There Were No 'Tribes' In Nigeria Before Colonialism. Discuss.

Before the British interruption of our existence, there was no concept of belonging to a 'tribe' or an 'ethnic group' in Nigeria.

The idea that speaking Igbo made you an 'Igbo man' was non-existent.

The idea that speaking Yoruba made you a 'Yoruba man' was non-existent.

The idea that speaking Hausa made you a 'Hausa man' was non-existent.

What identified you was your ancestry.

NOT the language you spoke.

An Egba man did not regard himself as being of one group as an Ijebu man, or a man from Kwara, even though they all spoke the Yoruba language.

Likewise an Arochukwu man did not consider himself of the same ''Igbo tribe'' as a man from Okigwe or Onitsha.

This was why in the pre-colonial era, we had many WARS within those groups.

They did NOT regard themselves as single, united entities with shared ancestry. Because they were not.

It was the BRITISH who invented the idea that all those who spoke one language belonged to one ''tribe'' OR ''ethnic group''.

They did this in order to create BLOCS OF DIVISION among previously integrated, fluid peoples. (Divide and rule)

Sociologically and anthropologically, the language-based 'tribe' concept made no sense, because there was so much migration in precolonial times that one group of Igbo speakers could migrate to an area peopled by Yoruba speakers, and within a generation or two, they would turn Yoruba speakers themselves, and forget all about the Igbo language, and vice versa. This happened ALL OVER 'Nigeria' countless times over many centuries.

There are many people today who consider themselves 'Yoruba', who actually have their true ancestry traceable to Eastern Nigeria.

Just as there are many who call themselves 'Igbo' today, whose ancestors migrated from Yoruba speaking territories, less than 200 or 300 years ago.

It is time we DITCH the COLONIAL INVENTION called ''tribe''.

IT IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY MEANINGLESS, AND A FRAUDULENT COLONIAL IMPOSITION.

Why do u like the impossible?

There are different kingdoms in precolonial era. Britain brought all the kingdoms together to form Nigeria. At that time, there were tribes and ethnic groups. Hausa as a tribe had at least 7 kingdoms before jihad. Yorubas had many kingdoms but there were inter tribal wars.
Don't say there were no tribes and ethnic groups. They were.
Try to read history of yoruba by samuel Johnson.

capitalzero:
There are different kingdoms in precolonial era. Britain brought all the kingdoms together to form Nigeria. At that time, there were tribes and ethnic groups. Hausa as a tribe had at least 7 kingdoms before jihad. Yorubas had many kingdoms but there were inter tribal wars.
Don't say there were no tribes and ethnic groups. They were.
Try to read history of yoruba by samuel Johnson.

You don't have to contribute if you lack grounding in the subject.

Just learn, or go and research properly, before contributing.

Having 'different kingdoms' has nothing to do with the topic.

Saying ''go and read Samuel Johnson'' throws no light on the subject either.

If you have a specific quote or research from his work, post it here.

Making tribe

In Africa, as in the US, the ruling powers faced the challenge of subjugating black people.

[In Africa], however, racial strategies were unsuited for the task at hand since a black majority with a united race consciousness would pose a threat to white minority control. European powers therefore turned towards a tribal strategy of creating and enforcing divisions in the majority. They entrenched the “tribe” as the basis of social, economic and political life through a policy known as indirect rule.

Before the colonial era, African ethnicities had been highly fluid and malleable phenomena. They did not exist as corporate entities. Boundaries were really shades of grey. People switched back and forth between groups. And, for the most part, no central authority enforced a shared set of laws through a monopoly of violence. As historian Terence Ranger writes in The Invention of Tradition:

“Almost all recent studies of nineteenth-century pre-colonial Africa have emphasized that far from there being a single ‘tribal’ identity, most Africans moved in and out of multiple identities, defining themselves at one moment subject to this chief, at another moment as a member of that cult, at another moment as part of this clan, and at yet another moment as an initiate in that professional guild… the boundaries of the ‘tribal’ polity and the hierarchies of authority within them did not define conceptual horizons of Africans.”

Tribe, in other words, was not an exclusive political category before the onset of colonial rule. Ethnolinguistic groups – people who shared a language and ethnicity – did not necessarily constitute a political grouping known as tribe. As the eminent scholar Mahmood Mamdani puts it in Define and Rule:

“Did tribe exist [in Africa] before colonialism? If we understand by tribe an ethnic group with a common language, it did. But tribe as an administrative entity that distinguishes between natives and non-natives and systematically discriminates in favor of the former against the latter – defining access to land and participation in local governance and rules for settling disputes according to tribal identity – certainly did not exist before colonialism.”

This messy and fluid picture was untenable to European intentions. What followed then was a process of legally defining and enforcing tribes, identities and customary laws. An alliance between scientific authority and political power, as in America, was needed for the task. What the biologist did for the racialisation project in the US, the anthropologist did for the tribalisation project in Africa.

Ethnolinguistic groups were legally defined as tribes, becoming legal and administrative categories for the first time. Disparate communities were collapsed into new creations of Shona, Yoruba, Luhya, Igbo. Even multiethnic states such as Ndebele in southern Africa were defined as a tribe, while some groups, like the Yaaku of East Africa, were simply left out and forced to integrate into adjacent demarcations.

Colonies were divided into administrative units that approximated boundaries between the defined tribes, and a “native authority” was put in charge to enforce customary law by force. Where a chief was identifiable, the British brought them into the colonial administrative structure and gave them absolute autocratic power. Where no chiefs existed, they invented them. The French, by contrast, destroyed all indigenous authorities and planted new administrative cadres but with the same function: to enforce customary law by brute force. Customary law was also a continuously creative definition; the customary was tweaked and nurtured to conform to European objectives of domination.

Far from “going overboard in their quest for unity”, Europe was very deliberate in its cultivation of divisive tribal nationalisms in Africa. Cross-group interaction and freedom of movement across “homelands” was heavily controlled. Any attempt to build cross-ethnic political movements or socioeconomic organisations was met with swift repression.

https://africanarguments.org/2019/08/colonialism-tribal-ethnic-politics-africa/

Ezemust:
Why do u like the impossible?

Nothing is impossible with KNOWLEDGE.

Very interesting.

Rossupti:


You don't have to contribute if you lack grounding in the subject.

Just learn, or go and research properly, before contributing.

Having 'different kingdoms' has nothing to do with the topic.

Saying ''go and read Samuel Johnson'' throws no light on the subject either.

If you have a specific quote or research from his work, post it here.

I put samuel Johnson as a source of reliable information on history. Can u pls tell me your source of your useless theory ? You are spinning out rubbish theory that you cannot defend among scholars. What is a tribe?
Define ethnicity?
Keep on blaming colonial master for your woe and misery.

eagleu:
Very interesting.

My brother, Oyinbo dealt with us.

They dealt with us to the point that even long after they left, the effects of their evil machinations reverberate across our lands.

To the point that we see them today and smile, and consider them our friends, looking up to them, as we hate each other based on divisions they created..

This is why I tell people that the payback from heaven to the Causasian race will be HUGE when it comes.

Watch and see.

capitalzero:

I put samuel Johnson as a source of reliable information on history. Can u pls tell me your source of your useless theory ? You are spinning out rubbish theory that you cannot defend among scholars. What is a tribe?
Define ethnicity?
Keep on blaming colonial master for your woe and misery.

Dude. I'm not on your level. Please, go and debate your mates.

Rossupti:
Making tribe

In Africa, as in the US, the ruling powers faced the challenge of subjugating black people.

[In Africa], however, racial strategies were unsuited for the task at hand since a black majority with a united race consciousness would pose a threat to white minority control. European powers therefore turned towards a tribal strategy of creating and enforcing divisions in the majority. They entrenched the “tribe” as the basis of social, economic and political life through a policy known as indirect rule.

Before the colonial era, African ethnicities had been highly fluid and malleable phenomena. They did not exist as corporate entities. Boundaries were really shades of grey. People switched back and forth between groups. And, for the most part, no central authority enforced a shared set of laws through a monopoly of violence. As historian Terence Ranger writes in The Invention of Tradition:

“Almost all recent studies of nineteenth-century pre-colonial Africa have emphasized that far from there being a single ‘tribal’ identity, most Africans moved in and out of multiple identities, defining themselves at one moment subject to this chief, at another moment as a member of that cult, at another moment as part of this clan, and at yet another moment as an initiate in that professional guild… the boundaries of the ‘tribal’ polity and the hierarchies of authority within them did not define conceptual horizons of Africans.”



Tribe, in other words, was not an exclusive political category before the onset of colonial rule. Ethnolinguistic groups – people who shared a language and ethnicity – did not necessarily constitute a political grouping known as tribe. As the eminent scholar Mahmood Mamdani puts it in Define and Rule:

“Did tribe exist [in Africa] before colonialism? If we understand by tribe an ethnic group with a common language, it did. But tribe as an administrative entity that distinguishes between natives and non-natives and systematically discriminates in favor of the former against the latter – defining access to land and participation in local governance and rules for settling disputes according to tribal identity – certainly did not exist before colonialism.”

This messy and fluid picture was untenable to European intentions. What followed then was a process of legally defining and enforcing tribes, identities and customary laws. An alliance between scientific authority and political power, as in America, was needed for the task. What the biologist did for the racialisation project in the US, the anthropologist did for the tribalisation project in Africa.

Ethnolinguistic groups were legally defined as tribes, becoming legal and administrative categories for the first time. Disparate communities were collapsed into new creations of Shona, Yoruba, Luhya, Igbo. Even multiethnic states such as Ndebele in southern Africa were defined as a tribe, while some groups, like the Yaaku of East Africa, were simply left out and forced to integrate into adjacent demarcations.

Colonies were divided into administrative units that approximated boundaries between the defined tribes, and a “native authority” was put in charge to enforce customary law by force. Where a chief was identifiable, the British brought them into the colonial administrative structure and gave them absolute autocratic power. Where no chiefs existed, they invented them. The French, by contrast, destroyed all indigenous authorities and planted new administrative cadres but with the same function: to enforce customary law by brute force. Customary law was also a continuously creative definition; the customary was tweaked and nurtured to conform to European objectives of domination.

Far from “going overboard in their quest for unity”, Europe was very deliberate in its cultivation of divisive tribal nationalisms in Africa. Cross-group interaction and freedom of movement across “homelands” was heavily controlled. Any attempt to build cross-ethnic political movements or socioeconomic organisations was met with swift repression.

https://africanarguments.org/2019/08/colonialism-tribal-ethnic-politics-africa/

Your no tribe theory is different from your link. Keep deluding yourself. Colonial masters are not source of African woe.
From your link there were tribes and ethnic groups before colonial masters.

Rossupti:


Dude. I'm not on your level. Please, go and debate your mates.

What is your level? Keyboard warrior. You are just an empty barrel . You don't even understand contextual meaning of link you posted. It is only a fool that would say there were no tribes and ethnic groups before colonial regime.

Rossupti:


My brother, Oyinbo dealt with us.

They dealt with us to the point that even long after they left, the effects of their evil machinations reverberate across our lands.

To the point that we see them today and smile, and consider them our friends, looking up to them, as we hate each other based on divisions they created..

This is why I tell people that the payback from heaven to the Causasian race will be HUGE when it comes.

Watch and see.

How did caucasians deal with us?
Ask your ancestors why they did tribal leaders and kings sell their people as slaves to caucasians.
And for your myopic mind, do you think Africans loved themselves before colonial era? They killed and maimed themselves during inter and intra-tribal wars. Did caucasians ask fulani to attack ilorin?
And for your myopic mind, do you think Europeans love themselves?
Deadly wars were fought by caucasians in history. They fought for their independence spilling blood.
Think , man. Caucasians are not our problems.
Your leaders are and stupid followers.

.
.
Further supporting text for those with working brains:


''Pre-colonial Africans often had several relevant identities between which they shifted and that were highly fluid (Iliffe 1979, p. 318). ‘Ethnic groups’ may have existed, although they were not consciously perceived as such, as ethnicity itself as a concept emerged only out of the encounter with Europeans. If at all, kinship affiliations were not the only frame of reference (Comaroff 1997).''

''Identities and the colonial past in Kenya and Tanzania BA dissertation by Laura-Catalina Althoff published as a CERS working paper on the MGR archive''

https://cers.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/97/2014/07/dissertation-on-Ethnicity-in-East-Africa-for-publishing-as-a-CERS-working-paper-Laura-Althoff.pdf

.
.
''Recent research has revealed that modern African ethnicity is a social construction of the colonial period through the reactions of pre-colonial societies to the social, economic, cultural and political forces of colonialism''

- ETHNICITY, PATRONAGE AND THE AFRICAN STATE: THE POLITICS OF UNCIVIL NATIONALISM

BRUCE J BERMAN

https://watermark.silverchair.com/97-388-305.pdf

Unification across large ethnicities has historically almost always been due to wars or external threats. There was never any threat in the entirety of Africa powerful enough to unite Igbo-speakers; and so there was a large amount of autonomous Igbo states.

However, despite being fiercely independent, it would be delusional to think that Igbos couldn't see the striking similarities in terms of looks, culture and history between themselves and other foreign tribes. I would imagine it being the same for other tribes.

In historical times, not only did they regularly intermarry with each other, but outside of the boundaries of Igboland - such as in Sierra Leone - ,they were known for their economic power stemming from their extraordinary unity. Moving as a singular powerful unit despite coming from various different countries.

More supporting evidence:

“Tribal” and/or ethnic identities have never been primordial and immutable, in Africa or elsewhere, and it is possible in many cases to trace sets of historically and socially contingent processes that have brought these modern identities into being.’

‘In a number of cases, African “tribes” were the (conscious or unconscious) creations of colonial administrators and professionals, including ethnographers, with other interests in colonial government. The motivations behind this manipulation of identities were various; they included administrative convenience and the establishment of easily governable entities that could be controlled and taxed, divide-and-conquer strategies, and the creation of power bases by local and foreign elites. To these ends, communities were divided or forcibly amalgamated and “tribes” created out of whole cloth. Even languages, the “powerful ethnic guidebook . . . essentially complete” of Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994:23), were manipulated and modified to support the goals of both indigenous and foreign players in the processes of colonialism’

https://folukeafrica.com/essential-readings-on-the-problems-of-tribe/

Shiver99:
Unification across large ethnicities has historically almost always been due to wars or external threats. There was never any threat in the entirety of Africa powerful enough to unite Igbo-speakers; and so there was a large amount of autonomous Igbo states.

However, despite being fiercely independent, it would be delusional to think that Igbos couldn't see the striking similarities in terms of looks, culture and history between themselves and other foreign tribes. I would imagine it being the same for other tribes.

In historical times, not only did they regularly intermarry with each other, but outside of the boundaries of Igboland - such as in Sierra Leone - ,they were known for their economic power stemming from their extraordinary unity. Moving as a singular powerful unit despite coming from various different countries.

Where is the EVIDENCE of this Igbo 'unity' before the colonial interregnum?

There is a LOT of evidence of 'absence of unity' however. The numerous wars within Igbo speaking areas are a case in point.

Heck, one clan regarded another clan 2 kilometres away as a totally different country.

So what 'unity' are you talking about?

People sharing a common ancestry generally do not go to war against each other (and most certainly not at the slightest provocation).

Read what happened in Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which is a historical novel that is anthropologically accurate.

Ogbuefi Ezeugo, an elder of Umuofia, relating an incident involving the nearby village of Mbaino, said to a crowd of 10,000 Umuofians,

“These sons of wild animals have dared to murder a daughter of Umuofia.”…And in a clear unemotional voice he told Umuofia how their daughter had gone to market at Mbaino and had been killed."

[Ogbuefi Ezeugo] threw his head down and gnashed his teeth, and allowed a murmur of suppressed anger to sweep the crowd. When he began again, the anger on his face was gone and in its place a sort of smile hovered, more terrible and more sinister than the anger. And in a clear unemotional voice he told Umuofia how their daughter had gone to market at Mbaino and had been killed. That woman, said Ezeugo, was the wife of Ogbuefi Udo, and he pointed to a man who sat near him with a bowed head. The crowd then shouted with anger and thirst for blood.''

I mean, the people of Umuofia were ready to go to WAR with the neighbouring clan, based on a relatively mundane incident.

The only thing that prevented a descent to bloodshed was Okonkwo, the Umuofian, 'travelling' to Mbaino and demanding that they surrender a virgin and a young man in order to avoid war with Umuofia, to which they complied.

The young man, Ikemefuna, was later killed in Umuofia in recompense.

This kind of thing went on across all the Igbo-speaking areas. There was no 'unity'.

The united Igbo 'tribe' you have today is a 100% colonial, British creation.

Same as the other 'tribes' in Nigeria.

This BMC member should use his position and closeness to those in power to tell them to fix the country instead of starting stupid debates to distract the people.

If there were no tribes, are you saying they all speak same language back then?

helinues:
If there were no tribes, are you saying they all speak same language back then?

Try and understand what is being said.

Go back and read everything I posted.

The reason you associate language spoken with belonging to a 'tribe' is the colonialists.

Before they came, the language you spoke did not indicate anything about you in terms of your ancestry or identity.

It's like how you speak English today. Does that make you an Englishman?

Or if you speak French, does that make you a French man? No.

That is exactly how it was for us before colonialism.

Your ancestor spoke Igbo or Yoruba because that was the language commonly spoken in his area or region, not because he was an ''Igbo man'' or a ''Yoruba man''.

His ancestors may have migrated a couple centuries ago from Benue or even Oyo area.

This happened as a matter of course in precolonial times as people migrated constantly for land, water, arable soil purposes.

It was the colonialists that came and declared that ''all those who speak Yoruba are of the ''Yoruba tribe''.

''All those who speak Igbo are of the ''Igbo tribe.'''' etc etc.

They did this to create blocs of division aka divide and rule.

Rosskiiku:


Try and understand what is being said.

Go back and read everything I posted.

The reason you associate language spoken with belonging to a 'tribe' is the colonialists.

Before they came, the language you spoke did not indicate anything about you in terms of your ancestry or identity.

It's like how you speak English today. Does that make you an Englishman?

Or if you speak French, does that make you a French man? No.

That is exactly how it was for us before colonialism.

Your ancestor spoke Igbo or Yoruba because that was the language commonly spoken in his area or region, not because he was an ''Igbo man'' or a ''Yoruba man''.

His ancestors may have migrated a couple centuries ago from Benue or even Oyo area.

This happened as a matter of course in precolonial times as people migrated constantly for land, water, arable soil purposes.

It was the colonialists that came and declared that ''all those who speak Yoruba are of the ''Yoruba tribe'' etc etc...

''All those who speak Igbo are of the ''Igbo tribe.'''' etc etc.

They did this to create blocs of division aka divide and rule.

I find it hard to understand your explanation..

Is tribe not mentioned in the bible?

helinues:


I find it hard to understand your explanation..

Is tribe not mentioned in the bible?

What has bible got to do with this?

Tell me, have you actually read the posts and links on this thread?

Your threads are always devoid of common sense,
When the British came, you mean the indigenous people didn't know about Oduduwa or that they are all from the same roots?
In your stupid attempt to defend one Nigeria, you would type anything!

[In Africa], however, racial strategies were unsuited for the task at hand since a black majority with a united race consciousness would pose a threat to white minority control. European powers therefore turned towards a tribal strategy of creating and enforcing divisions in the majority. They entrenched the “tribe” as the basis of social, economic and political life through a policy known as indirect rule.

Can you understand what the bolded means and why Nigeria was created? or are you too slow to understand what you copied and pasted?

Rosskiiku:


What has bible got to do with this?

Tell me, have you actually read the posts and links on this thread?

If tribe was mentioned in the bible which predated Nigeria as country, it's logical to say tribe also exist before Southern and Northern Nigeria amalgamation.

Tribe meaning

a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.

helinues:


If tribe was mentioned in the bible which predated Nigeria as country, it's logical to say tribe also exist before Southern and Northern Nigeria amalgamation.

Tribe meaning

The tribes of the bible were based on lineage and ancestry. For instance, members of the ''tribe of Judah'' were traceable through generation after generation, due to lack of admixture within groups.

But the Igbos of today cannot be said to be connected by lineage of any sort.

For starters, no one can trace their lineage beyond a few generations of early settlers of their village.

So what we have are hundreds or thousands of village lineage based 'tribes' within the Igbo language grouping.

The language grouping itself is NOT a 'tribe'. It is merely a language grouping.

Just as English speakers do not constitute an 'English tribe' today, but merely English speakers, each with his own specific, unique ancestral lineage or ''tribe''.

In precolonial times these language groupings - Igbo, Yoruba, Efik, Edo, were not unified in any way as 'tribes' in themselves.

WITHIN such groupings you would find lineages or ancestral bonds shared by small numbers of people, say the people that settled in your village 500 years ago.

THEIR lineage would be different from even the next village, which would comprise a different set of people who arrived there 500 years ago from goodness knows where. THEY would share a different lineage.

Now fast forward to today, THEY will be your neighbouring village but they would share NO TIES or ancestry with you even if they are proximate and you both speak Igbo.

It was the colonialists WHO CAME IN and declared that THAT village and yours were ''related'' and part of the ''Igbo tribe''.

But there was no such concept or understanding of such 'connection' between your two villages prior to their arrival.

The only connection was that that village spoke Igbo and yours spoke Igbo. THAT did not make your two villages consider each other as ''related'' any more than my speaking English now makes me feel related to you.

Hope you're getting it now, sort of...

It was actually why the slave trade was so easy for the Europeans to accomplish - this conception that the next village was a different country with no relation to yours.

So your chiefs had no problem invading the next village to capture people and sell to the invaders.

They did not see it as ''selling their own people to the white man'', because they did not consider the next village as ''their own people''.

StaffofOrayan:
Your threads are always devoid of common sense,
When the British came, you mean the indigenous people didn't know about Oduduwa or that they are all from the same roots?

What ''indigenous people'' are you referring to?

No one actually knows who the hell Oduduwa really was or when he actually lived. In precolonial times many people claimed to be descended from 'Oduduwa'. Even the Kanuris!

Meaning that ancestral connection to Oduduwa WAS NOT LANGUAGE-BASED. It was LINEAGE based, and the same lineage of people could speak several different languages over time depending on where they settled!

So it is a colonialism derived LIE that only Yoruba speakers are descendants of Oduduwa!

Heck, for all we know, Oduduwa himself probably couldn't speak a single word of Yoruba! He seems to have been a settler from the Nile Valley region. But his descendants landed here and finally settled en masse in parts of Nigeria where Yoruba was widely spoken, hence his association with the Yoruba language. They may have settled further up north before finally settling in Yoruba-speaking regions.

As explained by scholars: ''Certain other peoples have claimed a connection to Oduduwa. According to the Kanuri, Yauri, Gobir, Acipu, Jukun and Borgu tribes - whose founding ancestors were said to be Oduduwa's brothers (as recorded in the early 20th century by Samuel Johnson), Oduduwa was the son of Damerudu, whom Yoruba call either Lamurudu or Lamerudu, [whom some call NIMROD of the bible!] a prince who was himself the son of the magician King Kisra. Kisra and his allies are said to have fought Mohammed in the Battle of Badr. Kisra was forced to migrate from Arabia into Africa after losing the war to the jihadists in 624 AD. He and his followers founded many kingdoms and ruling dynasties along their migration route into West Africa. This tradition is a variant of the belief that held that Oduduwa was a prince originating from Mecca.''

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oduduwa

So any attachment to an individual named 'Oduduwa' is based more on myth and belief than actual verifiable ancestry.

This dissonance is reinforced by the fact that numerous Yoruba speaking communities today comprise descendants of ancient settlers from other parts of Nigeria, such as Igbo speaking regions! And vice versa.

So anyone claiming direct ancestry to 'Oduduwa' today is merely indulging in mythology, and propagating an unfounded belief which may or may not be true. There are no traceable lineage, DNA, or ancestral links to such a figure, whose period of existence is itself disputed.

And merely being a Yoruba speaker does not establish such links, for the aforementioned reasons, any more than my being an English speaker means I am related to King Edward the 5th of England.

[In Africa], however, racial strategies were unsuited for the task at hand since a black majority with a united race consciousness would pose a threat to white minority control. European powers therefore turned towards a tribal strategy of creating and enforcing divisions in the majority. They entrenched the “tribe” as the basis of social, economic and political life through a policy known as indirect rule.

Can you understand what the bolded means and why Nigeria was created? or are you too slow to understand what you copied and pasted?

I fully understand what is being said. The question we should ask is DO YOU understand what is being said?

Please where do you got this source from.

Rossupti:


Dude. I'm not on your level. Please, go and debate your mates.