, it is quite possible to argue that the kingdom to which they referred was Igala. This designation conforms to a probable reconstruc- tion of an original term which was variously rendered in dif- ferent texts. It also confirms Ryder's suggestion that Ogane was a state of the Niger-Benue confluence rather than Ife. It therefore represents a strong case for arguing that it was the Igala kingdom rather than Ife that was the dominant state of early southern Nigeria. Figueiredo provided the basis for most, if not all, sub- sequent descriptions of the region. When Alonso de Sandoval published his account of west Africa in a book dealing with the conversion and origins of American slaves in 1627, he added the information about Agare and Mosaico in terms very close to those of Figueiredo, even though he clearly possessed independent information about customs and life in Benin from other infor- mants.

Dutch writers also picked up this information; Dierick  Ruiters' guide to African navigation of 1623 more or less quotes the Portuguese text in Dutch translation.7 But Sandoval and the Dutch writers as well had some independent information, although it is not always easy to tell where the later texts are elaborating on received information or simply distorting it. That Dutch writers possessed information about the interior beyond Benin seems confirmed by a Dutch manuscript navigational guide and description of west Africa written about 1654 which, while it includes information about the location of "Agarra" also mentions other states such as "Adoke," which do not figure in earlier descriptions of the land beyond Benin.8 This manuscript clearly used the same sources, or was ancestral to the account of west Africa found in Leers' description (1665)9 and ultimately the great compilation of Dutch seventeenth- century knowledge of western Africa by Olfert Dapper (first published 1668).10 Dapper provides some information on Benin's wars in the northern interior, noting for example that "Isago' (presumably the same place as Ruiters' "Miosaco" was the most powerful interior king, had many horses, had attacked Benin during the reign of the king reigning at the time of Dapper's informants (i.e., perhaps pre-1640) but had recently been subjugated by Benin. 1

Dapper also mentions other kingdoms which are not men- tioned in any other account, such as "Istanna," which lay to the north of Benin and had once been powerful until recently sub- jected to Benin rule, and another weak kingdom called "Odobo."12 At the same time, Dapper fails to mention either Ogane or Agarra (as the kingdom is called in the Leiden manuscript). But Dapper was a compiler of information without first- hand experience in the area who relied on manuscript sources for his information. It is possible that he mistook the state of "Adoke" in the Lieden manuscript (or its sources) for "Odobo," and perhaps he misread "Agarra" as "Istanna", making the "r's" into "n's" (a relatively easy mistake) and converting the "g" into an "st." Certainly the information he supplies on Istanna's location accords reasonably well with data from other sources, including the Leiden manuscript, for Agare. In any case, the earlier names of "Miosaquo" and "Agare" were still current in later times, for the Italian Capuchin Domenico Bernardi da Cesena, who visited Benin's neighbor Warri in 1722 records information about them, most of which was clearly derived from navigational sources such as Figueiredo. On the other hand he supplies other information about the places, apparently from his own knowledge. For example he describes the people of Agare and Miosaquo as being very wild and living in the bush, but that surprisingly "among such a savage people there were not a few Christians."'3 This could simply be a reaction to mentions of the cross from Barros, and the "Papal" role of the king of Agare, or it might be that he was still able to collect information from local people on the continued existence of a kingdom of Agare.


Taken together, this information tends to confirm Ryder's contention that the powerful interior kingdom that was regarded as a religious leader among the states of the lower Niger valley was not Ife, but a state of the Niger-Benue region, and supports an identification of it with the Igala kingdom. Although we are less certain about the identity of Licousagou/Miosaquo/Isago, its location, use of horses, and power suggests the Nupe kingdom, an identification proposed by Ryder in his discussion of the problem.14 A powerful Nupe kingdom is cited in Ibn Battuta's account of his travels in west Africa as "Yufi" in about 1353--a period for which Hausa chronicles also mention Nupe raids in the area to the north.16 The fact that Licousagou is mentioned as a part of the constellation of states depending on Ogane and that it most likely refers to Nupe sug- gests that perhaps the apogee of the system of states centered on the Niger-Benue confluence was reached in the fourteenth cen- tury and encompassed the kingdoms of Igala, Nupe, and Benin.

Other information tends to support this possibility as well. Modern traditions of the Nupe trace the origins of the kingdom's founder, Tsoede, back to the Igala kingdom, suggesting that the dynasty that ruled the country since the early six- teenth century had somehow come from a closer association with Igala.17 The famous Tado bronzes in the Nupe kingdom, which were said to have been cast in Igala and brought to Nupe by Tsoede, have been dated by the thermolumiscence process to the mid-fourteenth century as well.18 All this supports the idea that, prior to the sixteenth century, Igala had ruled Nupe in some way, even though the powerful kingdom in the area was known to Arabic sources as Yufi or Nupe. Of course the issue of nomenclature may be resolved if we know whether the dominance of Igala was some sort of unitary state system under a single dynasty or a looser confederation which recognized the Igala ruler as its head. But if Arabic sources mention a kingdom of Nupe, Christian sources of about the same period may name this state dif- ferently. A kingdom of "Organa" appears regularly on fourteenth-century Cataldn and Italian maps of west Africa in the land east of Mali.19

The term is sufficiently close to a variety of early sixteenth-century terms for Ogane that it must be regarded as possible that these sources provide independent confirmation of the same powerful state mentioned by Ibn Battuta under the name by which it would eventually come to be known to Christians. Scholars have provided a wide variety of possible iden- tifications of "Organa," mostly among the desert oasis towns of the Sahara (often just south of the coastal states). The evi- dence most often cited for this concerns the legends that accom- pany pictures of the king of Organa on the maps: that he was a 'Saracen", that he made war on the kings of Tlemcen, or that his country was sandy and desert.20 But the kingdom of Organa may well have been less well known to the sources of the Christian maps than Mali or the desert towns, and perhaps these legends need to be taken less seriously than geographical information in the maps, par- ticularly if it refers to the same kingdom of Yufi in Arabic accounts--for this Yufi was said to kill north Africans who visited his country.21

Furthermore, as Fall has demonstrated, the relative geography of desert towns on Catalan maps of the period is remarkably precise, and Organa is clearly shown south of the desert on all the best maps.22 Finally, Organa's loca- tion seems to be oriented more by the Niger River (the "Nile" river of the maps) than by desert geography. If this last point is true, then the mapmaker who knew only that Organa lay downstream from Mali on the "Nile" (Niger)--the same sort of information that Ibn Battuta knew of Yufi--would have described a location that would fit perfectly with an identification near Yufi and the Niger-Benue confluence. Certainly the sixteenth-century Portuguese writers iden- tified their Ogane with the Organa of the maps. Barros mentions that when the Portuguese court heard of the Pope-like ruler who revered the cross lying inland from Benin, they consulted "Ptolomey" and determined that he was Prester John.23 This "Ptolomey" could only be one of a number of world maps produced in about that time which combined newly-rediscovered Ptolemaic information about Africa with new information deriving partly from the portolan sources of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- turies and navigational data provided by sailors in the Atlantic. Martin WaldseemUller's map of 1507, for example, com- bines Ptolemaic and protolan map traditions, and includes a "Regnum Orguene," while a kingdom of "Organe" lies directly behind Benin on the Cantino atlas of about 1502. 25


Accepting these various arguments, we can reconstruct the history of this period along the following lines: a powerful kingdom of Igala exercised substantial authority over its neigh- bors to its west (Nupe) and south (Benin), possibly with an apogee in the mid-fourteenth century (if one accepts that the Organa of Christian cartography was Igala and that the Arabic Yufi was a part of this state), but by the late fifteenth cen- tury it had gradually lost whatever real power it once had. By the early sixteenth century the countries that were once subor- dinated to it were completely independent, though they still looked on Igala as a parent kingdom and ultimate source of their legitimacy. Later, in the early seventeenth century, a powerful kingdom of Benin expanded to the north, humbled the Igala state (assuming Dapper's Istanna to be this kingdom) and fought a suc- cessful but probably not decisive war against Nupe over control of the Niger-Benue confluence, which it lost only during the late seventeenth century decline and civil wars that broke Benin power throughout the region. This theory, although it contradicts current tradition in both Benin and Ife, is not without support. Art historians have noted the influence that Igala themes have in Benin art, and the cross motif is found in Igala and Nupe sources--particularly the Tado bronzes. Moreover, P. J. Darling's archeological research has argued in favor of a northern origin of the Benin kingdom.

He then goes on to state in the rest of the article that Oghene was changed to Oni of Ife or Ile-Ife when the Yoruba Oyo empire ascended to power due to the supposed influence of some Yorubas hired as foreign (impartial) judges in social organizations in Benin City. Obviously that's quite an enormous stretch.

When he states "Art historians have noted the influence that Igala themes have in Benin art" Thornton makes quite another stretch. He cites "The Benin Bronze Horseman as the Ata of Idah" by Joseph Nevadomsky, an very interesting conjectural piece that provides no conclusive evidence of its claims of the bronze horseman having a non-Benin dress and scarification although it does provide an interesting theory but actually ignores the fact that one aspect of the Bronze horseman figure, usually held to be Oba Esigie or Oba Ehengbuda, can be directly tied to Benin, particularly his style of head ornament, which is similar to Bronze pieces for other later actual Obas of Benin where a protruding tusk or cob-like structure is part of the headdress and is therefore not a foreign head ornament but a Benin ornament.

With regard to the Tado (Tada) bronzes, I would refer to "The Tsoede Bronzes and Owo Yoruba Art" by Douglas Fraser, which argues quite convincingly, also relying on William Fagg's admission that he could find no evidence of ancient Idah bronzecasting, that the Tado/Tada bronzes of Nupe have an Ife (for one of the bronzes) and Owo (Yoruba, with Benin influence) origin in style and and that the story of bronzecasting merely being transferred to Nupe from Idah when the half Idah prince founded the Nupe monarchy is unlikely, destroying a major plank of Thornton's argument above. The bronzes of Nupe, dated to the mid 14th century (well after the Ife bronzes, it is important to note) cannot likely have been from Idah and the style of the art actually suggests the greater influence of Ife.  That the cross motif is found in both the Benin art and the Tada bronzes does support this Oghene (where crosses were important) theory, but that Tada bronze in the Ife style  and the absence of Idah bronzecasting makes it more likely that this "Oghene" was more or less Ife at a different location from its present or an outpost of Ife's sphere of influence.


As has been noted by numerous historians the location of the city of Ife moved multiple times before ending up in its present location and its sphere of influence (of the Oni of Ife) changed (decreased), though admittedly it certainly could not have moved all the way from the northeast to its present position.

With regard to P. Darling's "northern origin" for the Benin kingdom it is necessary to say the following.

The "archaeological evidence" around Benin shows a 16th century "civil war" in Benin, in which an Edo polity based at Udo, to the Northwest of Benin, attacked an Edo polity based in Benin city proper. Udo, a large Edo village to the northwest of Igodomigodo (Benin city proper), which had historically resisted the central authority of Benin for hundreds of years including under the warrior king Akpanigiakon in the late 1200s-early 1300s and which had grown in strength by the 1500s, attacked Benin, then under the control of either Oba Esigie or his predecessor.

Whether Benin won or lost is a matter of dispute. Patrick Darling thinks Benin lost to Udo. Though he doesn't explain how Benin became superior once more to Udo afterward with any actual evidence but just states that Benin, under Oba Esigie just eventually overcame Udo . Benin (Bini) historians wanting to believe Benin never lost anything before 1897 claimed Benin beat Udo, with the assistance of Portuguese and their guns. Strangely, the Benin version seems to make more sense than the Udo conquest one simply because it gives a more reasonable explanation for how events later played out (with Benin ending up dominant over Udo soon after) when the war ended. Patrick Darling identifies Udo as having a "Yoruba" or Ife-oriented culture relative to Benin's more "Edo" culture (which  Udo actually should have, considering their Northwest-of-Benin (i.e. on the border with Yorubaland) location) and identifies their conquest of Benin as the origin of Ife origin of Benin Obas myth and identifies Udo as introducing Ife (Yoruba) bronzecasting to Benin in the 1400s.

Once again, this is reasonable except for how Benin ended up still just dominating Udo. Alessandro Zorzi (Informatio hauuto io da portogalesi .1517. I Venecia), provides written confirmation of Portuguese assistance in Benin's war against Udo, which does support the Benin version of the story over Darling's since it makes no sense that a conquered Benin could pull in foreign assistance to go off to war with it's conqueror's home city if it were merely trying to overcome occupation. My point however, is that archeological evidence points to a "civil war" in Edo land and that the "Northern invasion" was from Northwest of Benin, from Udo, not from Idah.



However with regard to the Igala, there was a Bini dynasty of Idah from 1507-1537, from the brother of Esigie (see R.A. Sargent "On the Methodology of Chronology: The Igala Core Dating Progression", which took over control from the original Okpoto dynasty for a while. During this same time in the early 1500s, immediately after the Benin "civil war" (actually an Edo war), Idah (the Igala kingdom) under Aji Attah, the brother of Oba Esigie, attacked Benin and were repelled by Benin with help from their Portuguese allies.

Unfortunately for the Igala kingdom being "Ogane" or "Oghene" theory, archeological evidence also seems to place the date of the ascendancy of the Igala kingdom to about 1477 AD or thereabout (see that same article by R.A. Sargent, where the grave of early monarch  of the first Idah dynasty (Okpoto dynasty) is identified as having a late 15th century date), whereas Benin city palaces (Oba's palaces) have been found (see "Archaeology in Benin" by Graham Connah, The Journal of African History, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1972), pp. 25-38) which date to around the 13th century (1200s), in accordance with the historical record which claims that this is around the time Eweka became the first Oba. So the question arises of how Igala was not a developed central structure until the 15th century but Benin, which was a developed central structure before the 13th century and before, was supposedly under Igala dominance and paying tribute to them.


The single most glaring piece of evidence against the Igala as Oghene theory, apart from the fact that Igala had no evidence, or no recollection of a centralized structure before the 15th century, and apart from the fact that Idah had no evidence of bronzecasting, and therefore nothing which could possibly have given rise to the bronzecasting tradition at Ife and Benin, is the simple fact that Benin went to war with, and sacked the Igala Kingdom in the 16th century. We know that at the height of Benin's power but before the rise of the Oyo empire, Benin controlled Lagos for a while, led wars against the Western Igbo, obtained tribute from much of what was the former Midwestern region of Nigeria, and also influenced and occasionally received tribute from Owo. We should note that after the rise of Oyo, Benin did war with Oyo, which ended in a stalemate. We then have to ask, before the rise of Oyo, why did Benin never sack Ife or demand tribute from Ife or attempt any kind of confrontation with Ife even though it was fine with obtaining tribute from its new colony of Lagos and and obtaining tribute from Owo and conquering all over the place elsewhere? The only answer would be that even then, Ife was regarded as some sort of holy city. If Igala/Idah was some sort of city whose ruler was "regarded among the blacks as the Pope” was among the 16th century Portuguese, and from whom the ruler of Benin was descended and to whom Benin sent a messenger to upon the installation of a new ruler, how could Benin possibly fight Idah or vice versa?

Worse still for that theory, archaeological evidence supports the primacy of Ife (near the current location) over both Benin and Idah (Igala), also in accordance with the standard historical record. How could Igala have birthed the major city-states of Southern Nigeria when it only got to that level in the late 1400s?

I have never accepted the theory that Igala = "Oghene" and that Benin and Ife changed "Oghene" to Ife (Yoruba) when Oyo (Yoruba)  gained power and prestige. But more convincing archaeological evidence could certainly change my mind.

It's one thing to say there was a northern invasion and another to ascribe it to the Igala  based on flimsy linguistic connections and misinterpretations of "archaeological evidence" (bronzes). Yes, previously the "Oghene" were the most powerful kingdom in all of southern Nigeria until their power waned, but there is no convincing evidence for the Igala theory of Oghene to me. For scholars who might not have read as many different conflicting perspectives as I have (e.g. Christopher Ehret), it is easy to read well written theories in well written papers by great historians like Ryder and Thornton and just summarize their claims in a book, assuming that what they assert is really plausible or correct. For now, the Igala theory of Oghene/Ogane remains an unverified conjecture. Maybe more real archaeological evidence will prove them right some day. Either way, as I said before, Binis themselves are descended from a common ancestor with most southern Nigerian groups but being descended from the Igalas, whether they could have been in a position to found Benin or not, makes no sense to me given the direction of migratory patterns of the Edoid languages' speakers and the size of the Igalas compared to the Edoid group as a whole.

History is so interesting, rereading all my sources again, sometimes I regret not becoming an archaeologist/historian.

Good discussion (although it started out as a joke)

PhysicsQED:


^^^^

I haven't seen where the Igala historians themselves ever claimed descent of their kings from Nri. Seems more than likely that Dr. Ehret took the Igbo histories on good faith and ascribed the claim to the Igala when it originated from Igbo history. I hope you do know the Igala are widely held by historians, anthropologists, linguists, etc. to be most closely related to the Yorubas (you won't find any contradiction to this, note that I said widely held, not one or two counterclaims), not any other group, so the statement that their kings were descended from this or that kingdom would not even imply that they were actually descended from the people of that kingdom (just as the Itsekiris are not descended from Binis merely because their kings are). I simply haven't seen anything in Igala oral or written history from Igalas that claimed they were from Igbos. The one thing which cannot be disputed is that most of the Igala kings have "Igboid" sounding names and one is even named Ebele, so there is an enormous rationale for them going along with the claim that their kings are descend from Nri and I wouldn't actually dispute that they are (but once again, similarity in names between Igala and Igbo could just imply common ancestry, which we know they do have). What I said was that I don't see any claims from the actual Igalas themselves that say so.

I don't really care if a random Igala website claims they're from some place else, most of these kingdoms websites of Nigeria exaggerate and put up false claims anyway, I look at their claims and put it against well researched facts and they don't match. Anyway, what Igala historians do you read, what Atta have you interviewed?

PhysicsQED:

I hope you do know the Igala are widely held by historians, anthropologists, linguists, etc. to be most closely related to the Yorubas (you won't find any contradiction to this, note that I said widely held, not one or two counterclaims), not any other group, so the statement that their kings were descended from this or that kingdom would not even imply that they were actually descended from the people of that kingdom (just as the Itsekiris are not descended from Binis merely because their kings are).

No, I don't know, back it up.

PhysicsQED:

Seems more than likely that Dr. Ehret took the Igbo histories on good faith and ascribed the claim to the Igala when it originated from Igbo history.

Yes, Christopher Ehret was at a beer parlour one day and picked up the information there?

Books are researched, that's the reason not everyone gets published because you have to back your claims. 

and they continued to be enthroned by Nri ritual experts right down to the early twentieth century.

You think he wrote that from word of mouth and "Igbo histories on good faith"? A veteran African historian who knows more about African history than anyone on this site?

PhysicsQED:

I could certainly be wrong, but I don't see any evidence from Dr. Ehret's neat little summary that contradicts what I originally said since he seems to have a penchant for not giving references (at least in that book, I'm sure he has references at the end of chapters and direct references in his published papers).

Christopher Ehret is a Professor of African History that has had published books since the 1970s on African history. Maybe when you're published on James Currey.

PhysicsQED:

(which originates from [b]Western Igbo[/b]s, not Igalas, unless, as I said, you can offer any evidence otherwise)

Wikipedia?

PhysicsQED:

after claiming Igala are descendants of Western Igbo migrants

PhysicsQED:

it claims Yorubas are descendants of Igalas that continued migrating westwards.

You definitely clicked on the wrong link.

PhysicsQED:

Population of Igalas: 2 million. Population of Yorubas: more than 35 million (actually much more in the African diaspora). I hope you can see the problem with such claims.

I don't even understand this. So the logic here is that the original group has to be larger than the groups it produced or even a certain size? I don't know where you got this from, but from this logic it would be impossible for the Han Chinese to have descended from any other group or for all those migrating human groups to have come from small groups of families, I'm not looking at this any more because it's just wrong.

PhysicsQED:

Wherever the Yorubas originate from, it is more likely to be from somewhere in northeastern Yorubaland than Igalaland. What scholars have learned is that yes, from linguistic evidence, there appear to be migrations from the area near the southern central middle belt to the South west and Midwest

Yoruba people claim that they came from the east. Or do professors win on this occasion and not traditional history?

PhysicsQED:

but the idea that the Yoruba+Itsekiri+Edo originated from the Igala, even with the famines the Igalas went through in their history explaining  their low modern population, is implausible on numbers alone.

Doesn't make any sense at all, wouldn't famine make people move into more fertile areas. Anyway, forget.

Most of the books written by neutral people are usually opposed by Nigerians.One thing I dont get is why there is a belief that neutral history seem to portray Igbos in a way unacceptable to other Nigerians but popular among igbos.

Abagworo:

Most of the books written by neutral people are usually opposed by Nigerians.One thing I dont get is why there is a belief that neutral history seem to portray Igbos in a way unacceptable to other Nigerians but popular among igbos.

It's really hard to hold back sometimes. The rubbish too much.

ezeagu:

I don't really care if a random Igala website claims they're from some place else, most of these kingdoms websites of Nigeria exaggerate and put up false claims anyway, I look at their claims and put it against well researched facts and they don't match. Anyway, what Igala historians do you read, what Atta have you interviewed?

Look, I never said I cared what your opinion is on what random Igala people's opinions on their oral histories should be, that would be ludicrous. What you think Igalas should think about their beliefs about their origins is of no significance. Similarly, my own views on what Igbos should think about oral histories of their origins is of no significance and I never claimed it was. I never claimed that I had, paramount authority to adjudicate on all claims involving their history. When you made your joke/theory of Igbo --> Igala ---> southern Nigeria, I insinuated, in parentheses, that your claim of an Igbo/Nri origin for Igalas was of biased provenance, which it was, in order to attack the legitimacy of the joke/theory. I never actually disputed the claim of Nri kingship origins of Igala itself, rather I said that it was not found in Igala history, which it is not. In fact I stated that despite the fact that Igalas are linguistically close to Yoruba, the names of their kings, in some of the dynastic histories given, bear a marked possible Nri/Igbo influence, a fact I'm in no doubt that you were unaware of until I brought it up, whether you would actually admit as much or not.

The story of Igala from Igbo goes that Onoja, one of Eri's sons, founded the Igala (kingdom/people) and this appears in various forms but originates from Igbo sources (E. Elochukwu Uzukwu points out that the story even goes both goes both ways, one version has Nri having Igala origin, another has Igala having a Nri origin). The only mention of Igbo with regard to the Igala origin tales that I've come across (in book by Elizabeth Isichei (who's not at all biased against Igbo, lol, and who I consider a neutral) that I'm sure you'll GoogleBook) is that a captive Igbo hunter (a slave) married an Igala female ruler, Ebelejonu, and became one its earliest monarchs. But their tales also mention themselves as their origin, Benin as their origin (notice, I'm in no rush to claim them, or anybody else), and even Jukun as their possible origin. Basically they are not sure of their origin (no surprise there, not too many groups of people are). However, Igala oral history doesn't mention descent as a people from Igbos nor do they mention Nri in their origin tales. You only needed to contradict that they never mentioned Nri or that they never claimed Igbo descent. You only had to contradict that and I even asked you politely for a possible correction if you could provide one. But you did not or could not.

You talk about well researched facts but if in fact you did even a little preliminary research you would have already realized that the primary, rather than secondary, sources of the Igala from Igbo story originate from Igbo oral history and that that is the source of the research.


I did not make the assertion that Ehret found the story in a beer parlor. I made the assertion that as there are no other sources for such stories aside from Igbo oral historical sources, and as he provides no sources himself, and that as he was not there to verify the events as they were happening, his only possible sources for the statements are Igbo oral history. I never stated that Dr. Ehret should not have relied upon the history or that, when he found a source which gave a clear, pinpoint origin for the group of people he wanted to talk about, he should have rejected it and only relied on Igalas' own stories, which go in many directions. I never disparaged it because it was oral history, rather I corrected your impression that quoting Dr. Ehret contradicted my original statement that the story only has Igbo origins and that Igalas have never ascribed their origins to Nri (so far, though as I will say now for the third time, I'd be perfectly willing to retract such statements if contrary evidence was presented, this is just the internet).[quo

Stating that he accepted Igbo oral history on "good faith" doesn't imply that Igbo oral history is fraudulent or doubtful by default or whatever you might have been reading into that to make you start foaming at the mouth. Rather in "good faith" means without doing any other counter research or mentioning any diverging views after researching the oral history. Had you bothered to read any of the Benin articles I referenced in my other post (since you seem so interested in Binis, for whatever reason), you would have realized that numerous scholars including Alan Ryder, Patrick Darling, and even Joseph Eboreime did not accept many key parts of Edo oral history on good faith and that Benin studies were all the better for it. I don't accept Edo oral history on good faith and I don't feel that this makes me somehow unloyal to my ethnic group. Hopefully in the future you could learn to do the same. Next time actually read and think and you won't need to start concocting insult and offense where there is none.The phrase in "good faith" still stands and I'll use it anytime, all the time when referring to any historical sources which have to be treated in such a manner about any topic.

Now as for the claim of Nri kingship itself I actually don't have any problem with it. In fact, the son of a son that left his father's home and moved to a new land will not necessarily know who his grandfather is unless he is told by the father so it is not necessarily the case that Igalas must have tales of Nri or Igbo descent for it to be true that they do have that descent. This is something I've known but you chose to skew my position of the claim of Igala descent from Igbo not being known to Igala history into stating that it had to be incorrect and that people who relied on Igbo oral history for the version of the story, such as Dr. Ehret, got their stories from beer parlors.

However, the reason for my not blindly accepting the Igala from Nri theory the minute it was brought up, apart from the fact that I don't have some sort of ethnic interest pushing me to do so, and apart from the fact that they are classified as linguistically closer to Yoruba, is because numerous historians almost always suggest it was the other way around (which I don't believe) anytime Igbo and Igala are mentioned. It is usually insinuated that Igala founded Nri, or it is stated as a fact (which it might actually be) that several Northern Igbo groups/villages claim Igala descent, or that Igala was the dominant power in the region over Nri. Adiele Afigbo, J.S. Boston, Yesufu Etu, J. Ukwedeh, Elisabeth Isichei, have mentioned various stories which support one or more of these "Igala influence on Igbos in ancient or later times" theories. In particular the article "Onọjọ Ogboni: Problems of Identification and Historicity in the Oral Traditions of the Igala and Northern Nsukka Igbo of Nigeria" by Austin J. Shelton lends support to such views.

No, I don't know, back it up.

Nah. Not even worth my time. Dapobear and amingafar had a very interesting discussion on Igalas, look through Dapobear's posts as I certainly can't be bothered with this when the facts are available at the typing of a few keys and the  click of a button.

Yes, Christopher Ehret was at a beer parlour one day and picked up the information there?

Didn't say that. Didn't imply that. Next.

Books are researched, that's the reason not everyone gets published because you have to back your claims.

Obiously books are researched. No one would just waste their time typing hundreds of pages of conjecture about other people's histories, only to ruin their reputation and waste their money and time when it was published. However I find your reasoning here rather weak. Ivan van Sertima conducted arduous research involving very obscure and detailed sources before publishing his books, but are his theories and claims necessarily true because he researched a great deal before he presented them? No.

But perhaps this example is unfair as Van Sertima may be a quack while Ehret is actually legitimate. Let me make two better examples. A.J.P. Taylor, a famous historian, got a book published in which he attempted to rewrite the origins of the history of World War 2. He certainly researched the book, but not every one of his claims was on solid ground just because he did so. Just recently it was proposed that the level of detail and accuracy in early European Renaissance painting must have come from the introduction of the camera obscura to Europe by the Persian physicist Alhacen. Needless to say lots of research was put into that thesis and multiple articles have been published arguing its merits and flaws, but neither side will necessarily be 100% right merely by marshalling more cited artcles than the other. Reasoning and arguing in the context of history is paramount.

The fact that even a distinguished professor of history can suggest "probable" Igala origins of Benin, without also informing his readers that the Igala origin of Benin theory is directly dependent on the Igala = "Oghene" theory, and without also mentioning that the actual researchers who came up with this theory (Ryder, Thornton) admit that there is neither conclusive evidence for or against their theory, and without also mentioning any of the numerous disadvantages of the new theory over the previous Ife theory, should remind us that even great scholars can take new and possibly promising theories for actual facts.

You think he wrote that from word of mouth and "Igbo histories on good faith"? A veteran African historian who knows more about African history than anyone on this site?

As before, oral histories are either taken on good faith, whether from Igala, Edo, Igbo, Yoruba, etc. or they are blatantly rejected with sound reasoning when strong evidence for alternatives arises. I never said word of mouth, come on, that's ridiculous, as you'll see below, he doesn't even research in the area of Nigerian history to be able interview anyone for word of mouth stories.

Christopher Ehret is a Professor of African History that has had published books since the 1970s on African history. Maybe when you're published on James Currey.

Christopher Ehret is an African history Professor specializing in linguistics, who has published research articles on almost every area in Africa except the part of West Africa we are talking about (his focus is on East, Southern, Nilo-Saharan speakgin Africa, and to a lesser extent Central Africa), a quite telling fact. Unlike the sources I mentioned (Ryder, Thornton, Darling, Connah, Fagg, Fraser, etc.) he doesn't engage in, or has not attempted to produce peer-reviewed journal publications on ancient West African political and social history and has published nothing from direct research that could be considered to be about West Africa apart from a few articles on Bantu linguistics and language classification, though his other research is so broad that he could not possibly be faulted for wanting to include mention of other people's research and conclusions (such as that of Ryder or Thornton) in an area of African history he doesn't focus on in a general history book about Africa. I don't doubt that he's speaking from a position of authority- I'm not a historian- what I do know is that there are others who's research puts them on a higher authority on this particular subject matter (West African pre-colonial history) and who I've quoted at times in previous posts and this one. He could probably confirm for us though, whether Igala is as close to Yoruba as others have stated. He seems like a friendly guy (from an interview of his), email him about it, he'll probably reply.

Wikipedia?



You definitely clicked on the wrong link.

I assumed most of your claim about Igala---> Yoruba came from Wiki. I sure as hell can't find it anywhere else. I certainly haven't heard of any oral history or any story from any group which states the Igala ---> Yoruba bit besides Wiki so I would be very interested to see where you got it. Or did you just take the story of Nri ---> Igala as true, and then knowing that some stories say the Yorubas come from the east make the rest up yourself?(which is fine I guess, since you meant it as a joke originally) Yours seems like the wiki story except substituting Nri (for which there is an actual story) for Western Igbo. I took the Wiki write-up as the real story that you were getting your claims from, but if you just assumed East = Igala, even more reason not to take such ideas seriously.

I don't even understand this. So the logic here is that the original group has to be larger than the groups it produced or even a certain size? I don't know where you got this from, but from this logic it would be impossible for the Han Chinese to have descended from any other group or for all those migrating human groups to have come from small groups of families, I'm not looking at this any more because it's just wrong.

I'm sorry but this particular argument is just ridiculous to me. There is a world of difference between saying that Han Chinese, like all other humans, were descended from groups of migratory East Africans at one point who survived and reproduced at a greater rate than various other groups far away and stating that Chinese came from Japanese, Koreans, or Vietnamese or smaller peoples around them. Your claim of Igala origin for Yorubas is clearly along the lines of the latter, not the former. Who would believe that a people moved only a short distance away to one area and obtained a birth rate 18 times (!) (actually not necessarily 18 times at all, but many times more) what they previously had and suddenly somehow showed evidence of habitation of their new area far earlier than the people/area they had originated from showed evidence of habitation of their area even though they were supposed to have been migrating and the other group they supposedly originated from was supposed to have been sedentary by then?. The dates at which the migration from near the Niger-Benue confluence area to the the south are long after those areas had already shown evidence of habitation. At best, migrations from the Niger-Benue confluence region of a common ancestral Kwa speaking group whose languages had recently diverged from the Niger-Benue confluence region infused other southern areas with more population and displaced some speakers of other Kwa languages. If you had said something reasonable like this then I wouldn't even have bothered to discuss it. But the oversized population of the Yorubas relative to the Igala and their close proximity and similarity of language culture (in the general West African sense) is indeed good reason not to suppose they didn't descend from, but rather diverged from a parent group with the Igalas. You seem to have failed to grasp the difference between diverging from a away from a larger group with "descending from" a group coequal to, or possibly even smaller than you, in such a group.   You could argue that once the previously East Africans ancestors of Chinese got to Asia and after becoming a different people, developed different characteristics that account for their greater reproduction rate even when not living at a greater level of development/sustenance than others. You absolutely could not do the same for two African groups at equal parity in population at one point or with the later larger group even much smaller with only a slight (relatively) geographical separation and no enormous change in the innate character of one group.

A good example is Spain and the Latin American countries. They greater birth rate of many of these Latin countries compared to Spain (from which they get the Caucasian part of their mestizo descent from) is due to their being developing countries, and having a very different culture (i.e. behavior) than their European counterparts. You cannot say the same about Yoruba and Igala without concocting ridiculous theories about monumental changes in every aspect of the behavioral habits of Yorubas relative to the Igalas after ancestors supposed descent from them and movement a (geographically) small distance away.

Yoruba people claim that they came from the east. Or do professors win on this occasion and not traditional history?

How many times have I sided with oral history over professors? I certainly could side with whichever side I wanted to, but did you fail to remember that in this instance professors, researchers, etc. of African history are relying on oral history, accepting it with reasoning and evidence when they see reason to and rejecting it with reason and evidence when they see reason to. Like I said I don't accept oral history on only good faith. I accept the best arguments for and against historical interpretations based on oral history and evidence of various kinds. Yoruba oral history says the founder of what used to be their most important city came from the East. I have no reason to doubt this. Yet. Various researchers say there were migrations from the Niger-Benue confluence to their area so traditional history doesn't contradict professors in this instance. I just don't see how it could be assumed they were Igala because of one story which doesn't have other backing (and which I actually haven't seen outside of Wikipedia, or will I now hear that there were Igbo oral histories about Yorubas (who birthed Yorubas) in pre-coloinial times? ) when its much more likely that the Yoruba formed too large a percentage of the original "proto-Kwa" group to be descended by some smaller group and just have their birth rate magically skyrocket, in all areas of Yorubaland, over those who they were a subset of. Some Yoruba and some other Africans now claim that they came from Mecca, some from Egypt, some from "Isreal" (Israel). I could give numerous reasons why they look up to such places and want to associate their own peoples' histories with such places now, but that's a whole other discussion which I won't get into here.

Doesn't make any sense at all, wouldn't famine make people move into more fertile areas. Anyway, forget.

The famines I referred to are in oral histories of the Igalas that come much later (during their Idah dynastic time period, not before) than anytime like the point they were supposedly to have fathered the Yorubas. These were specific, isolated events which I was using to account for why the Igala population is not at 4-5 million or something like that and saying that even if the famines had never happened and their population was at 5 million it still wouldn't make the Igala--> Yoruba story plausible. The only thing I would admit as plausible is the direction of language differentiation. If it could be somehow shown that a large percentage of the proto-Kwa group went from speaking a language closer to Igala than Yoruba to gradually speaking a language closer to Yoruba than Igala as one particular Yoruba speaking group gained power and influence that could be the only explanation that could allow one to say Igala was "older" than Yoruba in some way


And yeah, let's forget. I don't see why you, and a few other people, are so eager to claim relations to groups (Bini, Igala) you know so little about. Later.

Binis are Yorubas, whether they like it or not.

What Nigerians have failed to understand is that ethnic groups evolve.All Yorubas are not descendants of Odua and all Igbos are not descendants of Eri.Yoruba,Igbo,Idoma,Bini and Igala are intermingled.Anyone who cares can read up my earlier posts on the origin of Igbo tribes even though most of it was deleted.In almost every village in Western Imo State,there are known descendants of Bini,Igala,Awka,Nri,Aro and Oru(some consider it Ijaw).In such a situation as that do you see me Abagworo a man of Oru descent as different from a man of Bini descent in my village?Asari Dokubo is of Igbo descent from Abia State but is an Ijaw man.Going by theory of descent, don't you think I am more Ijaw than Asari?Igbo is our Language and culture and it stops at that.I believe this is applicable to all ethnic groups in Nigeria.None is pure.

PhysicsQED:

1. How could you write all that and not give me a link or something for Igala Yoruba language similarity?

2. I have not claimed that the Yoruba came out of the Igala, even though I'm going to say that I don't deny the possibility.

3. I didn't get my story from wikipedia and so there was no substitution.

4.

PhysicsQED:

I'm sorry but this particular argument is just ridiculous to me. There is a world of difference between saying that Han Chinese, like all other humans, were descended from groups of migratory East Africans at one point who survived and reproduced at a greater rate than various other groups far away and stating that Chinese came from Japanese, Koreans, or Vietnamese or smaller peoples around them. Your claim of Igala origin for Yorubas is clearly along the lines of the latter, not the former. Who would believe that a people moved only a short distance away to one area and obtained a birth rate 18 times (!) (actually not necessarily 18 times at all, but many times more) what they previously had and suddenly somehow showed evidence of habitation of their new area far earlier than the people/area they had originated from showed evidence of habitation of their area even though they were supposed to have been migrating and the other group they supposedly originated from was supposed to have been sedentary by then?. The dates at which the migration from near the Niger-Benue confluence area to the the south are long after those areas had already shown evidence of habitation. At best, migrations from the Niger-Benue confluence region of a common ancestral Kwa speaking group whose languages had recently diverged from the Niger-Benue confluence region infused other southern areas with more population and displaced some speakers of other Kwa languages. If you had said something reasonable like this then I wouldn't even have bothered to discuss it. But the oversized population of the Yorubas relative to the Igala and their close proximity and similarity of language culture (in the general West African sense) is indeed good reason not to suppose they didn't descend from, but rather diverged from a parent group with the Igalas. You seem to have failed to grasp the difference between diverging from a away from a larger group with "descending from" a group coequal to, or possibly even smaller than you, in such a group.   You could argue that once the previously East Africans ancestors of Chinese got to Asia and after becoming a different people, developed different characteristics that account for their greater reproduction rate even when not living at a greater level of development/sustenance than others. You absolutely could not do the same for two African groups at equal parity in population at one point or with the later larger group even much smaller with only a slight (relatively) geographical separation and no enormous change in the innate character of one group.

A good example is Spain and the Latin American countries. They greater birth rate of many of these Latin countries compared to Spain (from which they get the Caucasian part of their mestizo descent from) is due to their being developing countries, and having a very different culture (i.e. behavior) than their European counterparts. You cannot say the same about Yoruba and Igala without concocting ridiculous theories about monumental changes in every aspect of the behavioral habits of Yorubas relative to the Igalas after ancestors supposed descent from them and movement a (geographically) small distance away.

I still don't understand why the Igala couldn't have produced the Yoruba. Size is not a reliable thing to look at otherwise some proven theories of origin must have been miracles like the native peoples of those Indian islands. How many original groups have been wiped away?

And 5.

PhysicsQED:

And yeah, let's forget. I don't see why you, and a few other people, are so eager to claim relations to groups (Bini, Igala) you know so little about. Later.

No one is claiming you people (except the Igala who Nri founded) because Edo and Igbo are related anyway and you don't know how much I know about any group.

ezeagu:

1. How could you write all that and not give me a link or something for Igala Yoruba language similarity?


2. I have not claimed that the Yoruba came out of the Igala, even though I'm going to say that I don't deny the possibility.

3. I didn't get my story from wikipedia and so there was no substitution.

4.
I still don't understand why the Igala couldn't have produced the Yoruba. Size is not a reliable thing to look at otherwise some proven theories of origin must have been miracles like the native peoples of those Indian islands. How many original groups have been wiped away?

And 5.
No one is claiming you people (except the Igala who Nri founded) because Edo and Igbo are related anyway and you don't know how much I know about any group.

1. Since it seems to be so much work to do so (actually, I know it’s not since you’ve certainly found much more obscure information before) I’ll help you out on the Igala-Yoruba thing:

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~akinlabi/Yoruba_Facts.pdf
^^^^^

There’s one.
p. 1-2 are interesting although, it accepts the Oduduwa story without a second thought (no problem though, I’m only concerned about linguistics here). Also mentions linguistic evidence of them always being in their present location, but dispersing there from Northeastern Yorubaland and diverging from the Igala at that point. (What I suggested earlier.)

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MJ7KylvsgYEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA65&dq=two+dialects+of+igala+and+yoruba+some++comparison&ots=dSFSQfrbmP&sig=EHl7CMN2jP0y2J9pkKjY9lKAeys#v=onepage&q&f=false
^^^^^
p. 71 and 73 are relevant here, but further pages talk about the degree of the relationships between languages. The pages which show the exact degree of the linguistic affinity between Igala and Yoruba in the context of the particular scheme being used in the book aren’t in the preview, unfortunately.



http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NemX4nY2x3UC&oi=fnd&pg=PA79&dq=two+dialects+of+igala+and+yoruba+some++comparison&ots=TFZEorAJmY&sig=Xw9m7yFAW1RYtaNsERjJEh8xReU#v=onepage&q&f=false

^^^^^
Here’s one that’s more detailed.
p. 82 deals specifically with Yoruba and Igala
p. 84 (very interesting) deals with Yoruba- Edo , Yoruba- Igbo, Edo- Igbo, etc., which I’m sure you’ll find very interesting, given that other thread (“Similarity between Bini and Igbo”) where people were listing cognates.




2. Actually, you claimed that Southern Nigeria besides the Igbos (from whom the Igalas supposedly came) came from the Igalas. But you did it as kind of a joke so I’m going to let slide the obvious fact that if it is claimed that Southern Nigeria is from the Igalas, and that if Igbo is left out of this descent, then Yoruba makes the majority of that Southern Nigeria. Maybe you were implying only one small part of Southern Nigeria or something like that when you made that joke/theory, but that wasn’t clear since you just said Southern Nigeria.

3. Ok. Then the Igala to everything else thing was just an original conjecture on your part. I really haven’t seen the Igala to Yoruba theory outside of Wikipedia and your joke/theory blatantly implied such a theory whether you meant it to or not. I took it as you connecting the Wiki write-up which talks about “Western Igbos” with the Nri story but I’ll admit I was wrong on that count.

4. How can I make this clearer? It would be more plausible for Igalas to have “produced” the Yoruba rather than merely diverged away from them if the population of Igalas was much greater or if a plausible explanation was given of how later Yorubas in every area suddenly gained massive reproduction rates compared to all of their immediate Southern Nigerian neighbors (to overtake them in population), particularly the Igalas of whom they were supposedly a subset, without enormous genetic and behavioral difference. Otherwise it is more reasonable to suggest that Yoruba and Igbo composed major factions/proportions of the ancestral Eastern Kwa (Volta-Niger) group and that the smaller groups and the major groups diverged at some point. That is the accepted theory and I accepted it only because it makes more sense, not because the thought of Igala descent for Yorubas or other groups pains me somehow. 

With regard to Indian islands, I’m not sure exactly which islands you mean but do note that:

a) Packets of isolated populations on islands do not prove that each of these groups did not diverge from a larger parent group and are somehow some sort of ethnic origin point all on their own on each of their islands. Also note that the features of extreme distinction in culture and language (i.e. ethnic distinction) compared to large mainland groups, is almost always explained by their isolation on those islands, not as a property inherent in some way to the population themselves (not unlike the reason for unique evolutionary developments in animals on isolated islands compared to mainland groups, except culture and language replace biology in this case).

b) Thor Heyerdahl’s work pretty much proved that humans with little advanced technological capacity could reach far away islands thousands of miles away. The native peoples on any Indian islands, some of which are not at all thousands of miles away, didn’t appear there overnight. They got there physically. Where they got there from (i.e. the direction of the migration patterns from the mainland) and how long ago they got there to make them so distinct or not so distinct from the mainland groups is another matter and is determined by genetic studies and archaeological evidence, not origin stories. However, I have yet to see an Island group which subsequently acquired an enormous reproduction rate compared to previously larger groups that they were once apparently part of without having undergone some sort of unknown enormous behavioral change or enjoying some sort of enormous environmental advantages relative to their original group.

5. Fair enough.  Jokingly saying southern Nigeria originates from a Nri king’s loins is claiming primacy, rather than anything like relations. If you want to believe Nri founded Igala, do so. It's certainly a plausible claim, as I said earlier. But there's a difference between doing so and saying that the Igalas themselves ascribe to the story when apparently there is no evidence that they do. Anyways, I still don't see what the appeal is of claiming relation to this or that group. Why not claim relatedness to Urhobo? Why not Ogoni? (Maybe you do, but I haven't seen such here.)

@Abagworo, If there is some general trend of non-Igbo Nigerians opposing anything said about Igbos which portrays them in a way at odds with some people's perception of them (such as the incorrect perception/stereotype that “Igbos are all just traders” when loads of neutral evidence and statistics says otherwise) then start another thread about that and don't mix it up with a debate about history. Don't insinuate that I was going out of my way to oppose neutral views (actually not “neutral” (by the way, not everything has to be for or against a people, you know, some views could just be facts or theories, without having any goal of either glorification or degradation in mind), but sourced from Igbo oral history) which I supposedly found “unacceptable” (actually I pointed out the misrepresentation of their origin and the consequent lack of objectivity in someone’s ”Igbo to Igala to everyone in Southern Nigeria” joke/theory, not the supposed “acceptability” or “unacceptability” of the Nri to Igala story and even pointed out a fact that would support the Nri to Igala story).

With regard to mixes, it's really the case that most groups in the South share common ancestry than it is that the different groups mixed after diverging from one another. Your idea of all Nigerian groups as mixes doesn't seem to correspond completely to reality. Sure in the East there might be heavy mixing between Ijaw and Igbo or Ibibio and Igbo and occasional mixing of Igbo and Igala and of course in the Midwest in Delta state the same probably occurred (i.e. the Itsekiris), but in Edo state I have not read of any evidence of much mixing prior to the modern era. The one mixed Edo group I can think of is the Edo-Akure. The other groups that could possibly be mixed are some of the Igbo communities in Edo state. That's about it. The others I don't see any mix in. Now the Western part of Nigeria was basically homogeneous prior to the modern era and the only part I would call mixed are those few areas where Nupes, Fulanis, or Edos became Yorubas. The vast majority of the west, however was homogeneous in the sense of not being anything other than different groups of Yorubas, not necessarily in all being descended from Oduduwa or something. Most of the Middle belt I would not call mixed either. Mixing only goes in certain directions so you can’t just assert that every group is mixed every which way. The history of some ethnic groups in Nigeria is not necessarily applicable to all.

bababuff:

Binis are Yorubas, whether they like it or not.

Somebody said Binis are Yorubas. Someone earlier said they were related to Igbos. If they are, no big deal, nothing wrong with that. Those are actually two of the more interesting groups in Africa, from my perspective. However saying they are really part of this or that larger group or a mix of this or that larger group has to examined in the context of facts and with critical thinking. Binis are located in between Yorubas and Igbos. However Binis are also actually right in the middle of the “Edoid” language groups. There are multiple other different Edoid groups around the Binis who people have neglected to ascribe Yoruba or Igbo origin to, no doubt on the basis of these peoples' very unique languages and cultures and the implausibility of all of these these unique groups also happening to just “be” one of the larger groups or a mix of them. Also, saying they are Yorubas seems a bit like saying that Ibibios are Igbos. In the same way Ibibios are actually closer to Annang, Efik, and Ekoi than Igbo (from my understanding, and I'm not talking politics here), I would point out that Bini are actually closer to Esan, Etsako, Emai,Uneme, Urhobo, Isoko, etc. than Yoruba.

PhysicsQED:


Somebody said Binis are Yorubas. Someone earlier said they were related to Igbos. If they are, no big deal, nothing wrong with that. Those are actually two of the more interesting groups in Africa, from my perspective. However saying they are really part of this or that larger group or a mix of this or that larger group has to examined in the context of facts and with critical thinking. Binis are located in between Yorubas and Igbos. However Binis are also actually right in the middle of the “Edoid” language groups. There are multiple other different Edoid groups around the Binis who people have neglected to ascribe Yoruba or Igbo origin to, no doubt on the basis of these peoples' very unique languages and cultures and the implausibility of all of these these unique groups also happening to just “be” one of the larger groups or a mix of them. Also, saying they are Yorubas seems a bit like saying that Ibibios are Igbos. In the same way Ibibios are actually closer to Annang, Efik, and Ekoi than Igbo (from my understanding, and I'm not talking politics here), I would point out that Bini are actually closer to Esan, Etsako, Emai,Uneme, Urhobo, Isoko, etc. than Yoruba.

Just out of curiousity, are the Edo languages such as Bini, Esan, Etsako, Afemai mutually intelligible?

^^^^^
No.

Also, Afemai = Etsako. (Well not really, Afemailand includes more than just the Etsakos, such as Uneme and Ivbiosakon, but it's primarily used interchangeably for Etsako.)

PhysicsQED:

Also, Afemai = Etsako. (Well not really, Afemailand includes more than just the Etsakos, such as Uneme and Ivbiosakon, but it's primarily used interchangeably for Etsako.)

So which languages are mutually intelligible, if any?

chyz:

So which languages are mutually intelligible, if any?

Binis from different areas understand each other.

Esan from different areas understand each other.

Etsakos from different areas understand each other.

and so on. . .

Also, Bini and Esan share a lot of words in common, and even some names.

No large scale unity/oneness. But it's okay. More diversity is also more interesting, in a way.

There is some affiliation with the middle belt as well, imo.