₦airaland Forum

It's indeed unfortunate what happened to Prof. Ambrose Alli.

The Oba is considered sacred, but not in some sense of being the "Pope" (God's representative on Earth) of the Edo religion. I don't know where he's getting that from. Maybe he knows something I don't though. 

edoboi:
To those brainwashed and enslaved by the white man religion, you have to know that the great OBA OF BENIN is GOD representative on earth for the Great BENIN KINGDOM and all BENDELITES. forget the splitting of Bendel or Midwest into states by selfish element who are out to embezzle oil money.   The great Benin Kingdom spread across modern day benin republic, onitsha, lagos, delta state, parts of bayelsa, parts of kogi, parts of ekiti, ondo etc, Many Nigerians choose to hide this truth cuz they are afraid of benin domination but we are not out to dominate anyone cuz our tradition and culture is sacred for the benin people only. have u forgotten that a Bini man always breaks the kola in a traditional gathering of all ethnic groups in Nigeria? ask your father some questions ma ppl.

My friend, as a Bini who is also proud of his history I implore you to stop over claiming.

I'm not even an Afrocentrist, but there are some correspondences between some Nigerian cultures and Egypt; a few of which seem to not be coincidental.



Take this article for example:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2794649?&Search=yes&searchText=Breastplate&searchText=Lagos&searchText=Ram-headed&searchText=Egyptian&searchText=Origin&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DThe%2BEgyptian%2BOrigin%2Bof%2Ba%2BRam-headed%2BBreastplate%2Bfrom%2BLagos%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=1&ttl=5&returnArticleService=showFullText

The Egyptian Origin of a Ram-Headed Breastplate from Lagos
G. A. Wainwright
Man, Vol. 51, (Oct., 1951), pp. 133-135

(in the article, it later explains that the Egyptian ram would be facing frontally rather than sideways if not for the Egyptian convention of depicting heads facing sideways not to indicate a pose, but just as a style of drawing)


I should point out that the same style of the ram headed breastplate can be seen on at least three Benin bronzes (such as on one of the pre-Portuguese bronzes depicting a figure with the ram pectoral on his wrapper) and on an Ife terracotta and that ancestral ram's heads are extremely prominent among the Edo (see "Ancestral Ram's heads of the Edo-Speaking Peoples"  http://www.jstor.org/stable/3334638?&Search=yes&searchText=Heads&searchText=Ram%27s&searchText=Peoples&searchText=Ancestral&searchText=Edo-Speaking&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Facc%3Don%26Query%3DAncestral%2BRam%2527s%2BHeads%2Bof%2Bthe%2BEdo-Speaking%2BPeoples%26gw%3Djtx%26acc%3Don%26prq%3DThe%2BEgyptian%2BOrigin%2Bof%2Ba%2BRam-headed%2BBreastplate%2Bfrom%2BLagos%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=1&ttl=9&returnArticleService=showFullText)

Moreover, rams are associated with Shango in Yoruba religion, so the Ifa deity Shango, which was known to have been an important deity to the Yoruba, and later to have been transmitted to the Edo, may have been derived from or have been another word for an Egyptian/Nubian deity.

There are some other possible similarities mentioned here:

http://egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=egyto&action=display&thread=27&page=2

http://onthehuman.org/2010/02/animalia-the-natural-world-art-and-theory/

http://asiapacificuniverse.com/pkm/afri.htm

http://www.mamiwata.com/egypt.html


Nothing concrete yet, but there are some startling similarities.

@ fstranger, I didn't say all that. Many Nigerian women are gorgeous too, I just meant that the U.S. seems to be a magnet for the best of all groups (African/Black, Asian, European, etc.) or that women who grow up American just somehow end up looking hotter (I know that makes no sense, but it's just an assumption that seems somehow true) in general so my appreciation of beauty might be skewed. I wouldn't say she's below average. I would say she's above average, but not enough to where I would call her breathtaking.


@ naijaking, old men marrying young women happens all over the world. Does Buhari have a wife named Aisha and a daughter named Aisha? I don't really know about his personal life.

1. He seems to have some integrity (the Save Nigeria group, the "transport money" rejection), making the Buhari-Bakare duo seem like some powerhouse of integrity compared to their rivals.
2. He somewhat negates the religious accusations against Buhari (that Buhari is a fundamentalist Islamist fanatic), as a Christian pastor 100% behind Buhari.
3. A few SW votes.

That's about it. Not much more.

Nadia71:
Even heard that the same Prince that was beaten smokes 'igbo', na wa!

I heard you look like a dumb goat.


Na wa o.

Woman in the orange and purple is okay, not really breathtaking in my opinion. Maybe I'm spoiled by too many gorgeous women where I'm at though.

[quote author=X-factoria link=topic=392592.msg7906813#msg7906813 date=1300091163]Lastly on the Benin story of how Kings are buried and the Ooni's story, the point I have been making is that both accounts could be correct. So much likely to be so because they are pointing out two different things. A body could be buried without the head whereas the head is buried somewhere else. Since the Benin story was silent about the head and the Ooni did not mention the body, they could both be correct. Please open your mind.[/quote]2. 

"Death and Mortuary Rites

Mortuary rites differ according to clan, locality, and the status and rank of the deceased. For the Edo the ideal is that parents should predecease their children and senior siblings their juniors. Children of the deceased should perform the mortuary rites, with the senior son playing the leading role, and no person plays an active part in the funeral rites for someone junior to himself. Children and childless adults are buried unceremoniously by the ighele or iroghae in the villages and by their equivalents in Benin city. In the villages household heads and others who die leaving children are buried inside the house or, occasionally, under the eaves. Other senior and respected adults may be buried there, too, but usually their graves are in the bush. In Benin City, at the present day, most burials take place in the public cemeteries and only very prominent people may be buried, with the Oba's permission, in their houses. No person other than the Oba may be buried in the Ogbe section of the town.
When full mortuary rites are accorded they take seven days in the case of ordinary people and 14 for the Oba and some important chiefs. They may be performed immediately after the decease or, if the senior son is too young or cannot afford the necessary expense, be delayed indefinitely; thus some funerals take as much as 20 years after interment. The following is a description of the main stages of the mortuary rites for an ordinary adult man with sons.
Immediately after the death lamentation is forbidden for a few hours for the soul of the deceased may be lurking round the house and it is hoped that it will return to the body. When it is clear that death is final the people in the house and other relatives and friends begin to weep and wail. The body is taken outside and washed, then laid on a bed inside the house. The hair and nails are cut and, if the funeral rites are not to take place immediately, preserved by the senior son, usually in a block of "chalk." A goat is sacrificed and the body anointed with the blood. The corpse is then adorned with bracelets of cowries and a white cloth and a feather is stuck into the hair. Formerly it was laid on a frame of bamboo and the whole wrapped in a mat but at the present day coffins are commonly used. Meanwhile the ighele have dug the grave. If the grave is in the cemetery the children of the deceased go there in procession with the corpse, singing seven special burial songs and scattering chalk, salt, and cowries on the way. As the body is lowered into the grave the senior son, then the other children, throw in bristles from a broom, accompanying each with prayers to the effect that in the next incarnation the deceased may not meet with the misfortunes that troubled him in the last. Finally a hen is killed and its blood used to wash from the feet of the mourners those impurities and ritual dangers associated with the grave. It is taken away to be eaten by the grave-diggers who also wash, with water, "the feet with which they entered the grave, the arms with which they dug it, and the face with which they looked on the corpse."
If the full mortuary rites are to be performed immediately these rites constitute the first day. Otherwise the seven-day funeral begins with the rite of 'laying out the corpse" (iwaorivi) at which only members of the deceased's lineage are allowed to be present. The nails and hair which have been preserved from the dead man are tied, with chalk, salt, and cowries, in a white cloth into which a white feather is inserted. Over this bundle, which represents the corpse, a goat is slaughtered. The seven burial songs are song and the "body" is interred.
During the following days goats, fowls, and other offerings provided by the male descendants and sons-in-law of the deceased are sacrificed in the courtyard of the house. The burial songs are repeated night and morning.
On the third day there is a procession known as izakhue. The senior son slaughters a cow or goat on the threshold of the house for the edio spirits of the family. Then he and each of his brothers and brothers-in-law and, sometimes, his adult sons and daughters or their husbands, place themselves at the head of groups of dependents and friends which march round the town in order of seniority of their leaders, to the accompaniment of burial and other songs in honour of the deceased.
On the fifth day there is another procession (isoto) organized in the same way. This time the leader of each group is accompanied by a box (oku) decorated with a red cloth and brass adornments which represents the prosperity of the deceased and the respect accorded to him; the oku is not always used in village burials. The leader takes with him offerings (oto) the main components of which are a goat, a calabash of oil, basket of coconuts, seven kola-nuts, a mat, and a white cloth. On the return of the procession to the house each leading mourner presents his oto to the assembled elders of the lineage who inspect them to see if they are complete; if not a sum of money is offered in compensation. When they are satisfied a mortar is fired and the followers of the mourner dance as a sign of rejoicing that they have not been disgraced. The senior son retains his oto while those of other mourners are afterwards divided between the elders and the heirs.
A dance (ikpowia) begins on the evening of the following day which will continue until daybreak. A person, chosen by divination, is dressed up in fine clothes to represent the deceased. He or she is known as onodierhayi - "he (she) that represents the father." On no account must this person sleep during the night; if he does so it is believed that he will dream of the deceased and will himself shortly die. During the night he sits on a bench in the house while all "his" descendants come, in order of seniority, to salute him, bringing monetary offerings and receiving kola and, through a spokesman, blessings and an assurance that he will continue to look after them from erivi (the spirit world) as he has done on earth. This done "the father" dances with his children for the last time.
At dawn the people, led by the "father," go in procession to a nearby area of bush where a framework of sticks, covered with a cloth, has been erected. The "father" pretends to sit on these, then the other mourners do likewise. Finally the structure collapses and its components are thrown away. This rite, known as isuerhafua ("throwing away the sticks", symbolizes the final disposal of the remains of the deceased and the casting off of ritual impurities associated with death from the mourners. The subsequent state of ritual purity is expressed in the song "it is cool like the bush near the river" which accompanies the homeward procession. As the mourners reach a house a mortar is fired to induce the "father's" spirit to come home and his representative traces a line with powdered chalk to the shrine where he will be worshipped.
A few hours later the senior son and his father's senior surviving brother perform the rite known as ukove, "planting," in which carved staffs, ukhurhe, are placed upright on the altar of the deceased. A goat is sacrificed and other offerings made and the "father" is asked to continue to come there and eat with his "children" who come in their turn to pray for themselves, their spouses, and their dependents.
Apart from these mortuary rites which are the concern of the deceased's siblings and descendants his memberships of other kinds of groups is also signified after his death. Thus a goat must be presented by the senior son to the people of the village for sacrifice for the edio spirits and to the members of any cult-group or any title-association or order of which he was a member. An onogie's son must present goats to each of the villages of which his father was the ruler, to his palace-association, etc.
The funeral rites of the Oba follow the same general pattern but are too elaborate to be described here." -  R.E. Bradbury, The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-Speaking Peoples of South-Western Nigeria (1957), pp. 50-52



^^^^

So were the Oba's death rites, which are even more elaborate than these, but with the same general pattern (that is, reverence and respects paid over multiple days, songs, dances and sacrifices in honor of the deceased, but no mention of any later decapitation), arbitrarily concocted for no reason, after 1888? This decapitation thing is not mentioned anywhere in Benin tradition. And the other claims - the bronze/brass casting transmission claim, the Ife burial claim, etc. are all only in Egharevba's book. No doubt Egharevba's book is classic and authoritative but not every claim therein should be treated as gospel to be disproved.  On the contrary, certain claims should be treated as extremely suspect and requiring proof. For example, Egharevba's assertion about Ife to Benin transmission of brass/bronze casting was accepted when he introduced it in his second edition. However the Benin bronzes were later studied and in addition to being very different in style and material composition from the Ife bronzes, the few pieces that had "Ife" characteristics were dated to the 17th and 18th century, rather than the earlier period of Benin art. In addition, the Benin bronze depicting an Ooni of Ife that was found in the Benin palace was used to support Egharevba's story, but the bronzes of Benin origin that were found at Ife, including one that seems to depict an Oba of Benin's face (see Frank Willett's I[i]fe in the History of West African Sculpture[/i]) were not given a corresponding story or explanation.

[quote author=X-factoria link=topic=392592.msg7906813#msg7906813 date=1300091163]Lastly on the Benin story of how Kings are buried and the Ooni's story, the point I have been making is that both accounts could be correct. So much likely to be so because they are pointing out two different things. A body could be buried without the head whereas the head is buried somewhere else. Since the Benin story was silent about the head and the Ooni did not mention the body, they could both be correct. Please open your mind.[/quote]1. There is simply no evidence for decapitation of kings before or after burial in Benin. With regard to the Benin story's silence on the head, it didn't bring it up because it's not relevant and there is no reason to mention the head in particular. If somebody claims that the Alaafin of Oyo was buried without his feet, left thumb and nose, and that these were deposited in the Nupe country or in Borgu, is it necessary to track down accounts by 18th and 19th century Muslim writers or  accounts from 18th and 19th century Christians and Europeans about Oyo that just so happen to mention how the Alaafin's nose, left thumb and feet were treated during or after a burial? Of course not. Until mention of his nose, feet and left thumb being treated differently from the rest of his body occurs anywhere in Oyo tradition, there is no reason to just assume that any claim that his nose, left thumb and feet were buried in Nupe land or in Borgu is reasonable or should be taken seriously. But hypothetically speaking, would any Oyo/Ibadan historian who was an Oyo Yoruba  actually claim that such a thing occurred? If he were part Nupe (Tapa) or part Borgu (Bariba) would such a claim actually be taken seriously? Perhaps now you have some idea of why Oba Erediauwa said the "Edo-Akure" in Egharevba manifested itself in Egharevba's writing. Oba Erediauwa obviously wasn't saying it to slight the Edo-Akure, who are an actual group, but just to point out that only an Edo-Yoruba who was trying to paint a particular picture of Edo history that fit more with his background would have produced what seems in some respects to be a slanted history. This is not to question Jacob Egharevba's integrity or to deny the debt owed to him for researching Benin history, but to point out that his biases and influences cannot be denied or brushed aside in accounting for some of his claims in his writings.

[quote author=X-factoria link=topic=392592.msg7906813#msg7906813 date=1300091163]Point 2: Like I keep mentioning to you, you cannot rely on archeological or carbon dating or whatever form of dating mechanism to argue this logically. Those dates only give clues and they are not exact in any way. In fact, in most cases, they are outrightly misleading. In fact, the sites you directed me to, gave different dates - 6th century, 9th and 10th century AD as the dates. A qualifying statement also read thus: "Due to the soil conditions, no human bone was recovered" meaning there are factors such as the soil condition that could joepardize accurate or reliable results.[/quote]1. If they are misleading and they can't be relied upon, how does one assert that Ife antedates most other major cities in southern Nigeria? What is then reliable? You've basically thrown out all the dating for anything relating to Ife, as the vast majority of Ife dating was done with radiocarbon dating and little with thermoluminescence or other methods. I would like to hear exactly why you believe these dates are misleading. They actually make sense, given the extreme antiquity of Ife. I'm not some expert archaeologist, but I have a good enough idea of how radiocarbon dating works to not just dismiss all radiocarbon dating out of hand. It is indeed true that radiocarbon dating is subject to error and is not particularly precise, but the dates obtained are not wildly wrong by multiple centuries, they are usually more or less around the mark, within tolerable error (+/- 130 years in the case of the earliest Orun Oba Ado date).

2. It's not as though there were some confusion between whether Orun Oba Ado was a 6th, 9th, or 10th century site. It is considered a 6th through 10th century site.

"IFE

The accidental discovery at Ife (FIG. I , 17) in
1938-9 of 18 bronzes (Bascom, 1938; Willett,
1967, 14-15) focussed attention once again on
Ife’s unique works of art, previously discovered
specimens of which had not received much
attention. ANTIQUITY published an article on
them at the time (Murray, 1941), but there was
no archaeological evidence of date, and speculation
ranged over widely differing periods.
Willett worked at Ife from 1958 to 1963,
excavating, among other places (which included
Ilesha; FIG. I, IS), the site of Eta Yemoo, where
further bronzes had been accidentally discovered
(Willett 1959a, I959b). In addition to
obtaining some fine terracottas, he obtained the
plans of a number of potsherd pavements
(Willett, 1967, 104-7). He also recovered the
remains of a glass bead-making industry
(Willett, 1967, 106-. He had to wait a long
time for his radiocarbon specimens to be
processed but now has seven dates from Ita
Yemoo stretching from the 9th to the 15th
century AD, and five for the site of Orun Oba
Ado stretching from the 6th to the 10th
(Willett, 1968, 1969)." - Thurstan Shaw, "Archaeology in Nigeria", Antiquity Vol 43:171, 1969 pp 187-199

The dates are 560 AD +/- 130 (Pit XI), 800 AD +/- 120 (Pit III), 800 AD +/- 120 (Pit V), 940 AD +/- 150 (Pit VI), and 990 AD +/- 130 (Pit VI).

Later a story was made about this ancient site being tied to the burial of the Benin kings without sources for this tradition or any explanation of where this claim came from.

Also, there is not an older site so far discovered in Ife. Why? Because all the dates for the other sites for Ife are mostly due to Willett, Shaw, and others who used radiocarbon dating (and occasionally, but not often, other methods (archaeomagnetic, thermoluminescence)), so you can't selectively choose which dates from which sites to accept and which dates for certain sites to reject when the dates were obtained by the same methods. Unless you can show which dates were obtained by some other method of dating and which dates you accept and what your rationale is for accepting that method of dating over radiocarbon (and there probably are better methods, especially 40+ years after the initial excavations) dating, then I can't consider this objection reasonable. It's as if you're saying scientific studies of history should just be brushed aside and historically important cities should just have their dates ascribed based on assertions.

As for soil conditions, "An interesting series of pottery was discovered, some of it unlike any that had been previously found in Ife, but no signs of the heads of the kings were located although some animal bones were recovered." - "Chapter VIII: Archaeology" by Frank Willett; from Saburi Biobaku's Sources of Yoruba History.

Or does soil decide to hide human bones but readily offer up animal bones?

[quote author=X-factoria link=topic=392592.msg7906813#msg7906813 date=1300091163]Point1: You already agreed in a previous post that the Yorubas, Edos and Igbos are probably from the same langauge family. This I agree with. So, it is not impossible to find words that sound or are written alike that mean different things. "Orun Oba Ado" means the "abode/source/heaven (depending on the stress pattern) of the King of Ado (Edo)". So, please drop this idea that everything about it was made up so you can reason it out conclusively.[/quote]My point was that the burial claim was not substantiated, that the head claim was an even later invention than the Ife burial claim and that there was no mention of a supposed sacred burial place for Benin kings in Ife prior to Egharevba's second edition. Egharevba's influences and biases have already been mentioned and it's not surprising that the University of Ibadan historians he worked with on his final editions didn't ask him for anything to substantiate his claim about the burials.

That there is now mention of a head when such a practice is not mentioned by historians like Talbot (who made note of the Benin-Ife connection) or H. Ling Roth (who would have been only too happy to write about anything that made Benin look more ghastly or obsessed with blood or decapitation than they actually were (there were certainly some bloody and killing rituals in Benin, and Roth would not have passed up the chance to mention the after death decapitation of the king, if such a thing was known)) or Ward-Price, or Dennett is noteworthy.

That the claim is not even mentioned by Samuel Johnson, who would have been only too happy to claim that the head of some Benin kings were buried near the palace of the supposed "Alaafin of Ife" given his tendency for over amplifying the extent of the Alaafin's influence, is also noteworthy.

When such a claim or anything similar is unknown to any of the numerous writers who discussed the Ife-Benin connection and when there is no evidence of or mention of decapitation of Benin kings in any other Benin tradition, the claim has to actually be substantiated in some way other than by appealing to Egharevba's authoritative name. This is not to say that every single idea or conclusion that was ever written down as history, in African history or any other history, must always be backed by another source, but that when some statement which does not make sense within the context of other known history and cultural facts and seems to be contradicted by other accounts is found to be written down in earlier history, that statement is not to be taken as something authoritative to be disproved, but to be treated with great skepticism and eventually rejected if not supported by anything stronger. There are many things which Egharevba wrote in that same book that I could never treat as unreasonable conclusions, so my rejection of the decapitation claim has to do with the substance of the claim itself not making sense and needing evaluation, and not merely to do with Egharevba's background and influences making it unacceptable as true.

Oba Eweka I is already said to have been buried in Usama. Was this just outright fabrication on the part of Egharevba (a simple, honest man of integrity)? Probably not, but if it was, how can one suggest that Oba Eweka I, Esigie, and others were all taken to Ife or had parts of their remains taken to Ife when the source for such a claim would necessarily have had to fabricate the earlier statement about Usama?

When Egharevba later states that after Eweka I, every third Oba was buried in Ife, but then others "improve" the story to kings being mutilated after death and having their heads brought to Ife for burial, nobody complains or asks for the source for this "improvement" on prior history. Nobody even suspects that the reason the history had to be "improved" upon to include head chopping was because Jacob Egharevba, or one of his more educated Yoruba mentors/advisors, might have come across the account of a European explorer from exactly around the time one of every third Obas was supposed to have died and have been taken to Ife to be buried, describing that Oba instead being buried in a deep grave (a "well" in Benin. Nobody says anything and the decapitation claim becomes authoritative history, which one must disprove, rather than a doubtful claim which one must support or prove. This reversal makes no sense.

[quote author=X-factoria link=topic=392592.msg7906893#msg7906893 date=1300092118]Yeah, I have also learnt a lot of stuffs here especially from PhysicsMHD.

And for the first time, I am beginning to reason out the Oba of Benin's story on Oduduwa even though I do not agree with it yet. It seems logical but may yet be false due to want of compelling evidences. Many Benin historians have varying versions of Oduduwa's story such as this one that I discovered on Friday.

http://www.edo-nation.net/origin.htm

In this story, there are so many illogical assertions like: the Benin people founded Ile-Ife at about 1075AD, the Ifa was put together by a priest of Edo origin who later crowned Oduduwa in Ile Ife, a beast facilitated the movement of people from Edo to Ile-Ife, Ooni was an Edo name coined as title for Oduduwa and so on.

So many fabrications![/quote]I have read parts of Oronsaye's book (never bothered to read the whole thing) and Oronsaye's whole attempt was highly disappointing to me.

His whole idea is about Egypt this, Sudan that and how this Bini "Egyptian" knowledge/culture got transferred to other Edos, Yorubas, Ife, etc. It's nonsense. He meant to portray the Binis as some sort of harbinger of "Egyptian" civilization to dark, ignorant, poor, helpless, uncreative Southern Nigeria. Obviously to justify such a theory he needed to make Binis the origin point of Ifa (which is ludicrous) and so many other things. Needless to say, I don't put much stock in Oronsaye's account. That he incorporated Akenzua's version, with some fanciful modifications, into one chapter of his book, does not mean that Akenzua's version should be associated with or should be considered to make any claims about Egyptians, mysterious beasts, and unheard of ancient Edo babalawos. I was more than a little disappointed that Nowa Omoigui and the administrators at that site actually thought it was even remotely plausible while reading it through.


http://www.edofolks.com/html/pub24.htm

^^^^

This mentions some of the other junk Oronsaye wrote. Not even worth discussing.

edoboi:
@physicsMHD, you better apologise to the whole Benin Kingdom and withdraw that statement of yours if you do not want this curse on eriyo to get to you and your household, instead of you to lambast eriyo for taking the laws into his hands. are there no legal authority in Benin where eriyo can report any matter between him and the prince to? ppl like yourself are those used by the british to betray our great kingdom. but do not worry as we know all of you now and you will be number 1 target of this curse,

Reread my post. I was objecting to TewMuch's claim that Benin people just depose Obas anyhow and that the prince "misbehaved" and was attacked because of that.

If I were to go through and systematically degrade the legion of useless Obas or other touts calling themselves royals in other parts  of Nigeria, or enumerate the legion of despicable crimes from people from other parts of the country, all these baboons in here mouthing off will start crying tribalism.

Why are you baboons here insulting people when you have no idea what happened at the incident? Why are baboons concerned with who's raining curses on worthless ACN thugs? Shouldn't you be more worried about the sh1t your baboon political leaders are flinging at each other in your various states? They wear Western clothes, don't curse people, and use Western political titles, yet they are still sh1t flinging baboons compared to the lowest chief in Benin. As election approaches, we'll see the madness that emerges from all the Nigerian states, and we'll see whether it's due to the backwardness of traditional institutions and their princes and chiefs or due to the political thugs, political godfathers, and elected public officials, and their die hard baboon supporters.

I'd rather have a stable and strict monarchy any day than all this agbero do-or-die "democratic" politics that lets an ordinary task force chairman start terrorizing parts of a city with impunity.

TewMuch: That is the culture everywhere, Oba's are deposed by their people. If the benin people say they dont want a particular oba anymore the Oba has to vacate the throne. That is why an Oba and his family should act like Royalty. The land is for the people, and not the Oba. He is a leader and his station should represent that. The fact that his son is a prince does not give him the privilege to misbehave, and if he does the Oba should set an example by handling it in a royal manner. All this mass cursing means nothing. Why didnt Benin people curse white people that have been sending their Oba's on exile? Abegi, make we hear word.

More bullshit. This is the second time you've just concocted stories about something without bothering to find out whether your guesses were true.

Why don't you read up on Benin or on Edo state, before continuously displaying your ignorance? If reading is too difficult for you, just be quiet.

When did I say I was better than everybody? I'm not. 


The truth is, this discussion is basically an academic exercise for me. It has no lasting consequences in the real world, so me making some points and pointing out some distortions should not be viewed as "fighting a crusade". I'm actually not even bothered by which version is fundamentally true. There would be nothing wrong with either version, actually. I merely wanted to clear up some misconceptions by certain over claimers.

Also, aren't you like 40+ years old?

Yet you're the one getting emotional over this?

Pitiful.

[quote author=tpiah! link=topic=392592.msg7904556#msg7904556 date=1300056168]^Look, stop resorting to personal attacks as if madness dey worry your lineage. If i go that route with you,we`ll see if your moronic brain can handle it.  I dont know what you`re cryin about like a nincompoop. Ode buruku. Instead of you to sit your azz down in one corner and educate your ignorance, you want to start displaying your empty headed nonsense. Oponu buruku. Very uncivilized thing. You think you`re all that,right, because you get keyboard. Pathetic.[/quote]^^^
Being called moronic by somebody who thought anyone who gets a Ph.D is just made a professor, and then argued blindly for 7 pages when hit with facts, means little to me. And I'm not the one who brought personal background into this.

And where did I say Ife people were identical with all other Yoruba? That's not actually relevant to me. If they're very different from all other Yoruba, it won't affect my argument until it's shown that they have/had some unique link with or similarities to some other group which is relevant to my argument.

fstranger3:
Where is Tpiah when I really need her

At the market, brushing up on her market woman reasoning.

Silly thread.

Meyan:
No. So?

Dude, don't even bother resorting to her kind of arguments and assertions to counter her. This silly diversion of names "sounding like" they're part of a language should not even have come up. Imagine somebody insinuating that r and h don't follow each other in "African" languages, when that person is part of an African country with a group (Bini) who make enormous and extensive use of "rh" in SO MANY words and names. She only had to check the LGAs of Edo state to see O[b]rh[/b]ionmwon LGA. I wonder whether E[b]rh[/b]abor Emokpae was somehow un-African?! The number of words and names in which r and h are together in Edo is enormous. Yet this was actually being brought up as an argument against Ekaladerhan being a legitimate Bini name! This is like saying the absence of "vb" or "kh" sounds among many African languages indicates that these sounds cannot be in Edo, when we know that these sounds are extremely common in Edo. With the ludicrous way she was reasoning in this thread, if she were ever to look through a Bini dictionary and see the number of unique (from other non-Edoid Africans) sounds in the language, she would probably conclude that Binis were not actually Africans. 

In the same way that there are Edo names/words like Aruahan, Ekaladerhan/Ikaladerhan, Ikan, Ahoran, Ekakakizi, Akakasiaka, Iditan, Odihi, Ehana, Okaka, Ozure, Uzibo, etc. that sound like they must be "un-Edo" to ignorant, clueless outsiders like tpiah, just because they don't sound "typical," there are Yoruba names that sound slightly different from the "typical" or most common Yoruba names that we are familiar with as outsiders, yet they are still completely Yoruba names. There is no way to show that the name Oranmiyan must be derived from a non-Yoruba source just because most Yoruba names, even the ones with "oran" in them, don't also have the exact same sound or structure as Oranmiyan. Her criteria for deciding whether a name belongs to a language are ludicrous.

Even the name Kalu, for example, does it sound anything like the most common Igbo names? No. Yet it is a genuine Igbo name. This whole discussion should not even have occurred.

Read through this thread:  https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-259296.0.html  (tpia = tpiah!) and see if this is really the kind of person you should even bother discussing anything with.

Fine. Do as you wish. I don't intend to hold a lasting internet grudge against any poster for anything said in this thread because it is a tribal/ethnic discussion.

^^^^

You didn't even know erha was a Bini word but were asserting what does or does not sound Bini!

Please be quiet. You are thoroughly dishonest and I see why so many people loathe to even speak to you on this board. When you couldn't admit that there was nothing like Erediauwa among common Bini names, an argument that you brought up as a criterion, you resorted to asserting, with no evidence, that I was "getting everything wrong but won't admit it" and then mentioning my personal history (irrelevant). If you're just going to continue with this ludicrous argument about one of the most distinctly Benin sounding names one could find not being Bini, then find someone else with time to waste. I'm done discussing this non-issue with you or anybody else.

[quote author=tpiah! link=topic=392592.msg7900068#msg7900068 date=1299976864]^^my point is you do not need to be familiar with bini culture to recognize that as a bini name.[/quote]Are you serious?

If Oba Erediauwa had not chosen that as his coronation name, you wouldn't even know that such a name existed. Especially given your glaring ignorance of Benin names.

It is NOT common among Bini, nor are any names that parallel it closely.

[quote author=tpiah! link=topic=392592.msg7900036#msg7900036 date=1299976374]so in what way do these names not seem bini? [/quote]Why are you selectively deciding which names do or do not seem Bini when you don't understand the language? We already know erha means father in Bini, so that alone would point towards Ekaladerhan being a Bini name because of the common mention of fathers and mothers in West African names, not to mention the widespread Eka/Ekha in Bini names.


Ekaladerhan is extremely Bini sounding. In fact, it's one of the Bini names that one could reasonably believe could have no parallels among any of the other Kwa languages (unlike, say, Asemota, which sounds somewhat like the Ghanian name Asamoah).

[quote author=tpiah! link=topic=392592.msg7900036#msg7900036 date=1299976374]wrong wrong wrong!!!!!!!![/quote]Why are you getting emotional?


My point still stands, there is no name that sounds like "Erediauwa" in the king's list. Not even one.

[quote author=tpiah! link=topic=392592.msg7899960#msg7899960 date=1299974577]^^ekaladerhan, as it is, does not sound bini.

check the names of past bini obas and princes.

let me know if you find anything similar.[/quote]I showed that Eka/Ekha was in Benin names. I showed that erha was in Benin names at the beginning and ending. And then you come here and say it doesn't sound Bini. What does it sound like? Vietnamese? Xhosa? Amharic? You also keep ignoring that the name has been in writing for over 70 years, yet nobody claimed it sounded non-Benin.

For the record, not even one Benin king's pre-coronation name would necessarily have been the same as their name in the king list (except for Eweka I, maybe), and only some of them are known.

Looking at the name Erediauwa, one could have constructed a similarly ludicrous argument that since there was no Benin king's name with "uwa" (prosperity) at the end of it, nor any king's name that is similar, nor is the name extremely common in Benin (how can it be, it's a ROYAL NAME! Whenever you see Benin people with last names like Akenzua, Eweka, etc. they are descended from royalty and princes who became actual kings, that's why their royal names seem like "common" Benin names; Oba Akenzua II had over 50 children, in fact.) that Erediauwa was therefore a recently made up kingly name. On the contrary,  before the current Oba ever took that name, R.E. Bradbury, while doing field work in Benin, found out from the Isekhure of Benin, who's duty it was to record the kinglist, and from other informants, that Erediauwa was the pre-coronation name of a 19th century Oba of Benin, Oba Osemwede (see Benin Studies).

I also don't see how you reconcile[b] that the majority of the Obas' names are extremely distinct from one another, but then claim that an Ekaladerhan like name should have been repeated as a king's name or be common amongst royals[/b]. That's the massive, gaping hole in your claim. Take another look at the kings list of Benin and it'll dawn on you that names like Esigie, Adolo, Ovonramwen, Eresoyen, Osemwede, etc. are neither repeated in king's list, nor are similar names to be found in the king list, nor are their names common among ordinary Binis. This applies to so many names on the list that I'm surprised you went with this argument.

[quote author=tpiah! link=topic=392592.msg7899908#msg7899908 date=1299973597]okey dokey then.

i have nothing against amazonia since he or she is yet to misbehave and i also enjoy his/her writings.







not it's not.

and in the examples you quoted, the rh begins the name, not ends it. Find other similar ones with rh at the end and let me have a look at them.[/quote]"Osa" can be at the beginning or end of a name, if the name is about God, depending on what the name is saying, so erha can be at the beginning or end, depending on what the name is saying, so this is a silly objection.

Also, you conveniently ignored that the name was mentioned as early as 1934 (actually, earlier, but published then).

Your initial statement was also just about there not being any "past or present Bini name" that sound like Ekaladerhan, not about where the "erha" was placed.

Just to quiet you and end this diversionary argument, Aigberhae, Aiwererha, Okperhan, are Benin names. You can find them here: http://www.edoworld.net/Edo_names_dictionary.html (But there actually many more Benin names than are listed at that site, for the record. Ja Belo-Osagie's book on Benin names has a longer and better (somewhat more detailed explanations for many names) index of Benin names.)

[quote author=tpiah! link=topic=392592.msg7899443#msg7899443 date=1299967905]Yes, in african languages, r and h follow each other.[/quote]You know all African languages?