₦airaland Forum

TAO11:
Ogané is the Portuguese rendering of the actual indigenous Benin word to describe this "most powerful monarch."

In other words a certain name in Edo language (??) became rendered in Portuguese as Ogane.

Another example of European rendering is a Latin rendering of this same indigenous Benin word as Orguene, as seen on a 1525 map of Africa.

So what actually is the indigenous Benin word which is rendered in Portuguese and Latin as Ogane and Orguene??

By paying a special careful attention to the sounds, the Bini word Oghene seems to be the most plausible original Bini word which the Europeans attempted to render in their own tongues.

But did the ancient Binis ever use the word "Oghene" in relation to the "Ooni of Ife"??

The answer is a loud YES.

Starting with the most recent of the two evidences I will cite to prove this foregoing claim:

(a) In his "May 2004 The Benin-Ife Comnection", Omo N'Oba Erediauwa II noted emphatically that Oduduwa (who was the Ooni of Ife during his days) was known by the Benin people as Oghene n'Uhe.

Refer to the link below for "Oghene n'Uhe" in Oba Erediauwa II's May 2004 work: https://www.edo-nation.net/erediauwa1.htm

(b) Citing different instances of Ife's political influence as exercised through the Ifa cult, Robin Horton alludes to a Benin tradition in his 1979 "Ancient Ife: A Reassessment" as follows:

"Yet another tradition, this time from Benin, tells how the oracle of the Oghene of Uhe ("Oni of Ife" ) forewarned the Oba of Benin of impending calamity a few years before the disastrous encounter with the British."

Reference:
Robin Horton, "Ancient Ife: A Reassessment", Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol 9. No. 4 (June 1979), p.124.


It therefore becomes clear at this point that the "Ooni of Ife" was known in ancient Benin as "Oghene" --- a 'name' which in European rendering became Ogane, Orguene, etc.

Are you going to pretend that you don't know oghene means supreme God in some edoid languages?

How can a benin ex convict izobuwa be a supreme God?

chatinent:
Prominent men tested repeatedly; peasants left to their fate.

Welcome to Naija. The biggest zoo in the world!!

Na only poor man and grannies e dey kill. Wuruwuru virus

MelesZenawi:
Next

Oga, abeg careful the way you dey pummel him skull o, you know say na ewedu full inside o.

MelesZenawi:
Very lame Nonsense you are bringing for reading one fabricated technical paper.

How many aged people in anambra know what kpomo means or shaki..


Never heard such trash in my wildest Imagination if I haven't step outside.

Stop Insulting Igbo nation with stupidity and nonsense.


These are Nonsense we keep fighting everyday that someone will wake up and write one trash because it sounds nice to his hearing.


Insult yourself and stop disgracing Ndigbo.


Igbos has absolutely nothing in common with Yorubas. Any such paper is a pure lie.

Na their way be that...

scholes0:
Same way the same Yorubas have taken over all the oil companies and establishments in your state.... All na benefits of One Najeriya. Abi no be so?

You either dragging pot of soup with minority tribes or making bogus claims.you haven't surprised me at all Mr salahudeen salako

nlPoster:
I'd have asked when did Isoko and Yoruba start quarreling, but there's one ahnie lady who specializes in jumping people for no reason.

Two people having a disagreement not two tribes

scholes0:
lol co.ck sucking will not save you. You even had repeat street talk and cower under igbos to take a meaningless jab at Yorubas. As long as Nigeria remains one an Igbo man is free to live in Lagos either as a tenant or a land owner, same way an Isoko like you is free to lease a farmland in ore or crush palm kernels for people in Ekiti.
Binis and other Edos do not natively call melon Egusi but Ikpogi. You FAIL (as usual).

But Yorubas in lagos are selling their lands to foreigners soon to be Left with nothing. I wonder the phantom uncles and aunties in ekiti you keep referring to

scholes0:
Yes we are tribalist.
Done? Face your front abeg. Sobo man... all your uncles and cousins are in okitipupa busy picking palm fruits and cultivating peoples' farms, and you are here abusing your benefactors.
I don't have your time this hot afternoon.

Tribalist chai, the progenitor of Yoruba race is a benin ex convict. Continue with your minority shaming here, while your brothers in Lagos and ogun have sold all their lands to the great Igbo race

scholes0:
lol, who dey follow you drag anything?
You this guy from a two local government tribe. Yorubas on a typical day can't see you anywhere even after looking round.
Back to topic.

Minority shaming as usual, Yeribanzaz are hardcore tribalist walahi even between yourselves. When Yoruba Christians are oppressing Yoruba Muslims daily in ekiti and ondo, why won't you find it easy to opress minority tribes and drag soup with them
Go on, attack minorities as usual

scholes0:
No, I attacked you BECAUSE rather than contributing meaningfully to the topic at hand, you came cruising into the thread sucking dick and insulting at the same time.

Typical Yoruba man. Coming to drag soup with minority tribes.

Owo mi da tribe.

scholes0:
Tell us what YOUR OWN TRIBE ISOKO has contributed to Nigerian cuisine instead of your unnecessary hating and bickering.
All these minorities and their low self esteem ehn?! It stinks to the high heavens.

Nawa o.
Minority shaming? How demeaning?
You Started attacking minority tribes because I only stated that egusi belongs to the bini people and igbos had a better claim

Elose11:
This is the story of a lost medieval city you’ve probably never heard about. Benin City, originally known as Edo, was once the capital of a pre-colonial African empire located in what is now southern Nigeria. The Benin empire was one of the oldest and most highly developed states in west Africa, dating back to the 11th century.

The Guinness Book of Records (1974 edition) described the walls of Benin City and its surrounding kingdom as the world’s largest earthworks carried out prior to the mechanical era. According to estimates by the New Scientist’s Fred Pearce, Benin City’s walls were at one point “four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops”.

Situated on a plain, Benin City was enclosed by massive walls in the south and deep ditches in the north. Beyond the city walls, numerous further walls were erected that separated the surroundings of the capital into around 500 distinct villages.

Pearce writes that these walls “extended for some 16,000 km in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They covered 6,500 sq km and were all dug by the Edo people … They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet”.

Barely any trace of these walls exist today.

View along a street in the royal quarter of Benin City, from 1897.
View along a street in the royal quarter of Benin City, 1897. Photograph: The British Museum/Trustees of the British Museum
Benin City was also one of the first cities to have a semblance of street lighting. Huge metal lamps, many feet high, were built and placed around the city, especially near the king’s palace. Fuelled by palm oil, their burning wicks were lit at night to provide illumination for traffic to and from the palace.

When the Portuguese first “discovered” the city in 1485, they were stunned to find this vast kingdom made of hundreds of interlocked cities and villages in the middle of the African jungle. They called it the “Great City of Benin”, at a time when there were hardly any other places in Africa the Europeans acknowledged as a city. Indeed, they classified Benin City as one of the most beautiful and best planned cities in the world.

In 1691, the Portuguese ship captain Lourenco Pinto observed: “Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns. The city is wealthy and industrious. It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.”

In contrast, London at the same time is described by Bruce Holsinger, professor of English at the University of Virginia, as being a city of “thievery, prostitution, murder, bribery and a thriving black market made the medieval city ripe for exploitation by those with a skill for the quick blade or picking a pocket”.

African fractals
Benin City’s planning and design was done according to careful rules of symmetry, proportionality and repetition now known as fractal design. The mathematician Ron Eglash, author of African Fractals – which examines the patterns underpinning architecture, art and design in many parts of Africa – notes that the city and its surrounding villages were purposely laid out to form perfect fractals, with similar shapes repeated in the rooms of each house, and the house itself, and the clusters of houses in the village in mathematically predictable patterns.

As he puts it: “When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganised and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn’t even discovered yet.”

A plaque showing an entrance to the palace of the Oba of Benin.
A plaque showing an entrance to the palace of the Oba of Benin. Photograph: Alamy
At the centre of the city stood the king’s court, from which extended 30 very straight, broad streets, each about 120-ft wide. These main streets, which ran at right angles to each other, had underground drainage made of a sunken impluvium with an outlet to carry away storm water. Many narrower side and intersecting streets extended off them. In the middle of the streets were turf on which animals fed.

“Houses are built alongside the streets in good order, the one close to the other,” writes the 17th-century Dutch visitor Olfert Dapper. “Adorned with gables and steps … they are usually broad with long galleries inside, especially so in the case of the houses of the nobility, and divided into many rooms which are separated by walls made of red clay, very well erected.”

Dapper adds that wealthy residents kept these walls “as shiny and smooth by washing and rubbing as any wall in Holland can be made with chalk, and they are like mirrors. The upper storeys are made of the same sort of clay. Moreover, every house is provided with a well for the supply of fresh water”.

Family houses were divided into three sections: the central part was the husband’s quarters, looking towards the road; to the left the wives’ quarters (oderie), and to the right the young men’s quarters (yekogbe).

Daily street life in Benin City might have consisted of large crowds going though even larger streets, with people colourfully dressed – some in white, others in yellow, blue or green – and the city captains acting as judges to resolve lawsuits, moderating debates in the numerous galleries, and arbitrating petty conflicts in the markets.

The early foreign explorers’ descriptions of Benin City portrayed it as a place free of crime and hunger, with large streets and houses kept clean; a city filled with courteous, honest people, and run by a centralised and highly sophisticated bureaucracy.

What impressed the first visiting Europeans most was the wealth, artistic beauty and magnificence of the city
The city was split into 11 divisions, each a smaller replication of the king’s court, comprising a sprawling series of compounds containing accommodation, workshops and public buildings – interconnected by innumerable doors and passageways, all richly decorated with the art that made Benin famous. The city was literally covered in it.

The exterior walls of the courts and compounds were decorated with horizontal ridge designs (agben) and clay carvings portraying animals, warriors and other symbols of power – the carvings would create contrasting patterns in the strong sunlight. Natural objects (pebbles or pieces of mica) were also pressed into the wet clay, while in the palaces, pillars were covered with bronze plaques illustrating the victories and deeds of former kings and nobles.

At the height of its greatness in the 12th century – well before the start of the European Renaissance – the kings and nobles of Benin City patronised craftsmen and lavished them with gifts and wealth, in return for their depiction of the kings’ and dignitaries’ great exploits in intricate bronze sculptures.

“These works from Benin are equal to the very finest examples of European casting technique,” wrote Professor Felix von Luschan, formerly of the Berlin Ethnological Museum. “Benvenuto Celini could not have cast them better, nor could anyone else before or after him. Technically, these bronzes represent the very highest possible achievement.”

A drawing of Benin City made by a British officer in 1897.
A drawing of Benin City made by a British officer in 1897. Illustration: akg-images
What impressed the first visiting Europeans most was the wealth, artistic beauty and magnificence of the city. Immediately European nations saw the opportunity to develop trade with the wealthy kingdom, importing ivory, palm oil and pepper – and exporting guns. At the beginning of the 16th century, word quickly spread around Europe about the beautiful African city, and new visitors flocked in from all parts of Europe, with ever glowing testimonies, recorded in numerous voyage notes and illustrations.

Lost world
Now, however, the great Benin City is lost to history. Its decline began in the 15th century, sparked by internal conflicts linked to the increasing European intrusion and slavery trade at the borders of the Benin empire.

Then in 1897, the city was destroyed by British soldiers – looted, blown up and burnt to the ground. My great grandparents were among the many who fled following the sacking of the city; they were members of the elite corps of the king’s doctors.

Nowadays, while a modern Benin City has risen on the same plain, the ruins of its former, grander namesake are not mentioned in any tourist guidebook to the area. They have not been preserved, nor has a miniature city or touristic replica been made to keep alive the memory of this great ancient city.

A house composed of a courtyard in Obasagbon, known as Chief Enogie Aikoriogie’s house – probably built in the second half of the 19th century – is considered the only vestige that survives from Benin City. The house possesses features that match the horizontally fluted walls, pillars, central impluvium and carved decorations observed in the architecture of ancient Benin.


Story of cities #4: Beijing and the earliest planning document in history
Read more
Curious tourists visiting Edo state in Nigeria are often shown places that might once have been part of the ancient city – but its walls and moats are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps a section of the great city wall, one of the world’s largest man-made monuments, now lies bruised and battered, neglected and forgotten in the Nigerian bush.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace

How come nothing but these stories to corroborate it as fact?
Benin city as natives, non of them have said any of this, they should have family houses that looked like what you description

MelesZenawi:
You are talking Nonsense upon gibberish because nothing like that is existing in that your little history book.

Take your fake stories to illiterates who will buy them not sane minds.

Yorubas and Igbos have no common food...Ozu..You are the one trying to create such scenario because it never exist and still not existing.


You are too small and ill-educated to re-write history...who send you on such mischievous mission..?


Yorubas and Igbos has nothing like same ancestral. This is the greatest lie and another springing myth. Get on with other things and don't even think of fabricating any little technical paper full of lies. Culturally Igbos has no single cultural similarities with Yorubas let alone your fictitious ancestral.


Mr, I will advise you to chase this your pop corn dream with your great grand father's, grand father's and father's name or even your immediate community and leave ndigbo and other larger community out of your delusion.

If your mother is Yoruba...fine ...trace your root to them but don't come here to fabricate lies injurious to Ndigbo.

Ndi ala forming literate......Otondo.

Abeg pity your brothers from ewedustan province of ooduaArewastan

scholes0:
Jollof rice - General
Moi-moi (mai-mai, moin-moin) also called Olele or Oole - Yoruba
Egusi soup (Obe Egusi)- Yoruba
Akara - Yoruba

Other shared foods and(or) snacks.
Booli - Yoruba
Guguru & Epa - Yoruba
Suya - Hausa
Dodo - Yoruba
Pepper soup - Dunno (Anyone who knows?)
Puffpuff/chinchin/Buns - General
Garri - Only God knows. Na thisone dey hard me pass.
Pekere (fried plantain chips) - Yoruba
Zobo - Hausa
Eko/Agidi - Yoruba and Igbo
Akamu/Ogi/Koko - Likely General.
Kunu - Hausa
Kulu-Kuli - Yoruba/Nupe/Hausa
Palm sap (wine) - Common drink in the south and center.

I don't know if these ones are general or regional. Or regional transitioning into General.
Kokoro - Yoruba
Abacha - Igbo
Donkwa - Hausa
Aadun - Yoruba
Alewa - Hausa
Baba dudu/Chesbin Mallam/Alagbon - Yoruba/Hausa
Ube - Likely Igbo/Eastern NNigeria.
Asun - Yoruba
Nkwobi - Igbo
Ukwa - Igbo

Apparently all Nigerian major groups have contributed substantially to our general cuisines.

Egusi is Benin, not Yoruba!!!!
You guys are terrible cooks?
Where in Yoruba Land have you historically grown egusi?
Igbos have a better claim than you?
But it's still benin

OkoAmarashy:
Ipob pig oloriburuku

Don't you have a monarch (oba) to kill? Now run along...

Too mediocre for a city the size of onitsha

Yoruba amaka

Freeeanijor:
Cheating girlfriend comes with excess baggages, ops experience is an example and the "nice guy" boyfriend is the one that bears the load financially, emotionally and otherwise.
Don't be a prisoner of gratitude and trade your peace for pussy. Wisdom is profitable for directions

Ecclesiastes 7:12
For wisdom is a protection just as money is a protection, but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves the life of its owner.

A cheating gf is in the same grade as a cheating bf. Don't use Bible to say otherwise
If you read carefully, the op hinted that he likely cheated on her. Abeegi

Harmored:
Nigeria Government has decided to Evacuate Nigerians from Benin, full expense paid individually
Can you imagine

Walahi real life pigs would be faar better than the leaders we currently have in this country

EMEKUSBOY9:
Good day ladies/ gentlemen, am a nigerian guy who went to ivory coast in 2016 but came back to Nigeria 2018 . I had some sweet memories that really look sweet and adventure to me.

i remember when life was unbeatable for me i have no choice to think about making some despirate journey, mind you i don't have any friends or family members over there and i was even discouraged by friends not to move because is not Europe, america or Asia. ( please am not advising anybody to take this risk ooooo). But believe me that journey changed my life.

Starting from how i left Nigeria to" Benin Republic" then i met an ivory babe at STC bus terminals.., i believe i was destined to meet that sweet girl for things to be easy for me. Anyways i have a lot to talk but let just keep it for another day topic or probably "part 2".

Now to my sweet memories

If you are married or you have a girl friend in Nigeria that u had promise to marry., please do fasting and praying before going to ivory coast, because their figure 8 women with beautiful skin and faces will not even allow u to think of coming back. I know many Nigeria guys who lost focus just because of this and they get married to ivorian ladies.

i remember the oppurnities at every organization i went too, just because am a nigerian i was treated like a star and any public places i went too i was attended too first just because am a Nigerian and the power of English language i was speaking to them. Infact i got my first job offer the first day i went to their canteen to eat but i declined it because i was focus and all my desire is to get a soccer team" ( please job is not easy to come by, if u are reading this note make sure u know why u are going there and business is the only surest way to make it there above any other way ooo).

" SAMEDI SUA" is Saturdays in ivory coast, and is my best days in ivory coast. Am not sure if i got the spellings correctly.., this days mother dnt have right over any woman no matter her age and they are allow to pass a night at their boy friends place .

My people, out of emotions i decided not to continue but to leave it for another day. And I have so many sweet memories about this sweet country..., And before i forget.... it's only in ivory coast Republic, u will see night clubs that start by "8am on monday" and the only countries where foreigners has rights more than it's citizens because this people are very peaceful. Even the country "first lady" is "white " woman from france. I have a lot to say let me just keep it for another day.

Thanks for your time

Typical Nigerian men, every other women are better than our own women over here. One-day una go say green Martians are better than Nigerian women too

Other than that cool thread

seanwilliam:
Mehn, for the first time this year, I cry .. omo....I learn 15 lessons from this
1. Never have girl friend at tender age
2. Never have girlfriend while you are struggling
3. Dont be too generous
4. Dont live beyond your means
5. A man should be strong emotionally
6. Never date a single mother
7. Never accept a cheating girlfriend back
8. Have multiple source of income
9. Never close your mouth, you never can tell who would help you
10. Your condition is the not the worst
11.you yourself is the most important thing, family comes second
12. Dont invest in business you dont know the "ins" and " out"..
13.learn a skill no matter what
14. Dont trust people easily
15. Prayer works....
And lastly
16. Suicide is never the solution to one's problem

I really learn much ...God would make a way for all of us.. this really got my hearts
Your breakthrough is near Tankunland

Your points are valid but no 2, can't be a general rule for everyone

No 7 is bull shit and double standard, because you expect girls to accept a cheating bf. U can only put your feet on the ground on that, if you have never cheated on the said girl, otherwise it's pure bullshit

Martinez39s:
You had better start using your brain. Go get a DNA test. What if she pinned the boy on you because she knows her baby daddy won't take care of him like you would after she is gone? What if it was her last-ditch effort to secure her son's future? Why would you trust the words of someone who said your "son" belongs to her baby daddy and had the boy live with the baby daddy as his son for a long time? You really need to start using your brain. Seems your ordeal wasn't harsh enough to activate your brain and make it override your emotions. You have to tune down your emotions, and start being logical.

This is why I logged in, but you said it best

Goodnight y'all

Karmaisme:
You are thanking God because Burna boy didn't win the Grammy?

I guess nothing is working in your life, thats why you are filled with bitterness. Idiot

Hmmm

Efewestern:
The Bini never imposed their culture or language on conquered territory, if they did, Delta, Ondo and some part of Lagos would been Bini speaking today, meaning they'd be a major ethnic group.

What happened then was the Bini empire was relaxed, despite having administrative heads on several territory, they never cared about imposing their language on the people they govern, how the hell did a group like Itsekiri retain their core Yoruboid dialect despite being ruled by a Bini prince and being surrounded by Edoid groups?

Oyo empire had non Yorubas in it too like barubas and they didn't impose their language.
Benin should have a history of close to a thousand years,there about. At least the Portuguese had contact with them in the 1400's and their history goes beyond that.
They recognized that Benin was among one of the foremost settlements then, that means aside it's influence, it most have had one of the largest population among the tribes (like mein, ikales, ekitis not ethnicities like Yoruba, Igbo et Al) of southern Nigeria as then at least populated enough to warrant being the major trading partner.
I personally (entirely my opinion) think that they may be other reasons for the low population
(1) historically low birth rate among the binis in comparison to other neighboring tribes like Igbo (whose population is waay too much for their land mass, which would have suggested a period of rapid population explosion along their history (my opinion)
(2) Some kind of unrecorded plagues might have reduced their population or suffered some unrecorded devastating wars, natural disasters etc
(3) maybe they experienced language shift a faster rate (breakup of the common edoid language into smaller groups which became ethnicities or language shit as results of massive emigration to non edoid speaking countries like Igbo, Yoruba et Al)

(4)Or language shift due to inferiority complex of their language as being inferior like urhobo people. Warri for instance is surrounded by urhobo speaking towns and yet warri has not bin urhobonized, same with itsekiri in sapele and oghara (someone told me it's now an itsekiri town sef) and history gave them a second chance with current status of Benin City, it would have been a perfect avenue to spread their language, don't even talk about it being Cosmopolitan, there is no way a Yoruba and hausas town would be cosmopolitan that either languages won't be dominant

My points might be a wild guess but there is something fishy about their population for a people with a history of 800 - 1,000 yrs

gregyboy:
Impact Of Portuguese Diplomacy With Benin
It was the information gathered from the Ohen-Okun of Ughoton in 1486 about the supposedly
legendary Prester John which encouraged the expedition headed by Bartolomew Diaz the following year,
August 1487.
All in all, this first contact with Benin had more than fulfilled Portuguese expectations (Ryder, 1969;
32). The discovery that Africa had a bottom – the Cape of Good Hope – gave great hope to Europe and created
new access to the exotic lands of the East – India, China etc. This discovery enriched Europe, enhanced her
expectations and provided her with a new and more accurate geography of the world. It enabled Europe to break
free from her encirclement by Islam.
Interestingly and unknowingly to the Portuguese, it was a priest around the river benue axis Ohen-Okun talked about in
Lisbon. But his description of the „Oghene‟ and the mention of the maltese cross especially, led the officials in
the Court of John II of Portugal to believe that the Ohen-Okun was describing the Kingdom of Prester John, the
legendary Christian Monarch in Africa. However, history has it that the legendary Kingdom of Prester John was
the ancient Kingdom of Abyssinia - modern - day Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the only Christian state in the Horn of
Africa. She has practised Coptic Christianity since the 4
th century AD, before the birth of Mohammed.
Incidentally, Ethiopia was also one of those two countries (the other being Liberia) in Africa that did not comenot cooperating sufficiently with Portugal on trade-related matters, Benin seemed unperturbed with such an arm￾twisting measure, especially as other Europeans such as the French and the Dutch continued to trade with the
Kingdom (Blake, 1939; 134). But today a ban in trade by one western nation would in all likelihood, result in a total ban by all Western Powers. But on the part of Portugal there was increased frustration as the trade embargo against the Oba only seemed to have highlighted the importance of Benin in the scheme of things. They desperately searched for other markets but agreed that none matched the trade with Benin or could adequately replace it (Blake, 1939;
134). Benin, being a highly centralized kingdom, operated a pattern of trade that favoured external trade relations. When, for instance, the trade in elephant tusks began early in the 16th century, the Oba immediately instituted a guild for the hunting of elephants (Ryder, 1969; 53). That area of Ikpoba Hill in modern Benin City
known as Ore-Ogbeni (meaning the community of elephant hunters) was where the Oba settled this group of hunters, and the trade structure of the state ensured that every single elephant tusk obtained was sold only through the agents of the Oba; this also applied to other commodities of international trade - pepper, stone beads etc.
However, it is uncertain whether it was the difficulties between the Obas and the European meddlers alone that led to the decay of Portuguese trade with Benin in the second half of the 16th century. There was the
view that as many more European Powers broke the Portuguese monopoly of the West Coast trade, there emerged a general decline in Portuguese commerce and therefore power in West Africa. Expectedly, the government in Portugal then decided to concentrate its limited resources to the exploitation of its trade and
possessions in the Indies and Brazil. This shift in trade relations affected her trade not only in marginal areas Like Benin but also in the Island settlements of Principe and Sao Tome (Ryder, 1969; 75).Furthermore, Portugal did not find the trade with Benin as profitable as she had envisaged. Both the land and weather were also hostile and unhealthy for Europeans (Ling Roth, 1968; 5).However, since the economic and political intercourse between Portugal and Benin500 years or more ago, major transformations have evolved in the form of structures and nature of actors in the International System. Monarchs and Emperors have given way to Nation-States as the representatives of their people in International affairs. The monarchy in Portugal has ceased to exist since 1910, has been the case with many
others in Europe at different times in their history. However, the Benin monarchy has survived, not as the political and economic entity it was 500 or more years ago, but rather, as a cultural entity – something fairly
akin to the monarchy in Britain – her former colonizer.
References
[1]. Adeniran .T. (1983); Introduction to International Relations, Lagos Macmillan Nigerian Press Ltd.
[2]. Acemoglu .D. and Robinson .J. (2012); Why Nations Fail, New York Crown Publishing Group.
[3]. Aisien .E. (2001); The Benin City Pilgrimage Stations, Benin City, Nigerian; University of Benin
Printing Press.
[4]. Aisien .E. (2012); Ewuare: The Oba of Benin; Benin City; Nigeria, Mindex Publishing Co. Limited.
[5]. Blake .J. (1939), European Beginnings in West Africa, London Vol. 2, Haluyt Society.
[6]. Brasio .A. (1952); Lisbon: Monumenta Missionaries Vol. I, Africa Ocidental.
[7]. Bradbury R. E. (1957); London: The Benin Kingdom and the Edo Speaking Peoples of South-Western

So the old Benin empire traded elephant tusk, I was personally wondering why we have a word it (urhobo and isoko people) if it isn't found in those areas where this ethnicities reside in. There is an urhobo town named evreni (elephant town) . Maybe it was hunted to extinction, but again elephant are know to habit grasslands and not dense forest. Well, who knows?

R

MetaPhysical:
You dont even know the history of Benin Where have you been?

Benin was selling slaves upto a point! They stopped selling slaves because they were running out of stock to use for ritual sacrifice.

The court continued to capture and keep Oruh as slaves and instead of selling they were used to appease Yoruba gods.

I am more interested in how bini/ Edo speaking people existed and were an organized society in the 1400's but a minority ethnic group today. An investigation should be carried out on that. No history of plagues etc. I actually meant to quote you in the ogane thread

Cc gregboy

Burnaboy is a proud idiot with no Sense. Thank God he didn't win the Grammy. if not, we for no hear word

Xneg:
Rwanda's entire population is just abt half of Lagos, this is almost impossible in Nigeria.

But Lagos is richer and Rwanda has additional responsibilities as a sovereign state that Lagos doesn't. As at the Time of Amaechi, Rivers State had a bigger budget than Rwanda


There is no excuse my brother

To themselves

So this is the rubbish that is causing the death of our native languages?

If you must speak English, speak it properly!!!