₦airaland Forum

emmatok, the Bini were not "highly heterogeneous", unless by "highly" you somehow mean "barely." Also, the Portuguese wrote "Beny" (their spelling and pronunciation of Benin), not "Bini."

*edited back

Jimtext: No traders from the hinterlands were allowed to trade with the Europeans on the Atlantic Ocean without paying custom duties to the Binis.

This is not correct.

This, in addition to the export of slaves capturd in wars of expansion gave them economic and military might to expand the vast Empire.

Also not correct. Oba Ewuare started the expansion even before the export of slaves occurred and his sons continued it regardless of the trade, which was not a primary factor.

Unfortunately, the Binis did not stop expanding and it was part of what contributed to the decline of the Empire before the Benin-British War of 1897 finally put the nail in the coffin.

The expansion did basically stop after the kingdom was damaged by civil wars.

Dahomey for example was the son of Ogiso in Benin. 'Ogiso' means "King of the Sky" and it was the system of Kingship before its abolition and establishment of the Oba dynasty. Dahomey was banished from the Benin Kingdom and he wandered westwards. Benin Republic President acknowledged the historical tie between the origin of his country and the Binis when he came to see the Oba of Benin some years back.

Could you provide a source for this claim? Like maybe the exact words that the president of Benin Republic said and a source where they were written down? I'm sure Dahomey itself was not of Benin origin, but I would like to know what the then president thought the connection was.

By the way, it is quite correct to state that Benin's control and influence extended into modern Dahomey/Benin Republic (there is actually lots of written evidence for this, although this is not well known), but the actual kingdom of Dahomey itself does not seem to have had an Edo origin.

But the Yorubas will always deny everything even in the face of incontrovertible evidence from independent archeological and historical documents. That's my problem with them. It belies their learning to totally deny or try to rewrite history. On the other hand, the Igbos have been more objective in doing a fairly accurate historical assessment of their relatiohip with Benin. I don't know which section of Igbo, but it is on record that particularly those in Onitsha, do trace their origin to Benin.

There are some Yorubas in Ondo that claim a Benin origin till today and there are Igbo groups in Delta that do the same. I don't think there is really any group that is more inclined to denial of influence by their neighbors or more inclined to denying having connections to their neighbors in Nigeria, whether it is Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Ijaw, etc. I have read denials and acknowledgements of outside influence from writers and scholars from all of these groups before. There is no one particular group that is more inclined to denials from what I've seen.

pleep: The movie actually said the N-word 110 times lol, i get the sense that tarantino gets a kick out of putting it in his movies. It actually was a pretty unique plot and actually a very entertaining movie but i abosoultly hate the director. All he does is make his movies as violent and controversial as possible to get ppl to watch them.. all spike lee is doing is giving him more shine.

Even the Lincoln movie said the N-word a couple times, its becoming more acceptable i guess. What makes it awkward is how all the white ppl start laughing when they hear it and all the black ppl get quiet and angry

I think Tarantino should be given some slack on this issue - especially since it actually was a quality film. As a kid, his black neighbor took him to go see blaxploitation movies (according to Samuel L. Jackson in an interview). So Tarantino is coming from an unusual perspective - a white guy who sometimes wants to make blaxploitation movies where the black characters triumph over "the man" (the evil white arch-villain). He appreciated those kind of movies growing up, so he wants to make his own homages - and in this case (Django), mix in his love of classic westerns.

I think Spike Lee didn't get that Tarantino genuinely grew up liking those kind of blaxploitation movies and that's probably why Lee asked (about the movie Jackie Brown) if Tarantino wanted to be made an "honorary black man or something" (i.e., if Tarantino kept using the n word in his movies because he was trying to be "down" with black people).

I think this article gives a balanced view of Tarantino and I basically agree with most of what is written there, apart from the title:

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/tarantino_is_the_baddest_black_filmmaker_working_today/

I don't think he's making the movies violent and controversial just to get more viewers. He seems to just love violent westerns, racy blaxploitation movies, and B movies and wants to make some or most of his own movies in those styles.

Also, just as an aside, I think one of the movies - apart from the original Django westerns with Franco Nero - that may have inspired Django Unchained that Tarantino may or may not have seen, and which he probably wouldn't list as an influence even if he had seen it, is the 1975 blaxploitation film Boss Nigger, where Fred Williamson and his costar play two black bounty hunters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_Nigger

I watched it a few years ago after becoming curious about the title and it was a decent movie, even if somewhat predictable. After watching Django Unchained, I remembered it and I realized that there seem to be some pretty significant parallels between the two movies.

ba7man: Sopana (How can u worship Chicken pox?? I mean how daft)

I don't think small pox itself was what was actually being worshipped: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1160301

Also, go and find out what Shitala, Mariamman, Hoso-no-Kami, and T’ou Shen Niang-Niang are and let me know if it is still so "daft" an idea when you find out.

shymexx: I haven't seen it but I heard it was mad racist!!

Well, I didn't really get that feeling while I was watching it, but other people might have different feelings entirely.

I definitely don't regret seeing it though. I honestly thought it was the best movie I saw in 2012. Better than Bond, Looper, Total Recall, Argo, Flight or the Dark Knight Rises. I haven't seen The Master, The Hobbit or Lincoln though, but even if some of those are better overall movies, I still think Django would probably still be in the top 3.

@ pleep, I didn't want to derail that other thread too much, since it was about a completely different topic.

@ mods, the TV/Movies section is way deader than this section, and what I want to discuss is kind of cultural in a way. . .so I'd prefer if the thread stayed here. . .

pleep: Django unchained said the n-word too much. It was awkward as hell to watch

Are some aspects of reality and history like this sometimes "too awkward" and unsettling to be depicted in movies?

Spike Lee seems to be put off by the entire film and by the use of the n word in some of Tarantino's films more generally. Do you (pleep, or anyone else) agree with his perspective on the movie?

To other posters that have seen the movie, particularly anyone descended from African American slaves, were you offended by the movie in some way and/or was it awkward to watch?

Negro_Ntns: we will miss you.

Thanks.

jara: QED,

What don't you recall?

I stated quite clearly what I didn't recall. It should be clear from the context of the sentence. It's something I read a long time ago and don't remember exactly. Unlike some people, if I have any confusion or doubt about an issue, even if minor, I don't push forward blindly and insist upon whatever I assume is right. I just admit to it.

Descendant of Oduduwa (or Oduduwa according to some), was on the throne when the Ogiso killed a pregnant woman and was rejected asking Oduduwa to send one of his sons to rule. So many historians including Egharevba the Edo most prominent historian agree on this.

No, that is not actually what Egharevba wrote. There was a bit of time and some events that happened in between the last Ogiso's reign and the Oliha asking the Oghene/Ooni, Oduduwa, to send his son to Benin. That is stated quite clearly in Egharevba's main book.

Oba of Benin now wants to be son of Ogiso that ruled Ife then. The problem is Ife is much older (than Benin) whose civilization as far as archaeological history can find dated back to 10,000 BC at IWO ELERU.

We have discussed this Iwo Eleru thing already and I do not feel like repeating myself. If you don't understand what I said on that other thread, then there's no point discussing this again. Anyway, you had better hope for both our sakes that Ife civilization didn't start at 10,000 B.C. but then take till more than 9,000 years later to show significant development. That would not be a good thing.

The same Oduduwa could not have sojourned and well known by other Africans and beyond and then came back to be Oba of BENIN father. Nobody lived that long.

Ok, sure. Whatever you say sir.

If Oba of Benin wants to solidify with discredited Ogiso that committed an abomination, fine. But 0giso land will always be leased to him each time his children ascend the throne. No way around that. Even his father left ILE-IBINU in frustration.

As I said above, the "Ogiso lease" claim is simply false.

See you later, jara.

jara, I still don't get this claim of Ogiamien leasing the "children of Ogiso's land to the Oba". How exactly can he have done that? His own land is what is symbolically repurchased by the Oba. That's what I was trying to get across.

On Oyo, I was only saying that Ife tradition seems to hold that Oranmiyan was an Ooni (either before or after founding Oyo - I can't quite recall) and that his son went on to rule Oyo as the first Alafin, and that Benin tradition seems to claim basically the same thing. The statement of members of the Alafin's court in the 1830s that the kings of Benin and Oyo were brothers only seems to confirm this idea.

jara: PhysicsQED,

I am happy with your explanation of form over substance. I just don't know if Aresa might have been aware of that particular quote when it is freely available in every Edo family as oral and written history.

Well, I don't think it would be plausible to say that he got the quote from some particular Edo family's written or oral account but somehow made it look exactly as if he had lifted the quote from Osahon's essay and then modified it.

Since we are not talking personalities here, because in real life, the present Oba of Benin may be older than Alafin. We are talking about Oramiyan that named Ile-ibinu as the father of Owomika. Whether he became Alafin later does not disprove the fact that he remained the father. So how could father and son become brothers?

So the Alaafin's court was unaware of this supposed father-son relationship and they chose the word "brother" because they didn't know what the connection was?

There is no sense of the Alaafin, as a king, being a "father" to the Oba of Benin. This entire idea of Aresa's is predicated upon the idea that Oranmiyan became the first Alafin of Oyo, but that claim is itself questionable.

If you read Egharevba's main book (Aresa has referenced Egharevba as well in another essay of his where he mentions this general issue in passing, but I am not sure he has read it either, especially considering this recent claim from him), you will see where it is claimed in there that Oranmiyan was reigning as the Ooni of Ife after returning from Benin, and that the first Alaafin of Oyo was his (Oranmiyan's) son. Since Egharevba states clearly that Oranmiyan's son became Alafin while he was reigning as Ooni, I doubt that a modern Edo person can be accused of being a "Benin revisionist" if they hold that this is what happened and cite Egharevba's work as the source. Of course, there might be some Benin tradition somewhere that is contrary to this, and that is fine, but for now, let us assume that chief Egharevba got it right (as far as recording what Edo tradition held) on that issue.

So in other words, assuming that the tradition Egharevba recorded was what Benin tradition really held, then not only Ife tradition, but also Benin tradition actually holds that Oranmiyan became king at Ife and that it was one of his sons who became the first Alaafin while he was reigning at Ife, not Oranmiyan himself. But then again, Egharevba used several sources - maybe one of his sources had a pro-Ife bias? Maybe if his source had instead had a pro-Oyo bias he might have written differently?

Maybe not. Consider Samuel Johnson's History of the Yorubas - which has been noted by several scholars to be biased toward Oyo over Ife - where Johnson claims that the king at Ife was not the Ooni, but was actually the "Alafin of Ife." Johnson claims that the Ooni was the son of a sacrificial victim and a kind of caretaker and priest appointed by the Alafin, and also states early on in the book that Oranyan/Oranmiyan became the "Alafin or Lord of the Royal Palace at Ile Ife" before setting out on an expedition to the Middle East. In Johnson's account, after this expedition to the Middle East was unsuccessful, he could not return to Ife having failed his mission, and so he asked the Borgu (Ibariba) king for a good place to settle down and then founded Oyo.

Even this claim - designed as it is to elevate the Alaafin and totally neglect the Ooni - reveals that Oranmiyan was really king at Ife. If one can disregard Johnson's attempt to replace "Ooni" with "Alafin" as the ruler of Ife, we see that all three accounts (Benin, Ife, and Oyo) actually agree with one another that Oranmiyan became the king at Ife. Since we know that this king was really the Ooni, not the "Alafin of Ife," we can conclude that all three traditions really mean that Oranmiyan became Ooni - although of course the Oyo tradition says the Alafin was the king of Ife at the time and later moved away to found Oyo. The next conclusion we can reach is that the tradition that one of Oranmiyan's other sons became the first Alafin of Oyo is probably correct.

This all seems to confirm that the Oba of Benin's forefather simply was not a ruler at Oyo at the time that he came to Benin, but that he also was not one after he left. So your argument and Aresa's argument does not seem to work here because the prince who became the king at Oyo was a son of Oranmiyan who ruled at Ife. Unless one assumes that Johnson alone is correct and that both Ife tradition and Benin tradition are wrong the argument doesn't really work.

In light of this, do you still think that the members of the Alaafin's court were incorrect to refer to the Oba of Benin and the Alafin of Oyo as brothers when they were interviewed in the early 1800s? Which is more likely, that they didn't understand the connection back then and were repeatedly saying the wrong thing, or that Johnson's account (which also requires one to believe the ruler at Ife was originally the Alafin) happens to be incorrect on this issue? I would go with the latter option.

The land Ogiamien sold to Oba belonged to Ogiso, not to him. My brother what are we arguing about? We are one family. We should not let semantics and form prevail over substance to divide us. Aresa has no blame here since your quote even support him but you do not like him using Ogiso instead of Ogiamien. Is Ogiamiem not acting as reagent or real estate agent for Ogiso land?

This is exactly the kind of confusion I was trying to dispel, which I think Aresa has fallen into.

Ogiamien's father was a prominent man that was elected as an administrator by the people following the last Ogiso's reign, but after his turn as a temporary administrator was over, he tried to have his son Ogiamien imposed as a king, and Ogiamien went along with this. Basically they tried to usurp power. But this is something which was unacceptable, since they were not of the Ogiso line. So their plan was opposed. Ogiamien had no blood connection or political connection to the Ogiso. That is why I questioned the notion that Ogiamien could somehow act as a representative of the Ogiso in land or other matters.

This talk of him "acting as reagent or real estate agent for Ogiso land" doesn't make any sense to me. How can the son of an elected representative who is trying to become a king, and whose claims to kingship and sole rulership are rejected because he is not descended from the Ogiso, somehow decide to act as a land agent for the dynasty of kings that he is not a part of and has no connection to?

When you look at the tradition more clearly, it is obvious that Ogiamien and his direct descendants, having been rejected by the people when they tried to obtain power, would have had good reason to oppose the king that was accepted by the people (Oba Ewedo) and a conflict would have ensued. But the treaty to finalize the outcome of the conflict (the Oba's victory) involved Ogiamien selling his part of the land to the Oba, which is now being interpreted to mean something else by Aresa and which he sees as somehow connected to the Ogiso. I hope after this explanation you get that the Oba does not "lease land from the children of Ogiso" but repurchases chief Ogiamien's particular piece of land to commemorate the treaty finalizing the resolution of their conflict in the Oba's favor.

^
lol, I might drop in a few more times that this general topic is discussed. However, I do want to minimize my future posting on Nairaland so that I can gradually wean myself off this site. It's addictive, but I think I want to make posting on here a rarer thing and then gradually move on completely.

Jara, I think you might have missed my point slightly. I am not saying that he has to quote every single thing that he reads word for word - paraphrasing is fine.

But he deliberately altered the original quote without citing where he got the quote from or showing that he had altered it in a significant way to have a different meaning. I am not saying that he is really inherently intellectually dishonest - I don't know his character or know him personally - he could just have deliberately confused himself in his eagerness to make his argument. All I am saying is that if I lifted a quote from an essay for my own essay, and on top of that, modified the quote, I would at least disclose that I did so to those who were reading what I wrote. I also think it is a bit strange to alter things like that, knowing that the original statement can be easily found.

On the questions you asked:

1. If the person who was the Oba of Benin's forefather was an Alaafin at the time of coming to Benin, then maybe I would agree with it, but since it seems he wasn't, then I don't see why I should agree with the claim. If you had said the Oba of Benin was a grandson of the then reigning Ooni, I wouldn't even have disagreed with it, but there seems to be no real sense of the Alaafin being a "father" to the Oba of Benin. For example, even in one of the precolonial writings about the connection between the Alaafin of Oyo and the Oba of Benin that we come across from those who interviewed the Alaafin's court directly, we see the two monarchs actually described as "brothers" and then as friends. If you want to talk about descent from the then prince Oranmiyan, that's fine, but I simply think that if he were really an Alaafin at the time of coming to Benin, then maybe this "father-son" relationship might actually have been remembered and they wouldn't have been described repeatedly as "brothers" as far as what their relationship was.


2. On Ogiamien, I don't see how Ogiamien could have represented the Ogiso or the Ogiso's claim to the land when Ogiamien was just a separate chief, who, after becoming prominent while serving as an administrator, tried to usurp power in the absence of a reigning Ogiso. If Ogiamien was actually descended from an Ogiso or somehow represented the Ogiso's interests, then maybe Aresa might have a point there.

I do not need to "disprove if I can" the idea of "renting land from the children of Ogiso" because the claim doesn't make sense. The part of the land which Ogiamien's family owned, and which Oba Ewedo took, is the part of the land which is symbolically resold. Ogiamien did not even own all the land then, and anyway, "the Oba owns the land" is the understanding of the relationship of the king to the land in Benin and the meaning of that is pretty clear.

Oh, I see. Well it's a good drawing. Might have to use it sometime.

pleep, did you draw that picture of that sad child with the hat? Or did you just find the picture somewhere? The drawing is very good.

shymexx: I like Naiwu Osahon, but he's a Benin revisionist, to be honest...

With a few exceptions, he mostly takes from Egharevba's work, then adds on some other things from his own personal knowledge or other sources.

Some of that additional information he adds on is not always correct though - for example, he attempted to derive the Benin title Esogban in one of his articles based on a hunch he had and ended up giving a wrong origin and etymology/meaning for the title, when the real meaning and origin is already known. He knows a lot, and probably knows some things many others don't about Benin's history, but I don't think I would rely on him as a source, like the author of the article in the original post did. His writings are not always completely accurate. As for revisionism, if he is a revisionist there are other revisionists in Nigeria nowadays from other places, so he is not alone.

I'll be a little more straightforward then: my point was precisely about the age of something not making it immune to undergoing dynastic change from an outside source that is younger.

Eweka probably came from Ife (as far as origin). And?

But I am not sure why you assume dynastic change automatically follows a set pattern that is determined according to which place is older, since that trend has certainly not been observed in some other historic places around the world.

This Aresa guy can't seem to go without mentioning Benin in his essays. Why this is I am not sure, but he really seems to be bothered about something. Now he has conflated Ogiso with Ogiamien and built an argument around his own deliberate confusions in the hope that his readers won't notice or will be too ignorant to care that the Ogiamien is not the same as the Ogiso. The very reason Ogiamien could not rule in the Ogiso's place is because he was not recognized as having that kind of authority and was in fact a subordinate chief to a rival and only became prominent in the period after the last Ogiso's reign.

The original essay this author quotes and relies on (but does not credit as his source) for his information makes the following claims:

"Oba Ewedo requested Ogiamien Ode to sell the land to him. A treaty was struck requiring Ogiamien as the traditional landlord of Igodomigodo kingdom, to sell part of the land to the Oba at the coronation of every successive Oba. The Oba elect first had to present gifts to the Ogiemien which include two male and two female servants, a royal stoll, a wooden staff, a rectangular stool and a round leather box.

The Oba-in-waiting and the Ogiamien would then meet at their common boundary called Ekiokpagha, where the Ogiamien would take sand from the ground and put it in the hand of the Oba while he eays: "I have sold this part of Benin land to you but not your son and when you pass away your son will buy the land from me as you have done."

The Ogiamien's dormain in Benin kingdom is known as Utantan where he has chiefs assisting him in his traditional duties." - Naiwu Osahon, "The Correct History of Edo"


This other writer (Farouk Aresa) took these quotes and modified them, inserting the word Ogiso in places where it had not originally been and modifying some of the other words as well for the purposes of his argument. Bizarre.


Anyway, as for the actual issue discussed in the article, the forefather of the Oba of Benin was an Oghene/Ooni of Ife.

If the people in power are actually thinking of doing this, and this is not just a weak rumor or a lie then their government is actually much dumber than I thought. I know the religious fanatics are generally going to be pretty dumb, but hopefully the people ruling the country aren't exactly the same.

Those fools already wrecked Nubian archaeological sites with the Aswan dam, but fewer people cared because it was the Nubian past that was affected. But if they actually carry this out, they'll be a laughingstock. I think ultimately it won't happen simply because of the tourist revenue that the pyramids bring to Egypt.

I doubt that Igbos were not wearing any hats and I would bet that there was an indigenous word for hat in the language before colonization - there were probably even words for different types of hats.

I think most groups in Nigeria would have had at least one kind of hat before recent times and would have had words for hats in their languages.

NRI PRIEST: There are too many holes in this your post; What's the population of Ishan and when was the community established?? Its gonna talk forever should we start debating the bogus claim you made here. How old is Benin kingdom compare to Nri kingdom ? The ancient originating shrines from which the market days names were borrowed from still exist in Agukwu-Nri way from when Ifikuanim established the kingdom. This is before the Benin kinddom was created. You are talking about Ishan that was probably non existing in the 15 century.

You seem to be mixing up things here. I did not say they got it specifically from the Esan. I said that during their wars of expansion in the 15th century Benin got it from others around them - it could have been from Delta Igbo groups or Esan that got it originally from Delta Igbo, or it could have been from other groups.

I referenced the article because it touches on when Benin got it and how, simply so you would have a source (the article gives sources for this account) for the statement I made. I didn't post it as a means to claim it was specifically from the Esan, although at one point in the past on this forum I did suspect that Benin got it from the Esan, after the Esan had got it from some Igbos. The article has that title because it is mostly (but not entirely) about the Esan version of the cult of the hand, but the information I was referencing from it was only about when Benin got that idea and how.

The first point here is that it was an outside thing to Benin that was obtained at a later period in the kingdom's history when Benin came into more contact with outside cultures through wars, and the second point is that it was not directly from Nri even if one assumes that the idea was a specifically Nri thing to begin with.

The ironic thing is that I am the one that informed you about the "Ikegobo" of Benin and its connection to the "Ikenga" of Igbos in the first place. You read a post of mine elsewhere in this section in the past where I mentioned it and its probable Igbo origin. But once again, for a kingdom which was not on another kingdom's radar (from any available evidence) to be claimed to have "influenced it in many ways" is bizarre.

On the market days, it would be a waste of time to discuss that with you because as I said I have already discussed it at length elsewhere and did not receive a convincing counterargument against why the names seem to really be quadrant/cardinal direction names.

And yes Ikenga is an absolute Nri creation because even the word "Ikenga" has a meaning in Anambra-Igbo.

The point I made is that even if it was a specifically Nri idea/practice originally, and not just an Igbo thing generally, it was not even gotten directly from Nri but through war and expansion at a later point in the Benin kingdom's history, and would easily be from several nearby groups that the kingdom encountered as it expanded. Also, "Ikegobo" has a meaning in Edo, but the concept very likely doesn't originate from the Edo, so I don't see the relevance of that argument. I did not say "Ikenga" was not of Igbo origin, I just disagree with your interpretation of the route through which it reached certain other groups because of what I've already come across on this issue.

The Nze na Ozo red hat was introduced by the Nri in depiction of what the noble title signifies. Nobody in southern Nigeria wore that hat but the Ozo titled chieves but today all Igbos,Igala,Ika and even the Erediuwa wears it but we all know the Benin wore the hat made from knitted red beads. I don't know what you are trying to prove. Some Anioma wear that's beaded hat but it foreign to the Igbo culture and its well understood that it originated from Benin.The Oba of Benin wears the red hat but it was introduced by the Igbo,period!

You are either being disingenuous or you are just in need of corrective eye surgery. In that thread, I posted images of the hat that Omo N'Oba Erediauwa wore that you kept referencing, pointed out that it differed in appearance at the top from the Ozo title holders' hats, pointed out that it was a modern style and not some received tradition of dress style from a previous era, and showed that the exact same type of hat was worn in white. With your reasoning above, you are essentially claiming that once any African monarch, prince or titleholder starts to wear any kind of hat that looks like or is basically a kind of kufi (a hat worn by many different Africans) in the color red - even if they wear it in other colors as well - they are somehow borrowing the "Nze na Ozo" hat. This is just a really silly claim. I didn't think you would go so far as to claim that Igbos - and one specific Igbo kingdom, on top of that - originated all versions of the kufi and patented the use of the color red, but somehow you actually did.

This is funny, but I think Obama might have just unknowingly opened himself up to more criticism, since it turns out that the maker of the Gangnam style song and dance was very anti-American in the past and made songs calling for violent things to happen to the families of U.S. soldiers.

I remember that thread, and I showed clearly that they were not even the same hat after which you stopped making that bizarre argument, although now you seem to have returned to the same claim. How you can think that modern red or white hat has to do with some other culture's title system I don't even know. But as for Ikenga, this is the first I'm hearing that that was a specifically Nri thing. Anyway, Benin seems to have gotten it (Ikegobo) from neighboring groups that were conquered during its wars of expansion in the 15th century, and not actually directly from Nri. See the article "The Ishan cult of the hand" (1987) for more on that. So there was no direct Nri to Benin transmission of that idea if it actually was originally exclusive to Nri. On the market days, I have argued that out with ezeagu at length elsewhere and don't feel like repeating myself so I'll summarize: I am not convinced about the claim and it still seems to me that the day names come from common names for the four quadrants of the earth/four cardinal directions, since three out of those four names can even be found in the Yoruba names for the four quadrants in slightly different forms.

NRI PRIEST: This scum is even ignorant(or plain dumb) of the fact that the Nri kingdom influenced the Benin kingdom in so many ways. Hell,the Nri doesn't practice any Benin traditions but the Benin used and adopted Nri traditions.

Like what?

There is nothing I've come across that suggests that pre-colonial Benin was actually aware of Nri.

The current Oba of Benin even wears the "Nze na Ozo" hat! We borrowed from each other.

It has been explained to you before that it is not the same hat, that it is worn in different colors, and that Igbos do not have a trademark or copyright on wearing red hats. Going by your habit of assuming every red hat is just a copy of another group's red hat, one could even claim that both groups borrowed from the red Turkish fez hats that were being worn by North Africans, which is unlikely.

"X-men" on the way?

They better watch that kid closely. Next thing you know, the baby will be sprouting wings.

musiwa7: to show you your lifes are in danger. they use hammer to destroy my steering and i use protection. this show you how bad even for posting the satellite pictures of nigeria... and how much your lifes are in dangers..



https://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/afitz/afitz1004/afitz100400027/6755819-big-hammer-with-wooden-grip-on-white-underground.jpg

What does this even mean?