₦airaland Forum

mitofag:
Indeed!

Indeed. Most of the descriptions of Benin by visitors are very positive, especially before the civil war that destroyed a large part of the earlier, older city (but even some descriptions after this event are positive).

I found out about the comparisons from the article "Civil War in the Kingdom of Benin, 1689-1721: Continuity or Political Change?" by Paula Ben-Amos Girshick and John Thornton, which cites several sources explicitly. Here's the excerpt from that article with the authors' footnotes giving their sources:


"BENIN IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Benin as it appears in documents of the seventeenth century was a wealthy and centralized kingdom. The natural reflection of centralized wealth was its magnificent capital city, one whose archaeology has only begun to be explored.22 Early European visitors never failed to be impressed with the city. The Portuguese compared it with Lisbon, the Dutch with Amsterdam or Antwerp, the Italians with Florence, and the Spaniards with Madrid.23 Its size was matched by dense habitation; houses built close to each other along long, straight streets. The royal palace, a city within the city, was also impressive, with countless squares and patios and innumerable doors and passageways, all richly decorated with the art that has made Benin famous.24
The city was orderly, well laid out, and sparkling clean so that the walls of the houses appeared polished.25 The orderliness of the town was perhaps a reflection of a highly restrictive bureaucratic rule. We use the term bureaucratic here to mean that state- appointed officials, often serving on limited terms and responsible to their superiors, formed a hierarchy that led to the king, which sought to control large areas of social, political and economic life. European visitors certainly felt the supervision as well - Derick Ruiters was given a 'guard' when he visited the city about 16oo, whose real function, he believed, was to prevent him from seeing too much.26 When a palace official decided in 1652 that the Capuchins were not to be taught Edo, they could not find a single person who would teach them a solitary word.27 Control was not limited to supervision of foreigners' movements, Dapper noted that the government had thoughtfully placed a large water jar mid-way on the Ughoton-Benin road, complete with a guard who insured that each drop of water was paid for by the thirsty travelers.28 P. J. Darling has suggested that the elaborate system of earthworks that surrounds Benin City for several miles in each direction and extends out into the rural areas might well be more for control of movement than for defense. These earthworks, which are not in use today and have no modern analogy in Benin, 'face both ways', thus preventing movement out of, or across, Benin as well as into the city.29 This interpretation is strengthened by Alonso de Sandoval's description of Benin's high walls, topped with thick vegetation and occasionally pierced by gates manned by armed sentries who demanded passes from all who come by.30"

[Footnotes:

22 Graham Connah, The Archaeology of Benin (Oxford, 1975).

23 APF: SOCG, vol. 517, fol. 308v, Lourenco Pinto to Propaganda Fide, 28 May 1693 (Lisbon); for comparisons to Amsterdam, see the report of the first visit by Dutch to Benin, 1598 cited in Ray A. Kea, 'Firearms on the Gold and Slave Coasts from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century', Journal of African History, 12 (1971), 187; Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 122; for Florence, see Bonaventura da Firenze, 'Come entrb la fede di Giesu Christo nel regno d'Ouere per la Prima Uolta,' fol. 28v, in Salvadorini (ed.), Missioni (with original foliation of MS marked); for comparisons to Madrid, see APF: SOCG, vol. 249, fol. 351v, Felipe de Hijar to Propaganda Fide, 25 July 1654; de Sandoval, Instauranda, 78-9.

24 Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 122; de Marees, Beschryvinge, I I5a. See especially the reports of the Capuchins who visited the palace: APF: SOCG, vol. 249, fol. 328v and 35I (next folio of letter); and Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, Antonio de Teruel, Descripcion narrativa de la mission serafrica de los Padres Capuchinos en el reyno del Congo', (c. 1664). This last manuscript contains a long account clearly written by or based on that of Angel de Valencia, a friend and companion of Teruel (but the hand is Teruel's throughout). It was subsequently used by Mateo de Anguiano in his chronicle (Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid Ms 18 178,' Segunda Parte de la Chronica ,  ' 1705) and eventually published by Buenaventura de Carrocera, Misiones Capuchinos in Africa, II (Madrid, 1957). Other elements of de Valencia's material are found in the Arquivo Provincial de los Capuchinos de Valenca, Jose de Alicante, 'Cronica de los Capuchinos de Valencia desde 165o hasta 1722'. Cavazzi's better know account in Istorica Descrizione de tre' regni Congo, Matamba ed Angola (Bologna, 1687), Libro V, contains no new material. An explicit reference to the art can be found in APF: SOCG vol. 517, fol. 3o8v, Letter of Lourengo Pinto, 28 May 1693.

25 Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 122; APF: SOCG, vol. 517, fol. 308v, Pinto to Propaganda Fide, 28 May 1693.

26 de Marees, Beschryvinge, I 15b.

27 APF: SOCG, vol. 249, fols. 332-9, [Alonso de Tolosa], 'Breve Successo de las Cosas Acontesidas en la Mission del Benin', 20o Nov. 1652, published with original foliation marked in Salvadorini, Missioni Appendix 4, and in Braisio, Monumenta 15, 634-39.

28 Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 122.

29 P. J. Darling, 'Notes on the earthworks of the Benin empire', West African Journal of Archaeology 6 (1976), 143-9-

30 de Sandoval, Instauranda, 78.  The authors wish to thank Serena Van Buskirk for her translation of the Spanish text.]







Unfortunately I don't have direct access to most of the sources the two authors cited. There are also some very positive descriptions of Benin in the primary sources about ancient Nigerian cities and kingdoms compiled and translated in Thomas Hodgkin's Nigerian Perspectives, which I have read.



But that's all ancient history. 

What matters is the present. Benin and Edo state looks no better than anywhere else in Nigeria.

^^^

Patrick Darling actually obtained dates going back to 700 AD (1300 years) and in at least two different places he explicitly states this. The dates he submitted to UNESCO (http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/488/) are 8th century (700s) to 15th century (1400s), not 800s to 1500s. I got into an argument with some clown in another thread who couldn't tell the difference between 8th century AD and the 800s.

Dede1:
You need to revisit the source of your historical facts. It is wrong beyond human imagination. Bini, for intents and practical purposes, was a village empire. If all these self-arrogating fallacies of migration from Bini were remotely true, there should be nobody left in Bini except the Oba. I had the opportunity to visit the remnant walls of Bini Empire and I concluded everything about the empire was insanely exaggerated.

1. The groups who claim migration from Benin are groups who speak Edoid languages or Edo influenced languages, of which there are said to be a few in Bayelsa and Rivers. Speaking an Edoid language or Edo influenced language is different from actually originating directly from the Benin kingdom, but a few people have adopted the tendency to claim origin from Benin if there is evidence of something linking them with the other Edoid groups historically, culturally or linguistically. Whether those claims are true or not isn't so obvious, but it is almost certainly true that some non-Bini groups in Edo (especially Edo), Delta and Ondo states have elements in their population that came from the actual Benin kingdom.

2. What walls are you talking about? A moat that had already deteriorated decades ago and is even overgrown with vegetation? Alonso de Sandoval's (17th century) word on the huge Benin moat ("walls" means far more than your fanciful claims about an already eroded earthwork. It makes little sense to gauge the level of ancient development of a place by a disappearing monument.

3. There are a lot of quotes from eyewitnesses describing the level of development in Benin. It is a fact that Portuguese explorers compared Benin city with Lisbon, Dutch writers compared Benin with Amsterdam and Antwerp, Italians visitors with Florence, and Spanish visitors with Madrid. A Dutch account claimed the palace alone was as large as the Dutch city of Haarlem, and a German account (1603) said the palace complex alone was as large as an entire German city (Tübingen). It's too late to reduce Benin to a level beneath what it occupied historically.

NRI PRIEST:
@exotik,so u actually think it was the benin ppl that pushed the biafran soldiers back and massacrered armless market women in asaba.u are a bloody liar! Go and read the history of biafran nigerian war again.Dont forget that the arm struggle lasted for three years!
Biafra had no food,outside support and infact they had to make their own weapons to fight the nigerian forces for a striking three years!
Yes,we lost the struggle but at least we tried.
There was never in history where the ancient benin empire conquered an Igbo town. Because they knw who to phock with and who not to.
As for some of u dreaming abt ijo fighting the igbos.i laf in AROCHUKWU!!
The ABA boys alone will bring u endless pain,talkless of AROCHUKWU or the larger 40 million Igbos who still have the biafran spirit in them. Pant get size.

You didn't even get what he was referring to. Basic comprehension problems from a loudmouth like you. How many Benin people were even in the Nigerian army to be pushing anybody back? Olodo. . .

MManuel:
I hate to say this but there are a bunch of dull people on nairaland right now, Things Fall Apart is the Title of Achebe's Novel and a Movie has been made in  that name too; and that makes it unavailable as far as copyright laws are concerned.

That's simply not true. Stop, think, and try and verify your claims before just making assertions. Nothing stops two unrelated movies from having the same title.

Since gidi is a Yoruba word for "real"/"authentic", I think the interpretation that goes "the real Lagos" makes the most sense now, although I had gone with the Warri/Benin interpretation earlier.

Batubo:
After more than 50 years in a land,people should no longer be seen as migrants. The Ijaws of Edo have right just as obua,Ebocha and other clans in Rivers state who migrated from EDO have

Does this apply to Rivers state? I think that state has more indigene/settler issues than any other state.

Can I settle in the southern part of Rivers now and later declare myself to be land controlling royalty 50 years from now when I'm in my seventies? If that's not enough time, can my descendants at least do the same thing 90 years from now?

I need some of that nice coastal Ijaw real estate. 

Adoboli is a name born by Ghanaians and Togolese. The man is probably Ewe or Akan. There's no way they can claim he's a Nigerian.

Everybody loses battles at some point, whether we're talking about famous warrior kings or petty swamp militants. The important thing is to succeed overall in the larger objective (expansion). However I don't think the Ijaws in that area can succeed in their expansionism in this case. There's no way that they can have any real say in Edo state after attacking Binis to claim land that they never historically owned, and the creation of the "Toru-Ebe" state will be a source of permanent and unending contention between them and another south south group. It's not a situation that has any real wins for them.

ezeagu:
This isn't 1692. There is no Benin military.

Yeah.

Kind of makes me wonder if there is really any plot as far as retaliation or whether they're just going to wait till a Bini becomes governor of Edo state again to solve the issue.

Dede1:
This is an empty conjecture at best. The Bini Empire never tamed forefathers of Ndigbo. In fact, it is on record that Oba Ewuare mentioned that one of the blunders he committed was an attempted south-eastern expansionism. Bini soldiers suffered defeats in hands of Igbo warriors which forced Oba declared the area most treacherous.

lol, everyone has their own version of history.

I doubt if Oba Ewuare even knew what the word "Igbo" meant, let alone trying to expand in that direction, but I'd be interested in hearing that account. I think Abagworo was referencing some of the "Delta Igbos" in his post, not the "South East" region.

Oba Ewuare did not even fight the Igala who were right next door, not to talk of expanding into the SE. What SE Igbo communities have traditions of thrashing Oba Ewuare's army?

A certain poster on this forum was even telling me about 7 sorcerers defeating a contingent of an army, even though the story itself reveals that people fled when that army invaded, so I would be interested in hearing this other account and seeing whether it stands up to scrutiny.

okada_man:
Maybe it means "small Bini" (Benin) maybe some of the ijo there are Migrants from Benin, maybe Bonny actually means Benin and got corrupted by ijo migrants and Portuguese and English translators.

I had thought about that, but the way Benin is pronounced doesn't really drop the n. Anyway, they (Ijaws) didn't claim that that particular individual (Alagbariye) came from Benin.

BTW, These languages sound too similar to me, Ijaw, Igbo, Yoruba dialects( Ikale, Ilaje, Ijebu, Ondo, Akoko, Irele) Itshekiri, Urhobo, Isoko, Ishan, Owan, Edo, Lukumi, Etsako, Igbira. They all sound the same 

Maybe they are all from the same place: Benin, Yoruba, Igbo, Itshekiri, Urhobo, ijo, Ilaje, Akoko, Igbira e.t.c

I actually don't think those languages all sound very similar, but they are part of the same larger language family.

@ kpogede77

Historically, there has been an Okao of Gelegele, and before that there were edionwere. Okao is the word the Edo (Bini) use for that particular position, not Okakuro. I don't mean to nitpick, because I get what you were saying and know who you were referring to (you were 100% accurate except that you used a similar Urhobo word, not the exact title) and anyone who had looked into that issue would know that there are Okaos of Gelegele and not Ijaw "kingdoms" in Gelegele. But thanks for sharing. Very interesting account. I had always wondered how things got so sour between the Benin palace and the Ijaws in that area before it went to court.


I think the word Okakuro is a separate title, rank or a name used by some Urhobos which is extremely similar to the word Okakuo (war captain) which is a title/rank in Edo.

I think Okakuro and Okakuo (okao = "leader", okuo = "war') are basically the same word, except used slightly differently by different groups.

felifeli:
Actually Achebe plagiarised the title of his book. He should also have acknowledged that it came from Yeats' poem.

He didn't plagiarize anything.

If you had read the book, you would see that he attributes the phrase to Keats and quotes a few lines of the poem (not just the phrase "things fall apart" before the book even starts.

And the book would have been a classic even if he had given it a more mundane or less perfect title.



@ topic, I think it's impossible to copyright short phrases/titles like that in the arts. Maybe in commerce, industry, etc., but not art.

Nevertheless, they must have had some other basis for their argument.

Jettage:
Please let us all shut up, while I respect the intellectual prowess of our own Chinua Achebe, “PhysicsQED” of Nairaland made a very strong arguments on the Authority and ownership of the Line in question, Indeed except if Achebe live before William Buttler Yeats William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)   then claiming ownership and depriving another user of the right by law can be Justified
Please Read the Poem by Yeats where “things fall apart” was first used

http://akinbami..com/2011/09/things-fall-apart-whose-word-yeats.html

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
       THE SECOND COMING
    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.
    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The fact that Achebe used Yeats' line from that poem for the book title wasn't really the main basis of my skepticism.  I just don't think it's possible to copyright a short phrase or title unless you're a company using that phrase for advertising or something and you want to prevent other companies from ripping off your own phrase/slogan/brand name for commercial gain.


In art (literature, theatre, film, visual art, etc.) or written publications I don't think there is any such rule making any short phrase or title exclusive or copyrighted. I might be wrong, however. Maybe there's a lawyer here who knows something about intellectual property law and can clarify whether this is the case or not. I do know that copyrighted works of art cannot be copied (plagiarized) without serious lawsuits following, but I'm skeptical about whether this applies to titles when there is no similarity between the actual content of the different works.

For example, I could write a nonfiction book called "War and Peace" which is actually about wars and peace throughout history, not about semi-fictional Russians during Napoleonic times, and I'm pretty sure that the estate or descendants of Leo Tolstoy couldn't sue me and get away with it.

I've been thinking about the argument that Achebe's lawyers may have used and I suspect that what they did was argue that since "Things Fall Apart" is hugely associated with Achebe's famous novel, the movie could potentially profit by using a title that would draw in people interested in something related to Achebe's novel (such as a big screen, multimillion dollar adaptation of it), and that these people might give 50 cent's film more attention than it would get otherwise.

They could just say that the title could "draw in" people looking for something related to Achebe's work, or a documentary on him or his writing, or something Achebe related, and this would give the movie more attention than it would receive otherwise without any compensation to Professor Achebe and that the name must therefore be modified or dropped.

I don't really have any confidence that that was what really happened though. Just a conjecture.

The problem I think has to do with promotion of the company. Organizations and cities need to know that this option exists and know how affordable it is.

Also, how many branches do they have nationwide to buy their vehicles?

I think this is a situation where the government should step in and engage in both serious protectionism from foreign competition and endorse the company more strongly.

Perhaps the Innoson people should move to Ghana and/or South Africa. Nigeria doesn't seem to get the bigger picture.

GEJ was present at their opening to commend them. Maybe somebody in the Innoson group should write to GEJ to get Aganga change his strategy. This reliance on India doesn't make much sense to me.

Thanks.

If beni is interpreted as water (although that's probably incorrect), it could mean "small water" (little water). I'm really intrigued by the name, though and I would like to hear from an Ijaw how the name switched from Kala-Beni to Alagbariye or why Alabgariye had that nickname/alias.

Beaf:
I'm not familiar with Ijaw. Urhobo and Itsekiri are the two languages I'm familiar with in the Warri area.
I really don't have a clue about what Kala means.

I was just wondering whether there was some deeper meaning behind it. I thought that beni might be bene (which apparently means water in Ijaw). But I"m not sure. And I still wouldn't know what Kala meant.

I read this same basic account elsewhere earlier:

http://www.ijawland.com/history-and-culture/190-ibani-bonny-a-opobo-ibe-.html

And I was curious about how Kala-Beni became Alagbariye or vice versa, what the name Kala-Beni meant in Ijaw.

odumchi:
Igbo migrated west across the Niger River it is not the other way around. Anioma and Anambra subgroups are not from the Bini empire and share no blood ties nor did they originate from there. The Igbo people's of Anambra existed prior to the Edo city states and migrated southward and westward.

No Igbo town was directly or indirectly or produced from Bini. If you wish to speak of Agbor, the people of Agbor and the Ikas are Igbos who
Migrated from east of the Niger and settled in what is today Delta State. Agbor does have significant Bini influence in that it bordered the extremes of the then Bini empire but it was not founded by an Edo or etc.
Words such as Oba, Obi etc does not necessarily mean that a kingdom came from the other. Certain languages are influenced by equally Significant neighbors and words/ideas are shared between the two. Such as Oseblua means virtually the same thing in Igbo and Edo (correct me if I'm wrong).

So please when speaking only speak about what you're sure of and of what concerns your people not mine. Thank you

Migrations can go both ways. Doesn't necessarily have to be a one way thing.

That said, I think there is evidence that the Anioma area is predominantly Igbo culturally and with a few exceptions (Oza nogogo, Alilehan, etc.), of mainly Igbo origin historically.

vicenzo:
i was hoping that this thread wil be educative,[b]with physics posting his half page post,[/b]and beaf defending his assertion,no such luck at all.

I'm here to find answers, not to debate merely based on what I knew prior to this thread.

Beaf:
From the Isedani lineage of Kolokuma, led by Opumakuba and [size=13pt]Alagbariye (alias Kala-Beni)[/size], a migration to the eastern delta coast founded the Ibeni or Ibani clan now known as Bonny early in the 12/13th century.

What does the the part in bold mean?

What does Kala mean in Ijaw?

I'm skeptical about whether there's really a legal basis for an objection, especially considering that the title of the book comes from a line of a poem by Yeats, but apparently there is a real basis seeing as how the legal team was able to stifle him like that. Regardless, it's good to see 50 cent getting screwed over. That guy's an [i]as[/i]s.

mitofag:
^^^^

You are the biggest tribalist around

Maybe you should provide some proof, fstranger.

The Ijaws have had disputes with:


Ibibios
Yorubas
Itsekiris
Urhobos

and I think one or two other groups

There's nothing tribalistic about responding to a bizarre argument supporting their claims.




By the way, that "fagamite" moniker was pretty funny.

You should probably end that feud already though. It's from months ago.

^^^^^

You don't really understand the situation. They declared a made-up Ijaw "kingdom" (the abuse of that word in Nigeria is ridiculous) and elevated an ordinary head of an Ijaw settlement to kingly status in an area that had historically been (in pre-colonial times) under the Ezomo of Benin (who was himself subject to the Oba) in order to claim that they had an Ijaw kingdom there (Gelegele) and to claim ownership of the area. The entire area under the supervision of the Ezomo was named after an important village (Gelegele) that was a point of contact with European traders.

And for the record, it's not all Ijaws that claim to originate from Benin. Only a minority.

Now if you claim that the settler/indigene issue is being misused by the Binis and not the Ijaws, then why are Ijaws attacking ordinary Binis that they find in areas that they think are "theirs"?

Why does there have to be a so-called Ijaw traditional ruler of Gelegele if in fact, Gelegele is open land for anyone to settle on? Who should care even the least that there are even any Ijaws there if it's just open land not historically owned by anybody? Your argument makes no sense. If it's open land for anyone to settle on regardless of background, then the Ijaw "militants" should be arrested and tried immediately.