Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T15:12:09.715Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Oral Tradition among the Ijo of the Niger Delta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Ijo oral traditions were generally remembered by elders and a small number of specialists, such as priests and drummers. All members of an Ijo community were also expected to know the traditions of origin of their lineage and Ibe. The institutions and rituals for the ancestors (kings and founders of lineages) also served as concrete reminders of the past.

Chronological distortions alleged to characterize Ijo traditions are shown to derive from a failure to take a sufficient number of samples of the various traditional sources and types.

Analysed for content, Ijo traditions of origin suggest a number of centres of dispersion. Instead of migrations from the hinterland, a fringe belt occupied by Ijo and hinterland peoples is revealed. Bronzes discovered at a number of sites indicate early contacts with Benin and other neighbours. But these bronzes as well as the dispersion centres call for archaeological investigation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , November 1966 , pp. 405 - 419
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition: a Study in Historical Methodology, translated from the French by Wright, H. M. (Chicago, 1965);Google Scholar first published in 1961 as De la tradition orate: Essai de méthode historique.Google Scholar

2 Vansina, Jan, Mauny, Raymond and Thomas, L. V. (ed.), The Historian in Tropical Africa: studies presented and discussed at the 4th International African Seminar at the University of Dakar, Senegal, 1961 (London, 1964), 67–8.Google Scholar

3 Brown-West, H. Wenike (now Tienabeso), A Short Genealogical History of Amachree I of Kalabari (Yaba-Lagos, 1956), 12.Google Scholar

4 Talbot, P. A., Tribes of the Niger Delta: Their Religions and Customs (London, 1932), 14O–1; 237–8,Google Scholar also Horton, R., Kalabari Sculpture (Lagos, 1965).Google Scholar

5 Talbot, P. A., Tribes of the Niger Delta, 240–I. Nduen Fobara is the same as Duein Fubara.Google Scholar

6 Talbot, Tribes of the Niger Delta, 307–8.Google Scholar

7 Brown-West, Amachree I of Kalabari, 24. Amakiri (Amachree) was the traditional first king of the Kalabari who brought the communities together to form the Kalabari kingdom.Google Scholar

8 Talbot, Tribes of the Niger Delta, 238–9.Google Scholar

9 Cf. Vansina, Oral Tradition, 36–9. The Mbari and obu houses of the Ibo would also come into this category.Google ScholarJones, G. I., ‘Mbari Houses’, Nigerian Field, VI (1937), no. 2, 77–9; no. 4, 169–71.Google Scholar

10 Alagoa, E. J., ‘Idu: a creator festival at Okpoma (Brass) in the Niger delta’, Africa, XXXIV (1964), no. I, 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Jones, G. I., Trading States of the Oil Rivers: a Study of Political Development in Eastern Nigeria (London, 1963), 25.Google Scholar

12 Gbadamosi, Bakare and Beier, Ulli, Yoruba Poetry (Ibadan, 1959), 12;Google ScholarBiobaku, S. O., ‘The problem of traditional history with special reference to Yoruba traditions’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 1 (12 1956), 42–7.Google Scholar

13 Jones, G. I., The Trading States, also ‘Time and oral traditions with special reference to Eastern Nigeria’, Journal of African History VI (1965), no. 2, 153–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Alagoa, E. J., ‘The settlement of the Niger delta: Ijo oral traditions’, Chapter 3, § 5. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1965–1966.Google Scholar

15 Jubilee Abayeh (1888–1965).Google Scholar

16 Moore, William A., History of the Itsekiri (London, 1930), 14.Google Scholar

17 Yousuo, Owolo (b. 1923).Google Scholar

18 Newington, W. F. H., ‘Eastern Ijo, Intelligence Report’ (unpublished government report, Enugu, 1938), 9.Google Scholar

19 Egharevba, Jacob, A Short History of Benin (Ibadan, 1960), 1 and 15. The Ogiso was the first dynasty replaced by one from Ife. The Oba Ewuare was styled Ogidigan, great leader.Google Scholar

20 Bronze finds are reported from Odioma, Okpoma and in the Ebala forest—all in the Nembe area. A bronze figure of the Kalabari goddess Awomekaso is also believed to be hidden in the shrine at Buguma. Sixteen bronze pieces from Okpoma were deposited at Lagos museum by me on 26 March 1966. Horton, Robin, ‘A note on recent finds of brasswork in the Niger delta’, Odu: University of Ife Journal of African Studies, II (1965), no. 1, 76–91), lists other finds in Andoni, Kalabari and the western delta.Google Scholar

21 Dike, K. O., Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830–1885 (Oxford, 1956), 24.Google ScholarDavidson, Basil, Black Mother, Africa: The Years of Trial (London, 1961), 284–8.Google Scholar

22 DrWilliamson, Kay: personal communication based on her own and the current work of Dr Hans Wolff.Google Scholar

23 Kimble, G. H. T. (trans.), Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis by Duarte Pacheco Pereira (London, 1937), 128–9, 130, 132.Google Scholar

24 Ibid. 130.

25 Barbot, John, A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea… (Paris, 1732),355.Google Scholar

26 Barbot, North and South Guinea, 376.Google Scholar

27 See Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition, 73–4, for a discussion of the Wandersagen.Google Scholar