₦airaland Forum

wytecat:
Exactly, your empire was about kidnapping unarmed innocent people. You are still doing that today via the militants anyway. So much for a poultry empire.
This is how powerful y'all were lied to that you were. Lies! You were scammed.

Those who had an empire no matter how small have some to show for it today.You were never anything and still ain't anybody!

OfoIgbo:
Most people refer to it as ORIE, but in Nri, we refer to it as OYE.
Most people refer to it as AFOR, but in Nri, we refer to it as AVWOR or AVFOR

The reason I brought out the above points is so that you will know that there are even variations in the market day pronunciations even in Igboland, so you will even notice wider variations in non-Igbolands like Bini or Igalaland.

Portuguese explorers confirmed seeing REVERRED MEN FROM THE EAST, when they visited the Benin oba's palace more than half a millennium ago. These reverred men taught the Benin palace about the movement of the heavenly bodies and seasons e.g year counting.
Well, Nri are the only people that do this, east of Benin.

Please give us the four market days used by Binis. I'm sure some of the names will ring familiar to any Igbo.

Have you asked yourself, how come Bini people also use the refrain ISEEE or ISEN, when a traditional prayer is made or an Oba is hailed?

bokohalal:
And you are on this thread talking about BENIN EMPIRE.
I am yet to see a topic that has been more discussed in Nigerian history. Try something like IGBO EMPIRE and their historical achievements first before attempting to diss Benin's glorious past.

bokohalal:
Some people are funny. Very funny. I can equally make the claim that Igbos got it from Binis.
Isen means FIVE.

wytecat:
You have this big problem of identity crisis, and trying to make up for it by fitting in any ethnic topic.

You are not Yoruba, be proud of your confused tribe!

OfoIgbo:
Most people refer to it as ORIE, but in Nri, we refer to it as OYE.
Most people refer to it as AFOR, but in Nri, we refer to it as AVWOR or AVFOR

The reason I brought out the above points is so that you will know that there are even variations in the market day pronunciations even in Igboland, so you will even notice wider variations in non-Igbolands like Bini or Igalaland.

Portuguese explorers confirmed seeing REVERRED MEN FROM THE EAST, when they visited the Benin oba's palace more than half a millennium ago. These reverred men taught the Benin palace about the movement of the heavenly bodies and seasons e.g year counting.
Well, Nri are the only people that do this, east of Benin.

Please give us the four market days used by Binis. I'm sure some of the names will ring familiar to any Igbo.

Have you asked yourself, how come Bini people also use the refrain ISEEE or ISEN, when a traditional prayer is made or an Oba is hailed?

macof:
Where did you get this Portuguese stuff from?

OfoIgbo:
I believe it was Nowa Omogui who once alluded to that fact some years ago.
Luckily, early Portuguese explorers kept anthropological records of their discoveries, so a definitive proof will be in the appropriate Archive in Lisbon Portugal.

macof:
ok ma.
you got me, I'm Chinese

OfoIgbo:
It is a pity that records were not kept. But I won't be surprised if it turns out that the Eweka royal family are of Nri ancestry. I know you must have come across ILE-IBINU, but do you know that
1) We believe Bini was derived from ILO-OBINU, which is an Igbo phrase that means A ROAD TO BITTER HEARTS
2) EWEKA is IWEKA which is an Igbo phrase that means that ANGER IS GREAT, supposedly describing the inhabitants.
3) OBA is a title born by highly respected individuals in Umu-Nri towns, and the word does not mean KING in Igbo. A few weeks ago, someone wrote in nl that OBA does not also mean KING in Edo.
4) Obas in Benin were crowned by Nri priests, up till the crowning of Ewuare
5) Anthropologists recorded that Eze Nri Obalike mentioned IDU as one of the territories under the Nri cultural influence when he was interviewed by early Anthropologists.
6) Most Igbo villages and town were "governed" by councils of elders and nze and ozo titled men before the coming of the white man, but according to Umu-Nri records, about sixty something towns had Igwes most of whom trace their ancestry to Nri. Places like OraEri and Ogwashi-Uku included. Back in those days, thdse communities preferred Nri royal houses because of their culture and traditions and civilisation. I won't be surprised if this was also the case in Benin, thus leading to the installation of the IWEKA dynasty, which led to the Nri cultural influence that can still be observed in Benin culture

OfoIgbo:
I believe it was Nowa Omogui who once alluded to that fact some years ago.
Luckily, early Portuguese explorers kept anthropological records of their discoveries, so a definitive proof will be in the appropriate Archive in Lisbon Portugal.

tpiander:
Afi a road to bitter hearts na.

vicadex07:
The edo tribe is the most confused lot in modern history. You don't know whether to claim south south or south west. Whether to claim ancestry from Yoruba or to Join igbo wailers down south. Igbo people disown and detest you while the Yoruba has never for once aknowledge your existence nor penchant for fallacious twisting of history.

You claim Yorubas are your descendant according to your history...hahaha...laughable. How can the most minute tribe in Nigeria claim patrimony to the almighty yoruba.

Till date, the heads of your dead obas are still sent to ile ife as a tribute to the fact that we own you. You are just offsprings of a long lost brother who chose to establish his kingdom at the borders of the Yoruba empire and like most traditions in the world, a dead mans corpse is usually sent back to his indigenous community for proper burial no matter how many years he has lived in foreign lands.

So you see, our ancestors weren't foolish. They knew a day like this would arise hence the symbolic tradition of sending the heads of dead benin obas to ife, their indigenous roots

macof:
Actually Akiolu is descended from an Ijesa man not Bini
The last Oba of Lagos in the Bini(Ado) dynasty was Akinsemoyin, although this family stil exists they cannot become Oba
The current dynasty is Ologun Kutere son of an Ijesa priest and sister of akinsemoyin

Anyway if you know anything about lagos you will know that the Bini descendants see themselves as Awori yorubas nothing more nothing less

RichieF27:
No they don't see them selfs as the Aworis like you claim if you remember the Aworis and the Benin people were into several clashes during the slave trade..but it was settled when the oba of Benin sent his son to Lagos to see about the franchise..that was when the Aworis crownd him as there king out of fear....and that brought about the name Eko

macof:
I have nothing to say to some of these points. .

I'm interested in just number 3,4,5
What does the word mean then? And what is the duty of the title holders?

Lemme guess another one from the Portuguese archives? Most scholars give this to Ife and I agree, Both Edo and Yoruba agree that their kings are from Ife

That influence should have come from trade not invasion.

osemwengie1:
j) The ILAJE community at OKITIPUPA and its environs.

RichieF27:
No they don't see them selfs as the Aworis like you claim if you remember the Aworis and the Benin people were into several clashes during the slave trade..but it was settled when the oba of Benin sent his son to Lagos to see about the franchise..that was when the Aworis crownd him as there king out of fear....and that brought about the name Eko

OfoIgbo:
Not at all. Yorubas are much more likely to have adopted their kingship institution from Benin, not the other way round.

Obviously because Yorubas are more in population, they have used it to skew that part of your history in their favour. I prefer anthropological observations made in the middle ages, to guesswork and correlations drawn by historians who may have an agenda.

The fact that OBA does not mean KING in Benin makes it likely that the OBASHIP in Benin may be related to the OBASHIP in Umu-Nri clans, coupled with the Portuguese anthropological observation, it means that OBASHIP in Benin should be hundreds of years older than the OBASHIP in Yorubaland.

In fact it is more likely that Yorubas who saw the Oba of Benin, noticed he was the head of Benin, and adopted the title of the head of the Binis I.e OBA, as KING in Yoruba thus OBA entering the Yoruba lexicon as KING.

But in its truest form, OBA does not mean king in Nri-Igbo. I'm pretty sure Edos will have a word for KING. The same goes for Igbos.

In Nri, OBA is often (not always though) accompanied by the bearer's alias. IWEKA was definitely the alias adopted by the first Oba of Benin, and is now the nomenclature attached to the ruling family who are his descendants.

I will be catching up with an Nri Oba in about two weeks' time and I will get more information as to its original meaning and functions.

Of course it goes without saying that ancient Nri never kept an army, so Nri people never subjugated Edos violently. It would have amounted to an abomination for any highly placed Nri man to aid and abet violence against any group. An OBA level titled Nri man, such as Iweka was, and his Nri followers would have known that.
I suspect their initial contact with Binis would have been trade-based or cultural evangelism-based. Back then Nri people "preached" to neighbouring towns to either discard certain horrendous practices and adopt certain Nri ways, or to make such unavoidable horrendous practices more humane and palatable to the general society. This helped to create a vast area under the Nri cultural influence and civilisation with certain shared practices that is common throughout those territories.

Travelling Nri priests helped to maintain this bond, lifting abominations where some communities may have transgressed, and declaring anathema on individuals who were chronically deviant and prone to wicked acts against their fellow humans.

bokohalal:
Yes,they do. I knew a Dosunmu and he considered himself an Awori though he spoke of his Bini ancestry.

RichieF27:
Don't just jump to conclusions about the Edis..they never came out of the Yorubas go and do more research you will see that the first Oni of ife is an Edo man the first Alaafin of oyo is an Edo man the first oba of Lagos is an Edo man even the name Eko is given to Lagos by the Edos ...try to read it will help you a lot

macof:
Oba might not mean king in Benin(or maybe it has come to mean so) but that's what they call their king. .. in fact the Edo word for king "ogie" is never used for the Oba

But you don't even know what "Oba" means to Umueri people neither do you know their functions so why the guesswork? The very thing you spoke against earlier. .. isn't that hypocrisy?

tpiander:
bro, there are no Portuguese anthropological reports unless you just manufactured some.

macof:
What about the first Pharoah of Egypt? I hear The first emperor of Japan is from Edo, that's why his descendants built the city of Edo in Japan


And although I'm not sure, I want to assume the Awori word for farm is "Eko" . It was afterall just a farm before the Idejo invited the Bini over

macof:
Pls try not to speak on what you don't know about

OfoIgbo:
NZE, OZO, OBA all have a meanings in Igbo. But before I go public with what OBA means, I want to cross check with a real OBA to make sure I am accurate.

But the clincher of all these points is whether the Portuguese explorers did see Nri priests in Oba's palace.
The veracity of that fact will turn all the Yoruba tales upside down. Observed facts are more acceptable than implied facts.

Also have you ever asked yourself how come a few of the Igbo towns that claim Beni ancestry of Bini princes all mention Igbo sounding names
1. Eze Chima
2. Akalaka (Anambra pronunciation for DESTINY)
3. Diobu ( a name common with Umu-Nris. My great grand father's name also)

None of them ever seem to have Yoruba names. These questions need answering and perhaps the Portuguese anthropological reports will shed a factual light on all these

RichieF27:
The word "Eko" is an Edo word meaning war zone ..

OfoIgbo:
I have narrowed down the names of explorers of importance whose exploration records should be investigated
1. Ruy De Sequeira (1472 exploration)
2. Joao Afonso d'Aveiros and German astronomer Martin of Behaim (1485 exploration). The first name is at times written as John Affonso d'Aveiros

I also noticed something of importance when I was reading a brief bio of Oba Ozolua whose real name before he ascended the throne was Prince Okpame.

In one of my previous messages in this thread I alluded to the fact that in Umu-Nri clans, aliases or nomenclatures will normally be attached to one's Oba title. I gave a justification to why the first Oba of Benin adopted IWEKA.
Another example being that the current Eze Nri has a cousin whose real name is Prince Onyesoh who is an Oba. His full Oba name being Oba Agbalanze, just like Prince Okpame became Oba Ozolua, thus showing a major similarity between Obaship in Nri and that in Benin. Maybe Yorubas do fhe same, I dont know.

Oba Ewuare was reigning during the period of the 1472 exploration while Oba Ozolua was the reigning monarch during the 1485 exploration.

Portuguese archives will have anthropological details of these 2 explorations and I believe the HIGHLY REVERED MEN FROM THE EAST will remain standing at the end of the investivation. Who knows? Maybe the reports will say a lot about huge Yoruba influence in Benin, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Enough of the talking. This is the time for hard facts.

tpiander:
perhaps you mean manufactured facts aka fantasy or fiction.


The Portuguese records were destroyed in an earthquake, there is no reinventing of the wheel save for uninformed persons who subscribe to half-bakedness.

If you claim to have any "new anthropologies", chances are you are just being mischievous. Nothing new about that anyway.

OfoIgbo:
Not at all. Yorubas are much more likely to have adopted their kingship institution from Benin, not the other way round.
Obviously because Yorubas are more in population, they have used it to skew that part of your history in their favour. I prefer anthropological observations made in the middle ages, to guesswork and correlations drawn by historians who may have an agenda.

The fact that OBA does not mean KING in Benin makes it likely that the OBASHIP in Benin may be related to the OBASHIP in Umu-Nri clans, coupled with the Portuguese anthropological observation, it means that OBASHIP in Benin should be hundreds of years older than the OBASHIP in Yorubaland.

In fact it is more likely that Yorubas who saw the Oba of Benin, noticed he was the head of Benin, and adopted the title of the head of the Binis I.e OBA, as KING in Yoruba thus OBA entering the Yoruba lexicon as KING.
But in its truest form, OBA does not mean king in Nri-Igbo. I'm pretty sure Edos will have a word for KING. The same goes for Igbos.

In Nri, OBA is often (not always though) accompanied by the bearer's alias. IWEKA was definitely the alias adopted by the first Oba of Benin, and is now the nomenclature attached to the ruling family who are his descendants.

I will be catching up with an Nri Oba in about two weeks' time and I will get more information as to its original meaning and functions.

Of course it goes without saying that ancient Nri never kept an army, so Nri people never subjugated Edos violently. It would have amounted to an abomination for any highly placed Nri man to aid and abet violence against any group. An OBA level titled Nri man, such as Iweka was, and his Nri followers would have known that.
I suspect their initial contact with Binis would have been trade-based or cultural evangelism-based. Back then Nri people "preached" to neighbouring towns to either discard certain horrendous practices and adopt certain Nri ways, or to make such unavoidable horrendous practices more humane and palatable to the general society. This helped to create a vast area under the Nri cultural influence and civilisation with certain shared practices that is common throughout those territories.

Travelling Nri priests helped to maintain this bond, lifting abominations where some communities may have transgressed, and declaring anathema on individuals who were chronically deviant and prone to wicked acts against their fellow humans.