₦airaland Forum

He is neither Bini nor Yoruba, but he is American and he seems to not know very much about Nigeria at all. Why he feels the need to inject Benin into a completely unrelated discussion (this discussion) is unclear to me. Why he feels the need to comment on the pre-colonial history of a country he's read virtually nothing about is also unclear.


@ BlackLibya/Knoowell, there are books and published articles which deal with the subject of pre-colonial Nigeria. One good source is the book Nigerian Perspectives by T. Hodgkin. It's about 400 pages long and contains numerous excerpts of descriptions of visits by foreigners to all parts of Nigeria. Anyone interested can track down the longer works it cites independent of the book, but the book gives a pretty good picture of many different places in Nigeria in pre-colonial times. If you actually think only Benin people were wearing traditional clothes or that the clothes worn by Benin and Yorubas were the same, you're very ill-informed because there is lots of written evidence against this.

Lol, I do not even know who that guy is you are talking about. It's funny that you ahve done all this research to conclude that I am him.

The reason I injected Benin into a conversation about Yoruba, is because I am more familiar with Benin than with Yoruba. You can find different sources online that say the ancestors of the Yoruba founded Benin, but it appears the more correct that the Edo people were in fact the founders. With that said, the Edo and Yoruba people share similiar ancestry.

Whether or not they wore the same clothing or not would be an example of cultural diffusion. This happens. Egypt and Nubia were not the same kingdom, yet they shared many things in common with how they buried their dead and etc. It's called cultural exchange.

3rd, the book I cited above was written by an Igbo man, whose father was NOT A CHRISTIAN. So there.

^^^^

White is a color absent of hue.

Then many Nigerian groups don't have a tribal culture since they don't trace their ancestry to a common family.

Not literally, and I said a common ancestor not a family. An example would be the Yoruba, who in their traditional beliefs, trace themselves back to a single entity. The Igbo also trace themselves back to a specific entity. The Habesha people of Ethiopia also trace their ancestry back to a common ancestor(although they are split into various tribes).

In essence though, I think you can kind of get the point.

Can someone tell me what the hell they are doing at the end of this clip? I have never seen this before.

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Lol, but the song is so true. There are so many African women like this. African Americans too!

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Missionaries arrived in small numbers in Onitsha around the 1850s, they only started venturing to other parts of Igboland, e.g the south eastern parts, after defeating the Aro in a war which the British had to do in order to open up that area and to establish the Southern Protectorate.

According to the book its the fact that they were there at all and not killed which allowed the British to extend their control into Igboland.

The spread of Christianity was coupled with the openness to the idea of something else other than "Igboland".

Someone needs to explain what "tribal culture" is first.

Tribal culture is the original culture practiced by a group of people who trace their ancestry to a common man or woman.

It is their set of beliefs, values, clothes, language, economy, and government that they have practiced in accordance with their traditional beliefs.

Tribal culture is stronger than national culture. Unless the tribe itself is a nation.

Europe destroyed almost ALL her tribes by 1000-1200 A.D. the Saxons, Goths, Viking, Celts, etc are tribes that are all extinct today, after the advent of christianity and its detribalizing efforts. TODAY, Europe has a hybrid culture, which is why people hardly care about issues such as preserving their culture, morals, etc. Europe has failed on its identiy and cultural grounds.

So very true.

BlackLibya, that’s exactly it. Our nature and animals are part of what makes Africa special. These same people who think our animals aren’t important are the very ones who keep complaining about all the resources that were taken from this continent. Yet they themselves don’t even give a damn about something which is an integral part of African culture. They whine about how the rest of the world does nothing for Africa, yet when they try to help Africa – they whine equally as hard that they don’t want their help! This is what having an inferiority complex does to people!

On the other hand they do have a point though. Many conservation groups are destroying African culture as well. They buy up the land in order to "protect the animals" then deny the natives the right to use the animals at all, while often forcing their dislocation and using the parks to allow foreigners to hunt large game.

Gondar, Ethiopia - Medieval Structure

One wonders where they got the idea to build these castles from? Its amazing how similiar architectural styles crop up in different cultures that are not close to each other.

BlackLibya, its OK, got the thread. Smiley I thought it was an old one you referred to. Interesting pictures. I'm enjoying them. Please post more if you have.

Glad to hear. They are hard to come by!


I appreciate all the contributors to this thread btw. Thanks for participating. Those pictures of Kano look great!

stop your negative thoughts and go kill yourself. Angry

I always admire your pride. I know at times it must not be easy to do what you do, but I admire you for it. Please continue the good fight.

Nigeria has a dysfunctional federal system where someone who has never visited or does not even care about a state is given power to decide what happens in such state and you know what that means.

It makes sense. Nigeria needs to evolve into a tribal based confederacy. The Europeans might call it a devolution, but Africans evolved into these political systems for a reason. They do not live in homogenous societies like Europe, and Africa does not want to see the genocides Europe saw in the dark ages, colonial period, and even modern times.

A simple look at Libya which has had some few hundred years of Arab colonization and we can see that even once many of the cultural/language barriers between tribes are broken down, the political entity of the tribe itself does not allow for the smooth functioning of a centralized state.

The impediment of the tribe remains the same, so would people rather lose the culture and possibly but less likely the language of their tribe. Or would they rather keep everything? Either way the "tribal problem" never ends. In Europe it even exists, they just managed to give each tribe its own country or autonomous regions within countries like Spain. This is 1000 years after Roman culture broke down almost all tribal differences.

Different groups created their own styles at different times. Igbo people have/had little interaction with Mande people, so their clothing aren't necessarily related because of similarities.

Igbo people traveled far and wide, even going all the way to Meccah. How can you say they were not influenced by these styles? The men who were the travelers possibly adapted various styles to igbo culture while the women maintained a distinct attire that unique only to Igbos. In many tribal cultures around the world the women can be seen to be the last to change.

BTW, im not saying the Igbo didnt develop these styles, im just giving food for thought.

According to the Igbo article on wiki, the Nri Kingdom did not trade slaves and all slaves were considered free once they stepped into these lands. Furthermore, Igbo slaves were dealt with on an egalitarian basis, and even had their own slaves.

Now, according to this book, Igbo culture has been shaken completely to the bone by Christianity. This book is written by Edmund Ilogu. Contrary to what people on this thread say, the book indicates a British hegemony over the Igbo people even before 1890, through the use of missionaries backed by the Empire. This is in line with what the Wiki article has on Igbo people being a society bound religiously and not by kings or single rulers.

You can read the book here, the link starts right at the immediate losses to Igbo culture caused by Christianity. I would be interested to know if people are trying to revive these.

http://books.google.com/books?id=0uMUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA63

Yorubas were enslaving fellow Yorubas, just like Igbos were enslaving fellow Igbos.

Only a few Igbos even knew about the Kingdom of Benin. The Western Igbos were only impacted by its influence. So how would we know about the Yoruba kingdoms.

Igboland was dominion of the Aro Igbo, which I am a member of the Aro.

How could you not know about one of the largest empires in West Africa when you are not even so far away?

Maybe this is how you all were colonized. People cannot stand together when they dont even know that other people exist around them. How can you fight the colonization when you dont know what it is?

I guess the American Public will be Baptized into this Propaganda
by this film the "Machine Gun Preacher" Here we go again,

Lol its always the white hero. Im sure he didnt do it by himself.

But then again, we Danny Glover had to scrounge for funding for his movie on Toussaint L'Overture. Smh

East coast, that is all I can tell you

There are 13 states in the Northeast alone and like 100 million people. Dont be afraids.

I don't know all of Mercy Johnson's movies but the only movie I know she was in with a white man, which I didn't watch either was white hunters; any way I never knew she played a police officer.

Yessssss, that was it. Why didnt u watch?

We Igbos did not even know that you Yorubas even existed in pre-colonial times.

Is this a joke? Surely the Yorubas were enslaving the igbos and selling them off to america.

So out of all the clothing pictured below, which would be the Igbo traditional clothes, bearing in mind most of the pictures were taken before 1910.

All of it could potentially be traditional Igbo clothing except for the men in the Western business suits. In all honesty it appears that there was a certain diffusion of clothing styles amongst all people in West Africa. At least when one considers what we have posted in this thread so far. The clothing in the picture reminds me of the clothing many nomadic/savannah peoples wore. Obviously the longer pieces appear to be inspired by the Mandé peoples. In general the people with greater status will wear more elaborate clothes and the people with lesser status will wear more common clothes or sometimes nothing.

What is most obvious from the pictures you've shown is that none of the popular clothing Igbo people wear today is what they wore traditionally.

Oh Man !!! MandingoII i feel you on this one, Fools we be talking about Rhinos & Zebra, while Human
life has no value to them !!! Some People just cant help but expose their "Twisted Superior idealogy"

You do realize that is part of what makes Africa, Africa? Once you lose that you lose a huge part of your culture(many of you have already given up). People will kill people, but when people burn down their cities, and kill their animals, these are things that affect all the generations forever.

Please go to my precolonial african cities thread in the culture section. If people grew up with these cities intact, their thoughts on African capability would be totally different.

I remember hearing people did not cook with tomatóes in the olden days. No tomatoes in stews.

lolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

funny.

What about Maggi? I cant believe all Africans use that instead of Néré, netetou, sumbala whatever u wanna call it.

I am aware its a generalization, but people have told me its sacrilege to not use it.

What is their traditional clothing? I doubt the yorubas were wearing much back then either sha.

PS: This thread is about modern (21st century)  influence of yorubas on Igbos, but some ppl have taken back to the colonial times, just so they can deny.

Dont mind my kabukabu (shoes, not clothing) joke.  Grin

Well from the pictures I have seen in an old book here they are just like any other african peoples. Appeared to be some type of leather clothing, intricate in its own way you know. The adornments and hair and such. I wish I could buy this book so you could see the pictures, hopefully it is still there we have so many Africans here someone might have bought it buy now. It's about 100 years old this book.

Anyway, if the Yoruba exchanged much with the Benin people they probably wore quite some clothes. As you can see in all the drawings which all predate colonialism, the Benin people were wearing clothes.

I know 100% Igbo people do not wear their traditional clothes. Whatever they are calling traditional now is not what they were wearing. I wish people would stop trying to reinvent what their "traditional" is and just wear what they wore. It's nothing to be ashamed of. People in Botswana still wear their skins, there are festivals in the pacific where people who go and work in office buildings during the week, where they tribal clothes. It's our culture, its what WE made.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Igbo_palm_thatch.jpg

Who invented kabukabu if not the yorubas?

Nigerians would still be walking around with leaves strapped around their feet if not for that invention that led to other great shoes.

Lol really?

As far as clothes go, I have never seen igbo people wearing much in the way of anything like they wear now. So I find it hard to believe Igbo people are even wearing their traditional clothing at all.

The Igbo society was different from the Yoruba society from what I know. It was the forest life, more easy going and laid back. I dont see anything wrong with this though. I dont know the Igbos to be a warlike people.

they all not yoruba

liklly benin

Being that Yoruba and Edo people share the same roots, and Yorubas were also a part of Benin, I believe it makes sense to believe that Benin being the strongest influence in the region would have Yorubas wearing the same clothing. Besides, the clothing you see there is found in Ghana too pre-colonial,

https://img534.imageshack.us/img534/5632/precolonialghana36.png

https://img109.imageshack.us/img109/1782/precolonialghana21.png

Obviously the style on the fabrics and such will be different. But the overall style of the clothing, its form and such is very similiar to what can be seen in the pictures from Benin. What im saying is that I have not found evidence for the clothing presented at the beginning of this thread. Not that style.