₦airaland Forum

This paper is not talking about full ancestry. It is only looking at one narrow father-to-son line on the Y chromosome.

When you see “haplotype,” think of it as a father-line genetic signature, not the total ancestry of a people. When you see “RST distance,” read it as a closeness score on the father-line test: the smaller the number, the closer the paternal lines of the group are related. The larger the number, the further away their paternal lines are related.

The paper included 21 Itsekiri men, 110 Yoruba men (split into two groups: 49 Yoruba-Ibadan, 61 Yoruba-Lagos), 28 Urhobo men, 48 Bini men, 47 Mende men, and 34 Temne men.

In Table 4, we see the Itsekiri sample is closer by RST distance to Bini (0.025) and Urhobo (0.025), and even closer to Temne (0.047) and Mende (0.059), than to either of the Yoruba sample. Yoruba-Ibadan (0.191), Yoruba-Lagos (0.154).

This is not enough to prove or disprove any claims of origin but it shows the common claim by some, that Itsekiris are Yoruba offshoots or migrants who paternally descend from Yoruba is not necessarily the case.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029687&type=printable

NaWhoTalkAm:
This paper is not talking about full ancestry. It is only looking at one narrow father-to-son line on the Y chromosome.

When you see “haplotype,” think of it as a father-line genetic signature, not the total ancestry of a people. When you see “RST distance,” read it as a closeness score on the father-line test: the smaller the number, the closer the paternal lines of the group are related. The larger the number, the further away their paternal lines are related.

The paper included 21 Itsekiri men, 110 Yoruba men (split into two groups: 49 Yoruba-Ibadan, 61 Yoruba-Lagos), 28 Urhobo men, 48 Bini men, 47 Mende men, and 34 Temne men.

In Table 4, we see the Itsekiri sample is closer by RST distance to Bini (0.025) and Urhobo (0.025), and even closer to Temne (0.047) and Mende (0.059), than to either of the Yoruba sample. Yoruba-Ibadan (0.191), Yoruba-Lagos (0.154).

This is not enough to prove or disprove any claims of origin but it shows the common claim by some, that Itsekiris are Yoruba offshoots or migrants who paternally descend from Yoruba is not necessarily the case.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029687&type=printable

Spirit does not care about DNA. DNA can be altered along the line because of location due to the sexual adventures of your ancestors and etc but who is incarnating in you will not change. If someone impregnates your daughter without marriage for instance the child will be an incarnate from a spirit in your line and not from the sperm donor. DNA is just clothe that spirits wear though it obviously tells a story. It is however the story passed down by your ancestors that matter. The Esan for instance are said to be the most genetically similar to the Yoruba in Nigeria as I read somewhere but they are not even Yoruboid not to talk of being Yoruba.
There are white people in Brazil today who know they are Ijesa, their DNA will of course say they are not but they know they are and it is the spirits originally from there that incarnates in their kids. No reasonable person will argue with them that they are not Ijesa just because they are phenotypically white.

DNA does not negate nor affirm anything and neighbors will always have similar DNA for obvious reasons

lawani:
Spirit does not care about DNA. DNA can be altered along the line because of location due to the sexual adventures of your ancestors and etc but who is incarnating in you will not change. If someone impregnates your daughter without marriage for instance the child will be an incarnate from a spirit in your line and not from the sperm donor. DNA is just clothe that spirits wear though it obviously tells a story. It is however the story passed down by your ancestors that matter. The Esan for instance are said to be the most genetically similar to the Yoruba in Nigeria as I read somewhere but they are not even Yoruboid not to talk of being Yoruba.
There are white people in Brazil today who know they are Ijesa, their DNA will of course say they are not but they know they are and it is the spirits originally from there that incarnates in their kids. No reasonable person will argue with them that they are not Ijesa just because they are phenotypically white.

DNA does not negate nor affirm anything and neighbors will always have similar DNA for obvious reasons

We Itsekiri are Itsekiri in spirit, not Yoruba. Also the paternal line of the 21 Itsekiri in this study is not just similar to our nearest neighbours but also to Mende and Temne all the way in Sierra Leone.

NaWhoTalkAm:
We Itsekiri are Itsekiri in spirit, not Yoruba. Also the paternal line of the 21 Itsekiri in this study is not just similar to our nearest neighbours but also to Mende and Temne all the way in Sierra Leone.

Your DNA can only be similar to your neighbors and not people you are separated from by vast territory. Even if you came from there originally, how many centuries of intermarriage do you need to make you similar to your new neighbours? Your submission does not align with any known science. It is like saying DNA in France aligns with DNA in Ukraine. Not possible

lawani:
Spirit does not care about DNA. DNA can be altered along the line because of location due to the sexual adventures of your ancestors and etc but who is incarnating in you will not change. If someone impregnates your daughter without marriage for instance the child will be an incarnate from a spirit in your line and not from the sperm donor. DNA is just clothe that spirits wear though it obviously tells a story. It is however the story passed down by your ancestors that matter. The Esan for instance are said to be the most genetically similar to the Yoruba in Nigeria as I read somewhere but they are not even Yoruboid not to talk of being Yoruba.
There are white people in Brazil today who know they are Ijesa, their DNA will of course say they are not but they know they are and it is the spirits originally from there that incarnates in their kids. No reasonable person will argue with them that they are not Ijesa just because they are phenotypically white.

DNA does not negate nor affirm anything and neighbors will always have similar DNA for obvious reasons

The study is looking at a certain part of paternal ancestry (father's paternal line) not how genetically close two groups are entirely. Furthermore, intermarriage is not enough to change this kind of paternal ancestry under a system where the woman marries into the man's society or ethnicity and not vice versa. The only thing that could change it is assimilation of outsider males into the society, thereby bringing their own paternal genetic history with them. In the Itsekiris case, given the high similarity and that there is likely no recent migration of Temne or Mende into the Niger Delta or nearby regions, I believe it is a result of long term ancestral lineage. Put in other words, some male members of an ancient population that eventually produced the Itsekiri were among the ancestral patriarchs that produced the Temne and the Mende as well, and were perhaps a more significant portion of their ancestral patriarchs than of the other groups tested.

NaWhoTalkAm:
The study is looking at a certain part of paternal ancestry (father's paternal line) not how genetically close two groups are entirely. Furthermore, intermarriage is not enough to change this kind of paternal ancestry under a system where the woman marries into the man's society or ethnicity and not vice versa. The only thing that could change it is assimilation of outsider males into the society, thereby bringing their own paternal genetic history with them. In the Itsekiris case, given the high similarity and that there is likely no recent migration of Temne or Mende into the Niger Delta or nearby regions, I believe it is a result of long term ancestral lineage. Put in other words, some male members of an ancient population that eventually produced the Itsekiri were among the ancestral patriarchs that produced the Temne and the Mende as well.

It is not easy for me to read the paper using my phone but I will try and read it later but I am certain that paternal ancestry can not match by fifty percent between those groups and any group in the Niger Delta not even by thirty percent. They are too far apart. Any nation of human beings is composed originally of people that agreed to take up that identity and they definitely can not all have the same paternal ancestry. However they have fought wars, shed blood and defended territory over centuries for that identity and that is what matters.

DNA is not really accurate all the time. Many times they just come to predetermined conclusions that they are comfortable with. For instance Kemitic Egypt is just five thousand years ago and the language they spoke was an archaic form of Yoruba language and it is agreed that modern Egyptians are more than seventy percent descended from those ancient Egyptians but there are no studies showing any correlation between their DNA and those in Nigeria like Igala, Yoruba, Itsekiri etc who speak the modern form of their old language. It is like saying there is no correlation found between German genes and English genes but we know the English have thirty percent of their DNA as Germanic in origin and their language is a Germanic language. The only difference between the two scenarios is the time gap English people and German people are separated by 1000 years. There were no German origin words being spoken in Britain 1500 years ago. They only had Celtic languages. Five thousand years ago, the language of Egypt was an archaic form of the modern Yoruba language and one would expect the relationship to also show up in the DNA as it does between Germany and Britain. There are even Egyptian paternal lines deep into Europe according to reports. However the tools they use may not be sophisticated enough for wider time gaps. So it means it is not entirely reliable.
In the long run, stories and acknowledged history as well as physical evidence are more solid than DNA evidence because anybody can be sworn in to become members of any nation and your DNA does not in any way determine your social ancestors or spiritual ancestors. For example my spiritual research with IFA says majority of people in the western hemisphere have red Indian spiritual ancestry but DNA will tell you they are of European and African ancestry in the majority.

NaWhoTalkAm:
This paper is not talking about full ancestry. It is only looking at one narrow father-to-son line on the Y chromosome.

When you see “haplotype,” think of it as a father-line genetic signature, not the total ancestry of a people. When you see “RST distance,” read it as a closeness score on the father-line test: the smaller the number, the closer the paternal lines of the group are related. The larger the number, the further away their paternal lines are related.

The paper included 21 Itsekiri men, 110 Yoruba men (split into two groups: 49 Yoruba-Ibadan, 61 Yoruba-Lagos), 28 Urhobo men, 48 Bini men, 47 Mende men, and 34 Temne men.

In Table 4, we see the Itsekiri sample is closer by RST distance to Bini (0.025) and Urhobo (0.025), and even closer to Temne (0.047) and Mende (0.059), than to either of the Yoruba sample. Yoruba-Ibadan (0.191), Yoruba-Lagos (0.154).

This is not enough to prove or disprove any claims of origin but it shows the common claim by some, that Itsekiris are Yoruba offshoots or migrants who paternally descend from Yoruba is not necessarily the case.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029687&type=printable

What informed the choice to sample Yoruba men from Ibadan and Lagos?

Given the fact that the Itsekiri are linguistically closer to Yorubas from Ondo State (the Ilaje, the Ikale and so on), a proper study should have sampled Yoruba men from there instead of distant Ibadan.

RedboneSmith:
What informed the choice to sample Yoruba men from Ibadan and Lagos?

Given the fact that the Itsekiri are linguistically closer to Yorubas from Ondo State (the Ilaje, the Ikale and so on), a proper study should have sampled Yoruba men from there instead of distant Ibadan.

Yes, a good point. The study was not really trying to compare the genetics of the Yoruba and Itsekiri per se but was just getting some record of various West African groups. However, even if the Ilajes and Ondo groups were tested and and scored near on paternal ancestry, it still shows that shared ancient paternal ancestry is not necessarily a good way to define a group as Yoruba since the Ibadan Yorubas and Lagos Yorubas scored a far off result from the Itsekiris regardless.

NaWhoTalkAm:
Yes, a good point. The study was not really trying to compare the genetics of the Yoruba and Itsekiri per se but was just getting some record of various West African groups. However, even if the Ilajes and Ondo groups were tested and and scored near on paternal ancestry, it still shows that shared ancient paternal ancestry is not necessarily a good way to define a group as Yoruba since the Ibadan Yorubas and Lagos Yorubas scored a far off result from the Itsekiris regardless.

So if you discover that one of your paternal uncles has a different origin Y DNA, he will no longer be a part of the family? DNA is just like clothes. The spirit of your grandfather for instance will incarnate in your kids even if your wife was impregnated by another person and if you train somebody and they see you as their father, you can come back as their descendant. Then your own biological son that matches you by DNA can be a spiritual bastard. So downplay DNA, it does not mean much.

lawani:
So if you discover that one of your paternal uncles has a different origin Y DNA, he will no longer be a part of the family? DNA is just like clothes. The spirit of your grandfather for instance will incarnate in your kids even if your wife was impregnated by another person and if you train somebody and they see you as their father, you can come back as their descendant. Then your own biological son that matches you by DNA can be a spiritual bastard. So downplay DNA, it does not mean much.

Why would one of your paternal uncles have a different Y DNA? Is Y DNA not passed down from father to son? Anyhow, you are addressing a different point than what I made. My point is that ancient paternal ancestry is not a good basis for defining who is and who is not Yoruba so you're actually proving my point if in your scenario you would consider the uncle with a different Y DNA still part of the family.

NaWhoTalkAm:
Why would one of your paternal uncles have a different Y DNA? Is Y DNA not passed down from father to son? Anyhow, you are addressing a different point than what I made. My point is that ancient paternal ancestry is not a good basis for defining who is and who is not Yoruba so you're actually proving my point if in your scenario you would consider the uncle with a different Y DNA still part of the family.

With all my explanation you still can't see why DNA should not be able to divide a family? It can't divide nor can it unite a. Family

This reminds me of stories or history that each of these ethnic groups çame or descended from Egypt. On their way to Egypt or on their way from Egypt, they never met ?

Suzerainty has caused so much dislocation within us, we are willing to claim heritage with others far from our country than within.

This is how Yoruba heritage is being lost in Bini and those whose lingua fraca and names are Yoruba including Oba of Benin and their descendants are forced to choose between Yoruba or Edo.

Now, the Itsekiri, the recent cousins of Yoruba in language and culture are looking for way out to claim or disown suzerainty?

It doesn't make a difference because outsiders trace their history to Yorubaland. The Yoruba have no territorial pursuit. Someone just wrote the affiliation of white South Americans to Yoruba, leaving Black South Americans in wonder.

NaWhoTalkAm:
Yes, a good point. The study was not really trying to compare the genetics of the Yoruba and Itsekiri per se but was just getting some record of various West African groups. However, even if the Ilajes and Ondo groups were tested and and scored near on paternal ancestry, it still shows that shared ancient paternal ancestry is not necessarily a good way to define a group as Yoruba since the Ibadan Yorubas and Lagos Yorubas scored a far off result from the Itsekiris regardless.

Yes. I made my comment without reading the paper. I read it later and I’ve got the full context now.

In your original post you were sort of trying to make the research answer a question it didn’t set out to answer. That could lead to incorrect conclusions. The experiment would have to be designed differently to answer the question of how related the Itsekiri are to the Yoruba as compared to the Edo.

lawani:
With all my explanation you still can't see why DNA should not be able to divide a family? It can't divide nor can it unite a. Family

I think you need to go back and read my post before responding because my exact point is that DNA should not be used as a basis to define someone as Yoruba or not.

RedboneSmith:
Yes. I made my comment without reading the paper. I read it later and I’ve got the full context now.

In your original post you were sort of trying to make the research answer a question it didn’t set out to answer. That could lead to incorrect conclusions. The experiment would have to be designed differently to answer the question of how related the Itsekiri are to the Yoruba as compared to the Edo.

That's fair.

I've been trying to figure out what the Itsekiri are because they speak a Yoruba type language but there's some people who say they have no association with the Yorubas.

Now, there are groups in genetic ancestry databases for "Urhobo", "Central Esan and Urhobo", "Urhobo and Itsekiri", and "Itsekiri" now: https://admixr.com/23gg

This post and replies are interesting as an outsider. Some African Americans, like me, are starting to see the specific "Urhobo and Itsekiri" tribe for the first time now in our results and trying to get the history down because these companies will report we have significant Nigerian ancestry, 30-50% on avg with specific tribes now. I've talked to a guy from Ondo state who's met many Itsekiri and said he can understand the Itsekiri because of his own dialect.

Does anyone know of the Olukumi people in Delta? If they may be connected to the indigenous Itsekiri before Ginuwa?

uKnighted:
I've been trying to figure out what the Itsekiri are because they speak a Yoruba type language but there's some people who say they have no association with the Yorubas.

Now, there are groups in genetic ancestry databases for "Urhobo", "Central Esan and Urhobo", "Urhobo and Itsekiri", and "Itsekiri" now: https://admixr.com/23gg

This post and replies are interesting as an outsider. Some African Americans, like me, are starting to see the specific "Urhobo and Itsekiri" tribe for the first time now in our results and trying to get the history down because these companies will report we have significant Nigerian ancestry, 30-50% on avg with specific tribes now. I've talked to a guy from Ondo state who's met many Itsekiri and said he can understand the Itsekiri because of his own dialect.

Does anyone know of the Olukumi people in Delta? If they may be connected to the indigenous Itsekiri before Ginuwa?

There are people who speak Yoruboid languages but don't identify with the Yoruba chief among them is the Igala in Kogi state and some groups in Eastern Nigeria. Igalas have ancient Ifes on their land. Up to four or so but their main King the Attah of Igala is not a member of the Yoruba dynasty. It is possible that some Onus in Igala land are descended from ancient Ife royal families but not the Attah. Itsekiri on their part have their leadership descended from that dynasty via Benin and Itsekiri would have been there before the establishment of Benin. They are according to them a mix of Ijebu, Ilaje and Igala The Olukumi in my opinion are from the old Benin city and are presently speaking the old language of Benin city but because the language they speak is not different from Owo's Yoruba dialect in Ondo state, many say they migrated from Owo but Owo and Benin spoke the same Yoruba dialect in the past. If Owo and Itsekiri are not exactly the same then Olukumi and Itsekiri too are not