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The ‘Descent’ of the Tiv from Ibenda Hill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

B. Akiga Sai  and
Paul Bohannan
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Extract

The Tiv, a semi-Bantu people numbering some 800,000 who live in the middle Benue Valley of Northern Nigeria, have not, according to their tradition, always lived in their present location. They account for their entrance into the territory they now occupy and the disposition of the lineages into which they are organized by means of stories which depict events of their migrations.

Tiv from every part of Tivland know bits and pieces of myth, relevant to their own lineages and those nearby, which they consider to be parts of the story of their descent (msen) from the hills. The stories vary from area to area, from individual to individual, and from situation to situation. In spite of the fact that the size of the population and its wide dispersal militate against anyone's knowing all these stories, it is an article of Tiv faith that it would be possible to correlate them all into a narrative.

Résumé

LA ‘DESCENTE’ DU PEUPLE TIV DU MONT IBENDA

Cet article est composé de morceaux choisis d'un chapitre inédit du ‘Akiga's story’, traduit et annoté par le Docteur Bohannan, dont les sources primitives consistent de plusieurs mythes et contes disposés par Akiga, afin de constituer un récit consécutif des premières migrations du peuple tiv. Cependant, le but de ce récit n'est pas de faire une relation chronologique ou historique des Tiv, mais de fournir une explication de la répartition actuelle des lignées tiv, et plus spécialement d'indiquer la raison pour laquelle certaines lignées apparentées n'habitent pas les régions avoisinantes. Les épisodes racontés par Akiga sont choisis et décrits dans ce but. Ainsi, il se peut que le même épisode soit raconté au sujet de deux ou de plusieurs personnes ou lignées différentes. Il peut également arriver que les détails de l'épisode varient suivant son utilisation dans le but d'exposer une situation déterminée actuelle. Théoriquement, l'expansion et les migrations du peuple tiv devraient suivre des lignes généalogiques, mais si cela ne semble pas avoir été le cas, des épisodes sont inventés ou des généalogies sont faussées afin de fournir une explication acceptable. Ainsi, plusieurs contes décrivent une catastrophe, suivie d'une dispersion du peuple, afin d'expliquer la situation actuelle. Des renseignements complémentaires sur l'expansion des lignées tiv se trouvent dans l'article écrit par le Docteur Bohannan dans Africa, xxiv, I, 1954.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , October 1954 , pp. 295 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1954

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References

page 297 note 1 Amiga's Story, pp. 16–23, 49–51.

page 298 note 1 For definitions see Akiga's Story, pp. 106ff. and Bohannan, L. and Bohannan, P., The Tiv of Central Nigeria, 1953, pp. 18–25.Google Scholar

page 298 note 2 The personal name is given first. Its plural form, refering to the lineage of living descendants, follows in parentheses. This is Akiga's arrangement.

page 299 note 1 Akiga, probably inadvertently, put Tôngov in both lineages. There is great dispute about the position of Tôngo in the genealogies.

page 300 note 1 Gram roasted first and then ground. It is carried dry, mixed with water and drunk.

page 301 note 1 The standard idiom used to express abundance of wild food resources.

page 302 note 1 This story was told to me of many lineages in their wanderings, as well as all Tiv before the original dispersion, It is interchangeable with the story of the ikarem snake, reported in Downes, R. M., The Tiv Tribe, p. 2.Google Scholar

page 305 note 1 This passage is very cryptic. Though this translation is superficially correct, I am not sure of its full meaning. Akiga, when asked to explain, wrote [personal communication, 26 February 1953] in English: ‘“Imenger” is a lantern; the Tiv say the lantern was lighted by means of fat got from a dead man as we now use kerosene. “Imenger” does not mean “akombo”. “Yina pir ato” means the lamp did not take them all the way; it quenched on the way.’

page 307 note 1 ‘Undu’ is a pun: both the name of his father and the verb ‘ascended’.

page 308 note 1 The filiation of Home Shangev as Mbacôngo is in contradiction to Akiga's original classification. The anomalous position of Home Shangev is discussed by Bohannan, Laura, ‘A Genealogical Charter’, Africa, xxii. 4, pp. 301–15.Google Scholar

page 309 note 1 Although there are minor vocabulary and tonal differences, the most obvious distinction is the excessive palatalization of Utyusha people.

page 309 note 2 Utyusha is the Shitire pronunciation. Tiv in other parts, where the pronunciation is Utisha, say that it comes from ‘the Tiv up there’—Uti is another, less common, form of Tiv, just as Ukuna is another, less common, form of Kunav.

page 309 note 3 Bohannan, Paul, ‘Expansion and Migration of the Tiv’, Africa, xxiv. I, pp. 1–16.Google Scholar