gregyboy:


[s]We are waiting i guess the author said so in this present century to spice us works so that yorubas like you will feel aroused[/s]

TAO11:


I refuse to be dragged back! Read all the comments. So far!

And read up on Olfert Dapper's to verify what I said about his permanence in the Netherlands.

gregyboy:


[s]Have you asked yourself why didnt olfert Dapper's same thesame about ife or other yorubas

So you mean olfert Dapper's was a benin man so he wanted go elevate benin for his tribal bigotry and he had to say benin once had street light


Nigga get a life beyond benin history

Yorubas have all the upper hand over benins in this country but instead they wont make history for themselves they will be arguing with benins that is just 7 local govt for historical connections

This is how benins found you all in the past and they conqured you guys

If not for the minorites and igbos who are speaking in behalf of yorubas the fulanis would have conquered you all by now[/s]

TAO11:


Thanks for admitting that your attachment answers nothing of my questions

Furthermore, the Europeans' comparison (in whatever light), of their newly arrived tour destination, with their homeland from which they've just departed is about the most natural thing to do.

I am not only schocked that you think such comparison is what makes Benin great, I am also shocked that you that you assume such comparison is unique to Benin.

No, that's a trio of inferiority complex, delusions of grandeur, and pure ignorance there, davidnazee. You should do better than that.

Having said that, I assume you love to know if the "white man" has any "great" thing to say about Yorubaland in those early centuries.

I will provide you with some astonishing "white man's" (lol) eye-witness testimonies of great telltale about Yoruba land.

Telltales which will not only highlight Yorubas magnificence; which will not only compare scenes in Yorubaland with parts of Europe; but which will infact indicates to you how transcendent certain aspects of Yoruba socio-political organization is over and above what is obtainable anywhere in Africa, and anywhere in Europe at the time.

Remind me much later today to provide the quotes and references. I have to leave now, I'm way way past bed time.

Cheers!

TAO11:


I thought as much. I've searched everywhere I can in vain.

Thanks!

samuk:


Amen and keep safe while you do your bit for humanity.

TAO11:


Thanks for addressing the two specifics I mentioned, with so much clarifying details that puts things in their proper contexts.

I am particularly glad to see that you didn't mince words in joinimg me to debunk the imaginary idea of "street lights" which is oft-repeated in Benin apologetics, and which as may have been seen is mentioned on this same thread.

My objective with all these is to make some (if not all) of these boys to begin living in the real world and escape the fairytale world of an imaginary Benin kingdom which they have been bombarded with unfairly.

Regarding the "shiny walls", I have always considered this too to be another grandiose idea considering the similar way in which it is often put in Benin apologetics.

The specific imagery they force down is of a city wall made of some "special" materials other than clay.

In other words, they give the deceptive and highly fantastic impression of some kind of different primary component from what is obtainable in any other ancient 'Nigeria' walled-city.

Your clarification in this regards (with reference) puts things in the proper perspective --- thus making it precisely clear that te material is the same --- clay, but that the emphasis is simply on the fact the the structure is thoroughly smotheened out after construction.

Thanks for the clarification and the references.

samuk:


When I said this lady is deeply in love with Benin history, she denied it.

Everyone can now see for themselves that the love is infectious.

She is a total convert to Benin history, who wouldn't be.

Thanks to her, aspects of Benin history that people do not even know about are being revealed.

Even TAO11 is learning and loving it.

Animosities aside.

Huge thanks to those of you that have made this thread very educative and informative.

I am glad that our audiences, both the Benin, Yoruba and other tribes are getting educated and learning new information about a Nigeria and an African independent civilisation that mesmerised the Europeans as far back as 600 years ago.

It was even stated that the mathematics that was used to construct the Benin wall was not even discovered by Europeans at that time, so they were initially confused by how it was done.

It was after they discovered the mathematics centuries later in Europe that the wall made sense to them.

The Nigeria of today can hardly mesmerised even blacks from Africa countries let alone Europeans.

Where did will get it wrong

gregyboy:



She has read all benin articles than even an average benin historian
And she reads them with tribal bigotry
If she was arguing for the benins against yorubas
It wont take her seconds to rumble them off
But she finds it difficult against the benins because yorubas never even had history

samuk:


I noticed that too, which is a very big shame, she can hardly see anything without tribal colouration.

Imagine searching for Ryder's book in vain just to learn more about Benin just to twist, downplay and misrepresent what was said about Benin.

But thanks to her tenacity, other tribes are now learning more about ancient Benin.

People look at Benin now and find it had to understand how great it once was.

A city that was once comparable to even European cities of the same era.

The Benin people were by no means inferior to the Europeans.

Benin where were people did these with great thoughts and logic not the Nigeria we have today.

samuk:


Anyhow you try to downplay it, iron made poles of about 20 feet with oil lamps where place at strategic locations in the square which were light on special occasions.

Call it square lights or Street lights, it doesn't matter, what matters is, this indigenous idea could be seen as a precursor to street lights or as some put it, Benin was the very first few cities in the world to have a semblance of street lights.

You can read it with your tribal lens the way you like, whilst the audience will see it for what they were.

samuk:


I noticed that too, which is a very big shame, she can hardly see anything without tribal colouration.

Imagine searching for Ryder's book in vain just to learn more about Benin just to twist, downplay and misrepresent what was said about Benin.

But thanks to her tenacity, other tribes are now learning more about ancient Benin.

People look at Benin now and find it had to understand how great it once was.

A city that was once comparable to even European cities of the same era.

The Benin people were by no means inferior to the Europeans.

One English man once described Benin of that era as being a very clean city without crime where people can leave their doors opened and in contrast, London of the same era was crime infested with poor sanitation.

Benin where were people did things with great thoughts and logic not the Nigeria we have today.

geosegun:


I was just reading your comments and laugh cant stop laughing... both you and an samuk are deceiving yourselves. You can not re-write history no matter how hard you try. Yoruba (Ife) gave you (Benin) your Kingship and and civilization. You cant help it, you cant change it and you cannot re-write history. All you need to do is accept the fact and move on. Even the Romans gave the great British their civilization, the current British royals have Germans bloodline, so what is wrong in the Oba of Benin having a Yoruba Bloodline? Why are you guys allowing inferiority complex to becloud our sense of judgement?

@TAO11; I'll advise you ignore henceforth. Since they are not ready to accept reality. You have given more than enough evidence. It up to them to face reality, accept it an move on or they continue to live in self deceit.

TAO11:


Well, I like your imagination. It's very sharp.

Now coming back to the real-world, there is no reference for any such thing as I have debunked it, and as SilverSniper have debunked it too.

Good luck imagining.

geosegun:


I was just reading your comments and laugh cant stop laughing... both you and an samuk are deceiving yourselves. You can not re-write history no matter how hard you try. Yoruba (Ife) gave you (Benin) your Kingship and and civilization. You cant help it, you cant change it and you cannot re-write history. All you need to do is accept the fact and move on. Even the Romans gave the great British their civilization, the current British royals have Germans bloodline, so what is wrong in the Oba of Benin having a Yoruba Bloodline? Why are you guys allowing inferiority complex to becloud our sense of judgement?

@TAO11; I'll advise you ignore henceforth. Since they are not ready to accept reality. You have given more than enough evidence. It up to them to face reality, accept it an move on or they continue to live in self deceit.

geosegun:


I was just reading your comments and laugh cant stop laughing... both you and an samuk are deceiving yourselves. You can not re-write history no matter how hard you try. Yoruba (Ife) gave you (Benin) your Kingship and and civilization. You cant help it, you cant change it and you cannot re-write history. All you need to do is accept the fact and move on. Even the Romans gave the great British their civilization, the current British royals have Germans bloodline, so what is wrong in the Oba of Benin having a Yoruba Bloodline? Why are you guys allowing inferiority complex to becloud our sense of judgement?

@TAO11; I'll advise you ignore henceforth. Since they are not ready to accept reality. You have given more than enough evidence. It up to them to face reality, accept it an move on or they continue to live in self deceit.

SilverSniper:


As I said above, Dapper did not mention street lights. If there is some suggestion that he did, it is incorrect. He does not claim they had street lights in his account. Tall metal lamps placed at fixed positions in compounds and at a specific place in a square in the city are mentioned in mid and late 19th century British accounts, but nothing about "street lights" is in Dapper's account.

The newspaper you quoted was not criticizing there being an absence of street lights in the Benin City of the late 19th century, but just disputing the general picture conveyed by Dapper. That person writing in 1897 would have had no expectation that there would have been such things (street lights) on the basis of anything Dapper wrote, because Dapper did not mention street lights.

The "shiny walls" refer to earthen walls polished to a high degree so that they had a lustrous appearance. This appearance of the walls of the buildings in the capital are mentioned in the 1651 eye witness description of a Spanish priest, translated by Ryder and included as an appendix to his 1969 book on Benin. In that account, in Ryder's translation (p. 313 of Benin and the Europeans) the priest states that the walls of the houses are made of red clay and are "so smooth that they seem to be painted or polished". Later accounts by British visitors give a similar impression. James Fawckner, a British ship captain who visited Benin described a polished earthen bench he saw in a compound in Benin as looking "like marble":

"In the centre is a bench formed of brown clay, which, by frequent rubbing with a piece of cocoa-nut shell and wet cloths, has received a polish, and when dry looks like marble." - Narrative of Captain James Fawckner's Travels on the Coast of Benin, West Africa (1837), p. 33

Another mention of this specific kind of polishing of earthen architecture is this statement by Alan Maxwell Boisragon, one of the survivors of the "Benin massacre", who described a building in Ughoton in a similar manner:

"The chief of Gwatto's house, where we slept that night, was very much superior, the walls, which were very thick, being polished till they were nearly as smooth and shiny as glass." - Alan Boisragon, The Benin Massacre (1897), p. 81

Alan Boisragon was not writing a "positive' or "grandiose" account of the Benin kingdom, obviously, but was actually critical of it and could not be accused of trying to engage in exaggerated praise of Benin, for obvious reasons. He did not like Benin or its people - he was nearly killed by them afterall. There is nothing about mentioning shiny walls that makes a description grandiose. There was a traditional technique to polish earthen walls in certain parts of southern Nigeria to a very great degree in order give them a lustrous, aesthetically appealing appearance and the perception by some Europeans of Benin's particular application of such a technique to buildings in the kingdom was that it made the walls "shine".

samuk:


[s]For the first four hundred years of Benin contact with Europeans, Benin never mentioned, Oranmiyan, Oduduwa or Ife.

Nothing in European archives of Benin history said anything about Benin/Ife relationship for the first four hundred years.

Benin was too organised, advanced and sophisticated at that time not to have remembered to mention Benin/Ife relationship to the Europeans or even put the relationship into their thousands of artworks if indeed such relationship existed then.

Nothing was recorded in Benin early oral history and artworks that captured/represents Benin/Ife relationship.

Benin/Ife history started around 1824.

It was nothing but huge conspiracy of the royal elites on both sides.

Benin lost the empire and was happy to write itself at the heart of the expanding Yoruba conglomerate by becoming the first son and heir to Oranmiyan/Ododuwa while the Yorubas were just too happy to share from the glorious past of Benin history.

It was a brilliant entanglement.

There is even Benin/Nri relationship writeup somewhere, another interesting read.

The Benin/Ife history is a big lie and fabrication, get over it and move on.[/s]

samuk:


Every thing I wrote about the description of the lighting system in ancient Benin I presented are contained in the eyewitness account documents presented by Silversniper.
Others have eyes, they can read it for themselves.

TAO11:


Well, the only conspiracy here are the above lies from you which I'm busting right now.

I will stop exposing your lies (such as the above) only when you stop peddling it.

I KNOW you must be frustrated now.


Anyways:
Sane readers with integrity, please see attachments below for historical reference to the c.1480 Portuguese account of the suzerainty of the Ooni of Ife over Benin kingdom:

Thanks samuk for helping to make the truths I've been repeating (with evidence) become a popular internet search result, accessible to a wide vareity of readers all over the world.

Cheers!

TAO11:


Well, the only conspiracy here are the above lies from you which I'm busting right now.

I will stop exposing your lies (such as the above) only when you stop peddling them.

I KNOW you must be frustrated now.


Anyways:
Sane readers with integrity, please see attachments below for historical reference to the c.1480 Portuguese account of the suzerainty of the Ooni of Ife over Benin kingdom:

Thanks samuk for helping to make the truths I've been repeating (with evidence) become a popular internet search result, accessible to a wide vareity of readers all over the world.

Cheers!

gregyboy:



Desperation

samuk:


In 1480 Benin didn't remember the names, Ooni, Oranmiyan and Ife to tell the Portuguese when they said Oghene.

For four hundred years Benin didn't remember Ooni, Oranmiyan and Ife to tell any of the Europeans that visited and documented the history of Benin.

After 1824, Yoruba influenced historians and all those that created the Oduduwa myth decided to link one Benin Oghene, a very strange world in Yoruba to Ooni and uhe, another strange word in Yoruba to Ife, how convenient.

All these can only make sense to the Yorubas and those that intend to benefit from the Oduduwa myth.

samuk:


Tell me about it.

Did you notice how she sneaked behind to request for a link to Ryder's book.

The way she was carrying on discrediting the book, I thought she has even read the entire book, not knowing that she haven't even seen it.

Why didn't she made the request public for everyone to have access to it.

[s]She has now ruined Geosegun little Benin/Ife project and Metaphysical Oduduwa Mecca origin.

These guys have now all gone into hiding.[/s]

TAO11:


Lol. Fighting for life.

Just as you've channelled your energy into what is NOT known from the Portuguese accounts, well before jumping off from there, pause for a moment, and then channel your energy into what is CERTAINLY known from the same Portuguese accounts.

And what is certainly known is that the Portuguese did inquire about "the most powerful monarch" of the region (which is the key reason why they left Europe in the first place --- to find their supposed Prester John).

And the reply they got from the Binis to their specific inquiry is that "the most powerful monarch" of the region is the one whim the Binis regard as Oghene --- rendered in d'Aveiros account as Ogane.

Not only that, the Binis gave further details of the relationship of Benin kingdom with this Ogane --- noting that this Ogane was a ruler whose permission must be sought for the installation of a Benin Oba, etc.

So, if we know anything at this point, then it is the fact that we know that in around the year 1480, d'Aveiro records account from Benin kingdom about this Ogane.

And the next logical question thus becomes: who is this Ogane?

I live that for scholars to answer as seen in the attachment below:



An Important Clarification:
The Portuguese didn't come into Benin with the objective of inquiring about its founding.

No, they had specific inquiries in mind even before leaving Europe:

They were searching for their Prester John who in their early folk-tale was a very very powerful monarch somewhere out there in the world.

In other words, their specific inquiry, wherever the went to, was around the specific question of the most powerful monarch of the region --- a question for which they got an answer from Benin.

Cheers!

gregyboy:


Desperation

samuk:


The way you are clinging on to Benin and not letting go is amazing.

What else can I say, other than to say that your love with Benin is total.

I doubt if there is anything anyone will be able to do about it

TAO11:


You can say I love Binis, that's fair enough. Lol.

You may choose to simply post educative and informative stuffs, if you like; and that's perfect --- a case study of SilverSniper.

But the point you cross into garnishing stuffs with lies, deliberate misrepresentations, twisting, etc. for the sake of tribal bigotry, then I get triggered.

It's not so much about "hating" you or others. No, it's about my hatred for lies. I mean you can make mistakes, just like everyone else, and that's also perfectly fine.

In fact, you may choose to pursue "tribal superiority", if you like, and I will be fine with it in as much as you can possibly do that with truth only --- May be that's not the best kind of life for you, but who are others to tell you what's best for you.

But wanting to pursue tribal superiority and with lies, yet hoping not to be checked?

C'mon! Even you yourself know that such is unfair. And that has been my point all along.

Cheers!

geosegun:


I likened their (davidnazee, greyboy, and samuk) case to those of people asking for their rights by taken your own rights away from you. They don't want to be checked, even when they are clearly wrong and they knew it. I just chose to ignore them. We never hated anyone, I've got Benin/edos, as friends, neighbours even channel partners in business. So I don't know what their issues are, regarding historical facts about Benin Kingship and civilization, if not inferiority complex?

Yoruba (Ife) named their city Ibinu now (Benin) - Facts; Yoruba (Ife) gave Benin her Obaship -Fact, Yoruba assisted Benin greatly with civilization and hence her booming economy (Beads and Artistic/Bronze Engraving) - Fact!!! If they don't like it, is not our business, they can go ask their ancestors why?

Sorry they can't change history and destiny. You should know they are naturally stubborn; That's why they lost woefully to the British during the punitive expedition in 1898 and their legacies destroyed shamelessly. We (Yoruba Ife) warned them via our (Knowledge of the Oracle -Ifa) but they never listened. Look at the relics of a once great Kingdom, an offshoot of Yoruba Ife. They almost destroyed some of our ancestors legacies due to their stubbornness, so I am not surprise if their descendants is showing that stubborn attributes as we are witnessing here on NL in recent times. Its in their DNA, Lol!

samuk:


Tell me about it.

Did you notice how she sneaked behind to request for a link to Ryder's book.

The way she was carrying on discrediting the book, I thought she has even read the entire book, not knowing that she haven't even seen it.

Why didn't she made the request public for everyone to have access to it.

She has now ruined Geosegun little Benin/Ife project and Metaphysical Oduduwa Mecca origin.

These guys have now all gone into hiding.

gregyboy:


Lol


For the elite there will be no ife benin discussion again


There will b no arguments again on who own the title oba since there were no actual connections
It means oba was always indigenous to benin
And it got into yoruba lexicon through benin conquest over those areas


Orumila and other shared gods with the yorubas were always indigenous to benins



I have 7mb pdf file from Cambridge analyzing benin military warfare in the pdf they reevaluated the benin ife connection and thier final conclusions was that it was a political stagnation

The oba needs not to use benin history to play politics

Even if the oba insist,
How can we connect uhe-as ife
How did they know that 1000 yrs ago the place they visited was ife and they cant remeber were they came from but remember ife
If not for the Portuguese our dating and our history would have brought difficulties assembling for us, because all account that will be told by the royals will be looking like fairytale

I KNOW HE IS LYING. I HOPE HE CANT SEE THIS.