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Category: RESPONSE<rbr><nbr>
Date: 17 Oct 2008
Time: 02:19:22
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Category: RESPONSE<rbr><nbr>
Date: 08 Oct 2008
Time: 17:59:16
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From: Unknown
Category: SELECT TYPE
<option>COMMENT
<option>COMPILATION
<option>RESPONSE
<option>OTHERS
Date: 31 Aug 2008
Time: 04:21:10
Remote Name: 148.233.159.57
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Category: RESPONSE<rbr><nbr>
Date: 28 Aug 2008
Time: 03:03:22
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Category: RESPONSE<rbr><nbr>
Date: 23 Aug 2008
Time: 05:19:26
Remote Name: 92.48.122.3
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Category: RESPONSE<rbr><nbr>
Date: 21 Aug 2008
Time: 19:51:44
Remote Name: 92.48.122.3
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Category: RESPONSE<rbr><nbr>
Date: 21 Aug 2008
Time: 06:33:22
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Category: RESPONSE<rbr><nbr>
Date: 15 Aug 2008
Time: 07:51:26
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Category: RESPONSE<rbr><nbr>
Date: 10 Jul 2008
Time: 08:04:20
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From: Unknown
Category: SELECT TYPE
<option>COMMENT
<option>COMPILATION
<option>RESPONSE
<option>OTHERS
Date: 01 Jul 2008
Time: 10:29:52
Remote Name: 212.116.219.211
From: Unknown
Category: SELECT TYPE
<option>COMMENT
<option>COMPILATION
<option>RESPONSE
<option>OTHERS
Date: 28 Jun 2008
Time: 21:26:01
Remote Name: 72.158.32.163
From: yoruba ancient history society
Category: OTHERS
Date: 20 Feb 2006
Time: 19:23:26
Remote Name: 212.199.251.186
THE ODUDUWAN CONTROVERSIES PUT TO REST The Oduduwan Revolution in World History (A tribute of all tributes to the Ooni of Ife) Eyebira Agharawu and Dr Oritseweyinmi Oghanrandukun olomu OF YORUBA ANCIENT HISTORY SOCIETY Preface to the summarized edition “If empirical knowledge were not preceded by ontology, it will be entirely inconceivable, for we can extract objectified meanings out of a given reality to the extent that we can ask intelligent and revealing questions”.(Karl Mannhein 1936:79) These questions are: 1) Who was Oduduwa? 2) Where did he live? 3) When did he live? 4) How is Oduduwa related to Benin? 5) Why is the Oduduwan influence prevalent among other peoples of today, especially in the New World? By the end of this work, the readers, having been able to answer all these questions, and more, should be able to say: “We have found a new land”. It is joy that these five questions are interconnected; and since this is an instrumental view into the interconnectedness, it will sag the tensed intellectual rope. So, it is joy! Though however, it is not a thing of joy to have been led to a point of campaign as a reaction to the cacophony of confusion erected by the ethnopersonalistic tendencies of some Interest-laden scholars across the inroad of truth. Oh world, we are using scientific methodology as arsenals in our belief that a good and uninclined response to these questions cannot but be influenced by the prevailing wind of ontology and empiricism. What is more? If the old system of presenting history as a solution to the crisis of intersectional eccentricity, a dive into aggrandizement, as used by ethno-centrists continues, “History would have lost its flavor if it is consisted of narratives alone. Neither is the good historian interested in isolated facts or the chaos of unsorted knowledge as against taking a global look of world events”(Adekunle Ojelabi: 1970:155) Aside from the above, which posits that history should not be made to depend only on myths and legends as determinants, the warning of Wole Soyinka (2004) that history should be backed up with reality and not be smeared with false notions from false consciousness, is in league with the opinion of Herodotus when he taught that it is no history, a history not traceable to history. So, to make history reliable and a sure source of identifying our societal problems, and at the same time, an antidote for same, this book is presented. And to make the world a safer place to live, a place devoid of the wrath of atomic bombs, a new history is presented. We don’t say that the word “Oduduwa” is from the ancient Egyptian word, “Duduat”, or that the Itsekiri progenitor was born to Oduduwa by a mother, whose father was a high priest of “Shekiri” in ancient Egypt—without properly directing the reader to the sources wherefrom these information were obtained. By no means! That is not the way out of the mesh, out of the emerging and troublesome Oduduwan nativity crisis, or the Ife-Benin seniority dispute, if you choose. The way out is the “gradual extension and deepening of newly won insights and true advances in the direction of control” as suggested by a great thinker. For if myths and legends not wedged with scientificity will do, that is, if beautifully concocted stories will determine the justice of ownership cases, then the Soyinkas of today as well as the Achebes, Habilas, Kans etc, who as we all know, are experts in the field of fine fictions, are those needed in this case—not the historian, not the political scientists, either. Today, the world is threatened with “false consciousness” and its attendant ills. And it is the desire to normalize the anomaly of false consciousness, positive and negative, that has, allied with other factors, to motivate this book. This same desire, a reason for its scienceness, or its scientific methodology, is in line with, though not an influence of, the stand of the political thinkers when they feel that “ … The danger of false consciousness today is not that it cannot grasp absolute reality, but rather that it obstructs the comprehension of reality. (Karl Mannheim 1936:84) The specifics of this book are “the real”, dressed in scientific findings and plethora of references drawn from sources that foes and friends will adjudge as adequately impartial. When historians use “the self” and “self urge” along with non-measurable and non-observable elements, history will lose its flavour really, feigning a profession that is vain and deceptive to the end. We are introducing into the kingdom of knowledge a new history recommended for use when history breeds arguments, controversies and frictions—such as the question in question. This new history is the narrative analogue of the science of ideas, which Desstutt De Tracy considered as being in three segments: ideology, general grammar and logic. We shall use that which has already been said of the subject (immanent interpretations); we shall use that which, already said or unsaid, is the real nature of the subject (Transcendental Interpretations) and the idea based upon the unseen nature of the subject, whose knowledge comes up only by aha or experimentations (Oracular interpretation) We have found a new land - Metahistory. NOTE TO THE SUMMARIZED EDITION For the sake of this study, some adjectivals have been coined. They include the following: 1) Yoruban: This refers to the human Yoruba. 2) Yorubic: This refers to Yoruba as a culture. 3) Yoruboid: This refers to Yoruba as a language. 4) Oduduwan: This refers to Oduduwa as a person, a culture and as a language. This is Oduduwa as a course of study. CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION The days are gone when history was a study of “once upon a time.” History of the 21st century should be very analytic and scientific for it to be able to solve the problems of the century. The usual method of resort to oral traditions will be considered, if, and only if, it can stand the test of science. By science is meant the following: 1. The evidence of archaeology with the attendant carbon 14 dating. 2. The resort to linguistic and cultural, or better still, ethno-linguistic mappings 3. The study of glottochronology (knowing how old a language is by the study of the etymology, syntax, grammar and morphemes of a language. 4. We shall also look into cross-cultural and tans-cultural studies, as we believe that languages and cultures borrow from one another over time. This has been very true in Africa, and oral traditions, which can be tested scientifically, attest that populations and ideas have been drifting all over Africa. With the evolution of Iron (Perhaps it was first discovered in West Africa) the technology spread over the whole of the African continent. On this issue ,Basil Davidson says “archaeolgy and the study of languages support the opinion that it was from this region that the pionerring groups of early iron age people carried the knowledge of iron- working into distant lands of the Congo basin…..”(1978:119) Many other aspects of civilization or cross-cultural contacts took place at a continental level. The theory of Divine kingship, which began in Egypt, spread fast all over the African continent, taking roots where people value, and are matured enough, to accept such doctrines. So, it is obvious that the African continent in many ways is more a union than a disjointed entity. In this study, we shall also recourse to written sources – most of these from non-Africans (Islamic writers, white anthropologists, some classical writers: Herodotus, Plato, Strabo etc), and some indigenous. We can, therefore, summarize as follows: “For the early history of the Yoruba and Edo speaking peoples, we have to rely entirely on non written sources of various kinds. Of these oral tradition is probably the most important. It can be supplemented with findings of archaeological and linguistic research and with inferences drawn from the result of ethnographic mappings of present day cultures. (Ade Obayemi 1972.) Although we accept Obayemi, we differ a little in that oral traditions do not take a position of primary importance, except those that are scientifically tested. So, linguistic researches, archaeological findings, logicity and inferences of cultural diffusion will be used to work out a scientific basis of the Yoruban history, especially as they relate to unraveling the Oduduwan influence on Yoruba history. ORIGIN OF THE YORUBAN PEOPLES To determine the origin of the Yoruba peoples, we need to look into various areas: (1) An analysis of the oral traditions (2) The findings of archaeology; (3) the present ethno-linguistic mappings of the Yoruban peoples, and (4) a resort to common sense and logic. THE ORAL TRADITIONS The traditions can be divided into two: (1) The theory of aboriginality, (2) The theory of a possible migration from the “East”.(Adekunle Ojelabi :1970:61) The aboriginal stories are very many. The main points can be itemized as follows: a. In the beginning, the universe was covered by a huge body of water. b. An ancestral archetype descended from heaven (the sky?) and created land. c. The first land happens to be the land where the oral traditions were derived: in most cases, the land is Ile-Ife. d. People spread from that initial land over the whole world. In the Ifa corpus (the Yorubic sacred texts probably brought by Oduduwa from Egypt in the Edidi script) there are numerous creation stories, all these try to indicate the land of the Yoruban peoples as the place where creation took place. They do not only show that, they also indicate that the Yoruban peoples are aboriginal or autochthonous to their present area of abode. Are the Yorubas really autochthonous to their present abode? What are the natures of these traditions? Are they true, or mere fabrications? All these questions will be answered when we come to the section of archaeology, cultural studies and linguistics. It is obvious, however, that the longer a people live in an area, the more they tend to claim aboriginality, as is evident with the whites of South Africa. Replete in the Yoruban traditions are tales of a possible migration from the “east”. Can the stories of both aboriginality and migration be correct? It is believed that both are correct. While the Yoruban people have spoken Yoruboid languages, and practiced Yorubic cultures from time immemorial, it is obvious and even logical, that some aspects of Yoruban culture are borrowed. These borrowings point to ancient Egypt, whence the traditions of the Yoruban peoples diffused. It is also believed that while the Yoruban peoples have been in their geopolity from time immemorial, some aspects of their culture: divine kingship and aspects of religion: seem to be wholesale importation from Ancient Egypt. The testament of archaeology So far, archaeology as a study in West Africa has not been very intensive. Archeology has been carried on for a short period, and at limited geographical scales. In East Africa, Asia, Middle East etc., archaeological studies have had greater and better significance and impact on the histories of these various regions, and their peoples. Concerning this dearth of archaeological research, Thurstan Shaw says: “Regrettably, at the moment, the picture is very imperfect, and has many gaps in it because it must be remembered that archaeological research in West Africa has only been going on for a comparatively short time on a limited scale and it has been very unevenly distributed”. (Shaw 1965: 27 .) In addition to the fact that the application of archaeology has been very recent in West Africa, the West African soil and climate are not very conducive to the preservation of relics. Many relics - except few durable ones - are either completely destroyed, or made inaccessible for the sake of archaeological studies. It should be remembered that termites and other creatures feast voraciously on wood, and other products, which our ancestors in Africa used on day- to- day basis. Thurstan defines the problem thus, One of the difficulties of archaeology in West Africa south of the Sahara is that the situations for the preservation of bone do not seem to occur so frequently as in other parts of Africa”. (Thurstan Shaw: 1965) In spite of these difficulties, there have been a lot of archaeological researches. Most of these artifacts predate 1200AD, which most modern historians ascribe to the founding of the Yoruban kingdoms. Among the most ancient of these finds is the Iwo-Ileru relic, which carbon dating has given a spectacular age of between 9000BC- 12000BC. Iwo-Eleru is very close to Akure in the east of Yoruba land. This find poses a question. Did the Yoruban peoples first settle in the East of Yorubaland? It will be too hasty for now to give any conclusive answer to this question, until further works of archaeology is carried out. Around Oke-Eri (Ijebuland) a wall and some relics have been discovered. Many analytical historians feel the relics belonged to the Queen of Sheba, a wife or concubine of King Solomon. It is not conclusively proven that the relics at Oke- Eri belonged to the Queen of Sheba. The important thing so far is the finds depict an advanced human culture and civilization. Oke-Eri also corresponds to the east of Yoruba land. Both Iwo-Ileru and Oke-Eri lie in the eastern flank of Yorubaland and tend to authenticate an east to west migration within Yorubaland. In western part of Yoruba land, some ancient finds have also been discovered around the Mejiro cave at old Oyo. Hear Shaw: - “At Old Oyo, a Neolithic industry was recovered which has no associated pottery or ground stone axis, but the sample was small and it is undated” (Shaw 1977: 53 ) - - - The relics at the Mejiro are dated some 4000BC. This proves that even in central Yoruba land, people have been living for thousand of years. Hence the Ifes claim 90 “kings” before the advent of Oduduwa! All over Yorubaland, Oyo, Owo (Ogho), Ondo, Itsekiri, Ilaje etc, few relics have been found which show that the present Yoruban peoples are lineal descendants of the ancients that once occupied and used the relics – probably the Atlanteans! So far, the greatest archaeological finds are those from Ile-Ife. The relics of Ile-Ife show a period of advanced Yorubic culture and civilization. Many relics associated with monarchy and religious innovations – particularly the sacred Ifa Texts – are developed and perfected at Ile-Ife. The findings at Ebo Olokun and Orun Oba Ado (the heaven of the kings of Benin) are very significant in that they depict an era in the perfection of the Yorubic culture. It is significant that the site of Orun Oba Ado at Ile-Ife has produced radio-carbon dates indicating occupations in the sixth, ninth and tenth centuries” (Michael 1977: 68, 69.) We see, therefore, that by the evidence of archaeology – little as it seems – the Yoruban peoples have been occupying their present area for many thousand years. The verdict of archaeology – authenticating the traditions – is that the Yorubic culture came to perfection at Ile-Ife – “The beloved ancestral home of the Oduduwan Yoruba”. And it was from Ile- Ife that this perfected Yorubic culture and civilization spread to every nook and cranny of Yoruba land. Thus, it is very obvious that the Yoruban peoples are autochthonous to their present abode. GLOTTO-CHRONOLOGY AND THE PRESENT LINGUISTIC MAPPINGS Geographically, the Yoruba people can be found around the Niger-Benue confluence at the Northeast limit. Dialects such as Kabba , Yagba and Oworo are present there. They occupy most of Kwara state and the whole of the South-West geopolitical zone in Nigeria. Yoruban peoples are also present in Benin republic and southern Togo.. The Aja, the Ewe and Ga peoples can be considered as Yoruba, or at least, some of their founding fathers spoke Yoruboid language or practiced Yorubic culture. The Itsekiri ethnic group of Delta, and Edo states, the Kanuri of the Chad basin, Igala of Kogi and the Ebbu and Olukumi of the Delta state of Nigeria are also Yoruban peoples. So, today, the Yoruban peoples, the Yorubic culture and the Yoruboid languages stretch from the Ramos and Dodo rivers in the north western fringe of Bayelsa State to the Ga of Accra area of modern Ghana. They are also found in Sierra Leone and other parts of the subcontinent. Concerning the eastern boundaries of the yorubas, this is the stand of the colonial masters: ‘I hereby certify that according to the terms of a treaty concluded by me , acting on behalf of her majesty, THE QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND &C and the Head and other chiefs of JEKRI COUNTRY ,the gracious favour and protection of her BRITTANIC MAJESTY have been extended to the people and country at both banks of the FORCADOS River ,the chiefs of which have in the presence of myself and others acknowledged themselves and their country to be under JEKRI Jurisdiction and Authority . Given on board the British steamship “DODO” anchored in the FORCADOS this 6th day of august 1884 (SGD) EDWARD HYDE HEWETT, HER BRITTANNIC MAJESTY’S CONSUL FOR THE BIGHTS OF BENIN AND BIAFRA AND & C’ Concerning the locus of the Itsekiri boundary with the Ijaws in the east, Professor Obaro Ikime says, “At one of the towns of the Escravos river, the Ijaw who inhabit it claimed according to Hewett, that they acknowledged Tsanomi as their ruler. They were then informed about the treaty of 16th July which Tsanomi, Nana and others were signatories and warned, under the pain of severe punishment by governor Nana, not to enter into a treaty with any other European power. At Burutu and “Goolah” and other towns along the Forcados, Ramos and Dodo, Hewett reported that the people though Ijo, acknowledge the fact that they were subjected to Nana and were consequently made to understand that the Itsekiri protection treaty was binding on them.” (Ikime 1969). The few archaeological findings correspond with the findings of glottochronology, that eastern Yoruba culture and dialects are more ancient than those of the West. There seem to be an ancient movement of population from east to West within the modern Yoruba geopolity. The evidence of the linguists tends to authenticate those of archaeology that the present population in Yoruba land has occupied their areas for thousand of years. Concerning this Obayemi says: “The implication of modern linguistic research both fit in with and supplement those of archaeological research. They suggest that Yoruba, Edo, Igala, Idoma Igbo, Nupe Ebira, and Gbari form a cluster of languages within the large Kwa group, centred roughly on the area of the Niger-Benue confluence. Glottochronological considerations further suggest that separation between the units of this cluster very between 2,000 years (Yoruba/Igala) and 6,000 years (Yoruba/Idoma).” It is important to note here that the various Yoruboid dialects: Ijebu, Egba, Ekiti, Ilaje and Awori etc., started separating from one another some 2,000 years ago. This corresponds to the period of Igala separation from Yoruba. Thus, it seems that the ancestors of the Igalas were Yoruban until their language became infiltrated with Nupe, Igbo and Idoma. Their ancestors spoke Yoruboid languages. The Yorubas, are no doubt, aboriginal to, and develop in their, locale steadily over many millennia. Concerning this observation Obayemi says: “These finding seem to indicate a process of slow, steady population expansion and cultural differentiation beginning some thousands of years ago in the area of the confluence and continuing with little external interruption right down to the nineteenth century. They also suggest that if current dates given for the foundation of the great dynasties of Yoruba, Benin and Igala are anything like correct, population expansion and cultural differentiation were largely completed by the time these dynasties arrived on the scene” (Ade Obayemi 1977:207). Although, the present writers agree with Obayemi, they hold that the differentiation and spread of population are not only in the North- East area, but also in the Southeast area. Linguistically, the Yoruboid languages form a distinct group. Some anthropologists grouped the whole of Negro African languages together. This group Obenga calls the Negro Egyptian family; Clyde Winters calls this group the paleo-African. Most of the languages of West Africa belong to the Kwa group of the Niger-Congo group of language family; and groups such as Yoruba, Edo, Igala, and Idoma Nupe etc. form a cluster of languages – the Kwa group. The broad Paleo-African group of languages, according to Joseph Greenberg, can be divided into the following groups: (a) Hamito-Semitic family East Africa: Ancient Egyptian, West Africa: Hausa of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroons. (b) Congo-Kordofanian family: East Africa: Kordofanian languages of Sudan, West Africa: Wolof and Yoruba of Senegal and Nigeria respectively. (c) Nilo-Saharan: East Africa: Dinka and Luo in Kenya and Sudan, Masai in Tanzania, West Africa: Kanuri in Nigeria, Chad, and Niger (Ayele Bekeri – African Knowledge system 1991) If anything, African languages are related in many details, as most African cultures are related in various details. Observing that most Nigerian languages – Hausa, Yoruba, Ibo etc. - which Greensberg had placed into different language groups: e.g. Hausa and Yoruba have many areas in common.Wale Ademoyega says: Most of the peoples of Nigeria – the Hausa, the Ibos, the Yoruba, the Fulani, the Nupe, the Jukun, the Kanuri, the Gwari, the Igbirra, the Ijaw, the Chamba, the Borgu – speak languages of the same Sudanic pattern. That is very different from saying that they speak various dialects of the same language. They differ greatly, but assume the same pattern of accent differentiation and distinct syllabic pronunciation. Every noun ends in a vowel. The same word when differently accentuated or emphasized presents varied qualifying words of prefixes and suffixes. Some of these languages have no genders. This language characterization points, if to anything at all, to a common linguistic and ethnological ancestry and a prolonged period of mutual association. (WALE ADEMOYEGA. 1962 : 28.29.) If we are to observe Ademoyega, we find the following: 1. Most nouns end in vowels eg Kifi (fish Hausa), Owu, (a god, Ijaw), Omi, water (Yoruba), they all end in vowels. 2. Bini, Yoruba, Ijaw, Gwari etc. have no genders. Only the Hausa language has a clear distinction between the genders. 3. A word variously accentuated can have different meanings e.g. “Ogun” can mean, war, the god of Iron, he, she or it climbs etc., in Yoruba, depending on how the word is accented. Ademoyega did not bring out some salient points. In some of these languages, especially in Yoruba, most nouns also begin with vowels For instance, Omi, Eja, Awo are water, fish, and herbalist in Yoruba language respectively. All these words (nouns) begin and end in vowels. From the above, it is more logical to work with the paleo-African family postulated by Obenga and Clyde Winters. Thus, the Yoruboid languages belong to this broad group of African languages. This classification of Greenberg and other white anthropologists are a legacy of a deadly anthropology. Glottochronology, a living Anthropology, has verified that the Yorubas in the Eastern Flank, Kabba, Yagba, Ilaje, Ijebu, Itsekiri etc spoke the most ancient languages. The table displays it further. Itsekiri (Eastern Yoruba) Oyo (central Yoruba English Ogho Owo Money Ogho(r) Owo(r) Respect Aghan Awon Them Ghan Won Expensive The retention of this “gh” sound for “w” is found in the northeast and south East Yorubaland and among the Igalas. This phenomenon might represent a paleo-Yoruboid stage of the Yoruban language. The rudiments of the Yorubic civilization also, seem to have begun in eastern Yorubaland. This rudiment of civilization include both crude political organization and the belief in a supreme being .Concerning this evolution of the Yoruban religion, Bolaji Idowu writes: “I am very inclined to the view that the name, orisa, is a corruption of an original Orise (Ori-se) head source,” pg. 60. He went further in page 61 of the book: In Yoruba, the name Oritse (the original form), then, refers to Olodumare. This is borne out by the fact that the name Orisa is applied to him in some parts of Yoruba land, even though he is indisputably not one among the divinities. The original Orise is the common name in Owo and district, among the Itsekiri and western Ijaw (Idowu 1962 OLODUMARE : GOD IN YORUBA BELIEFS ) It is obvious that the Ijaws aqnd the Edos copied from the Itsekiri because the morphemes of the word, Ori (head) and se (create) are non-existent among them. Like in the monarchical system, the Yorubic religion became perfected in Ile-Ife, whence the Ifa Oracle texts spread all over Yoruba land. The rudiment of political organisation also seemed to have begun in the eastern Yoruba block. On this salient observation Obayemi says: In the Ondo area, as well as in nearby parts of southern Owo and Ifon and including the intervening Yoruba-speaking area, the village-size state is ruled by an Oloja (Olu-Oja). The proper meaning of this title is more accurately conveyed when we consider it in the pre-Urban Yoruba setting. “Oloja” has been thought to mean the owner of a market (Oja); Beeley however, has tackled this problem in its broader geographical perspective showing that: “The meaning of the latter (Oloja) is apparently “The owner of the town and not as it would seem the owner of the market. The word “Oja” is possibly a derivative of the Jekri (Itsekiri) work (word) “Aja”, meaning a collection of houses or village”. (Obayemi 1977:220). The Olaja syndrome is found more among the Yorubas of the North-East and South-East area. The Igala equivalent of the word is Onoja (Onuaja), the ruler of the town. The south east Yoruba use Onu Aja (Olu-aja) thus Olaja (Onaja.) The other Igala word for Onoja is Onuewo, (Ewo) meaning a town. The word “Ewo” has the eastern Yoruba dialect (Itsekiri) equivalent of “Eghoro”, a section of a town. Thus, the Igala word “Onewo”, has the eastern Yoruba equivalent of Oneghoro or Oleghero. The Oneghoro in eastern Yoruba dialect represent an epoch in history farther than that of the Olaja or the Onewo: an era when the powers of the mini-sized state had not been concretized into one authority, an era when the sections of a town (eghoro) were still ruled by independent “powers” From glottochronological consideration (eghoro) with the “gh” guttural sound appears to predate the Igala (Ewo) “W” liquid sound, and from the fact that eghoro or Oneghoro (Oleghoro) predates the Onewo, the pre-urban power structure must have started in the Southeast Yoruba area, rather than in the North East of Yorubaland or the Igala area around the confluence. The East-West movements exist in many accounts. Some sections of Ijebu, for instance, agree that some of their founding ancestors came from the Ikales to their east. The linguistic consideration indicates that there was a drift from the East to the West. The oldest archaeological find at Iwo-Ileru (near Akure) is in the east of Yorubaland. The glottochronological consideration also gives the Yoruba of the east an older date than the western Yoruba clans. So far two major things can be deduced from both the oral traditions and the finds of the linguists_ 1) the traditions and the the archaeological finds complement one nother.2) both the traditions and the archaeological finds show that the Yoruba have been living in their abode from time immemorial. Although the Yoruban people seem to occupy the Eastern lands (within the Yoruban geopolity) first, all indications point to the fact that the monarchical revolution, religious innovations and artistic mastery became accomplished in Ile-Ife; and it was from Ife that the Yorubic civilization, monarchical revolution, exotic arts, religious innovations etc, spread to other Yoruba lands and even beyond. . CHAPTR 2 THE ODUDUWAN REVOLUTION In the first chapter, we talked about the aboriginal nature of the Yoruban peoples. In this chapter, we shall talk of a possible migration from ancient Egypt. Many traditions point to a fact that an alien group (Egyptians) immigrated to Yoruba land and mixed with the original population. Many oral traditions are replete with these stories. The Awujale of Ijebu land has shown that the Ijebus are descended from ancient Nubia (a colony of Egypt). He was able to use the evidence of language, body, scarification, coronation rituals that are similar to Nubians’ etc, to show that the Ijebus are descendants of the Nubians. What the present Awujale claimed for the Ijebus, can be authenticated all over Yoruba land. The Awujale even mentioned (2004) that the Itsekiri (an eastern Yoruba dialect) are speaking the original Ijebu language. Since the Nubians were descended or colonized by the Egyptians, the Ijebu, and by extension, all Yoruba customs, derived from the Egyptian. Many traditional Yorubas have always claimed Egypt as their place of original abode, and that their monarchical tradition derives from the Egyptians’. Apostle Atigbiofor Atsuliaghan, a high priest of Umale-Okun, and a direct descendant of Orunmila, claimed that the Yorubas left Egypt as a result of a big war that engulfed the whole of Egypt. He said the Egyptian remnants settled in various places, two important places being Ode Itsekiri and Ile-Ife.Chief O.N Rewane says “Oral tradition has it also that when the Yorubas came from South of Egypt they did not go straight to where they now occupy. They settled at Illushi, some at Asaba area – Ebu, Olukumi Ukwunzu while some settled at Ode-Itsekiri,.” (O.N. Rewane Royalty Magazine A PICTORIAL SOUVENIR OF THE BURIAL AND CORONATION OF OLU OF WARRI, WARRI 1987) Since these oral traditions are passed on by very illiterate people, we can augment whatever is recorded with written sources. Concerning the migration of some of the Yoruban ancestors from the east, Conton says: The Yoruba of Nigeria are believed by many modern historians to be descended from a people who were living on the banks of the Nile 2,000 years ago, and who were at the time in close contact with the Egyptians and the Jews. Sometime before AD 600, if this belief is correct, this people must have left their fertile lands, for reasons which we can not now discover and have joined in the ceaseless movement of tribes west wards and south-wards across our continent. We can only guess at the many adventures they and their descendants must have had on their long journey and at the number of generations which passed before they arrived. All we can be certain about is that they were a Negro people (of which ancient Egypt probably had at least one community as we have seen) and that one of the many princely states they founded on their arrival in West Africa…..was Ife.’ Conton WF (1960. 71 Although we agree with Conton that some of the Yoruban ancestors migrated from Egypt, we tend to toe the scientific line of Cheik Anta Diop, that the ancient Egyptians were pure Negroes. Aderibigbe, an indigenous scholar, also accepts that the Yorubas migrated from Egypt. He says: “The general trend of these theories, most of them based on Yoruba traditions, is that of a possible origin from “the east”. Some scholars, impressed by the similarities between Yoruba and ancient Egyptian culture – religious observation, works of art, burial and other customs – speak of a possible migration of the ancestors of the Yoruba from the upper Nile (as early as 2000BC – 1000BC) as a result of some upheavals in ancient Egypt”. (AB ADERIBIGBE 1976) Unlike Conton, Aderibigbe was able to pinpoint a cause for the Yoruban migration – war. Olumide Lucas did a lot of job to show similarities and identities between the ancient Egyptians and the Yoruban peoples. The date that Aderibigbe gave (2000BC – 1000BC) is much earlier than that given by Conton. Aderibigbe’s date corresponds to that of the Hyksos invasion of Egypt 2000-1500BC. On the possible eastern origin of the Yorubas, Tariqh Sawandi says: “The Yoruba history begins with the migration of an east African population across the trans-African route leading from Mid-Nile river area to the Mid-Niger. Archaeologists, according to M. Omoleya, inform us that the Nigerian region was inhabited more than forty thousand years ago, or as far back as 65,000BC. During this period, the Nok culture occupied the region. The Nok culture was visited by the “Yoruba people”, between 2000BC and 500BC. This group of people was led, according to Yoruba historical accounts by king Oduduwa, who settled peacefully in the already established Ile-Ife, the sacred city of the indigenous Nok people. This time period is known as the Bronze Age, a time of high civilization of both of these groups. According to Olumide J. Lucas, “the Yoruba, during antiquity, lived in ancient Egypt before migrating to the Atlantic coast”. He uses as demonstration the similarity or identity of languages, religious beliefs, customs and names of persons, places and things. In addition, many ancient papyri discovered by archaeologists point at an Egyptian origin. (Tariqh Sawandi: Yorubic medicine: The Art of divine herbology – online article). Ademoyega commented that the Ekiti section of the Yorubas must have migrated to their present area around 638AD when the Muslims took over Egypt and forced some of the Yoruba people to migrate to their present area. So, we see that the Yoruba did not come in one migration, but in many different migrations – in waves. The first possible migration might be connected with the Hyksos invasion. Some words in the Yoruban vocabulary echo the words used in Egypt in predynastic times and in the early dynastic periods. Some Egyptian gods of this period have strong identities with Yoruban deities. For instance, gods such as Adumu (Adumu) Hepi (Ipi) Ausar (Ausa), Horise (Orise), and Sámi (Sámi) Nam (Inama) are present in Yoruba. All these gods existed in the pre-dynastic and early dynastic periods of Egypt. TODAY, AMONG THE ITSEKIRI-YORUBAS ,THESE GODS CAN STILL BE PHYSICALLY SEEN, AT LEAST, ONCE A YEAR! Neighbouring peoples are already initiated into the various gods systems and beliefs in yorubaland.the agban ancestral worship was first organized in Urhoboland during the funeral ceremony of chief Ayomanor of Sapele (1949). The Ipi system was first organized in Urhoboland in March 11, 2005. We can also see words that existed in the Graeco-Roman period in some of the Yoruban dialects. When the Romans took over Egypt, they infiltrated the Egyptian area with their language. In present Yoruba, we can still find words of Roman descent. For instance, the Yoruba called the palm frond ‘Mariwo’. This word is derived form the Latin Rivus (River). One of the declensions of river is Rivo (by the river).Since the Yoruban possesses no “V”, the word become riwo. Thus, the word “Omariwo” means the child by the river. Some other words like Sangi (blood in Itsekiri-yoruba dialect) thought to have been derived form the Portuguese were actually brought as a result of the Roman Conquest of Egypt. Sangi is blood and the Latin term is Sanguis. Some eastern Yoruba use the term “Ihagi” which is clearly a corruption of the Roman Sanguis. A Christian army in 540AD invaded Egypt and some persons believed to have reached Yoruba land were driven from Egypt. With the commencement of the Arab period in Egypt, some indigenous Egyptians who never wanted to accept the Islamic religion escaped to present Yoruba land. It was probably in this period that words such as Keferi (Kafri pagan in Arab) infiltrated into the Yoruboid vocabulary. All said and done, more than fifty percent of the Yoruboid vocabulary of today can be deduced either directly or indirectly from the ancient Egyptian. These are the original ancient Egyptian language devoid of Arab and Latin words that are very few in the Yoruboid vocabulary It is not really certain when king Oduduwa came from Egypt. He must have come in one of the many migrations. But since the Yoruba religious discourse has a lot of identities with Egyptian, Oduduwa would have left Egypt at a very early period perhaps after the Hyksos invasion of 2000-1500BC ,but not later than 30BC. Could the Yoruba have migrated from a white Egypt? Far-from the truth! PROOFS OF EGYPTIAN NEGRONESS 1. Egypt was a part of Africa and therefore should be black 2. The Egyptians believe that Egypt was a colony of Ethiopia, and that the religion was brought to Egypt by King Horus from the south (inner Africa). Thus when the Egyptians died, they buried their corpses with their faces facing the South West (the direction of West Africa, home of the Yoruba) 3. Some West African peoples claim that their ancestors migrated to ancient Egypt. The Yorubas claimed that a mystic-prophet Orunmila (Oritse Udeji among the Itsekiri) migrated to Egypt and established a religion. Archaeology and cross-cultural studies have shown that Negroes migrated from West Africa to ancient Egypt. 4. Anthropologists have discovered, to their dismay, that Egyptian cultural traits: divine kingship, forms of burial, Osirian cult, etc., permeate some parts of Negro Africa. 5. Some deities exist in Egypt and in Negro Africa, such as Adumu, Hepi, Inama, Sami Horise etc. 6. The Greeks referred to the Egyptian as “Hoi Aiguptos”, (black people); the Egyptians referred to themselves as Kam (black in their language.) 7. Melanin test proved that the Egyptians were black. 8. Osteological measurements which are less misleading than craniometry in distinguishing a black man from a white man has proved that the ancient Egyptians belonged to the black race. Lepsius, a German Savant at the end of the nineteenth century, made the studies and his conclusion remains valid. Future studies have not contradicted the “Lepsius canon”, which in broad figures gave the bodily proportion of the ideal Egyptian: short armed and of Negroid or Negrito physical type. 9. Most West African claim Egyptian ancestry. If they are black, their ancient Egyptian ancestors must be black. 10. Ancient paintings on caves and temples in Egypt depict blacks. At first there were only black paintings, in later times, the blacks were shown ruling over whites and yellows (Asians). 11. Ancient statues and carvings found in Upper and Lower Egypt showed black skins, and features. 12. Ancient monuments such as the pyramid have been replicated in other parts of Africa. A typical example is the Warri pyramid recorded in Roth (1671). 13. Language similarities exist between the Egyptians and some groups in west Africa such as the Wolof and particularly more so, the Yorubas ( more then 500 similar words have been discovered bearing identical meanings. See Yoruba is Atlantis by the same authors: to be published). 14. Recent findings of Genetics and Molecular Biology and Linear Analysis have proved the Egyptians were Negroid. 15. The testimony of classical writers such as Plato, Homer, Aristotle, Pythagoras etc., portrays the Egyptians as blacks. 16. the physical photograph of Yuyi of ancient Egypt is Negroid (Barbara Mertz : Red Land ,Black land: 1967) In order to prove the Egyptians origin of the Greek oracle of Dodona, Herodotus says: “And when they add that the dove was black, they gave us to understand that the woman was Egyptian”. The doves mentioned in a text “Epirus” stands for two Egyptian women, reputed to have brought the oracle from Tebu (Thebes)[today there are two Tebus in Yoruba land] in Egypt to establish the oracle of Dodona in Greek and Libya. Another antiquarian, Lycinus, describing a young Egyptian, mentioned Negroid features. “This boy is not merely black; he has thick lips and his legs are too thin … His hair worn in a plait behind shows that he is not a free man.” The mention of “black”, “thick lips” and hair worn in plaits behind are totally of African origin. In those days Itsekiri owned slaves (mostly Sobo) were either clean-shaven, or they wore their hair in plaits until they regained freedom. Thus, unknowingly, Lycinus had drawn an identical cultural affinity between the Kamites and the Yorubas. Marcelinus, a Latin historian writes: “The men of Egypt are mostly brown or black with a skinny and desiccated look.” Appolodorus, who lived in the first century before our era, commented on Egypt as Negroes: “Aiguptos captured the country of the black footed ones and called it Egypt after himself.” Aristotle – an ancient Greek philosopher, a disciple of Plato – in a naive way showed that the Egyptians were black, hear him: “Those who are too black are cowards, like for instance the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, but those who are excessively white are also cowards as we can see from the example of women, the complexion of courage is between the two”. Herodotus, 485-425BC, the father of history, further said concerning the ancient Egyptians: “It is in fact manifested that the Colchidians are Egyptian by race. Several Egyptians told me that in their opinion that the Colchidians were descendants of the soldiers of Sesostris. I had conjectured as much myself from two pointers, firstly because they have black skins and kinky hair (to tell the truth this proves nothing for other peoples have them too) and secondly more reliably for the reason that alone among mankind, the Egyptians and the Ethiopians have practiced circumcision since time immemorial. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves admit that they learnt the practice from the Egyptians, while the Syrians in the river Thermodon and the Pathenoise region and their neighbours the Macrons say they learnt it recently from the Colchidians. These are the only races which practice circumcision, and it is observable that they do it in the same way with the Egyptians. As between the Egyptians themselves and the Ethiopians, I can not say which of them taught the other the practice, for among them; it is quite clearly a custom of great contiguity. As to the further strong proof to my belief is that all those Phoenicians trading to Greek cease to treat the pudenda after the Egyptian manner and do not subject their offspring to concussion”. Herodotus mentioned black skins and kinky hair as features of the Colchidians of being descendants of the Egyptians; he also mentioned the survival of circumcision. It should be noted that Abraham – the Arab patriarch of the Jews – learnt circumcision from Hagar, his Egyptian slave wife, whence the custom spread to the Jews. Herodotus also commented that other peoples (those in inner Africa and the black Sumerians and Canaanites) also had kinky hair. The towns of ancient Egypt: On (Annu) or Heliopolis, Hermonthis, Dendera, Tebu etc., were developed by Annu, the pre-dynastic blacks of Egypt. Skeletons of the Negro Annu were ubiquitous in ancient Egypt... Mene, the first pharaoh of the first dynasty, sometimes identified with the God-man Osiris (A black forerunner of Christ) was a Blackman. Zoser, Sesostris, Amenhopis, Khufu, Menthuhotep, Queen Amuses, Nefertari etc., were also all Negroes. The Egyptian religion and other cultural practices show strong African and more so Yorubic characteristics. These can be seen in the following areas: 1. The lost wax method of brass or bronze making, which was common to both the Yoruba peoples (particular Ife) and the ancient Egyptians. 2. The ritual of initiation 3. Striving to achieve the ultimate in “Good” and truth (summun bonum) 4. The doctrine of transmigration of soul and reincarnation is widely believed in, by both peoples. 5. The concept of the ‘god king’. 6. Aspiration to achieve the great ‘good’ of the gods – ‘wealth health and long life’. 7. The Yorubic regalia, in most cases, are strikingly similar to pharoanic ones. 8. Veneration of the Ram in both places. Among the eastern Yorubas (Itsekiri especially, most of the water deities are depicted as ram following the predynastic and pharoanic patterns). 9. Both peoples answer the theophorous names. LINGUISTIC SIMILARITIES Since Ferdinand de Saussure, the surest way to prove a cultural contact between peoples is to adduce linguistic evidence (Ferdinand de Saussure (1972) General HISTORY OF Africa). One of the largest inhabitants of Egypt were Yoruboid , and it will be expected that a good percentage of their language will be yoruboid ,too. See the table below. EGYPT YORUBA 1. Wu (rise) Wu (rise) 2. Ausa (Osiris, father of the gods) Ausa (father) 3. Ere (python/ Serpent) Ere (Python / Serpent) 4. Horise (a great god) Orise (a great god) 5. Sen (group of worshippers) Sen ( to worship) 6. Ged (to chant0 Igede (a chant) 7. Ta (sell / offer) Ta (sell/offer) 8. Sueg (a fool) Suegbe (a fool) 9. On ( living person) One ( living person) 10. Kum (a club) Kumo( a club) 11. Enru (fear / terrible) Eru (fear / terrible 12. Kun / qun (brave man) Ekun (title of a brave man) 13. Win (to be) Wino (to be) 14. Odonit (festival) Odon (festival) 15. Ma or mi (to breath) Mi. (to breathe) 16. Tebu (a town) Tebu (a town) 17. Adumu (a water god) Adumu (a water god) 18. Khu (to kill) Ku (die) 19. Rekha (knowledge} Larikha (knowledge) 20 Hika (evil) Ika (evil) 21 Mhebi (humble) Mebi, humble to ones family 22 Sata (perfect) Santan (perfect) 23 Unas (lake of fire) Una (fire) 24 Tan (complete) Tan (complete) 25 Beru (force of emotion) Beru (fear) 26 Em (smell) Emi (smell) 27 Pa (open) Pa (break open) 28 Bi (to become) Bi (to give birth, to become) 29 Hepi (a water god) Ipi (a water god) 30 Sami (water god) Sami (a water god) 31 Osiri (a water god) Oshiri (a water god) 32 Heqet – Re (frog deity) Ekere (the frog) 33 Feh (to go away) Feh (to blow away) 34 Kot (build) Ko (build) 35 Kot (boat) Oko (boat) 36 Omi (water) Omi (water) 37 Ra (time) Ira (time) 38 Oni (title of Osiris) Oni (title of the king of Ife) 39 Budo (dwelling place) Budo (dwelling place) 40 Dudu (black image of Osiris) Dudu (black person) 41 Un (living person) Una (living person) 42 Ra (possess) Ra (possess/buy) 43 Beka (pray/confess) Be or ka (to pray or confess) 44 Po (many) Po (many/cheap) 45 Horuw (head) middle Egyptian Oruwo (head) (Ijebu) 46 Min (a god) Emin (spirit) 47 Ash (invocation) Ashe (invocation) 48 Aru (mouth) Arun (mouth ) Ilaje 49 Do (river) Odo (river) 50 Do (settlement) Udo (settlement) 51 Shekiri (water god) Shekiri (a water god) 52 Bu (a place) Bu ,a place 53 Khepara (beetle Akpakara (beetle) 54 No (a water god Eno (a water god) 55 Ra -Shu (light after darkness Uran-shu (the light of the moon 56 Run-ka (spirit name) Oruko (name) 57 Deb/dib to pierce Dibi (to pierce) 58 Maat (goddess of justice Mate (goddess of justice) 59 Aru (rise) Ru (rise up) 60 Fa (carry) Fa (pull) 61 Kaf (pluck) Ka (pluck) 62 Bu bi (evil place) Bubi (evil place) 63 In- n (negation In-n (negation) 64 Iset (a water god) Ise (a water god) 65 Shabu (watcher) Ashonbo (watcher) 66 Semati (door keeper) Sema (lock/shut the door) 67 Khenti amenti (big words of Osiris Yenti – yenti (big, very big) 68 Ma (to know) Ma (to know) 69 Bebi, a son of osiris) Ube, a god 70 Tchatcha chief (they examined the death to see if they tricked tsatsa (a game of tricks, gambling ) 71 Ren( animal foot) Ren (to walk) 72 Ka (rest) Ka (rest/tired) 73 Mu (water) Mu (drink water) 74 Abi (against) Ubi (against / impediment) 75 Reti (to beseech) Retin (to listen) 76 Hir (praise) Yiri (praise) 77 Ta(spread out) Ta (spread out) 78 Kurud (round) Kurudu (round) 79 Ak – male Ako (male) 80 Se – to create Se (to create) 81 Hoo (rejoice) Yo (rejoice) 82 Kamwr (black) Kuru (extremely black 83 Omitjener (deep water) Omijen (deep water) 84 Nen, the primeval water mother) Nene (mother 85 Ta (land) Ita (land junction) 86 Horiwo (head) Oriwo (head) 87 Ro (talk) Ro (to think) 88 Kurubu (round) Kurubu (deep and round) 89 Penka (divide) Kpen (divide) 90 Ma-su (to mould) Ma or su (to mould) 91 Osa (time) Osa (time) 92 Osa (tide) Osa ( tide) 93 Fare (wrap) Fari (wrap) 94 Kom (complete) Kon (complete) 95 Edjo (cobra) Edjo (cobra) 96 Didi (red fruit) Diden (red) 97 Ba (soul) Oba (king) soul of a people 98 Ke (hill) Oke( hill 99 Anubis (evil deity) Onubi (evil person) 100 Kan (one: Middle Egyptian) Okan one) 101 Nam (water god) Inama (water god) The words above are used to show that most Yoruban words are identical to the ancient Egyptian. CHAPTER THREE BINIS: THE ODUDUWAN LEGACY Since the month of May 2004, there has been a raging intellectual battle on the personality of Oduduwa. The Binis claim he was a Bini prince, the Ifes claim otherwise. This approach will be purely scientific and will be as objective as possible. The following areas: (1) The personality of “Oduduwa” {Ikaladeran?}; (2) archaeological researches; (3) the linguistic linkages; (4) scientific analysis of the myths; and (5) Benin’s historical debt to Oduduwa will be analyzed. (a) The monarchies; (b) the water religion, (c) bead manufacturing (d) salt industry; and (e) the Lagos conquest, will be scientifically analysed. 1. THE PERSONALITY OF “ODUDUWA” The personality of Ikaladeran; whether he was the man who later became Oduduwa will be scientifically analyzed In this discourse, Oduduwa is seen as the founder of the Yoruba monarchical system, or at least, a founder of a prominent dynasty in Yoruba history. There must have been many dynasties in Ife, as Ife legends put pre-Oduduwa monarchs at more than ninety. The personality of Oduduwa has suffered many attacks in recent times. The Binis claim he was a Benin prince (Ekaladerhan), who later became Imadoduwa or Izoduwa, and then Oduduwa. The Igbos claim he was an Igbo man from Nri. Some Igalas claim he hailed from Igala land. The Igalas have many Ifes, and they claim Oduduwa was from one of such Ifes. The Igala language is close enough to the Yoruba, to assert a common origin for both peoples. The present writers are holding the following positions: 1. The Yorubas are aborigines or autochthonous to their present environment; 2. The monarchical structure seems to be alien. The present writers tend to place the origin of the Yoruba monarchy in ancient Egypt and Nubia. This is because a lot of Egyptian related relics, words and practices can still be discerned among the Yorubas, particularly among the following: Ife (where the Ifa oracle and Yoruba monarchical system blossomed); Ijebu (with some ancient settlements; Ijebu Ode, the seat of the Awujale, Ode, the seat of Lenuwa, in present day Ogun Water side Local Government, Oke-Eri, purported to be the home of the biblical queen of Sheba, called Bilikisu in Ijebu legends), Ugbo, the ancient city of the Ilajes, Idanre (the home of Ogun, the god of iron), all show some similarities and identities in their monarchical and religious authorities.Basil Davidson, Olumide Lucas, Tariqh Sawandi, and even the present Awujale of Ijebu land, have pointed to ancient Egypt or Nubia as the origin of Yoruba monarchical system. All the above have used the similarities or the identities of cultural practices to substantiate their claims. If the Yorubas left the Egyptian or the Nubian axis, they must have left during turbulent periods of war, economic stagnation or religious persecution. Thus, we shall examine the periods of upheavals in black Egypt and black Nubia; and examine when the Yoruban aristocracy descended from the Nile valley. They may not be one migration, but several migrations and the personality called Oduduwa, must have led one of the various migrations. The first crop of migrants or southward push of the Egyptians took place about 2000BC – 500BC. The Hyksos invasion (2000-1500BC) caused some of these southward migrations. Many of the black Egyptians seemed to have moved to Yoruba land during this period. . The second wave of migrations will correspond to what Laoye Sanda, of the department of Public Administration,The Polytechnic,Ibadan refers to as the black Nubian emigrants. The Nubians were black, they occupied present day Sudan, which was an integral part of the Egyptian Empire. The vocabulary, body scarification, and religious discourse resemble those of the Ijebus and more so, the Itsekiri. The 1984 Awujale’s coronation manual will make this manifest. These migrations occurred about 500BC. A third wave of migration took place between 90BC and 30BC. The present writers feel the personality called Oduduwa, came in that migration trend. A fourth migration will correspond to the Christian conquest of Egypt, about 100AD. The last wave of migration will correspond to the Arab enforced emigration, between 700AD – 1100AD, when the Arabs had consolidated their control over Egypt; they chased the last batch of traditional worshipping Egyptians from Egypt. This occurrence would have led to many Yoruba claiming that their ancestors were chased from somewhere in the Middle East for not accepting Islam. The proof of archaeology There has been a dearth of archaeological researches in Nigeria. Whatever research has been done is not final, for new finds can be found in future. The most ancient archaeological finds in Nigeria are the following: (1) the relic at Iwo Eleru (with a radio carbon date of about 12,000BC). Iwo Eleru is close to Akure, Ondo State. (2) The findings at Igbo-Ukwu of about 6000BC. (3) The findings at the Mejiro cave near Oyo (about 4000BC). The Nok culture that is more than 1000BC. (4) The Oke-Eri walls and graves purported to be more than a thousand years. The walls are reputed to be the biggest in the world, but for the walls of China. (5) The bronze heads at Ife about 1000AD. (6) The bronze heads at Benin about 1400AD. This might authenticate the Ife claim that the Binis got the civilization of bronze casting from the Ifes. Both the Binis and the Ifes claim that Igueghae was the one who taught the Binis how to cast bronze, during the reign of the Oba Oguola, fourth king from Eweka, the son of Oramiyan, a distant descendant of Oduduwa from Ife. THE LINGUISTIC LINKAGES According to the studies of philology and etymology, most of the languages in Nigeria in the Kwa group of languages have a meeting point. The Yorubas and Idoma separated some six thousand years ago; while the Yoruba and Igalas separated about 2 thousand years ago; two thousand years ago corresponds to the time that the Yoruba dialects: Ekiti, Ijebu, Oyo, Itsekiri, Ilaje, Ikale etc started having distinct dialectical identities. Linguistic studies have indicated that Yorubas in the Eastern Flanks of the Yoruba nation; Ekiti, Yagba, Kabba, Owo, Ijebu, Itsekiri and to some extent the Ifes, speak the most ancient Yoruba dialects. Glottochronological studies have shown that the dialects in the south east are more ancient than those of central Yoruba land and western Yoruba land. The table displays it further still. A table showing east to west ancientness of the Yoruboid languages. ENGLISH ITSEKIRI YORUBA OYO – YORUBA RESPECT OGHO OWO MONEY OGHO OWO LOOK GHO WO SAY GIN WI FORBID GHO( r ) WO( r ) THEM AGHAN AWON The table shows that the Itsekiri dialect retains the more ancient “gh” or “g” guttural sound to the more liquid “w” of the Oyos. If it is taken that the Yoruban ruling class came from Egypt, the southern Yoruba block, particularly the Itsekiri, would have served as an initial stopping point and a secondary course of dispersal. The table displays it further still EGYPTIAN ITSEKIRI-YORUBA OYO-YORUBA ADUMU (Water god) ADUMU (Water god) ADAMU (A god) Kuku (Darkness) Okuku (Darkness) Ouku (Darkness) Dudu (Black Image of Osiris) Dudu (black ) Dudu ( black ) Omi (Water) Omi (Water) Omi (Water) Heket-Re (Frog god) Ekere (Frog) Akere (Frog) Horise (Sky god) Orise (Sky god) Orisa (A god) Hika (Evil) Ika (Evil) Ika (Evil) Shu (Evil god) Eshu (Evil god) Eshu (Evil god) Co-opted from 500 word-word correlation between, Yoruba and Egyptian languages . From the above, it means that the eastern Yoruba blocs such as the Itsekiri, Ilaje, Ijebu and the Owo are more cognate with the Egyptian than those of Oyo or Ife. . The Awujale has testified that the Itsekiri are speaking the original Ijebu dialect. . This is why Bolaji Idowu derived the origin of Oritse to the Itsekiri-Owo axis within the eastern Yoruba kingdoms... It is proper here to state that the word “Orise” is almost cognate with the Egyptian, Horise. Both deities represent very high gods.. Both deities were first water divinities before they became sky or heavenly divinities. Both words are derived from identical etymological origins. Hori(Ori) means head in both places. “Se”, means a source in both places. Thus both words mean a source of creation in both places. This type of linguistic similarity or identity cannot have arisen by mere accident - there was a concrete historical intercourse. The Binis call God Oyisa, a corruption of the eastern Yoruba form. This is certain because the Binis cannot derive the meaning of Oyisa by breaking the word into morphemes as the Yoruba can display, or draw up any identity with ancient Egypt. A SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS OF THE MYTHS 1. Oduduwa – The myth of Oduduwa seems to be valid. Minus the fact that many Yoruba claim descent from Oduduwa, some Urhobos and even Ijaws also claim descent from Oduduwa. 2. Ekaladerhan – This name exists in very little, if at all it exists, in the oral tradition of any of the Bini neighbors. There has been no relevant oral tradition among any of the circumjacent peoples that can recognize Ekaladerhan or identify him as Oduduwa. So, the Ife claim concerning Oduduwa seems to be more tenable. 3. Oduduwa’s descent from heaven – The Ife’s have been totally embarrassed by the invectives thrown on them by the Binis in their I claim that Oduduwa fell from the sky. Yes! It is true. People can fall from the sky as modern interaction between earthmen and those from other planets have authenticated, and this can be displayed both in mythology and in real hardcore science in many parts of the world. The story of Ezekiel in the bible, the story of the Dogon mystic tribe of Mali are cases in point. Then, some Yoruba ancestors would have been some of the Umales (aborigines) using their Umale-Olunas (spaceships) to travel across the universe, as this can still be sighted in Yoruba land today. 4. The huge bodies of water which the Bini and Yoruba mythologies claim their ancestors landed, would have been one of two waters (1) the Atlantic ocean, the home of Umale-Okun at the coastal flanks of Yoruba land , or the Mediterranean which was the biggest body of water known to the ancient Negro Egyptians. BINI AND EASTERN YORUBA HISTORICAL LINKAGES - The Monarchies There are areas where the eastern Yorubas and the Binis have a lot of historical linkages. It is an indisputable fact that the founder of the present Itsekiri dynasty was Ginuwa, the first son of Oba Olua of Benin. The Binis ruled over most parts of Ondo state: Akure and Ode-Ondo, to be more specific. They even established dynasties in some of these places, including Owo. There are a lot of titles that the Eastern Yorubas derived from the Binis. Those titles include: Ologbotsere, Iyatsere, Otsodin, Olisan (Oliha) etc. There are also many areas where the Binis are indebted to the Eastern Yorubas. Many of these have not been given prominence by historians. But the more we delve into History, the more we are convinced of Binis indebtedness to the Yorubas, particularly the Itsekiri-yorubas. Some of this indebtedness are the Bini religious discourse, the conquest of Lagos, the manufacture of salt etc. THE CONQUEST OF LAGOS On face value, the Lagos conquest seemed to have been done by the Binis. Many authorities however, agree that it is the Itsekiri of Warri that served in the Navy that attacked Lagos. The assertion is likely to be true because of the following (1) The Binis are not watermen and could not easily travel on the lagoons to Lagos. (2) The name ‘Olu’ is common among Lagos Obas eg. The Olu of Ikeja, the Olu Eko of Eko (Eleko) etc. The name ‘Olu’ is Itsekiri or Oyo-yoruba and not Edo or Bini (3) The Eyo masquerade attire and dance style is similar to that of Awankere of Warri. It is true that the Eyo masquerade originated in Ijebu, but the attire is purely of Warri origin. This will authenticate a not-too-popular Okere(Warri) legend, that it was the descendants of Ekpen that accompanied Orhogbua (Osogbua) to conquer Lagos. . . Also, the drums used by the Awori people bear striking resemblance to the Itsekiri drums, but bear no resemblance to the Bini drums. In summary, the material culture of the Aworis is far more akin to the Itsekiri than to the Binis. Now hear the authorities: Captain Leonard says; “Of the Jekri (Itsekiri) also there is much more definite, although to a certain extent contradictory evidence. According to one account, they are said to be closely connected with the Yoruba, the Warri kingdom having extended to and embraced Lagos as well as some of the surrounding territories to this day (1906), in fact, Jekri inhabit the strip of country, along the coast from the Benin river westward to Lagos” This might be due to the fact that Itsekiri held most of the trading posts along the coast when Leonard was writing. Captain Leonard in another section of his work says: “And from all accounts, it is more than possible, if not evident that the army of warriors who founded Lagos proceeded in reality from Warri, but doubtless by the command of the king of Benin”. . Corroborating Leonard and Nirven that the Itsekiri aristocracy has at least some politico-economic interests in Lagos, H. Ling Roth says “Such corals as the Binis had, were obtained through Jekri traders either from the Benin River or Lagos”. ORIGIN OF BINI BEADS The Itsekiri have always claimed that beads started with them and that the Binis got their beads from them. Settlements such as Omadino, Inorin, Ureju and Korobe area of the Warri kingdom are the ancient Itsekiri settlements with the bead industry. The people of Ureju and Korobe in Koko claimed to have given Ogboruware (Ewuare), probably a usurper to the Bini throne, beads for the first time. There is a legend among the Korobes, that Ogboruware (Ewuare), had his swelling disease as a result of an affliction placed on him by Korobe, a legendary spiritual woman. Now hear the authorities: H Ling Roth says According to Bold, coral beads, “are the intrinsic treasures of the rich, being held in highest estimation and from their rarity, are only in the hands of a few chiefs, whose avidity for them is immeasurable, the species admired are the pipe beads of various dimensions and are valued at ten large jars of oil an ounce, of the smaller sort, and so on in the proportion for the larger sized”. Mr. Punch informs me that “as a matter of fact, the king of Benin had few, if any of the large coral beads such as Nanna, Dore, Dudu and Jekri chiefs obtained from the merchants in the Benin River. His coral was insignificant pipe agate and was only significant when made up into vests and hats. The Benin value more the agate beads and especially the dull agate was a king’s gift and no one could wear such a necklet unless it was given to him by the king. It was death in fact, to wear it otherwise. The shiny crystalline agate, with white quartz, anyone could wear. Such corals as the Binis had were obtained through Jeiri traders, either from the Benin river or Lagos. The Binis said it was dug up at the back of Benin but everything in the days I am speaking 14 – 15 years ago (from 1898) which was at all mysterious came from the back of Benin . Eve de Negri says, “This coral was first discovered (so it is told) during the fifteenth century in the reign of Oba Ewuare. This type of coral was obtained from a tree, growing on the sandy bank of the Benin River”. PC llyod also commented that Itsekiri legends claim that their ancestors, the Umales, got the blue corals from particular trees that were growing in the Jekri country. from the above quotations, it is evident that the Benin got their beads from the Itsekiri, and the Itsekiri legends that they gave beads to Oba Ogboruware (Eware), has to be positively examined by scientific historians. BINIS LEARNT ABOUT SALT FROM THE ITSEKIRI The Binis are land-bound people and they know very little about salt. Itsekiri legends testify that they gave salt to Binis for the first time The Itsekiri are known as the manufacturers of salt.. Alagoa, H Ling Roth, and Obaro Ikime, agree to this position. H. Ling reports, “According to Roupel’s officials, king Osogbua (Orhogbua) is credited with discovering salt in the Jekiri country”. Pg. 142.H Ling Roth Great Benin It is now factual that Orhogba discovered salt when he came to the Jekiri (Itsekiri) country to seek the assistance of the Itsekiri navy in order to attack Lagos. In 1818 they also sought the assistance of Kaye, an Itsekiri mystic-warrior in order to attack Akure. He was given Ologbo some 25 kilometres south of Benin city. The itsekiri were the major salt producers in the Niger delta area. On this hear Alagoa: “the itsekiri supplied clay pots to to such Ijo communities as the Gbaramatu and Bassan, and and also sold salt to traders from eastern delta who took it up the Niger………Other Ijo exchanged dried fish and salt ,which was manufactured by the Itsekiri ,with the Urhobo ,Isoko and Igbo groups along the periphery of the Niger Delta and along the Lower Niger” (Alagoa 1989:729) WATER RELIGION OF THE BINIS The cult of Olokun (the water religion) of the Binis seems to be purely alien. This is due to the following reasons: (1) the Binis are a land based people. Their main occupations are; farming, hunting and sculpture. So it will be unthinkable for the Binis to have a water religion as a major cult. (2) If a water religion exists among the Binis, and it has become prominent, the Binis might have copied from one of their riverine neighbors (3) these neighbours are the Ijaws, the Itsekiris, the Ilajes, and more distant neighbours being, the Asabas, the Onitshas, the Afenmai or Igala people around the river Niger. The Afenmais and the Igalas seem too distant from Benin to have a good influence on them. The Asabas and the Onitshas, also, seem to be too far away form Benin. Minus that, they don’t seem to have any serious water cult to influence the Binis to have a viable water religion. Thus, the Bini (a land locked people) must have had their water religion from the Ijaws, the Itsekiris or the Ilajes. The Bini religious discourse has nothing to do with the Ijaws. Besides that, the Ijaws that are the immediate neighbours of the Binis did not have any significant civilization. These Ijaw neighbours are the Egbemas, the Arogbos, the Apois–now Yoruba-speaking–the Ogbe-Ijohs, the Isabas, the Gbaramatus, the Ogulaghas, the Oburutus, and the Meins. No significant civilization or kingdom has emerged from these Ijaw clans. E.J Alagoa asserted that most of these Ijaws did not arrive their area by 1500, which is quite recent according to historical chronology. The cases settled in the Supreme Court between the Ijaws and the Itsekiri; place the date of Ijaws coming to these areas at the early 19th century. Now, hear Prof.Alagoa , an Ijaw doyen of history: “Pereira’s record suggests that those Ijo groups now living west of the Forcados and east of the Bonny had not yet arrived at their present territory by 1500”. Thus, it is unthinkable for the Binis to have copied the water religion from the Ijaws. The Itsekiri and the Ilajes receive the likelihoodof having given water religion to the Binis for the following reasons:1)The Binis situate the home of Olokun, the god of the sea, in the Atlantic Ocean. Both the Itsekiris and the Ilajes are in the Atlantic coast. (2) The Bini religious discourse shows a strong Yoruba affinity. The name, Olokun, (Olu Okun) is an eastern Yoruba name that can apply to the Itsekiri as well as Ilajes, as eastern Yoruba dialects. The Binis call God Osa, which is the same word that the Itsekiri call father. The other Bini word for God, Oyise, is clearly corruption of the much older Itsekiri name, Oritse. . In the early days of November 2004 , the Bini Monarch invoked an Ilaje deity, Aiyelala, to recover some property that was stolen from the Oba Market in Benin . This will authenticate the Ilaje story of the Binis coming to Ugbo once every year to serve Umaleokun, the water god of the Ugbo Yoruba H. Ling Roth went further, quoting Burton says: “Similar to other west Africans, the Bini When drinking,the Binis always pour a few drops upon the ground, muttering the while (Mobia, Malaku Mobia (Mobie, Umalokun, Mobie) – Ibeg, O Malaku (Umale-Okun, fetish guardian of lands and waters 1 beg of thee to defend me against all evil, to defeat and destroy all my foes”. This said, a broken bittock of Kola (stercula acuminata) is thrown upon the ground, and is watered with a few drops of palm wine.” Burton Pg. 281. Mobia (Mobie) is however the Jekiri for “1 beg you : 59. It is evident that the Bini religious discourse was, and to some extent is, still infiltrated with Itsekiri and Ilaje. This is most evident in the water religion of the Binis. From the above, we see that some of the most important aspects of the Bini civilization: their bead industry, the cult of Olokun (Olu Okun – King of the sea), their salt industry etc are from the eastern Yoruba land of Itsekiri and to some extent the Ilajes. Apart from this, the Itsekiri warrior, Ikaye, saved the Bini kingdom from being crushed by the Akures. For his settlement Oba Semede gave him Ologbo. Again when there was leadership dispute between Obaseki and Aigwobasinwin, it was an Itsekiri chief, Dore Numa, who restored the Benin monarchy. He also gave them a lot of beads which the Bini aristocracy has not returned till today. It is therefore unthinkable that Ife, where the Yoruba kingship blossomed, would have copied from Benin. This is most evident when we consider the following facts: (I) The name, Oba (the Edo word for king), is copied from the Yorubas, particularly those from Ife (2) the heads of the Obas of Benin were taken to Ife, until very recently. The place where the heads of the Obas of Benin were buried is still called “Orun Oba Ado”, “the heaven of the kings of Benin”. (3) The Binis normally take permission from the Ooni, to crown new kings. There is no recorded history that the Oonis took permission from the Binis before getting crowned (4) The official language in the court of the Oba of Benin until 1934 was Yoruba. There was no time that Bini language was spoken in Ife. The Portuguese and other Europeans who were in the Bini area for more than 500 years (from 1486 when they got to Benin till 1960.)had no knowledge of Oduduwa being a Bini man. So, scientifically speaking, the Ife position seems more tenable than that of the Benin. Oral traditions can be fabricated. So, rigorous history of the 21st century must be purely scientific – even if we recourse to oral tradition, they must face scientific testing and not based on moribund oral tradition. Aspects such as linguistic analysis, archaeological discoveries, cultural practices etc, must come into the forefront when reconstructing the history of preliterate peoples like the Binis and the Ifes. THE EDOS ARE DESCENDED FROM THE IRIGBO OF ODE_ITSEKIRI In one of their accounts, the Edos claim discent from God himself, who they say is the grand father of Iso (Sky) who in turn is the grand father of Idu, ancestor of the Binis. One of the brothers of Idu called. Olukumi (the Yorubas were first called Olukumi, today a tribe called olukumi, speaking a language very similar to Itsekiri-Yoruba, and the legends claim they all descended from Egypt, are to be found in parts of Edo and Delta States) lived with him in Uhe (Ife) before they left to found Benin. Michael Crowder: “The story of Nigeria”, Page 63. The word Olukumi in Itsekiri, means a friend of mine. The word Olukumi, rather than Ore is still used in Ife is evident that Idu and his brothers left to Ile-Ife, after the southward migration of the Yorubas to Ode-Itsekiri and thence to Ile-ife. This is why the story of a watery terrain remains in the tradition of the Binis and the Ifes who are located very far from the Atlantic coast. The vast expanse of water, where the ancestors of the Binis and the find themselves is no other place than the Itsekiri territory of the Atlantic coast. At a time, the powerful Bini kingdom was paying tax to the Olu of Warri when the yoke of imperialism crumbled the once great kingdom of the Guinea. Concerning this issue Michael Crowder says: “With the decline of Ughoton the Benin had to use theports of the Benin river and thus, pay dues to the Olu of Warri in whose territory the ports was located”.17 In conclusion the Itsekiris introduced the following to Benin: salt, beads, and the worship of Umale Okun. The Itsekiri under Dore also helped the Binis to revive their monarchy. CHAPTER 4 WHY BENIN SENT TO IFE; AND NOT TO WARRI One of the major weaknesses which work of scholars on the Ife-Benin relations exhibit is their failure to bring out why the Benin sent to Ife for a ruler; and why it was Ife, and not elsewhere, they sent to. The howness of the matter is not as controversial as its whyness. The political and economic situation in Benin in the period said explains how the request was made. There was confusion in the town, no doubt. The traditional accounts of Oranmiyan’s coming are emphatic. That the people of Benin revolted against Evian’s attempt to introduce his son as a ruler of Benin. One well-known tradition records that Benin sent ambassadors to Ile-Ife…..” (Stride and Ifeka: 1971:90:91) When the monarchical system changed to a republican one, some Binis were not happy. When it became controversial, those who were pro status-quo quickly reacted along their own line. One Yoruba tradition, which is incidentally corroborated by Benin tradition, has it that Oduduwa….. sent out a son to rule over Benin. According to Benin tradition, the Benin had sent to Ife for a prince of royal blood to become king of Benin …(TAO and SNN: 1980:94) Another historian captured the situation that decided Benin to look for a king in the same, but clearer way. Owodo, the last of the Ogiso rulers was banished for his high-handedness and poor administration. The people decided to ask him to quit the Kingdom after he had ordered the execution of a pregnant woman. Consequently, there existed an interregnum during which the people changed their system of government from monarchy to a republican form. (Ojelabi Adekunle 1970: 55) The condition established a vacuum which needed to be filled immediately. And when the man that filled the vacuum misbehaved to a greater extent than Owodo, the need for a better ruler, became a matter of course. Evian was the first republican leader. He was the most important man during the reign of Owodo…. After a long rule he nominated his son, Ogiamwen (like Oliver Cromwell of the 17th century England) as his successor. The people rejected his nominee as a contradiction of a republican practice where succession is not strictly hereditary, but determined by election. Consequently, the people requested Oduduwa of Ife to send them a wise prince as their ruler. Prince Oranmiyan was eventually sent…. (Ojelabi Ibid.) Many (if not all) historians cling to the view above explained as the hollow or holocaust in Benin political life that made the people need a new ruler, from a new place. It is the real historical perspective of this history. When a professional historian, Dr. J.E Ireyefoju remarked in 1983 that the political holocaust in Benin needed to be remedied with a positive innovation that surpassed what the Benin could invent, he was nodding to the above views. Another school of thought on this matter is the political scientists’ axis. The Benin had to ally with a more stable government. A politically weak people must ally with other weak or strong powers in order not to be stifled by strong powers or a combination of weak ones. Benin was weak in a place where people were strong. Among these strong peoples were Ife, Bornu, Jukun, and Warri (then under the Olurigbo of Irigbo). Benin was a centralized kingdom and her central tendency reinforced these spirit of political alliance to send to a stronger people for a prince to rule is an invitation for a leverage of power. The weak cannot do much about the critical aspect of their weakness without combining their strength …. Being so weak in a world of power, it desperately need some leverage of power which now it can only get by combining with other in similar circumstances. (Clande Ake: 1992:96). SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INTERNAL POLITICAL CRISIS ON THE LIFE OF THE BENIN PEOPLE. The problem of tyranny of Owodo was a threat to the life and survival of Benin. That of Evian, which was simply the problem from the urge of ambition, was a greater threat. Each threat was accompanied by security arrangement. These arrangements were hindered by the relationship between their latent inhibitions and manifest inhibitions. These threats, many and from the same quarter, stood as a trial to develop or in the words of a spiritualist, a period of cleansing; they occurred to articulate strength in Benin to march other forces of the forest, force for force, and to nip the vulnerability that will result from lack of alliance. The call of Benin for a king from afar suggests her weakness - in a place where others were not weak. PROBABLE AND REAL PROBLEMS OF BENIN IN THE PRE- 1170 DAYS 1) The enclave nature of Benin and her natives. 2) Attempts to change hands in traditional division of labour were abysmal failures. 3) Vastly different views on government. 4) The indication that some chiefdoms were trying to break away e.g. Onogie of Ego 5) Collective government security was not collective as the people were not of the same political ideology. When Evian nominated Ogiamwen, independently of collective opinion, the masses, who felt bereft of stake, withdrew their pseudopodia. 6) Pursuance of political stability and economic buoyancy was done with confused interests and foci. 7) Divergence of political ideology had the role of alienating further and further away the rulers from the ruled. When Oranmiyan was called in by the masses, the tough time he faced from the aristocracy was a result of this alienation of the ruled from the ruler as well as their cherished inter- contradiction and counter-contradiction. 8) Failures of Benin leaders to see the problem of Benin as economic problem. Over concentration on the political aspect of the crisis in Benin made the early reformers to lose a good 50% of the game. 9) The problem of water shortage in Benin which is older than her origin. 10) Substitution of government ideological system also played its role as the abandonment of monarchy for rude Republicanism and of rude Republicanism to Monarchy created a make-and-break contact effect of two hot classes of political activities whose creed confronted one another with incensed vigour. 11) The crave to get to the sea for salt, bead, fish etc. under the control of Warri WHY THE BINIS LOOKED OUTWARD FOR A RULER 1) The early lgodomigodos were wicked, not only Owodo. 2) Attempt at reformation from within failed i.e. the experiment on republicanism. 3) Republicanism did not only fail the Binis, but reverted them to Monarchy. 4) The new king appointed by Evian was not only weak, but also, uncorrective. 5) Some people supported the new king while others did not. In midst of the composite complexity that followed, wars were fought and blood, shed. As the weak who were left exposed to the mercy of the strong with no authority intervention, these weak, who were in majority, looked outwards for a ruler in a “save our soul manner”. WHY THE EDOS CALLED IN THE AID OF IFE. It remains to relate the problems of Benin to Benin having to search outside, as where the ideal king would come from. That Oduduwa of Ife was a Benin prince who was spared by the executioner (Ikaladehan factor) is not sound enough in the age of scientific historicity. The view among some Yorubas that the era of Oranmiyan in Benin signalled a kind of Yoruba conquest is not objective enough; if so, the argument and experience of Oranmiyan in an Ife-conquered territory were not strong enough to have inspired his line of action. The following reasons have been suggested:- 1. The Kalori (Kanuri) state of Bornu was too distant. 2. The Hausa city states that started with the history of Bayajidda about 1000 to 1200 AD was too far, too. 3. A state of close proximity to Benin was the Warri kingdom (then Iwere Kingdom). But this was far too waterian for the Edo who are inland people. 4. Kano was strong, but too strong to the liking of the Binis, who feared the Kano tradition which says that “the Abagayawa were conquered about 999 A.D by Bagoda, grandson of Bayajidda … At that time, Kano was a little more than a village, but under Habe ruler it began to increase in size and power. Defensive walls were finally completed in the reign of Yusa… who also armed his warriors with shields of tough hides. This improvement in the art of war and Kano’s ability to protect people of the surrounding countryside enabled Sarki Naguji to impose upon them an annual land tax of one-eight of each man’s produce….” (Stride/Ifeka: 1971:90). 5. Ife was an established example of Monarchy – in fact, Ife’s monarchical system was the highest and most enviable in the forest belt of Nigeria. It was better organized; it was rich; it was stable and it was non-aggressive. The wisdom of the Edos in preferring a ruler from Ife to those from other places, like Kano or Bornu, was demonstrated when, Oranmiyan peacefully and quietly abdicated rather than forcing the Edos to “dance well” The above, among others, are why it was Ife (and Ife alone) the Binis chose for the supply of a ruler. RECENT EVENTS IN NIGERIA THAT ALLY WITH THE BINI DECISION 1. The INC war on the Warri Kingdom of 1997 to 2004 is an excellent demonstration of this fact. When the defenseless Itsekiri realized that the INC war was a joint venture of the Ijaws and successive Delta State governments and in face of Federal Government indifference, they longed for the “Good, Old days” of the colonial masters. The Itsekiri knew that to be colonized is a bitter experience, but felt that to have some 10 houses and 10 men burnt a day by men in government military uniform, and armed with government military arms, and being arrested by men in the same type of uniforms for defending with sticks and bottles (for eight years), is worse than to be colonized. Why the Itsekiri failed to send for the Urhobo, the Ijaws, or the Ukwanis for a relief is simply why the Binis left the Binis, the Ishans, the Afemais, the Ora etc and sent to Ile-Ife (for a ruler). 2. The Ijaw-Ilaje encounter of 1998 also helps to clear the mystery behind the Binis decision for the choice of a king from afar. The Ilajes and the Ijaws ate and drank together as friends on the eve of September 19, 1998 before the mysterious attack of the INC on the 19th of September. A save-our-soul message to the then Ondo State Government was not headed; that to the Federal Government was unavailing as these only produced the effects of sending further and farther away, government protection. When no intervention came from Government, the Ijaws, who became too free and over-daring, achieved a feat in the history of war against the Ilajes, called “Callida Junctura” – skillful connection. They were dressed in Government military uniforms and armed with Army and Navy guns. War boats were even used in the efforts to encircle and kill more. Blockaded towards the north, many Ilajes were killed; to the west was not safe as the commandos boasted at the battle of Obenla that Araromi was to be the next target; in the east, the commandos were already at work and many lives were lost as Atkin’s effort of defense was no match to the machine guns and grenades displayed by the INC forces. Attempt at getting to Orere through the Atlantic, and from there to Sapele was foiled by General Nature as the refuge-seeking Ilajes had their boat capsized by the Atlantic waves, which at this time of the year, was deadly. When on the 20th of October, 1998, some 80 refugees arrived Sapele, they got cups of water and, wiping away tears from their faces said: “This is no government, I beg. The pre-independence Nigerian government is better than self rule!” Thus, it is seen that a people can send to anywhere for a relief, and not minding the consequences, if the aim is to avoid a graver consequence. And the contested Benin plea for the rule of Ife is an instance of this psychological fact. BENIN AND ALLIANCE: SURVIVAL AND EMPIRE BUILDING In view of available traditions and records, Benin as a state that was bounded by enemies had to engage in a network of alliances in a bid to keep heads above waters. Most of the alliances which the rulers of Benin entered into at different times of its existence show that the Benin-Ife alliance did not occur like a lightening flash from a clear sky. Alliances and “Osmotic flow of Power” were the usual resorts of the rulers of Benin whenever the going got grounded. The first known alliance of the kingdom of Benin with a foreign power was that with Ife; the result of which was the absence of military encounters between the two powers for more than a century. The second diplomatic and ambassadorial relation of Benin with outside power was that between Benin and the Warri Kingdom. Though the Olurigbo, Feromi, then, did not invite a ruler from Benin, yet the Benin decided to send one. This is because the Benin diplomatic articulation suggested that in order to enjoy the salt, Beads and the pyramid-building technology of the Iwere Kingdom, there was a need to “colonize” her by making her to be crowned in this waterian kingdom, a prince of Benin descent. Ginuwa was sent by Oba Olua (1480). The net result of this action was that from this time to one hundred years, Warri was to a large extent, controlled by Benin. The third known alliance of Benin was with Portugal. When John Afonso of Portugal implored Oba Esigie to forsake heresies, gross idolatry and fetishism and to embrace Christianity, he refused and when Duarte Pacheco advised the Oba to leave the manner of life of these full of abuses, fetishism and idolatry, he said “no”. But in 1514 Benin saw the need for a union with Portugal through these missionaries. Then the Idah war was being proposed and the need to secure the Portuguese had dramatically changed Esigie’s mind – this time almost begging. But in 1514 the same Oba of Benin who had earlier given no favourable response to John’s call, then called for missionaries. The need for this is understandable, for the Oba hoped that by this means, he could acquire fire arms from the Portuguese; for the same envoys were also instructed to ask for fire arms. (Abiola: 1912: 49) The fourth alliance of Benin, by chronology, was with the Olu of Warri. Resulting from this alliance, Warri army and navy men were injected into the military command with a Benin generalissimo which unleashed terror on the Aworis “who were the main inhabitants of the island”. Oba Orogbua (1550 – 1578) allied with and called in the aid of the Iweres as the Binis of Benin were inland people who, on their own, couldn’t have been able to successfully travel along the coast to Lagos. Another one is this. In 1818 Kaye was donated by the “Olu Erejuwa II” following an alliance between him and the Oba of Benin (Semede) to lead the Benin invasion of Akure. A clause of the compact was that on the successful completion of the assignment, the land in and around Ologbo would be given to Kaye. The mission was successfully undertaken and Ologbo was given to Kaye as promised. Kaye, who had stationed his men in the “promised land,” and stayed away in Warri, was further begged to pack and personally dwell in the land as a bulwark against the tendency in Akure to wage a war of revenge. And to make this operational, the Ologbo boundary with Benin was pushed further north – to the present day Obayanto! This defeat of Akure by Kaye and the subsequent employment of same to ward off the Akures and the use of the Ologbo land by the Oba as compensation is the only reason why Ologbo – Kolokolo, Ajamogha, Ajoki ete – are in Edo state today. CHAPTER FIVE THE YORUBAN PARA EMPIRE The greatest achievement of the Yorubas is the survival of their culture – language, religion, dress modes, manners etc – outside the present Yoruba homelands. There is a new type of empire, where the Yoruba have colonized the Diaspora with Yorubic culture. No other ethnic group in the history of Africa has had the amount of success that the Yorubas have had in colonizing the New World. Many people think that all the present Yoruba culture in the new world was taken there as a result of the slave trade. This might not be true; however, as Yoruba traditions relate the conquest of the new world. There are various gods, tradition, and dress modes etc, which link the present Yoruba people with the cultures of Egypt. In classical times, 610BC, Pharaoh Necho, the Phoenician Pharaoh commissioned his men, the Phoenicians, to circumnavigate Africa. About 100 kilometers from the sea, from the Bight of Benin, where the eastern Yoruba kingdoms lay,they saw a civilization that was lofty: that had cloth weaving and iron mining technology, among others. The position of this lofty civilization tallied well with that of present Yoruba land. The Yoruba talk of a civilization of the umales (Omales) or aborigines who use mysterious crafts to travel to the other end of the Atlantic. These legends might be true because the civilizations of the Americas accept, in their tradition ,that their people migrated from the Guinea coast. According to Mokwugo Okoye, :“On the other hand, there is evidence that 4000 years before the Christian era – that is, more than a thousand years earlier than China’s recorded down of civilization – Egypt under her king Menes, had reached a height in the arts of architecture, pottery, engineering, sculpture, music, literature, science and painting, that is baffling to the most fastidious eyes; and many archaeologists believe, judging from the idols, sculpture, pyramidal buildings and other relics, that the highly cultured Aztecs of Mexico, as well as other aboriginal American tribes, came form Egypt. , Columbus had told him that they had come from the Guinea coast, and the Mexican Riva Palacio wrote in 1887 that “it is indisputable that in very ancient time ….. The Negro race occupied our territory when the two continents were joined. This race brought its own religious cults and ideals”. Since the Yorubas are the people in Africa, whose religion has influenced the new world most, it is not difficult or far-fetched to suppose that the Yorubic religion in predynastic times must have influenced the continent of America. Even within the present Nigerian shores, the Yorubic culture and sculpture have spread more than that of any other ethnic group. The Binis learnt brass smithing from the Yoruba. The fourth Oba in the Oranmiyan dynasty sent for a brass-mith, and Iguegha, was sent to Benin. This Ife technology through the Binis spread to many places: the Urhobos, parts of the Ijaws, the Obah people, some Igbos etc have brass which were given to them by the Bini monarch whose technology ultimately came from Ife. Till today, Ogun, Olokun, Esu and Ifa, which came from Yoruba, are the major deities in Benin and among most Niger Delta peoples Roth mentioned that in 1776 the people of Warri claimed that they had 67 kings already. According to his calculations, that will take the Warri monarchy to BC 30. This will place warri as one of the most ancient Yoruba kingdoms It is this religious civilization as sublime sculpture that Frebonius saw, and felt that Yoruba must be the lost Atlantis, that was the link between Egypt and the indigenous American civilizations. The story of Atlantis was first popularized by Plato, who heard it from Socrates; Socrates heard it from Solon, who heard it, for the first time, from the priests of Sais, from the temples of Upper Egypt. Frebonius, paraphrasing Solon, and believing that Solon’s Atlantis referred to Yoruba says: “Solon’s story in Greek, then says that Atlantis is the island in the tropics where all the tropical plants flourish and elephants gambol, where brass is smelted and the houses are strange; an island which in the beginning, by the cast of die, fell as his share of the earth to Poseidon, who colonized it with the seed of his loins, (Frebonius 1903: 347). Among the South East Yoruba – the Itsekiri, Ilajes and water side Ijebus – many of the people claim to be descended from the Atlanteans, Olero, who was said to be an Atlantean living originally at the river Ramos, is now a deity among the Isekiris and the Ilajes. Inorin people in Warri claim descent from Ogude, the son of Umale Okun, the African Poseidon. The people of Ugborodo claim descent from Ise , a descendant of the priestess of Iset.. Thus, the conjectures of Frebonius are correct as most South-East Yoruba claim descent from Umale-Okun, the African Poseidon. It is likely, therefore, that these predynastic Yorubas migrated to form the American civilizations. Hear the authorities. “ Negroid skulls and skeletons have also been found throughout the New World. Polish professor Andrzej Wiercinski has revealed the discovery of African skulls at Olmec sites in Tlatilco, Cerro de las Mesas and Monte Alban. Furthermore, very ancient African skeletons have been unearth in California, Mexico, Central and South America.” There are are other authorities who witnessed the presence of blacks in America before Columbus. “The best evidence of the Black presence in America before Columbus comes from the pen of the "great discoverer" himself. In his Journal of the Second Voyage, Columbus reported that when he reached Haiti the Native Americans told him that black-skinned people had come from the south and southeast in boats, trading in gold-tipped medal spears. At least a dozen other European explorers, including Vasco Nunez de Balboa, also reported seeing or hearing of "Negroes" when they reached the New World.” (Before Columbus: Black Explorers of the New World By Legrand H. Clegg II 10-20-3) From Solon’s description, therefore, Atlantis would have been a wide area stretching from the Rivers Ramos and Dodo, to the vicinity of Accra (Ga-Adangme) in modern Ghana. In this region, we find people who are islanders: Itsekiri, Ilaje, Ijebu, Awori, Egun, Fon, Aja etc, and are Yorubas. Brass -casting is also common among these people; and it became perfected in the brass casting traditions of Ife. Among the Ekitis, Owos, Akokos etc, there was brass casting tradition and even iron mining tradition that seemed to have predated Ife’s. The archaeological find at Oke-Eri in Ijebu (South-East Yorubaland)is purported to have been that of the queen of Sheba. This means the lofty civilization must have been as old as the days of King Solomon, and has lent more credence to the fact that Yoruba might likely be Atlantis.Thus, Yoruba might be the link between Egyptian civilization and the civilization of the aborigines of America. This religious civilization took place in the dim past. In the slave trade era, the Yoruba civilization has become the most significant in the new world. In Brazil, in Haiti, in Trinidad and Tobago, in Cuba, in Jamaica, in all the islands of the Caribbean, and even in the United States and Canada, the Yorubic culture has been the most important and most significant African culture. In places like Cuba, Brazil and Haiti, the Yorubic spirituality has proved to be superior to,and more enduring than, even the Roman Catholic religion. THE GREAT EXODUS Before the nineteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade was the period with the highest human movement in world history. Concalves and Nuno Tristan took the first slaves from Senegal in 1441. The place they collected their slave along the coast of Senegal was called Rio De Oro. In the sixteen century, most of the people taken as slaves came from Senegalese coast.By 1472, the Portuguese had reached Elmina in present day Ghana. For reasons we cannot yet understand, the Portuguese slavers did not make any significant stop between Ghana and the Lagos area. A likely reason may be that the kingdoms of Ewe, Allada, Dahomey and Lagos had not been established then. By 1472, the Portuguese under Fernao Gomez reached the Benin, Escravos and Forcados rivers. By December 1479, two Portuguese caravels commanded by Fernando Po sailed for the Escravos River, obtained slaves and proceeded to Elmina territory (J.O.E Sagay 1982: 8; also mentioned in Blake.) Conton reported that these slaves reached Elmina by1480 . Talbot tells us that five leagues up the Forcados (Huela) Ijala, was a place of Barter. They traded in slaves, cotton, beads, elephant tusks etc. This town was identified as Ijala by William Moore and Professor E.J. Alagoa (Talbot Pg. 319) .By 1522, the centre of trade has shifted from Ijala in Warri township to Ode-Itsekiri, about 3 kilometres away. The capital of the emerging Itsekiri kingdom that was merging the city states: Ureju, Tebu, Ugborodo, Omadino, Inorin etc had started becoming areas of barter. Cowries were fast becoming the commodity of trade. 910 cowries =1 goat, 40 cowries was equivalent to 1 hen (AFC Ryder) By 1530, Debry records that ‘before at the mouth of the Forcado, there lieth an island and the river is so indifferent great that a man may well know it. This river is much used to be entered into by the Portuguese and it is well knowne not because of any great commoddittee that is there in to be had, but because of the great number of slaves which are brought in there, to carry to other places as to Saint Thomas (Sao Thome) and Brasilia (Brazil) to labour there and to refine sugar.” There is no doubt that the Portuguese were dealing with the Itsekiri section of the Yoruba at river Forcados. By 1668 Urbanus Cerri, brought the link between the words “Forcados” and “Warri.” Hear him “About 24 miles (Dutch) to the east of the Benin River, there flows into the sea, a river which is called Rio Forcado by the Portuguese. Anwerre (Warri) or as to is otherwise called Forcado.” The first crop of slaves between the years 1500-1600 from the Nigerian coast seem to have been taken from The Benin, Escravos and the Forcados Rivers. Concerning this trade Conton says: “If the coast of modern Ghana was famous in the sixteenth century for the gold it produced, that of modern Nigeria had the much less happy reputation of being the most profitable source of slaves of any section of the West African coast. The Rio dos Esclavos to which I have already mentioned (page 90) was the centre of this trade, but there must have been very many places in this region where an unscrupulous European trader could fill his holds with slaves, in exchange for the familiar cheap European commodities which somewhere else along the coast he was more likely to trade for ivory or gold. We know that, between 1530 and 1660, 900,000 slaves were shipped across the Atlantic by the Portuguese alone. When you take into account the slave trade by other nations and in other years, the total transported towards the new world from West Africa (between 1500 and 1864) is reckoned to have been about 20,000,000. Indeed, as early as 1600, there were almost certainly more negroes in the West Indies than natives, and even today, the magnitude of the population of the state of Bahia in the republic of Brazil are of negro descent and retain strong traces of Yoruba culture (Conton ibid 103) The major question to the asked now is ‘Who were the slaves that were transported from the Benin, Escravos and the Forcados rivers between 1500 and 1600, when about 900,000 people were carted away from the area?’ The Itsekiri were actually in charge at these rivers, and the only recognizable kingdom from the Benin to the Ramos and Dodo rivers was the kingdom of Warri. The Warri people (Itsekiri) made brisk business selling some commodities - slaves, cloth, beads etc - to the Portuguese. Many of their slaves were from the neighboring Urhobo Firstly, the Urhobo were the weakest e ethnic group in the western delta. On this hear Ikime “The Urhobos could not organize raids against any of their neighbors ------- The urhobos were forced to look among themselves for slaves “(Obaro Ikime in Warri crises in diagrams 1998 same authors). These neighbours were the Binis to the north, who were more organized and their Oba, a god-man terrorized the neighborhood. The Itsekiri to their west were more organized and they had their king a god man also, coupled with the fact that they had contact with the white men and were in possession of fire arms. The people of Aboh were in contact with the eastern Delta and so they also possessed fire arms which the Urhobos at that time could not afford. The Ijaws were moving all over the coast, but their main home was east of the river Ramos. They were dreaded water men whom people were afraid to raid. Thus, the Urhobos were the major people to be sold as slaves in the Benin, Escravos and Forcados Rivers, and minus the possible exception of the Igbos, the Urhobos were also, the major ethnic group to be sold to the Portuguese in the eastern delta, since many slaves captured by the Abohs were of Urhobo extraction. And they were promptly sold to the people of the eastern delta, via the ports of Nembe, kalabari and Bonny(1682AD) . Secondly, they were not very smart. On their low life style, Captain Leonard says “To the north of the Jekris are the Urhobos and to the eastward are the Igabo … shy and timid no doubt, but also treacherous and rude (Leonard: Lower Niger and Its tribes) hear Ling Roth more: “Among the Jekris domestic slavery is in existence, most of the slaves being bought from the neighboring Sobo tribe. The value of a full grown man is about 10 pounds … The Sobo do not keep slaves, but they are kept as such by the Benin and Itsekiri people.” (Warri crisis in Diagrams: 1997, quoting H. Ling Roth). Elizabeth says “Warri, accessible by the Forcados river , was an itsekiri state, which drew most of its slaves largely from Urhoboland ,and to a lesser extent from the Kwale Igbo.”(1978:116) The Urhobo slaves might be among those that took some aspects of the Yoruban culture to the new world. Since they are quite acquainted with the Itsekiri Yoruba, they must have carried the Itsekiri language to the new world which at then was known as Olukumi(Lukumi).this is to show the immortal nature of the Yoruba culture as many Urhobos still practisa a lot of Yoruba culture the learnt from the Itsekiri. Now hear Manfredi on the connection between Lukumi and itsekiri. “…lingua eorum est facilis, vocatur lingua Licomin et est universalis in istis partibus, sicut latinum in partibus Europa”(Brásio 1960, 465, cf. Thornton 1988, 362 fn. 34). The locations included the ⁄jíbu (“Jabou”), WÅró (“Ouairai”) and ◊d£ (“Benin”) kingdoms. digitized in the British Library (http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive It will help to check Thomas’ sample for any similarities between the southern Nigerian variety and Cuban Lucumí which exclude Yor∞bÄ dialects sensu stricto—confirming a horizontal transmission model. Lucumí would be expected to show more similarities to the language presently called Is…êkiri (“Itshekiri”). As a possible case in point, I’m anecdotally informed that the expression oluku mi (colloquially, ‘my tight friend’) is current an Is…êkiri greeting. PHILOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE SOUTHEASTERN NIGERIAN DIASPORA Victor Manfredi African Studies Center, Boston University Thus it is possible that proving from aphilological point of view vast numbrs of Urhobos nust have helped to spread the itsekiri language in the Diaspora Despite the high population of the Urhobos sold during the slave trade, there is no evidence of their culture and their tradition Overseas. It wasn’t only the Urhobos that were sold away in large numbers. Many other ethnic groups were also carted away in volume and sold at the Bights of Benin and Biafra. The Ibos and the Ibibios were taken in very high numbers, and sold at the ports of the Niger Delta: Nembe, Kalabari, Bonny – and at Old Calabar. Only trickles of their traditions can be seen in the New World unlike the Yorubas that have established their culture Overseas. The Igbos, for instance, were taken in much higher quantity than the Yorubas. On the annual rate at which the Ibos were sold hear Conton: “The annual rate at which Ibo were being sold into slavery by 1600 has been estimated at 18,000. For reason we do not fully understand their culture did not survive transatlantic transportation as well as that of the Yoruba. (Conton ibid). Why does the Yorubic culture survive in the New World, while those of others do not? By the sixteenth century, the Senegambian axis supplied most of the slaves to Brazil. In the 18th century, most of the slaves were from the Gold Coast. The tables below show the distribution of the percentage of slaves carried by regions in Africa. Region 1711.20 1721.30 1731.40 1741.50 1751.60 1761.70 Senegambia % - 16.5% 22,500 10.0% 26,200 8.2% 25,000 7.4 22.500 7.6 21.400 5.5 Sierra Leone % 5,900 3.2 15,000 6.7 14,900 4.7 18,400 5.4 9,900 3.4 5,300 1.4 Wind ward coast % 30,600 16.4 47,600 21.2 55,200 17.3 65,300 19.3 29,800 10.1 67,600 17.4 Bight of Benin % 72,500 38.8 48,400 21.6 59,400 18.6 30,900 9.1 35,600 12.1 48,400 12.5 Gold Coast % 44,000 23.5 54,200 24.2 65,200 20.5 67,000 19.8 41,800 14.2 52,400 13.5 Bight of Biafra % - - 4,500 2.0 45,100 14.2 71,300 21.1 100,700 34.1 139,300 35.9 Central and South East Africa % 3,200 1.7 32,000 14.3 52,500 16.5 60,200 17.8 34,600 18.5 53,200 13.7 Total % 187,000 100.0 214.200 100.0 318,500 100.0 388.100 100.0 295.000 100.0 387,700 100.0 Souce: 329 history of west Africa ed. By Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder :1972 Region 1771.80 1821.90 1791.1800 1801.10 Total Senegambia % 17,700 6.0 20,300 3.1 4,400 1.1 800 0.3 191,700 5.8 Sierra Leone % 3,700 1.3 17,7 3.0 12,200 3.2 9,600 3.6 112,600 3.4 Wind ward coast % 49,700 16.9 24,400 4.1 14,700 3.8 11,200 4.2 396,100 12.1 Gold Coast % 38,700 13.2 59,900 10.1 29,400 7.7 22,100 8.3 474,700 Bight of Benin % 41,400 14.1 120,400 20.3 15,100 3.9 5,300 2.0 477,400 14.5 Bight of Biafra % 100,000 34.0 114,800 19.4 137,600 35.9 110,400 41.5 823,700 25.1 Control and South East Africa % 42,900 14.6 234,400 39.6 170,400 44.4 106,700 40.1 810,100 27.7 Total % 294,000 100.0 591,500 100.0 383,800 100.0 266,000 100.0 3,286,100 100.0 Source: 329 history of west Africa ed. By Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder: 1972 From tables 1 and 2, we see that far more slaves were taken from the Bight of Biafra, than from the Bight of Benin. The Bight of Biafra corresponds to Niger Delta Great ports – Nembe, Kalabari, Bonny, Calabar and ports of the Southern Cameroon. The single largest ethnic group taken as slaves here was the Ibos, totaling about 80% of all the slaves from this region. The Bight of Benin refers to the Volta region to the present area of Benin River in Delta State. In this region, the popular ports were the ports of the Gas, the Ewes, the Dahomians and those of Lagos and Badagri; others were the Gwato ports of Benin, Escravos and that of Warri. There is no doubt that the largest number of slaves taken from this region was the Yoruba, but they did not constitute as high as 80% of all the slaves taken from this region. Figure of about 60% will be more like it. This is because most of those taken from the Volta region were non-Yoruba, and those from the Warri kingdom – Escravos, Forcados and Benin Rivers - were Urhobos. The slaves taken from the Gold coast, Wind Ward coast and Central and South east Africa were, by far, more than those taken from the Bight of Benin, where the Yorubas lay. If the slaves from the windward coast were different peoples, the peoples in South-east Africa and central Africa are predominantly Zulus and Bantus. And those from the Gold Coast were Ashanti, Fanti, Twi, all Akan-speaking peoples. Why were the cultures such as the Akan, Igbo, Zulu and Bantu not able to “colonize” the New World the way the Yoruba’s has? We will attempt some answers. SURVIVING THE ODDS There are many reasons why the Yorubic culture endures Overseas. The most important reason is that the Yoruba cosmology is about the most developed on the African continent. This cosmology is the core of the Yoruban kingdoms and city-states .Some of these states are thousand of years old before the slave trade. Some of these ancient kingdoms or city-states were Esun, headed by Elesun, Olu of Esun, who was overthrown by the dynasty of Ewi that rules till this present day. Alarun ruled the Ogotun area. Oluagbon ruled Igbon. Olusodu ruled Isodu before the rise of Olugotun dynasty. It was even agreed that Ogun overthrew an even earlier dynasty in Ire. The people of Akure claimed an earlier dynasty that predated the present Dejis. About 20 kilometres off Akure are to be found some ancient city-states – Oba, Ibule, Ipoju, Ilara, Ikota, Ijare, Iju, Ita-Ogbolu, Igboba, Ero, Isarun Igbara-Oke, Isola, and Isikan etc. And this authenticates the findings that Itsekiri states like Omadino, Ugborodo, Gbolokposo, Inorin, Irigbo, and Efurokpe developed long before the present Ginuwa dynasty. In fact, the coronation ritual at Warri gives pre-eminence to the Irigbos who performed special functions – such as naming the king and swearing him in. In the Ondo and Itsekiri area, predominant female chiefs and descents that were both patrilineal and even more so, matrilineal, ,characterized these city-states. Thus, the early kings of Itsekiri, Ginuwa, Ijijen and Irame had to marry the aboriginal women to legitimize their rule and have a matrilineal claim to the throne. It was this long period of state-building, woven round a religious cosmology that had made the Yorubic religion matured as to survive in an alien land. Secondly, the Yoruba adopted religious syncretism. They were able to ascribe the qualities of African deities to the Caucasian ones – especially the Roman Catholics’. When the Yorubas got to the New World, they were told not to practice their religion. They had masqued the worship of yoruban deities and archetypes (orishas) behind the Roman Catholic Saints. Ogun, the patron god of drivers, was associated with St. Christopher. He was also identified as Michael, the warrior. St. Babara was a veil for the Obatala worship, as both are patrons of artists, Elegua (Elegue of Itsekiri) was synthesized with St. Anthony and St. Jude, the warrior saints. And more importantly, they were able to reconcile the personality of Olodumare (the Yoruban Supreme Being) with the God of the Roman Catholics. This is one thing, which the other African peoples could not do in the face of the slave trade and its attendant persecutions. Thirdly, the Yorubic culture did not go to America by slave trade alone. Some aspects of Yoruban culture traveled overseas by trade, a result of the vibrant Yoruba economy and exposure! In places like Portugal, the Itsekiri word Cambo (Okra) spread. And it was this, the French corrupted as ‘gombo’ in their language. Okra is native to Africa and it is a fact that the name was copied from the Itsekiri during the slave trade. On the way the native soap of the Yoruba influenced the Portuguese, the late chief barrister Rewane says “the native soap was said to be popular in Portugal at a time, so that government had to legislate because of the keen competition Portuguese industries faced from their locally made soap” (Rewane royalty Magazine 1987) Again, the Yorubas have open minds. In today’s Nigeria, they are one of the few ethnic groups that can marry Christianity, Islam and their pristine traditional religion without clash... With all the clashes taking place as a result of religion in Nigeria, the Yoruban liberality outstands. With this liberalism, the Yoruban slaves were able to blend Catholicism with African and Indian religions to form a new brand of voodoo in Cuba and Haiti. Also, the Yorubic religion and culture endured because they were revolting against the religion of their slave masters. The religion offered psychological relief and succour to a depressed people. Many aspects of Yorubic culture spread Overseas. The Yoruba food items in Yoruba are “akara” called “acaraje”, in ‘Brazil’ ‘makeke’, called ‘mocoto’ and ‘mequeca’, and these food items are prepared in similar ways across the Atlantic. (Conton 121). Conton also noticed that there was a priestess of Shango in Salvador in the capacity of Shayin Itongbe of Tebu(Warri), Nigeria (2004). He mentioned the survival of the Egungun cult in Ithaparica across the bay from Bahia. Conton got most of his research materials from professor E.L. Lasibikan, a Yoruba, a staff of the University of Bahia’s centre de Estudos-Afro-Orientalis. This Yoruban religion is called Candomble Nago in Brazil; it is called Lucumi in Cuba. In the USA, Oyotunji village in Beaufort, South Carolina DOYA CD ascendant of Yoruba in America foundation in Cleaveland, Ile Ori Ifa – Temple in Atlanta C.A. and African Paradise in Griffin where places where Yoruba religions are still practiced. In Haiti, Trinidad, Tobago, and in many islands of the Caribbean, the Yoruba religion is well practiced. In fact, the religion of the Yoruba ‘empire’ in the New World is proving to become a world religion. CHAPTER SIX ODUDUWA: EVOLUTION OF NIGER – DELTA CIVILIZATION We are looking critically into how the Oduduwa culture penetrated the Niger Delta area. Oduduwa and his legion of followers formed the Yoruba ruling class. The Dynasty of Oduduwa spread to Benin. Through Benin, most of the western Igbo areas had the Oduduwan civilization in the form of kingship and the establishment of religion. Even some eastern Igbo areas – Onitsha, Oguta, etc - benefited from the Oduduwan Monarchical Revolution. (Oshomha Imoagene 1990, and JFA Ajayi and Michael Crowder, 1971). The Oduduwan revolution spread to most parts of Benin republic among the Yorubas, Ajas and to Togo; among the Yorubas and Ewes, and even among the Ga Adangmes of Ghana. All these people claim their dynasties derive either from Oyo or Ife. The Oyo or the Ife dynasties were Yorubas. The Oduduwa revolution spread to Sierra Leone, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Jamaica etc. One can argue that this was as a result of the ignoble slave trade. We hold a different view, however. First, there are historical evidences to show that coastal Yoruba such as the Itsekiri who Alagoa referred to as “religious innovations in several of these places” traveled to South America where they influenced the civilization of the Inca the Maya and the Aztec. Second, even the Yoruba, who went there as slaves, had a very noble culture. The Yoruba are not the only people bought as slaves to the Americas. Some ethnic groups were sold in greater numbers than the Yoruba. Since the Yoruba could spread their culture even as slaves in an alien land, where very organized religions like the Roman Catholic abound, it is a credit to their religious adaptability and acceptably. We are, however looking at a very small area, the Niger Delta. Niger Delta stretches from the Benin River in the west to Okrika – Kalabari axis in the East. It is an area of many mangrove swamps and thick vegetation. Fishing, timber lumbering and canoe-carving are the major occupations of these peoples. The major ethnic group – both in population and spatially - are the Ijaws. The next in population are the Urhobos – the Efiks and the Ibibios are not considered as Niger Delta peoples or else they would have being considered more important than the Ijaws and Urhobos, both in population and the mastery of the environment during historical times. Very little is known about the cultures of the Ogonis, Ekpeyes Etches and other minority groups in the Niger Delta region In this write-up, we are not implying that the Urhobos and Ijaws are Yorubas – they are very far from being so. What we are saying is that they derive most of their civilization as a consequence of the Oduduwa religious and monarchical revolution. The Itsekiri being the most south easterly Yoruba-speaking people, were the ones who carried the Oduduwa civilization to the Urhobos and the Ijaws. Dapper in 1668 had described the Itsekiri as being in many ways cleverer than the Bini (Roth H. Ling. Great Benin). Captain Leonard described the lsekiri thus: ‘on the Warri and Benin rivers we find the ltsekiri middle men who are not only the most intelligent and tractable but quite the best mannered of all the tribes in the lower Niger’ (southern Niger) (Captain Leonard 1906). Debry described the ijaws as follows: “At the mouth of this river are the ljaws (blacks), called from their robbers the pirates of USA (ljaw.) they are very poor and live only by plunder, sailing to all parts of the river and seizing all that comes in their way, men, cattle or goods, which they use for victuals where of they are wholly un-provided ( captain Leonard 1906).see chapter 4 for the description of the Urhobos From these impartial sources the eastern Yoruba are the more civilized than the Ijaws and Urhobos. GENERAL SPREAD OF YORUBIC CIVILIZATION. IN THE NIGER DELTA 1 The Spread of Native Courts: The native courts system started with the Itsekiri, and from the Itsekiri, Urhobos and the bulk of the Ijaws in the western Delta – from Burutu to Dodo river area in Bayelsa state – got the native courts system. Now, here Obaro Ikime, “When the native courts were being established in the outlaying districts of the division, leading Itsekiri with trading interests in those parts were given warrants in order to show the Sobos and other less enlightened tribes how the working of the courts should be carried on” (Obaro ikeme1969). On another occasion Ikime says: Chief Ekeke was a political Agent for Ganagana western Ijaw division. I was sent with chief Ekeke to assist him (sic). Than later Copland and Crawford and Chief Ekeke proceeded into the bush and opened the native courts. The courts opened by them all Frukama, Okpara, Ughelli and Jeremi’ Obaro Ikime 1969). From the above quotations it is evident that all Urhobos and the bulk of the western Ijaws got the court system from the Itsekiri. 2. The Deltan Attire The attire of the entire Delta peoples – the Ijaws, Itsekiri, Urhobos, Ogonis etc. – were derived from the foreign mode of dressing. This Portuguese mode of dressing – cowboy hats and wrappers spread from the Itsekiri to the other peoples of the Niger Delta. The female dress used by all and sundry in Nigeria is associated with the Niger Delta and they began with Itsekiri. Minus the dress mode, the corals of the other peoples within the Niger Delta area radiate from the Itsekiri. Now hear the authorities. In a book written as far back as 1899, Mary H Kingsley confirmed that the Itsekiri were exporting clothes and slaves by 1678 AD. To buttress the fact that the Itsekiri were actually exporting cloth in 1678 AD, Joe Sagay says “There were nobody to relieve him and not until 1691 was he able to send priests to continue the missionary work. These men however, lacked his zeal and energy. One of them was more interested in trade than in Christian enterprise. He probably saw that the only thing that might make the mission pay its way was for the priest to serve both God and Mammon. He found out that the Itsekiri made some unusual cloth from bark of trees and that the Olu himself held the monopoly of this product. The priests bought all the available stock with tobacco and neglected the work of conversion, while he pursued this profitable trade”. (Sagay: the warri kingdom)to corroborate this, Eve De Negri confirmed that the local Itsekiri weaving was influenced by the European presence Eve De Negri says: “In the Delta regions, the manufacture of cloths was somewhat influenced by contact with the Portuguese traders, from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These traders brought real Indian Madras, cotton cloth and other fine cloths from India to exchange for African commodities. The Indian madras was inspiration to women, who learnt the method of weaving such a cloth, using silk and cotton threads in varied patterns and colours. These clothes were established in traditional colours of saffron yellow and red, but other colours were eventually added including mauve purple and pink. Many cloths being embroidered with realistic motifs, depicting birds, flowers and animals, stripped and checked girders finished with fine silk strings were among the designs. The most remarkable traditional cloth is the one called Ileleji Akpo (body cloth) which is woven entirely form silk treads. This is popularly known as senior service cloth. A sample of cloth worn in the nineteenth century in Warri district shows the Itsekiri art of weaving, to have been intricate and advanced in technique. The piece consists of four strips joined to make it both wide and long, measuring 230cm by 158cm. Evidently, it was on a continuous warp loom (woman’s loom) the silk patterns rendered only on one side of the cloth, woven by the technique known as floating jacquard, the lower side appearing pale. Matching up of colours had been carried out, the range being bright red, violet and blue. The warp ends hanging freely as deep fringes. It is said that silk fabrics were imported and unraveled for the use of local weavers, but this is doubtful. There is a kind of moth to be found in some areas which produced small amounts of silk threads, suggesting that the ancient source of silk threads may have been from these moths; or from fabric taken from the bark of trees. (Eve De Negri; Nigeria Body Adournment). Apart from the manufacture of cloth, bead weaving was also done by the Itsekiri. Now hear the authorities, Ling Roth says “Such corals as the Binis had was obtained through Jekri (Itsekiri) traders, either from the Benin River or Lagos”. (Roth 1903). Roth says further, at Warri, “The actual crown of the king is a sort of a large cap in the shape of a cone three feat high, covered with coral beads and with a couple of birds, heads on top”. (Roth 1903) This crown has been looted during the Warri massacre1997-2003. Even De Negri said further on coral beads, “This coral was first discovered (so it is told) during the fifteenth century in the region of Oba Ewuare. This type of coral was obtained from a tree, growing on the sandy bank of the Benin River”. It is evident; therefore, that both cloth weaving and bead making began with the Itsekiri and spread to the other peoples of the Niger Delta. Concerning this spread of Itsekiri attire Ogbobine writes. “With the progress of time, the Itsekiri mode of dressing has gradually spread to all parts of Nigeria, and it is now common to see Nigerian women both young and old, dressed in Itsekiri fashion with the costly head ties. The use of coral beads, by Benin and Itsekiri chiefs in very early times has become part of the dress of all chiefs in the Benin and Delta provinces; even thought the origin and sanctity of the coral beads are unknown to them in the same manner, women all over Nigeria, now look on beads which were the prerogative of Itsekiri women as part of their dress for ceremonial and festival occasions, and coral beads are now gradually replacing gold trinkets” (Ogbobine; Warri Land Trust Review) The Urhobos and the Ijaws were the first to copy both the Itsekiri dressing and bead wearing. It is important say here that most Urhobos got their beads when they pirated on the Itsekiri in 1952, while most Ijaws looted Itsekiri beads from 1997 – 2003 during the Warri Massacre. HOW THE URHOBOS WERE CIVILIZED Until very recently, the Urhobos had no major traditional ruler. They paid homage either to the Oba of Benin or the Olu of Warri. Talbot says, “There seems to have been no chiefs of importance among the Sobo (Urhobo). Each town was independent and was ruled by its own head man, although all were under the Oba of Benin or Olu of Warri. (Talbot 1926). Agreeing with Talbot that the Sobos had no king of importance, William more wrote,” when the kingdom of Iwere (Warri) was established in the fifteenth century, their (Urhobo) interest became divided, and having no king (Olaja) of their own, some acknowledged the Olu of Warri as their overlord, whilst others still adhered to the Bini throne”. (Moore 1936). It is evident therefore, that by traditional politics, that the Urhobos got their leadership from the Itsekiri. Warri was also the most centralized kingdom on the western delta from the 15th century to the early nineteenth century. So, it was the power broker in the whole of the western Niger delta. On this hear Alagoa ‘The Itsekiri kingdom of Warri (Odeitsekiri) was the most important Political and commercial centre within the western delta from the fifteenth century to the early nineteenth century. the more numerous Ijo to the east and west of the Itsekiri did not develop centralized polities of a size to offer effective competition in the immediate hinterland, the Urhobos and Isoko were also largely organized in decentralized communities, and served as the producers of slaves ,later , palm oil and palm kernels to the Itsekiri middlemen’ (EJ Alagoa: 1989: 726 THE URHOBO CLANS The Urhobo clans will be analyzed one after the other 1. The Okpes (Ukpes). In the words of Chief MP Okumagba, the Okpes represent all that is good and rich in Urhobo culture (MP OKUMAGBA a short history of the Urhobos). Their proximity to the Itsekiris has made them to possess this “rich” culture. The Ukpes are the most bilingual of all the Urhobo clans. The Urhobo claim to have 22 clans (kingdoms?). This is not true, however. The Uvwies are tenants of the Gbolokposos, and by extension, the Olu. The Agbasas are tenants of the Olu. The Ogharas are actually living on Nana’s family land of Koko. That is why they are always attacking Ajagbodudu. . The Jesses are tenants on Bini land. And the Idimi-Sobos of Okere only possess tracts of land. They never constituted a clan much more a kingdom. Thus, the Urhobos can actually boast of seventeen clans (kingdoms?) Of the 17 Urhobo clans, the Ukpes are the most civilized. This civilization is got by associating with the Itsekiri. Itsekiri legends talked about Ebelle, a son of Olu Irame, who ruled in the sixteenth century, and got lost in Okpe land – which at that time was part of the Benin Empire. It should be noted that at that point in time, the Okpes have not migrated to their present habitat. The Esezi Historical Fraud Of recent the Okpes have been priding themselves as the descendants of 4 brothers _one being Esezi., their first king. From all accounts Esezi was never a king because of the following reasons: 1) The chronological accounts are all wrong.One person cannot be the son of an Ogiso, who lived c1170 and at the same time be the great grandson of Oba Orhogbua of Benin , therby placing his existence in c1680 and being contemporaneous with the Olomu clan ancestors of the Idimisobos of Okere. It is all fraudulent chronology! It is also a historical truth that in the Ogiso times, the Benin kingdom has not attained the political might and civilization to carry out empire building. They reached this stage during thhe reign of Oba Eware c1440. so the Okpe legends cannot be true.they are fables! 2) No king of Esezi’s caliber can exist and his kingdom will be confined only to Orerokpe.there is no oral tradition among any of the circumjacent negroes : Jesses, Ogharas, Mosogars, Uvwies etc about a conquest from the Okpe. Or is it because these people only came to their area in the 19th century? 3) there is no historical record that shows the existence of Esezi. No intelligence report . no single historical evidence. No archaeological proofs nothing. No single historian who lived 100 years ago or more ever mentioned the existence of any great king in the okpe geopolity. In fact there has never been a mention of any great king or kingdom in the Okpe area or even mention of a kingdom. The Urhobos as a whole, are described as decentralized people 4) A man as great as Esezi never married from any of the neighbouring peoples. No body from Jesse , Oghara, Itsekiri etc is related to this Esezi. Or as a great king he never knew of inter kingdom marriages? This is most unlikely for a great African king. From the above points it is obvious that Esezi was never a king. He never existed! About 1780, when the Okpes were beginning to consolidate their stand, Oguni (Ogoni) the son of Erejuwa II came and founded Aghalokpe. The place was where the Ukpes dispersed. The most important shrine in Urhobo nation, Unurhie, was established by the grandson of Ogoni the founder of Aghalokpe (Okumagba ibid). Minus Unurhie, the Okpes are staunch worshippers of Umale-Okun that Olomu and Ololo introduced to them when they founded Ugbukurusu and Aghalokpe. Many Okpes today bear Itsekiri names – Ayomanor, Abeke, Owumi etc. The Agban burial rite is done among the Itsekiri, the Okpe did it for the first time in 1949. The invitation of the spirit of the dead back home is also now being copied by the Okpes The chieftaincy attire of the Okpes are pure copies from the Itsekiri. When Ginuwa was coming form Benin in 1472, he stopped at Ugharegin (Oghareki) then Jegbo’s descendant farmland as part of Efurokpe. He pegged his staff that grew to become an Iroko. As he crossed to Sapele, he met an Itsekiri man (Sapele) Apele ,who had a wife, Otsoro and a son, Ugbanghoro. These Itsekiri people at the waterside were the only people in the Sapele vicinity. They paid homage to Ginuwa, and then ran to Eghoro in the Benin River where the man became deified as Apele Juju or Sapele abija mefa. (Sapele of the six junctions.) Much later, Olomu came to Sapele and was using it as a head port to the hinterland. One Ogiegba, from Aghalokpe, who was the son of Oguni, the founder of the town, whose father, Erejuwa the second an Olu of Warri was staying at Sapele due to Olomu’s permission. This Ogiegba became recalcitrant and started preventing the Itsekiri from moving to the hinterland. Olomu's forces led by Sagay and Igben totally crushed Ogiegba. He was taken to Ebrohimi city in the Benin River for punishment. When he was returned, he was stationed at Amukpe (A mu Okpe) where the Okpes were arrested. Sagay and Sibogi came to Amukpe to monitor his movement. Ogieba entered a treaty to remain as tenant in Sapele and to accept the over lordship of the Itsekiris, under Olomu. Dore Numa , an Itsekiri paramount chief During the interregnum, leased the ATP (African Timber and Plywood) to the colonial government. Nana’s sister, Ebeji, leased the Sapele general hospital, while Sagay leased the Sapele market to the colonial government. All these are signs that Itsekiri own the land. But due to fracas between the Olomu family and Olu of Warri, these vital documents were not released by the Koko community who are the historical owners of Sapele. The Okpe winning is a clear perversion and rape of justice! In those days, (before the Okpes came to Sapele) the Itsekiri were stationing regents in Sapele to check the Ijaw piracy (Ijaws have been pirates for long). Olu Akengbuwa (1797 – 1848) placed Amakatse as regent. Princess Iye (1852) placed Ibakpadodo there as regent to check the Ijaw menace. At this time, the Itsekiri and Ijaws (all watermen) were fighting for the mastery of the Sapele area, as they have resumed doing today. Concerning the Itsekiri ownership and control of Sapele, prior to the privy council ruling he said, “The house system was “par excellence, the institution of such coastal ethnic groups as the Ijos, Efiks and the Itsekiri of Sapele and Warri. (Tamuno TN: (1972) OGHARA AXIS Oghara (Ughara) has two major sections in those days (Ugharegin, Oghara of staff where Ginuwa pegged his staff and Ogharefe (Ugharefin) Ughara of Efin, (bulrushes) for making mats. Ginuwa met the descendants of Jegbo at Efurokpe, and Ughara was part of that land. Jegbo lived seven centuries before Ginuwa’s time. Hence, the saying in Itsekiri – ‘before Jegbo of Efurokpe was born’; that is, very long ago. Much later in 1872, Nana decided to camp some of his slaves at Ughara. When the pressure of people are getting too much on Efurokpe land, leased to Nanna, Nanna decided to send some of the people to Oba’s land. Thus, Nanna sent some of the people to a part of Benin, where Itsekiri manatee hunters were. The place, ‘aja ese’ (Manatee town) later became Jesse. The Itsekiri and the Binis had their common boundary at Jesse. Some of these people with the Itsekiri support established metsaghan (Mosogar). EFFURUN AXIS The people of Effurun and the Ijaws of Gbaramatu were kith and kin from the present Bayelsa State. They were led by one Osako, son of Fiowei in c1830. It was in 1869 that Tsanomi, with the permission of Lenuwa descendants encamped the Ijaws at Opu- Aja as customary tenants. The people of Ekpan moved further and were encamped by the Ubejis as customary tenants. 20 years later, the Effuruns (a section of the Ekpans) moved further east and were settled as tenants by the descendants of Sansan and Etsoye in Gbolokposo. To authenticate the tenancy position of the Effuruns, Agbamu, the head chief of Effurun confessed on oath “I live at Effurun. I am Sobo (Urhobo) and head chief of Effurun - - - - - - We use to render service to the Olu. We are still servants to the descendants of Olu. They are our masters”. In SC 98/1993 reported in 1997 / 7 S.C.NJ, the lead judgment by Ogundare said: ‘the plaintiff ancestors (Gbolokposo) lived and inhabited the land (Ugbomo, Okwatata, Ogbe quarters and Okufoghore) under the over lordship of the Olu of Warri and firmly established themselves and their jujus and they lived there undisturbed. Later in time, the people of Effurun who are now neighbours of the plaintiffs (Gbolokposos) came in to settle there from Effuruntor” (Nigerian law report July 1997 pgs. 421.422. Even the Effurun National Shrine came about as a response to Itsekiri. The shrine was not establishes by the Itsekiri, it came about as a response to the Itsekiri. Hear Gregory Umukoro, ‘Prince Udefi planted his staff of office at the shrine site - - - - - The shrine was not there at first. The staff of office was what grew into a tree. The tree on its own was not harmful, but a time came when the present Uvwie people decided to remove the tree by cutting it down to erase the landmark of the owner. Every attempt met with terrible supernatural resistance from the tree resulting in the people’s death. So they had no choice, but to deify the tree. The result of this ‘egior’ Uvwie festival in which human heads are used. (Umukoro 1997). So it is evident that the Uvwies are no clan, but tenants on Warri land. They never possessed a kingdom, hence all the wrangling to elect a new Ovie of Uvwie. ALADJA: Aladja (not the whole of Udu, only Aladja) was part of Warri kingdom. It was a place where the Olus normally served the earth deity (ale aja). The town served also as a beach head for the Olus of Warri, - this was before the Urhobos entered there from different parts of Udu clan. The Olu leased all the lands of Alajda to the Europeans. The people of Aladja, Effurun, Ogbe- Ijoh Gbaramatu etc settled in parts of Warri kingdom (Itsekiri land) in the nineteenth century. IDIMI SOBO This group of Urhobos came to Okere during the reign of Arukuneyi. One lady among them married Arukuneyi and brought his brothers, Idama, sowhoruvwe, Itifo etc. They were housed by the Okere people. Okere Urhobo kingdom is a fallacy. To show that the Urhobos of Okere came to Warri in the early nineteenth century, Oki the son of one of the primal ancestors who came from Okpari, died in 1906. it is then obvious that his father could not be more than 80years older than him. If that is true, his father, a founding father, would have come to Warri c1840. the Delta State government might support such hypothetical kingdoms because they are used to illegalities. Of recent (the vanguard of 9th September 2004) Delta government official confessed that most of the boys fighting in the Warri crisis are Ijaws form Rivers and Bayelsa. Govt. officials confessed that Warri corner and most Itsekiri property were occupied by rivers and Bayelsa. It is these people that made the Ijaws to he more than the Itsekiri in the present day ID Card registration. AGBASSAS- The Agbassas came to Warri from Agbarha about 1840, when Akengbuwa (seventeenth Olu of Warri) was reigning. Their duty was to cut grass and do odd jobs when Itsekiri chiefs died. THE IJAWS Almost all Ijaw clans from Arogbo in the West to Okrika in the East were civilized by the Itsekiri. Now Hear the authorities: Jones says: “The Delta traditions of origin gave a broad and generalized picture of a movement of Ijo people from the Benin, Aboh hinterland into the heart of Delta, possibly of a succession of movements, the first being the “Tubatoro” dispersal in the north of Delta referred to in the Azuogu tradition, the second being the Mein and Obiama and similar expansions into the present Ramos and Forcados division and the third being the Iselema (Itsekiri) movement (G.I JONES) Corroborating this, Ifemesia says “Both Nembe and Western Ijo tradition trace the migration of groups from as well as connections with the Itsekiri (Iselema) usually referred to in traditions as Benin, apparently because of the Itsekiri tradition of Benin origin” (Ifemesa 1978). Alagoa says on this issue, “The traditions suggest that the political influence and prestige of the kingdoms of Benin, Warri and Aboh reached the Ijaw peoples of the Niger Delta”. (Alagoa 1972). Alagoa affirmed further, “Other groups in the western Delta, the Urhobo, and especially the Itsekiri kingdom of Warri also exercised influence, although ethnically different on the Ijaw kingdoms of the eastern delta (Alagon 1971). Alagoa went further,” There are however traditions of settlements of small groups of Itsekiri (Iselema in Ijo accounts) at Ukubie in the Bassan area of the central delta, Liama, Nembe and at Orusengana in the Kalabari area. The Itsekiri are associated with religious innovations in several of these places. At Liama in the Nembe kingdom, certain words are supposed to be spoken in a language believed to be Itsekiri during certain rituals. Similarly, at Soku in Kalabari, the words of particular religious songs are believed to represent those used by Itsekiri captives”. (Alagoa 1971). The Itsekiri captives would refer to pawned neighbours in the hands of Itsekiri. Now, we analyzed the clans one after the other: NEMBE: This city state was about the most developed among the Ijaws or Nembe, Alagoa says, “The Itsekiri migrants were apparently a war party from the kingdom of Warri, which has lost a prince. The members subsequently stole back and removed their property and relations by night and escaped with the male god of the kingdom. They were guided to Nembe by the Ada of the war god, which they threw every once in a while until it stood erect at Ogilolo creek in Oromabiri. The name Ogidigan by which the god came to be known at Nembe is generally said to have been the name of the priest who came with it. Other leaders in the party are supposed to have given their names to the new settlements of Oromabiri, Onyoma and Ekesetubu” (Alagoa 1971). With the arrival of the Itsekiri migrants, the Nembe ruler was changed form a purely religious leader to that with political authority. Hear Alagoa on this, “Finally, a number of royal refugee from the Itsekiri kingdom of Warri (Iselama arrived about 1460). This incident may have begin the process of change from a religious leader to one with political authority; although a religious basis for the leadership of Nembe over the other towns of the Ibe may have been laid about this time. thus, Ogidiga brought by the Itsekiri, became the national god of the entire area, the gods of the other towns being conceived of as sons and daughters, or wives of Ogidigan (Agidigan) Alagoa 1971). The date, 1460, presupposes an earlier dynasty - the dynasty of the Olu of Irigbo in Ode – Itsekiri (Big Warri). The name, Ogidigan, (Agidigan an Itsekiri male deity taken to Nembe) was the title that the Korobe people of Koko and the people of Ureju gave to Oba Ewuare Ewuare – according to Itsekiri legends – got his power after serving Umale-Okun (Olu-Okun) god of the sea at Ureju and Koko. AROGBO When the last Olu of Irigbo, saw that the Ginuwa group had come, he ran and joined his neighbours the Ilaje Yorubas. He occupied Arogbo land. His associate, the chief priest of Olagwe (Alagwe), according to Ling Roth joined him. It was about three hundred years later that the Arogbos came from present Bayelsa and settled there by the permission of the Ilaje and Itsekiri, the descendants of Oduduwa. OROMABIRI – Oromabiri was founded by Oro, an Itsekiri prince. Onyoma and Ekesetubu were founded by his followers. The god of Oromabiri (Ogidika) like Ogidigan of Nembe or Gbasala of Ubeji accepts dogs as sacrifices. OLOIBIRI AND IDUWINI Oloibiri was founded by Itsekiri nobility – Ilobiri. Iduwini was founded by his adopted son Idowono (Idoghono). BASSAN – This clan was founded by the Itsekiri. Now hear Alagoa, “The fact of early religious and cultural influences in the central and eastern delta has already been suggested by the traditions of migrations. But Bassan traditions concerning their salt industry state that they bought the clay pots from the Itsekiri “(Alagoa 1972). Commenting further, Alagoa says, “The founder of Ukubie on the other hand came from the Itsekiri kingdom of Warri in the western Delta, and first lived among the Lubia. They later formed their own settlement at Ukubie and have retained traditions of their Iselema (Itsekiri) origin. Alagoa 1972). KALABARI: These people got both material and religious civilization from the Itsekiri. Now hear Alagoa, “It is doubtful if the pots and farina were traded across the delta by Itsekiri traders alone. In the Kalabari area to the east of Nembe, traditions attest to Itsekiri traders carrying farina or ifenia. But at Nembe, the regular suppliers were Bassan traders from the central delta, apparently as middlemen. Bassan traditions also suggest that they went into Itsekiri country to buy pots for their salt industry”. Alagoa 1972. The Kalabari, especially those from Soku and Orusangama, use Itsekiri words in their water religion. They worship the Itsekiri god, Adumu. They have the Opu-Adumu (Big Adumu) and the Ojoye- Adumu (Royal Adumu). This Adumu masquerade became copied by the Okirika as Odum. The Okrika, according to Alagoa, had not settled in their present geopolity by 1500. MEIN IJAWS: These people were defeated by Olu Erejuwa II in the eighteenth century. The defeat was led by one Imi, when the Ijaws refused to pay their annual tributes. They were defeated at the river Niger around Patani. IJAWS OF THE FORCADOS AREA: OGULA, BURUTU, ODIMODI, RIVERS RAMOS DOWN TO DODO This area was part and parcel of the Warri kingdom. The Ijaws came here about 1860 or there about. The name, Ogula, is derived form the Itsekiri (Ogunla).It is a reminiscence of the war he fought in Ode-Itsekiri before he took of on his umale-Oluna (flying saucers). Burutu was derived from the Itsekiri (Oboghoro – Otu) a beach of Bulrushes for making mats. Forcados is derived from Afikadosin, an eagle has passed left. A reminiscence of the war fought by Olomu and Sagay on the Aghoro Ijaws of Tarikeiri-Ibe .The captives were squatted at Forcados. To prove that the Itsekiri are the legal and historical owners of these places, where they squatted the Ijaws as customary tenants, they entered a treaty with the Europeans covering these lands. Hear the treaty. ‘I hereby certify that according to the terms of a treaty concluded by me , acting on behalf of her majesty, THEQUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND &C and the Head and other chiefs of JEKRI COUNTRY ,the gracious favour and protection of her BRITTANIC MAJESTY have been extended to the people and country at both banks of the FORCADOS River ,the chiefs of which have in the presence of myself and others acknowledged themselves and their country to be under JEKRI Jurisdiction and Authority . Given on board the British steamship “DODO” anchored in the FORCADOS this 6th day of august 1884 (SGD) EDWARD HYDE HEWETT, HER BRITTANNIC MAJESTY’S CONSUL FOR THE BIGHTS OF BENIN AND BIAFRA AND & C’ Now, hear the authorities Obaro Ikime says: “At one of the town of the Escravos river, the Ijaw who inhabit it claimed according to Hewett, that they acknowledged Tsanomi as their ruler. They were then informed about the treaty of 16th July which Tsanomi, Nana and others were signatories and warned, under the pain of severe punishment by governor Nana, not to enter into a treaty with any other European power. At Burutu and “Goolah” and other towns along the Forcados, Ramos and Dodo, Hewett reported that the people though Ijo, acknowledge the fact that they were subjected to Nana and were consequently made to understand that the Itsekiri protection treaty was binding on them.” (Ikime 1969). Hear Alagon on Ogula: “The possibility of early Itsekiri movement through the area together with the activity of Benin merchants implied by the Portuguese records may account for the points at which Ogula institutions differ from those of other Ijo-Ibe of the Western Delta. It has been noted, for example that the name Olukumieyin, of the national god stated to have been brought by the ancestor, Ogula is not Ijo and its meaning unknown to Ogulaha Ijos” Alagoa 1971. Olukumueyin means my friend from behind in Itsekiri. Thus the whole Ijaw from Burutu to Ekeremu LGA of Bayelsa are Itsekiri tenants. This is likely to be true because , the oral traditions authenticate it further. According to goth Ijaw and Itsekiri traditions,Ginuwa - in his historic journey- never met the Ijaws in the Warri area. Ginuwa met the Ijaws in the Rivers Ramos and Dodo areas. It was in this area that he met the woman, Derumo . he interacted with the Ijaws at the Rivers ramos and Dodo. The prince met Itsekiri speaking people at Efurokpe, Ureju, Ijala, Gbolokposo, Omadino, Ogheye, etc.,in the ancient warri kingdom.Ginuwa was made to serve Umale-okun in several of these places by the aboriginal Itsekiri. Since the traditions did not notice Ijaws in the Benin Escravos and Forcados rivers, at the time of Ginuwa c1480, the traditions tally with Alagoas and Pereiras records that the Ijaws were nowhere to be found in the Warri kingdom by 1500. BONNY On this, Leonard says, “Ogidigan the brass (Nembe) and Ekiba, the Bonny god, are brothers, having being somehow related in spirit land” Warri is referred to as the spiritual land of Ogidigan, the Nembe chief deity. Needless to repeat ourselves here, the Ijaws in Warri are all tenants of the Itsekiri. CONCLUSION The Itsekiri were able to carry on these civilizing missions because of the Oduduwan blood in them. CHAPTER SEVEN THE YORUBA CULTURAL SURVIVAL AND IMMORTALITY The “Yoruba” is defined as not only the Yorubas of Nigeria and those who, once lived in Nigeria, but now find themselves in other countries; but it includes the Yorubas of Sierra Leone, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria as well as those of Brazil, Tobago, Haiti, Jamaica Ithaparica, Coasta Rica as well as Paulo Seco in Trinidad. This view that Yorubas are not only in Nigeria, but also in Diaspora is a finger pointing to Yorubic universality. This fact, let it be repeated, that Yorubas are scattered all over the globe, highlights the global orientation of the Gani Adams Olokun and Olosa festivals which Yoruba from all walks of life attend. All these are one thing about the Yoruban people and their Oduduwa whose mask they wear in the same way as the ancient Egyptians wore their Ipi and Sami masks. Olufemi once has said: “Oni has been projecting the solid cultural values of the Yorubas and uniting them across the world over the years. The Yorubas in Cuba, West Indies, Brazil, Haiti and southern part of Ghana recognize the Ooni spiritual and Supreme Headship of the Yoruba. A race of more than 184 million people across the world needs a focused and trusted leader whose concern goes beyond local political arrangement in this 21st century (Olufemi Tosin Aduwa: the Vanguard Nov. 7 2004 p. 43). The Yorubic culture as a state . We can speak of the Yoruba state, as a culture or the Yorubic culture as the Yoruba state, if we have fully come to terms with the Yoruba medicine and herbology. This is not new since its existence dates back to the first decades of Orunmila’s arrival in Egypt before the birth of Christ. Its discovery is new, however. The late discovery of this formation, the Yorubic culture, the Yorubic medicine and herbology, capped by the low appreciation of the whole thing, because the view runs against the widely held view published by many in view of the truth that over the years, Yoruba has not been able to trace itself to its umbilical cord in other to reach out to the word that the last important migration group to Nigeria took place in c28BC is why people can’t understand the Benin-Yoruba seniority controversy- all over the world. This will be proved in detail. But first, culture. Culture represents anything which a people does differentiating it from other peoples. Culture is the language which a people speaks, how it speaks it, music, literature, inventiveness, conservatism, emotional quality, food eaten etc. Culture of a people is a unique and specific thing and cultural acts as they relate to everyone within a cultural unit is again, unique and specific. . There is a direct proportionality relationship between a good grip of culture generally, how it relates to the Yorubas and why the Yoruba and the Yorubic culture exist and behave in the way they do. A people whose political and economic system is carved out of its culture can hardly be unculturally inclined while functioning as an independent entity . No Yoruba in a Yoruba community can frown at the culture as it affects the state, only when he breaks the law. The Yoruba man looks at himself as culturally tied up to the stake- Oduduwa- and this is perhaps why Alenda Kumbo remarked, amidst smiles, that the average Yoruba man takes his culture wherever he goes. If the Yorubic culture is praised , the yoruban state is praised and the Yoruba man is lauded. Conversely, if a prominent Yoruba personality is insulted, both his state and culture is insulted. An innuendo cast on any ‘big’ Yoruba personage like Oduduwa, Oranmiyan, Ooni, Alafin, Awolowo etc., is a kick on the face of Yoruba - on the yoruban state and the yorubic culture. In the same way , just as the attack on the sacred manger and the holy places in Jerusalem would mean the attack on Catholicism in general, any thing said to slight or spite the yorubic personality would spell danger, not only in history , but also today. The reaction of the Yoruba leader, Gani Adams , to the statement of the Ijaw leader, Asari Dokubo,that Awolowo founded the Niger delta problems, prevalent today, was a simple , but far-reaching witticism , which political historians would call deterance . Asari’s remark concerning Awolowo was regarded as part of a calculated attempt to undo the Yoruba : “not long ago the Oba of Benin made some statement about our progenitor . now it is the turn of an Ijaw man. Giving Dokubo an ultimatum is not necessary. I can tell you that he is finished ,unless he apologises and begs us. (Gani Adams :1 : mach 27 ) In November 1994, Barrister L Musa noted that there was a time in the slavery days when tens of the Yoruba slaves of the Yoruba slaves in America angrily climbed the top of the cliff and energetically descended into the sea to be drifted into the Atlantic Ocean. Their action, he said,was a reaction to what they saw as an unbearable insult from their slave master who had said : ‘work , sons of a beast, work! In Africa you worked with willed physique, but in my farms you are only good singing , “Oduduwa baba wa Oduduwa baba wa”. That big monkey, that big beast!” Though this story seemed to be a joke from a fellow corp member who felt I was too keen calling on Odududwa when bored, it seems to be a truth of History as a congruent story recorded by Naiwu Osahon in “Cradle” points to the same incidence. Osahon, in a section on the evils of the slave trade, noted that some African slaves once became extremely angered and lept from a coastal cliff and plunged into the ocean to die. The slaves , before the suicide, had told the sea which brought them to America , to take them back to Africa. Although Osahon, unlike Larry Musa, did not mention Yoruba , we can suggest that the slaves in the two stories were the same persons, since he ( Osahon) faile to mention other group of slaves to the contrary. Then what are the effect of the action of these slaves - as a factor of survival of the yorubic culture in the new world ? After the victory at the cliff, every Yoruba slave in the new world became free to use the name Oduduwa as a source of relief from pain, fear, and from nostalgia. From this freedom the yorubic religion and culture (the behavioural manifestation of Odududwa) came to stay in America. . This is because, in reality, the Yoruba man is the Yoruba State and the Yoruba culture. In Yoruba where, no matter ones religious or mystical beliefs, the culture must be supreme, the significance of the state power cannot be reduced to pave way for the culture nor that of culture undermined to glorify the state. In those days, the state, the culture and the Yoruba man were one thing. This is why later in its history Yoruba became ruled by a constitutuion woven to please all, based on the principle of ‘checks and balances’. YORUBIC CULTURE:A DISTINCT CULTURAL REGION OF THE WORLD The culture of the Yoruba is a distinct reality placed side-by- side other cultures of the world. This is noticeable when we understand the Yorubic culture not only in its Nigerian sense, but also in the new world’s, and why Yoruba is gradually opening up a “cultural empire” abroad. We must trace the culture to its original base – Egypt - as a cradle. And one of two things are known in connection with Yoruba and the Egyptian civilization: one is that civilization was brought to Egypt under the leadership of Horus (the Yoruba’s Orisa or Orunmila, the high- priest who led the Yoruba migration into Egypt). The other is that in the early days of the Egyptian civilization, the Yorubas, led by Horus, or Orunmila, found their way into the Nile valley and co-mingled the tenets of the Atlantean civilization with the Egyptians’ in its pre-dynastic stage in a mytho-physical equation to form the Egyptian political mysticism which, ipso facto, is the origin of the Yorubic Medicine and Herbology. Driven emotionally by nostalgia, and guided physically by Oduduwa, who was himself guided by the outcome of the millennia-old interaction with Egypt and her politico-mystic thought, the Yoruba medicinal and herbal wisdom, Oduduwa and his followers stepped into Ile-Ife, a home where everyone loved everyone (C28 BC). This ancientness of the Yorubic culture, its constituents, its promotion and its value-laden load are important to a search for the diffusion of the distinct nature of the Yorubic culture. In fact, these are the reasons why the Yorubic culture is distinct and why its distinctness is opening up a cultural empire abroad. The agreement between Yoruba and Egypt and the birth of the Yorubic medicine and herbology is attested to by many writers on the Yoruba-Egypt relations before Christ. “Further north a close study of some 800 human skulls existing before the same date (3000BC) suggests that the ancestors of the West Africans of today played an important role in building the civilization of ancient Egypt.” (C.C Ifemesia 1965: 40). The 10 indelible colours of the Yorubic Culture. To understand the Yorubic culture as a catalyst, we must identify some of its features which have made it a dominant force in the social order of the world generally; and of the Americas particularly. It is these features about it that animate it to bob up and down and to dominate all others cultures of African descent to a peaceful death, away in the New-World. 1. A richly packed ‘characterology’ - the nature of the culture - those things latent in it that imbue it with the ability of turned into a field of study. 2. A good number of related cultures undergoing browniary tendency within a major culture. 3. All sub-cultures looking on main culture as indispensable as they do the browniary thing 4. Main culture seeing all sub-cultures as indispensable 5. Supremacy of culture to religion 6. Existence of intermediary between culture and religion, religious cosmology. 7 Cultural seniority of the Yoruba among other African cultures in the New world. (since Yoruba is really Atlantis ) 8. Centralized home government fostering centralized nature on Yoruba, away. 9. Sectionalism (if not tribalism), a corollary to the central nature of the culture. 10. The Yorubic medicine, herbology and cosmology n+k+h+c+y+e= Yorubic culture and herbology (mytho-political guide) Where n = Ancient Egyptian social wisdom k = ancient yorubic social wisdom h = Egyptian herbal wisdom c = yorubic herbal knowledge y= yorubic religious wisdom e= Egyptian religious wisdom As a proof of the suitability of this equation, a lot of Egyptologists and other general historians have written. Hear one of them. “Early in its history and its development, the Nile valley civilization created a basic way of life that attracted teachers and priests from other parts of Africa always enriching the original composite composition of the Nile valley. By the time the Yoruba made their way into the Nile valley, led by the mystic prophet, Orunmila, Egyptian priest had accumulated centuries of herbal and medicinal knowledge. The Yoruba drew from this treasure chest of wisdom and incorporated it into their own religion and cultural customs. The key point in respect to the Yoruba medicine is that the Egyptian knowledge, coupled with the earlier Nok people produced the outcome of Yoruba herbal practices. (Tariqh Sawandi: Yorubic medicine – The art of Divine Herbology – the online article : 5.) And concerning this fact, a reson detre of this work, Basil Davidson comments: “what historical truths lie behind these beliefs? They point to the early arrival of new comers who settled in Yoruba land and merged with the numerous peoples who were already living in Yoruba land had certainly being living there since distant stone age times . Archaeological evidence suggests that they were pionerring metal workers and fine artist in baked clay and that they were possibly related to the people of the Nok culture. (Basil Davidson 1978:119) Factors for the cultural survival of the Yoruba in the New world. i. Excepting the Yorubic which grew up to become the “Yorubic cultural empire”, the other African cultures taken to the New World failed to adhere to one another or cohere with the indigenous cultures. These cultures failed for lack of adaptability and historical struggle which failed to look forward to certain developmental experience that could be logically accounted for by the nature of their own existence. ii. The Yorubic culture, one of the cultures in the new world before even Amerigo and Columbus, was not able to dominate or colour the indigenous culture until the larger waves of the post 1441to 1479 slave period from the Black World. These people from Africa included the Igbo, the Zulu, the Bantu, the Basuto, the Yoruba of Nigeria, Dahomey (Benin), Togo, Ghana, Sierra Leone etc. But while most of these other groups were industrially creative and ideologically innovative, they equally promoted social intrigues or conflicts in such a way that the desired development and unity could only come by proxy – half construction, half destruction... And the day the Yoruba intervened with its Egyptian tendency towards peace and unity of diverse things to correct all wrongs in a bid to erect a penetrative loyalty that transcended the boundary of tribes or races, the survival and dominance of the Yorubic culture manifested as a logical process. iii The 10 indelible colours of the Yorubic culture played its part as the most concrete cultural character in the new world. iv Oduduwa , a faher worshipped as God . the Yoruba slaves in the New World knew Oduduwa as a father, but worshipped him as god . The natives of America knew not Oduduwa as a father, but worsipped him as a force. The slave masters did not know Oduduwa, but embraced him as a power. After the triumph of the slaves at the cliff, there was the contention of Catholicism with yorubic medicine, herbology and cosmology, to prduce a new form of voodoo. After all efforts to use Christianity to prevernt slave insurrections , in the New World, when coercion was producing bad effects, the slave masters resorted to the use of voodoo as an excellent ulternative to continue their mastership. But since Oduduwa ( and the Oduduwan religion, the point of the belief of the Yoruba slaves) constituted the lion percentage of voodoo, the yorubic something would continue to survive as long as voodoo survives. v. Cultural Immortality of the Yoruba: The Yoruba is culturally an undying people. But for a culture to always survive, somebody must determine that a particular part of it should remain for a particular to tarry. And since that somebody is simply everybody, in the Yoruba world, the culture must survive. That is not all. Something is ther inherent in the yorubic culture that imbues it with life time after time. This can be explained with the law of cultural immortality. v The Laws of Cultural Immortality The 1st law of cultural Immortability: “The older a culture, the more the number of sub-culture paying tribute to the culture.” The 2nd law of Cultural Immortability: “The more the number of tribute- paying cultures to a main culture, the longer is the tendency of the main culture to survive”. The 3rd law of cultural immortability. The greater the tendency of a culture to survive, the greater is its tendency to ink other cultures The general law of cultural immortality If there are two or more cultures struggling for supremacy,the culture with the greatest number of constituent cultures, which in most cases, is the oldest of these cultures, will ink each of the other cultures in the short run; absorb them or part of them in the long run; and armed with these, dive into the realm of cultural immortalityt in the very long run. These, among others, are the reasons why the Yorubic culture and religion are significant in the New World; and why the Yorubic culture is gradually opening up a ‘cultural empire’ away from home. CHAPTER EIGHT YORUBAS ABROAD By abroad, is meant the Yoruba peoples, and more important, their culture and trade contacts with other West African peoples. The Yorubic culture can be felt in the present modern republics: Benin, Togo, and Ghana, in far away Sierra-Leone, Liberia etc. BENIN REPUBLIC AND TOGO Along the coast from Nigeria through Benin Republic and Togo, one meets a substratum of people who speak Yoruboid languages, who are Yoruban peoples or who adhere to Yorubic culture. These people are the Aja, Egun (Gun) the Fon, the Arada and the Ewe, that are spread, even into the modern republic of Ghana. Among these people, one can easily notice the survival of Yorubic culture, (especially their religion) and the survival of the Yoruban language. If we go back into history, we see that they had the same economic system with the Yoruba. A question will then strike the average observer. Are these genetically one or is it merely a coincidence of being next-door neighbours? Like the history of most preliterate peoples, the origin of the Aja groups has been conflicting; many historians have mentioned many different places as their home. Concerning this F.K. BUAH says “The oral traditions of the people maintain that the Fon, Aja and Ewe originally lived somewhere east of the river Niger. (The Ga of modern Ghana make a similar claim in their oral tradition) for reasons which are not remembered in the traditions, these people emigrated westwards, halting at different places until they made a permanent settlement in Ketu in Yoruba land (now in Dahomey in due course Notsile, north of the present day republic of Dahomey, and Togo became points from where sections of the Ewe people dispersed in different directions to form separate kingdoms. They formed settlements in Allada in present-day central Dahomey; later, they built Abomey as their capital. The Aja moved to the coast, south of Abomey. And some of the Ewe moved westward until they established kingdoms in both present day republics of Togo and Ghana . Originally one people, the Fon, Aja and the Ewe have maintained similar political, social and cultural institutions. Their languages are all closely related.” (F.K BUAH 1974:158) He has been able to weave a common historical thread around these peoples: the fon, the Aja, the Ewe, and mentioned that they were originally one people. He mentioned that these people came from the east of the River Niger. We cannot really say what he meant here by east. Could it be that these groups of people accompanied the Yorubas from their great trek from Egypt? The relationship of these people with the Yorubas of Nigeria goes very far into oral history. According to Ade Obayemi, “Further west of the Oyo or Yoruba proper, in what is today the Region of Nigeria, Dahomey and Togo, several states emerged perhaps as early as if not earlier than, Oyo. The tradition of these, all emphasizing migrations from Ile Ife state that the kings of Ketu and Sabe or Ishabe traveled with, or are related to, the Alafin at Oyo and the Alake of the Egba. The traditions of Ketu go further to identify So-ipasan as the ancestor of Ketu and husband of Oduduwa”. (Ade Obayemi1972:238). Adeyemi placed the migration of the people spread along the coast from Nigeria through Benin and Togo; and with a spill over to Ghana through the Ewe as being contemporaneous with Oyo, a Yoruban kingdom of primary migration. This will give these people: Fon, Aja, Arada, Gun Ewe etc., the same historical significance and importance as the first Yoruban kingdoms to emerge from Ile-Ife. These kingdoms are many and since many Yoruba dialects want to claim that their kingdoms are among those that migrated directly from Ife in order to gain prestige and historical significance, it is not easy to tell which kingdoms are the primary kingdoms. But if the hardcore of the oral traditions are anything to go by, the primary kingdoms will be the following: Owu, formed by Asukungbade, Oyo and Benin, established by Oronmiyan; Ila, Saba, Popo, Ekiti, and Oko (later called Ijebu). The Ijebus of today have claimed an earlier Nubian ancestry the claims they are trying scientifically to defend. The other Yoruba kingdoms are mostly migrations from these primary kingdoms. If we look further into the traditions of these peoples, we notice that the Oduduwa in their mythology is represented as a woman. This can be seen clearly in Ketu, where their first king (So- Ipasan) is represented as the husband of Oduduwa. This type of rendition of Oduduwa as female is rare in other parts of Yoruba land. Deviating from Obayemi, Akinjogbin maintained that the Fon, Aja and Ewe belonged to the secondary migration from Yorubaland. Hear him: “What is fairly certain is that the Aja kingdom belonged to the secondary migrations. According to oral traditions current in Allada, Whydah and Abomey, and Ewe in modern Togo, the founders of the Aja migrated from areas of Ketu (a settlement of primary migration) and went first to a place called Nuatja or Watchi in the modern republic of Togo. 1977: 377. When we look at this work, we see that F.K. Buah, a Ghanaian, and Akinjogbin, a Nigerian, mentioned Ketu. No matter where the Ajas came from, whether they migrated with the Yorubas from Egypt, left from Ife, or came from any other place, Ketu seemed to have been their final place of abode before they spread along the West African coast from the coast of Nigeria, through Benin, Togo and the Western edge of the republic of Ghana. The more one takes a cursory look at the cultures of the people, the more one is convinced of the arbitrariness of the present colonial boundaries. All the major Yoruba deities can be found among the Fon, Aja, and Ewe etc. Lisa is the Aja equivalent of Orisa or Orise. The cults of Sango (Xevioso) and Legbara (Elegbara or Esu) are quite evident in present day Benin republic and Togo The economic system of the Aja and the Yorubas follow the same pattern. They have five-day-, nine-day-, and seventeen-day- markets. Each town also had morning and evening markets. From the seventeenth century, and even till date, the Yoruba language (Lukumi) is the Lingua Franca of the Aja groups (Ogilby J.(1670) AFRICA: BEING AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF (EGYPT BABARY, LIBYA etc, LONDON). “Jacques Bertho has suggested that all the migration stories of both Yoruba and Aja should be regarded as a continuous movement of a related group of people looking for suitable abodes” (Akinjogbin 1972 pg. 377) Although, these people were in most cases identical, they had cause to fight once in a while for economic aggrandizement and political supremacy. In 1698, Bosman talked of an Oyo invasion of Dahomey (Bosman W (1705) A New and Accurate Description of the coast of Guinea, London. By their history, language, traditional religion etc., the Aja: Fon, Ewe, Allada, Popo etc, stretching from the coast of Nigeria to the Western part of the republic of Ghana, practice the Yorubic culture, speak Yoruban language and are Yoruboid peoples. THE GA-ADANGME OF MODERN GHANA Like the history of many preliterate peoples, the history of the Ga-Adangme peoples are lost in myths and conjectures Stride and Ifeka had placed the land of origin of these people in Northern Nigeria. FK Buah and Boahen had conjectured that these very similar peoples came from southern Nigeria and Benin republic. Others have even conjectured that the Gas might have migrated from Benin kingdom in Nigeria. Buah has conjectured that the Ga-Adangme came from the same source with the Aja: Fon, Alada Ewe etc. (ibid pg. 158 WEST AFRICA HISTORY NOTES). If this is anything to go by, the postulation of Boahen might be correct, hear him “These Akan reached the coastal regions of modern Ghana probably during the latter part of the thirteenth century or the beginning of the fourteenth century. At about the same period, the Ga-Adangbe and Ewe moved into Ghana from further East, the area of present day Dahomey or southern Nigeria”. Adu Boahen 166 – 167. This said, it is evident, that the Ga- Adangme is related to the Ajas, who in turn, are much related to the Yoruba peoples. The trade of the Yorubas particularly that of the Itsekiri kingdom of Warri could be felt among the Ashanti and the Gas. On this, Boahen says: “Prior to the culture assimilation, the Akan peoples first established trading contacts with the Guan and the Ga-Adangbe peoples mainly for fish and salt. These contacts eventually extended as far as Benin, as far West as the Ivory or Quagbla Coast (mainly for cloth and beads) and on the Mali and Hausa land” (Adu Boahen). It is known that the area near Benin where beads are got and sold is at the Itsekiri kingdom of Warri, a Yoruba state. The Obas of Benin, especially Ewuare, the great, a usurper to the throne, learnt about beads for the first time from the Itsekiri. Concerning the beads sent by Itsekiri traders to the Ghanaian coast in 1505 Talbot says: “Five leagues up the Forcados river there is a trade in slaves, cotton cloths, palm oil, leopard skins and blue beads with red ink which the Negroes called coris, which we (Portuguese) buy for bracelets (manilas) of brass and copper. These articles are sold for gold at Elmira (Ghana). The natives of this river are called Huela (Ijala)”. (Talbot 319) Huela is Ijalla and it was the place of barter with the Portuguese. Huela (Ijala) was the Itsekiri-Yoruba town where the Portuguese exchanged beads, cloths and other goods with the Itsekiri . These goods from the Itsekiri Yoruba angle which the Portuguese sold at Ghana must have spurred the jewel making of the Gas and the Ashanti. On the Jewelry of the Ga which was spurred by beads from the eastern Yoruba kingdom of Itsekiri stride and Ifeka says “The Ga of southern Ghana had goldsmiths who modelled beautiful jewelry with which men and women adorned themselves” (G.T. STRIDE AND C L IFEKA 1971 :8) In addition to the trade influences, there is actual political or monarchical influence on the Ga-Adangme. Concerning this, Aderibigbe says, “And from Samuel Johnson, the historian of the Yoruba, we get this idea of an extensive empire which stretched from Niger westwards to include not only the Popo and the peoples of Dahomey, but also the Ga ( Ajayi and Espie 1965 :. 194)) from the foregoing, we see that the Ga, like the Aja, for a long time ,enjoyed Oyo patrimony. Oyo army was stationed in the Ga area just like in the other Aja states. It was this army that the Akyem bought as mercenaries to tame the Ashanti power in the seventeenth century. Concerning this devastating defeat with the help of the Oyo army Buahen says: “The total defeat of the Ashante army by the Akyem and Krobo, with the assistance of an Oyo contingent, in 1764, provided the opportunity and kuasi Obodum was promptly deposed”. (Adu Boahen:188). “The EWE people have not always lived in their present home. Their traditions recall a migration from the east – more precisely KETU a YORUBA town in modern BENIN. KETU is also called AMEDZOFE or MAWUFE in the accounts. KETU was founded by the YORUBA people by the fourteenth century at the latest. In it lived besides the forebears of the EWE, the YORUBA and the ancestors of the AJA, FON, and GA-DANGME. It was the expansion of the YORUBA people that pushed the EWE and related peoples westward. ” HIGHLIGHTS OF EARLY EWE HISTORY BY PROF. D.E.K. AMENUMEY Department of History-University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast-Ghana-West Africa . It is evident, therefore, that a certified Yoruban empire ran from the Nigerian coast to the Ghanaian coast up to Accra and slightly to the West of it. Sango, the Yoruba deity, is also evident among the Gas. This is evidence of their cultural contact in precolonial times. The Ga –Adangme people , the Ashanti and even the Agni of Ivory Coast got some aspects of their religion from the Oyo Yoruba. This is more evident in the worship of Sango, the thunder god. On the survival of the Yorubic religion among the Gas and other peoples around Ghana and even Ivory coast Afolabi Ojo says: “The Ifa system of divination which had flourishing centres centres at usi , Ado and finaly Ife was practiced throughout Yoruba land where it spread to Dahomey.” (Afolabi Ojo :1966: 184) In another part of the book he also says: “The expansion of the Oyo empire and influence also embraced the spread of Sango worship to every corner of yoruba land. It also spread abroad, being taken up by the Ga and the Ashanti of Ghana, the Ewe of both Togo and Ghana , and the Agni of the Ivory Coast. (Afolabi Ojo 1966: 178) Sierra Leone Today, of all the ethnic groups that constitute the geopolity of Nigeria, the Yoruba is most evident in Sierra Leone. Apart from the fact that the Yorubas are a community in Sierra Leone, having their distinctive language and culture, the Yoruban traits in the Krio or Sierra Leonian pidgin is tremendous. Words like Akara, Oja, Ako, Akowe etc are very evident. No other ethnic group in Nigeria or along the West coast of Africa has affected the Sierra Leone Krio the way the Yoruba has done. The Krios today have adopted a lot of Yoruba deities such as Ogun, Sango, Obatala, Ifa etc. CHAPTER NINE Meaning and scope of Oduduwa It is extremely probable, as a matter of everyday historical experience that the ancestors of Oduduwa migrated from the west coast of Africa into the Nile Valley in the pre-dynastic period. Pages of ancient history books are abuzzed with facts leading to this fact. The emigrants did so as a part of the Atlantean Remnant that was a consequence of the last Atlantean Catastrophe of old (Yoruba is Atlantis: Yoruba in Classical Antiquity: same authors:38: to be published). There are many vast areas of possibilities of places the group could have gone to before its arrival at the Nile Valley. But the unassailable fact is that, moving eastwards, the ancestors of Oduduwa reached a series of abodes in northeast Africa and finally got to the Nile region, which, then, was still ‘uncivilized’. It is out of place to think that the ancestors of Oduduwa, who moved into the Nile Valley, were the first people ever to get there. It is okay, however, to think that they alone, or in conjunction with others, might have started the foundation of the ancient Egyptian civilization, which, today, the world still brags of. Led by the mystic prophet, Orunmila, the immigrants met in the ancient Nile world a group of people who were not only receptive to new ideas, but also, anxious to disseminate same. And here, the need to tap the resources of the Nile in order to enjoy them, mixed with the general desire to build up a better life, compared to what the various immigrants were wont to see in the pre-amalgamation days, provided them an excellent forum for disseminating these ideas. In truth, whatever the value and volume of people prevalent at the Nile valley, in the period under discussion, the valley was far from the rudiments of what has prompted historians to describe it ‘a cradle of civilization’. This is the view of Dr Adetoro, a notable writer on this subject. Adetoro, who outlined transport, safety, food supply and so on as essential vectors of civilization, was in order, though failed to add that these vectors taken as one, needs an adequate population from which labour, entrepreneurial participants and unity would be extracted. From various parts of the land mass, when peoples of various natures met and mingled at the Nile valley, a civilization that was subsequently to be known as the highest in human history was established sprang. As their number increased the demand for It is recorded that tribes wandering from various points of the compass settled in the Nile valley before 10000BC and from the gradual blending of this tribes the Egyptian people food supply naturally rose (George Guest 1977:15) We shall not depart from the base of analytic history into the non- Evaluative to say that as many people co verged at the Nile valley, many people started the Egyptian civilization . We can surmise that the techno cultural actions of the ancient Egyptians as they did their thing of civilization such as gold and iron smelting, cloth- weaving, “invention of wheel , plough, writing, calendar, ….”and other arts and crafts of civilization were not brought in to the basin by each of these peoples . It was not so, only by those immigrants into the Nile valley, who in their own individual life history, had elsewhere before, seen civilization. Prominent among these peoples were the ancestors of Oduduwa, who were Atlantean remnants, a group of people who called their supreme deity ‘Orise (Orisa)’.Ori-se of the Yoruba world of Africa is Horise of the Nile – when the Nilers did their thing of civilization. Thus, when the Edfu text asserted that ‘civilization was brought to Egypt under the leadership of Horise’, it was referring to the literature of Orise and Horise as a rhyme, a literatural demonstration of a historical fact. It is difficult, it is bitter to suppose that at its destruction, Atlantis did not send representatives to other parts of the world save Egypt. We can be sure of the presence of some traces of the Atlantean peoples in America, especially in Latin America, where the Aztecs, the Incas and the Mayas were prominent. Oh yes, we can say that the ancient pre-Columbus aborigines of America, who had found their ways into same, as survivors of the Atlantean calamity, had helped in no micro measure in the growth of the American social, scientific, technological, and political culture of the world. In a more evaluative sense, it has been judged that the ancient Egyptian life after 3400BC was a product of the above factors as well as the alertness of those people around and far from Egypt whose devotion to the tradition of healthy emulation fired into the Nile people the zeal for further inventions and discoveries .So, it is interesting to note that the new mode of thing in Egypt as well as the socials and sociology ,the blended racial temperament, became a thing of interest to people , far and near. Herein lies the justification of the observation that many aspects of the social life of the Egyptian ancients, especially those of the post-dynastic days, looked like those of some other peoples somewhere in Africa. The social processes of Egypt and those of some other parts of Africa in the post-dynastic periods highlight the truth of these contestations i) The tekenu of ancient Egypt and the agban spiritism of Yoruba ii) The ‘ceremony for removal of sand from the mouth of the dead’ in Egypt and the ‘ceremony for removal of sand from the mouth of the dead’ in Yoruba called ibunine kuri arun iii) The finger-snapping dance at the grave side in Egypt called the pa pa pa umeren in Yoruba If we are to emancipate our minds from the relativism of uncertainty, we must bring up our minds to recognize the facts that the study of a people that is made up of peoples must be done in such a way that it reveals the nature and structure of the social milieu of each of the constituent mini-nations as well as the totality of the roles and significance of each of these on the people. This is the qualitative, quantitative and transevaluative analysis of the peoples in the people. The transevaluation that resulted from the various ‘thoughts and religions’ among the peoples of the Nile was the largest single human factor for the civilization that followed. There seem to be a straight line from here to a theory, the theory of human amalgamation ‘If two or more peoples of different nature come together and mix up cross-culturally, cross-economically and cross-politically, growth and development follow - though in the short run, things may not be well (see the analogue of this theory: the theory of homo human serises :Warri crises before the three judges 1997: 17 same authors and one other) THE PARENTAGE OF ODUDUWA It is significant, if the attempt is to identify which sector of the population contributed the most or least to the question raised. Or why and how the development came. But we shall not drive too far into the lane of philosophy and theories and so, shall dive straight into the genetic relationship of Oduduwa and Du Duat : how and where he was born; why he was called ‘Oduduwa’; why and how he left Egypt and his arrival in Ile-Ife. As already hinted, Oduduwa derived his name form ‘Du Duat’ a thing of high esteem in ancient Egypt. His parents probably named their son ‘Duduat’ because his father was a high priest of a high deity whose spirit was being invoked to colonize their son. Duduat means a place for the high one or the domain of the heavenly world. And this can easily be correlated to the Oduduwa of the Yorubic mentality – ‘Big Action’, ‘Big Character’ or ‘Big Attribute’. The Egyptian coinage, ‘Duduat’, corresponds to the Yorubic ‘Oduduwa’. Though ‘ there were many gods in Egypt and a new comer not finding a suitable god to worship must have been very difficult to please’, one, if not many of these gods, must have come with Orunmila, making a verbal coinage from one of the shrines in Egypt similar to many things in the Yorubic world. Shehu Musa Alamis is of the view that the father of Oduduwa was a priest of one of the high ones at the time he was born – just as we have noted. He also argues that that high one must have been imported from the site of the old Atlantis. Many more thinkers observed that the gods of Egypt ‘who are satisfied with their offerings’ are of outside nativities and that Duduat , if a priest, must have been Orunmila’s Oduduwa, a yorubic priest of a high god. What is more? Sami, a ram-headed god in Egypt is a ram- headed god in Yoruba. Hepi, a god with a pendulous female breast in Egypt, is Ipi, a god with a glamorous female head tie in Yoruba.( Babara Mertz 1967:154} Many of the local gods took animal forms and many may have been totems of the primitive communities .as time went on, two things happened. One was an amalgamation - under duress, usually – of the little villages into lager units. The other was a series of invasions of people from outside the valley. As the villages joined together so did the gods joined to form a pantheon, and as they were accompanied by foreign gods imported by the trader, or invaders or traders, or whatever they were. Among the invading gods, according to one scholar, was the well known mortuary god, Osiris (Barbara Mertz:1967:259) This analysis, this Oduduwan nativity investigation, shall be likened to a mode of investigation proceeding demonstration and proof represented by 3x3=9. Some writers have gone round the whole mesh of inferences and references and concluded that the ancient Egyptians were black We conclude therefore that the Egyptians were Negroid. And not only that, but that by tradition, they believe themselves descended not from the white or yellow, but from the black people (Du Bois:1905:6) Taking the clue from this approach, no assertion shall be a conjecture. If conjectures are used, these conjectures are high-class conjectures whose logicity ranks with reality. For, based on a distinct attitude towards the science of ontology, we cling yet to our 3 x 3=9 model, and leaping from here, reveal that it is only those places with physical ties, with Egypt, archaeological or linguistic, and with a black thread of demonstration woven around all, that can display any claim to pseudo-historical affinity It is not possible to trace the genealogy of Oduduwa in a Yoruba –to-Egypt- o r Egypt-to-Yoruba style. Nor can we as yet unfold the name of those Atlantean remnants by history. But we know that Oduduwa and the Oduduwan type of language were similar to the ancient Egyptian and the ancient Egyptian type of language. Taking the leap from Lord Bacon that man be fore warned against ‘the idols and false notions, which have already pre-occupied the human mind making it difficult of access,’ we shall reason as follows: i) Some Atlantean remnants left the ancient Atlantean site for the Nile valley in the pre-dynastic period. ii) They moved into the Nile valley early enough in the post-Atlantean days or late enough in the pre-Dynastic period to have been able to serve as a copiers board for late entrants into Egypt iii) The Atlantean trekkers were many. iv) The Atlantean language became the lingua franca for the Nile people. THE BIRTH OF ODUDUWA Oduduwa was born about 70BC. His parents probably died in one of the pre 30BC military encounters with foreign invaders; and Oduduwa was left alone to face the exigencies of the world which he viewed in a perspective different from the perspective of others. He learnt the stories of the invasions of old, especially the one in which his parents died. He remembered how his parents were snatched off his sight in a wicked swoop. Thus, Oduduwa developed a distinct nature to meet the circumstance, a stout mind in a stout body. This circumstance represented the particular perceptivism, which the concept of being left alone thrusted on young Oduduwa; and which made him see in a different shape what others saw. It set up a gap between the mind of Oduduwa and Egypt, his fatherland. The organic tie between Oduduwa as a descendant of Atlantean remnants in Egypt on the one hand, and as a victim of a series of invasions on the other, as well as his subsequent decision to move out from a place where death was so rife, was determined by the unprovoked Roman invasion of 30BC. With this invasion came new things and Egypt (including Oduduwa) was made to feel the pains. HIS DEPATURE FROM EGYPT Consequent upon the defeat of Egypt by the Roman forces, its control by the Roman Army of occupation and the introduction of the Roman religion which religion was kicking the Egyptian on the face, Oduduwa left Egypt. His emigration tendency was re-enforced by the agonizing thought and mood of having lost his parents in a most painful way. The exodus had started and had started one of the greatest human movements in history. His followers were many: brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, cousins, friends, believers and peasant farmers. ODUDUWA ARRIVES ILE-IFE In the bid to get to the west, Oduduwa moved through the Sudan,Ethiopia, Eritrea, and so on. The experience of the group as it passed through one human settlement and the other was that of retreat and advance, that is, as people ran away from the group, new ones, for the leader’s generousity and dove-heartedness, joined-up. At the lake Chad region of the present day Nigeria, some of them said ‘ We shall trek no more.’ Why did the people decide to stay at the Lake Chad Basin and refuse to follow the leader? Analytic history can attempt some answers 1) They were tired of military encounters along the way. 2) They were angered when Oduduwa denounced looting. 3) They were attracted and mis-advised by the itinerant traders of Egyptian origin who used the Chad Basin as a place of rest and as a stepping-stone into west and North Africa. 4) They were bored by the long trek. 5) They were attracted by the Lake Chad resources eg fishes. When all move to make the renegades re-unite with their master failed, as the group was leaving the lake Chad Basin ,Oduduwa, who declined the use of co-ercion against them, commissioned one of his chiefs to count them head- by- head. ‘E ka won lori’ he said – to know the size of the group squatting back. Ekawonlori changed to kawonlori and kalori and lastly to Kanuri. Further south into Nigeria, a group drifted off as the Igalas of Kogi; others as the Lukumi and Ebu people among the western Igbos. A group, led by the priest of Iset, moved ocean-ward as the Ugborodos, whose main deity today is the Ise. Iset was an ancient Egyptian deity with an ancient shrine. Her presence was felt in the pre-dynastic, dynastic and Ptolemaic Egypt. Shekri , a son to Oduduwa, who was born by the daughter of an inside templer of the shekri temple of ancient Egypt , stayed at Warri as the first Oluirigo of Irigbo .Tradition has it that when Shekri tarried, his father commissioned the priest of Weret to remain with him – and to help him grow. This was done, and the subsequent development of Shekri into the Oluirigbo of Irigbo, and that of his domain into the Iwere kingdom, with its first headquarters at the site of the present day Warri, was a result of the political and spiritual guidance given by Weret. When she died she became deified as the eghare-ale-Iwere of Warri, the great ancestress that operates from within the earth. This matriarch led to the matriarchal hold of the dynasties of Warri- yorubas. This position Ginuwa met in 1480. The present name of the Itsekiri kingdom, Warri, is a Portuguese corruption of Weret or Iwere. A priest of Geb (referred to as Jegbo in Yoruba) who is said to have joined the group from Nubia, and who are closely related to the Ijebus are said to have deflected to Efurokpe(in Old Warri kingdom) . While in Nubia , they were one people with the Ijebus Oduduwa finally got to Ile-Ife and became the king of the aborigines who were products of earlier emigrations from Egypt and her colonies. He adopted an Osirian title, Oni, as his title and began the Oniship. He became also, the soul of the people (Ba, in Egypt, later corrupted to Oba). It was this obaship that was imported into Benin by Oranmiyan about 1100years later. Hence it is said in Benin: ‘Ogie we know, Oba, we don’t know’ (Naiwu Osahon The correct history of the Edos: unline article) A section of the members of the Weret religious group followed, still, the leader to Ile-Ife , where they founded a sub-community, Iwere. This is why some historins are of the view that some of the early founders of Warri kingdom are from Ife! CHAPTER 10 CHRONOLOGY(dim past to the present day) 1. Atlantean civilization From the dim hazy past to (c3.5 million B.C) 2. Apocalyptic destruction of the Atlantean civilization (c3.5M BC) 3. Further minor catastrophes; survivors emigrated (c12000BC) 4. Frustration and eastward trek (c12000BC-10000BC) 5. Convergence at the Nile Valley with other people from many parts of the world (c10000BC) 6. Proper blending of all Yoruba with lower Egypt (c5000BC) 7.Upper and Lower Egypt united under the first pharaohship of Menes (probably an Yoruba Egyptian since “Mene” is the Yoruba word for “One” or “First (c3400BC) 8. Yoruba-Egypt, emerged (pyramidal age) (c3000BC) 9) Hyksos Invasion(c2000-1500BC) 10 A plague of invasions by Assyria on Yoruba - Egypt – Minor emigrations to the west (700BC) 11 A plague of invasion: Egypt – conquered by Persia (525BC) 12 Alexander the great conquered Egypt (332BC) 13. Bulk of Yoruba unhappy with endless wars and began to look west wards for a place they knew their home lay (200BC) 14) Roman Invasion (55BC) 15) Minor invasions from far and near 55-31BC 16) Roman Invasion 30BC 17). Yoruba removed from Yoruba-Egyptian - equation to produce Egyptians in Egypt and westward tending Yoruba c30BC 18. The racial trek the “Egyptian Exodus” under the leadership of prince Oduduwa (The dove heart) (c29BC) 19. The trekkers defeated most of their opponents with the use of iron implements, then yet unknown to places between Egypt and Ife . Wives and property of opponents carried along (c29 BC) 20. Oduduwa denounced lootings and many of his sub -leaders took offence, deflecting to i. Sudan ii. Eritrea c29BC iii. Ethiopia iv. Borno area 21)Journey continued in to Nigeria and: Ikanuris stopped at the lake Chad area i. Igalla stopped at Igalla c29BC ii Olukumi stopped at Olukumi c29BC iii. Ebu stopped at Ebu c28BC iv. Ugborodo, detaching, trekked ocean-ward c28BC and became the first set of the Ugborodos, led by a fetish priest of Iset 22. Led, still by prince Oduduwa, Yoruba arrived Warri where prince Shekiri, one of his sons stayed to become the first oluirigbo of Irigbo. c28Bc Main stream reached Ile-Ife c28BC 23 THe birth of Jesus. 0 24). Awolowo Obafemi died (1987) 25 Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as the president of Nigeria (1999 till date 26. The pan Yoruba Olokun / Olusa festival of Gani Adams 1999 – present day 27 Oduduwan nativity crises: Bini-Yoruba intellectual battle 2004 - 2005 chapter 11 conclusion We have come to the end of this discourse and by doing so to say that: 1) The Atlantean remnants who were the forebears of Oduduwa migrated to Egypt in the early post atlantean days , where they helped in establishment of the Phaoroanic Egypt. 2) Oduduwa was from ancient Egypt, therefore. He was named after the word “Duduat”, an exalted one of the heavenly world in Egypt.. 3) He led a wave of migration to the south west- after suffering major invasions in Egypt – the Roman invasion of 30BC being especial. 4) He left with a horde of followers made up of sons , daughters, friends and religious brothers and sisters , who during the trek, called him ‘father’. 5) Wars were encountered on the way, and when Oduduwa denounced looting , many of his followers grew annoyed and deflected. 6) Not only this looters. Others also deflected to other places—as the Kanuris of Bornu, the Igalas of Kogi , the Nupes of the Niger, the Lukumis of Delta , and the Ugborodo of Ugborodo. 7) Trekking continued and Shekiri, the son of Oduduwa, by a woman from the temple of the god, Shekiri,in ancient Egypt stopped at Warri where, ultimately, he became the first Oluirigbo of Irigbo. It was a much later Oluiirigbo that greeted Prince Ginuwa at the shores of Warri as “Ogbowuru”,a king surrounded by a multitude.(c1480).He abdicated in his favour. 8) Duduat continued the trek west-ward until he got to a place whose aborigines identified the group as brothers. Because of the warm welcome received, Duduat called the place ‘Ile-Ife’, the home/land of love. 9) He subsequently posed and was regarded as the Oni of Ife. 10) Now, (December 2004) it is not possible to determine the number of children of Oduduwa, as became his name on getting to Ile-Ife. The date of his death is not certain ,either .still searching for same the YAHS has only discovered that Oduduwa died after 0 Oranmiyan was not a direct son of Oduduwa. He was not a great-grandson. That he founded a dynasty in Benin in 1170 can not post-date his existence.. True, a king was sent from Ife to Benin; the sender was not Oduduwa himself, but one of his descendants who bore both his name and title. Hear Farouk martins “Oduduwa must have been here before Christ, going by parallel archeology of the Yoruba, Egypt, Greece and Rome with the history in the Bible or the Koran…… Okanbi, one of Oduduwa’s descendants, may be some generations from him. It was Okanbi children or grandchildren that built empires and further united the Yoruba with their neighbors. Oduduwa descendants met civilization in Ife and propagated it but might have started empire and kingdom formation during their sojourns on the Nile River…. Oranmiyan, one of the grandsons of Okanbi became the founder of Oyo and Benin Empires. 12. Oranmiyan was an Ife prince who founded neither Benin nor Oyo. He founded dynasties in Benin and Oyo. 13. Oduduwa brought one thing into this area, which seems to be surpassing the herbal power and philosophy of all other people with whom he associated: the Egyptian ancient mystic equation. References 1. 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