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The Anthropology and Historiography of Central-South Nigeria Before and Since Igbo-Ukwu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

A. E. Afigbo
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Extract

This paper is a study of the methods and concerns of anthropology and history in central-south Nigeria in the period since about 1900, and of the changes which they have had to undergo in response to changing times and demands. To highlight the response of either discipline to the differing needs of different times, we shall take 1970, the date of publication of Thurstan Shaw's Igbo–Ukwu: An Account of Archaeological Discoveries in Eastern Nigeria, as our critical dividing line. Beyond doing that, however, we shall treat the years 1900 to 1970 as failing into sub-periods, with ca. 1900 to 1951 representing the high-noon, and 1951 to 1970 the twilight, of colonialism for the practice of either of these disciplines under consideration.

It is perhaps necessary to emphasize that for our first sub-period, 1900-1951, we shall be dealing mainly with the methods and concerns of anthropology, rather than also with history strictly speaking. It was a period marked by the unchallenged dominance of anthropology and anthropologists as far as the study of society was concerned. What passed for history, and therefore what, for the period, will be treated as historiography, concerns the speculations of anthropologists about the past of the peoples of central-south Nigeria, and with the work of one or two inspired indigenous amateurs such as Jacob Egharevba. By and large I agree with the view of Bill Freund, supported by Toyin Falola, to the effect that “the colonial period produced very little by way of overtly historical publication. The dominant colonial science was anthropology.” Thus this paper is on the idiosyncratic waywardness of colonial anthropology, the impact of this waywardness on the emergent historiography of central-south Nigeria from 1951 to 1970, the efforts of post-1970 anthropologists and historians to shake off this waywardness, and the part played by Shaw's Igbo-Ukwu in this struggle to end the baneful influence of that “dominant colonial science.”

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 23 , January 1996 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1996

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References

Notes

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24. The context of this criticism of the historical scholarship of the period must be clearly stated, especially as younger scholars are joining in with facile criticisms which show a misunderstanding of this context and suggest that earlier scholars became political historians because economic and social history is more difficult to write! The fact is that the important questions of the day were political questions, and unless these were addressed and laid to rest, the other questions would have remained secondary. Perhaps one needs to recall Kwame Nkrumah's insistence on the need to seek first the political kingdom of independence, after which all the other things would be added. The choice that faced the historians of the time was not between writing political history, which is said to be easy, and writing economic and social history, which is said to be difficult. It was one of writing political history or no history at all. Maybe the improvable claim that it is more difficult to write economic and social history can be countered with an equally unprovable, but perhaps truer, claim that it requires greater wisdom to write political history.

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