₦airaland Forum

I don't even understand.This looks like a thread of random pictures. What is Igbo amaka about all these white people?

nlPoster:
The sculptures I believe are by Susan Wenger the Osun priestess of Osogbo who was from Germany (correct me if wrong).

So they were probably made around the 1960s or so, not sure.

Osun Osogbo groove (sculptures featured by the op) is a UNESCO World Heritage site and national monument.

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1118/

https://zodml.org/discover-nigeria/heritage-and-culture/osun-osogbo-grove

It is also a fertility symbol.

Oh. I didn't see this before my response to macof.

I guess that answers my question. The sculptures struck me as belonging to the 20th century. Which was why I didn't think "ancient" describes them.

macof:


I'm curious, in relation to African history or more specifically West African history what time would you say is "ancient"

That would be for historians to decide. We certainly can't use European periodization which says ancient times ended in 476 AD with the fall of Rome as that is irrelevant to us.

But since some historians are already calling the period between about 1400 and 1800 the African Middle Ages, I guess that makes the period before the 15th century ancient.

Quick question though, do the twisted sculptures at the Osun grove in Oshogbo that I see on this thread date earlier than the 20th century?

"Ancient"?

Everytime I see a beauty thread on here, it's always filled with light-skinned people with features as near to Caucasian ideas of beauty as possible.


That is sad, really.

Yes. There are small concentrations of Yoruba people here and there in the east, and some of them can speak Igbo.

There was a Yoruba boy in my class in secondary school (I went to UNSSEC in Enugu) who spoke perfect unaccented Igbo. I think his dad was a lecturer at UNN and he wrote the computer textbooks we used in school at the time. (I won't mention his last name, but if you schooled in Enugu you may already know his dad �).

My friend recently introduced me to his Yoruba tailor in Onitsha who can communicate effectively in Igbo, although he speaks it haltingly and with an accent.

macof:
sorry this is wrong.
At least based on the Nigerian system

First language remains the ethnic language not any foreign language regardless of the level of influence from said foreign language

Actually, he is right. In my secondary school in Enugu, we had Igbo for L1 people and Igbo for L2 speakers.

L1 speakers are those for whom Igbo is a first language and L2 speakers are people for whom Igbo is a second language.

Those in the L2 Igbo class were still predominantly Igbo people, but who were raised outside the southeast and learnt another language (often English) before learning Igbo. Linguistically speaking, Igbo is their second language, and that was how the education system recognised them , even though they are ethnic Igbo.

That is technically the way it is, regardless of whether you are in Nigeria or America.

You can't logically say Igbo or Yoruba or Efik is the first language of a man who can't speak the language, just because he happens to belong to those groups by ethnic pedigree.

babyfaceafrica:
Are they not intelligible?

They are not.

Berber shouldn't be there since it is not one language. The Berber spoken by the Tuaregs in Niger is a different language from the Berber spoken by the Kabyles in North Africa.

It say "Southners" (sic) on the title of the post, but clearly this is just about the Igbo people.

You could have just been honest from the onset.

The time this is taking is frustrating sha.

Wait, the Yoruba people tearing pant over that tweet don't know Cadijat/Khadijat is not even a Yoruba name? Wawu.

While it is quite true that some border Igbo communities were formerly "Ibibioid", some of what you wrote is just plain ridiculous.

Why on earth would an ethnic grouping be called feather? You think because a word means something in YOUR language it must mean that same thing everywhere you see it?

Can I claim that Eko (Lagos) is Igbo because Eko means bellows in Igbo? Can I claim that Ikenne in Ogun state is Igbo because Ikenne means strength of the mother in Igbo?

Aba is a name that is found widely dispersed in Igboland in compound forms: Abateete (Aba Teghete, i.e., Nine Abas), Abakiliki (Aba Nkaleke, i.e., the Aba belonging to the Nkaleke clan) etc, and seems to be an archaic word that denotes settlement.

And by the way, YES, there are a few Igbo villages belonging to the Ndoki sub-ethnic group in Akwa Ibom State.

9jakool:
It's used for both. The original usage was hail but the word is more versatile in its modern meaning.

Now this is what I was suspecting.

It didn't seem plausible that the ancient Ondo people would create a word for something they didn't even know.

gregyboy:
Oyo empire was trash ,it was not even an empire ,it was a kingdom....
How did they defeat dahomey and how did they rule over them ,no war was fought so how did they occupy thier areas

Oyo never extended beyond neighbouring yoruba nations those other part it extended are frictions claims

More ignorance-ridden statements. Have you heard of a man called Archibald Dalziel? Archibald Dalziel was a British slave trader who lived in the kingdom of Dahomey in the 18th century. Go and read the book he wrote on the history of Dahomey based on eyewitness evidence. You will find a free e-copy of Dalziel's book online. Dalziel recorded how the Oyo calvary overran the kingdom of Dahomey and forced them to pay tribute to the Alaafin. This defeat of Dahomey by Oyo did not happen once and it did not happen twice. They continued to pay this tribute until Oyo Empire began to weaken in the late 18th/early 19th century and Dahomey seized the opportunity to declare its independence. Read. It won't hurt you.

gregyboy:
Nupe paid what big lie my friend

An emoire that was defeated by female warriors from dahomey ,how come we have yorubas in benin republic
Dahomey actually took them as slaves to thier land

Oyo is never an empire and stop rubbing shoulders with benin empire if not for the britsh we could extended to empire to whole of Nigeria

Which empire was defeated by female warriors? The exhausting thing about you people on this forum is that you people will not read and yet you want to come here and argue things that are beyond your ken.

The Dahomey army never marched against Oyo
Write that down. It was the city-state of Abeokuta, and not the Oyo Empire that faced off with the Dahomey women warriors in the 19th century. By that time Oyo Empire had collapsed. And Abeokuta successfully beat back the Dahomey Amazons many times. Get off the internet for a while and go and read actual texts by professional historians who know their stuff.

Yujin:
I always laugh when I hear or see someone talking about Oyo Empire. Traces of an empire is always visible as can be seen in Benin Empire, Songhai Empire, Roman Empire etc. For Oyo, there's no credible facts just conjectures. I challenge anyone to name 4 non-Yoruba ethnic groups that were subsumed by the Oyos. That of Benins is clear to all. From the Akoko areas to Ondo proper and parts of Ekiti even Lagos Island to some parts of Anioma and majority part of Delta state to the remaining part of Edo state, the Benins footprint can be seen. For the Oyos, where are the footprints? Oyo could have been a great Kingdom who troubled their neighbours to the West but never succeeded in emerging as a strong Empire where they exert their influence to last for long.

The kingdom of Dahomey was conquered by and paid tribute to Oyo up until the 19th century. So was the kingdom of Weme, and a number of other polities in present day Benin Republic.

Within Nigeria, parts of Nupe and Bariba paid tribute to Oyo until they took advantage of political problems in Oyo-Ile to revolt in the 1780s and 1790s.

Also, an empire doesn't neccessarily have to consist of different linguistic groups to qualify as an empire. A political state built up by conquest of formerly autonomous political units that pays tribute to the conquering sovereign is an empire. This is why Japan is an empire despite the fact that everyone in the empire is Japanese. That is also why the Holy Roman Empire was an empire even at the time when the empire only consisted of German-speaking peoples.

So, even if Oyo never conquered the Aja peoples of Dahomey, it would still be accurate to reckon it as an empire since the Egba and the Egbado who paid tribute to the Alaafin were distinct cultural units from the Oyo, despite also being Yoruba.

oglalasioux:
Good one.

It's open secret that two former governors of Ebonyi State are Aro. Senator Gilbert Nnaji of Enugu State is Aro. Aro dominates wherever they go. Every Igbo man knows that much.

Gilbert Nnaji is Nike. That the Nike people were business allies of the Aro doesn't make them Aro. They are a distinct people.

Care to name the two Ebonyi governors who were Aro?

What is the meaning of "Nigeria (i.e. Yorubaland)" ?

rolly44:
Ok, but ask a friend who is from abia state, he told me it not an igbo language he was the one who sugest i ask an ikwere pson. Tanx

I really doubt that an Abia person who speaks and umderstands Igbo told you 'munachim' is not Igbo. Unless you didn't pronounce it correctly, or you pronounced it with an accent that made it sound unfamiliar.

The simple answer to this question is No.

The tradition that the Esan were people who fled from Benin in the time of Ewuare (15th century) oversimplifies a more complex picture. The Esan area was well-settled by the 15th century. Ewuare's policies may have produced exiles who fled into the Esan area but they met well-entrenched aboriginal people there.

Aguleri people, this name seems to be peculiar to your town. What does Manafa mean?

I think your range of interactions offline must be quite narrow if you think the mutual hatred between the Igbo and the Yoruba is just an online thing.

I can't believe this needs to be said, but some light-skinned people have naturally dark knuckles, elbows, knees. It isn't always about bleaching.

Redomi:
10. Ẹghènghẹ́n (Snow)

Hang on a second now. Ondo people have a word for snow? Are you sure this word doesn't refer to something else?

Fulani people in Ihiagwa since 5000 BC?

Somebody is not feeling fine.

Frodd is funny sha. Easily the funniest of the bunch.

If you Googled this you would have found out that it is a fake story made up by a Canadian website that likes to peddle fiction.

The couple in the picture are not related and come from Britain. They had just won to right to have a Civil partnership instead of a marriage.

You see this thing Frodd is doing? That is not how to pursue woman. This guy is just being too clingy. Following her around like fly after shit. I won't be surprised if tomorrow Venita goes and makes out with another guy, and leave his ass crying as usual.

Sometimes, sit back, chill, and see if she will come to you. Not running after her all the time like a toddler following its mum around.

gregyboy:
The issues he is adressing id yorubas claiming they got western education first .....

The people borno attended islamic schools not western

The title should reflect the body of the work. The title says "First educated Nigerians", not "First western-educated Nigerians", which suggests that like many Eurocentric-minded people the OP equates education with western education.

"Benins were the first educated Nigerians."

LOL. Because education is only education when it comes from Europe? The people of Borno that were going to schools in Egypt and writing books before the Portuguese ever dreamt of coming to Benin. Those one were not educated, abi?

SMH.

What in the name of all that makes sense in the world did Omashola just do?