ow11:

Obiagu1 is a clown and has written rubbish about what he doesn't know anything about.

The not-so-smart person has no idea that there is no standard written Ijaw. Kolokuma which is spoken in some parts of central Bayelsa state is what he probably thinks is standard Ijaw but take a boat ride to Furupagha or Akassa and find out if those people will understand you.

How can you say Kalabari people have more in common with Igbo than Ijaw? Yet over 80% of the words in the language can be understood by any native speaker of any Ijaw dialect in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers state.

Roger Blench has compiled a comprehensive Ijaw dictionary including all major dialects of the Ijaw language. It is in the public domain, Download it, read it and cure your ignorance!

[url]http://www.rogerblench.info/Language%20data/Niger-Congo/Ijoid/Comparative%20Ijoid%20wordlist.pdf[/url]

PhysicsMHD:

@ ChinenyeN, are you referring to this? :

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-500126.640.html#msg6663054

I was not aware of this and this seems entirely plausible. So Bonny was a mix. In this case, the argument of whether Bonny people are Igbo or Ijaw becomes kind of pointless.

EzeUche:

One of my most important threads continues to be discussed. So many problems concerning the true extent of Alaigbo.

Obiagu1:

This has been stated before but you preferred to indulge in making inferences on your own.
Igbos founded the town but the Ijaws lived there too mainly along the coasts. That's the point. It's not in Ijaw culture to live inland.
You went on list houses and instantly deduced that they were not Igbo. The most important factor in the bonny issue is the origin of their revered king Opubo or Obullo who Jaja named Opobo town after. He was Igbo!

Another important thing which people have failed to link in this Bonny is the issue of slaves. Because of their slave history, many believed that the Igbos there were slaves but if you actually look at the Igbo trade apprenticeship system and compare how it's done, many might confuse it as slavery but it's not. A slave doesn't become a master over his lords but in Igbo apprenticeship, the servant can become a master because he was NEVER viewed as a slave in the first instance though the Europeans may not understand the system and call it slavery.

PhysicsMHD:

Only a few of the other names seem Igbo to me (but I could be wrong, so do correct me if I'm missing something) and several look distinctly Ijaw (Sinaminabofori, "Erinashabo" (Iringeresibo), Kiepirima, Epelle, Amanibieyefori, Ibifa, Ibanigo, Uranta, etc.) which suggests a disproportionately high Ijaw influence that is unlikely to have been transplanted by a few later migrant fishermen/traders to the trading houses that were central to Bonny.  In fact the second link above explicitly says that seven of these houses were founded by Igbo ex-slaves, yet the houses were given Ijaw names.

ChinenyeN:

It seems like there is a lot people don't know. Like, for example, oral traditions have it that when the Portuguese came to the coast in the 15th century, it was the descendants of the founder (recollected as being Ngwa), led then by Asimini, that met the Portuguese, and got them to trade at Bonny. This effectively made Asimini the first King of Bonny. His [Asimini's] descendants subsequently ruled after him for some generations. Another interesting thing to note, which people for whatever reason tend not to mention (and consequently many people don't know), is the intensification of Ijo presence in Bonny beginning around the 16th century; a century or so after the Portuguese had established trade relations with Bonny people. Alagoa's chronology of Bonny recognizes/suggests this. This intensification (suggested to be Ijo migration from the west through creeks, to Bonny) is then followed by the massive influx of Igbo due to the slave trade (this one we should all be familiar with).

Hopefully this post could help address the above questions [those numbers]. Well, at the very least, some.

Accoding to my source, the Ubani was founded by people from Azuogo, Ndoki-Azumini. The Portuguese called it Culeba and English called it Bonny. As for Ijo, this was not a tribe but what the Portuguese called Jos, people of the river, whom they met at Rio Real. In fact, the main occupations of these people were salt making and copper smiting. The Jos gave rise to Ijo and plain brass sheet used in making salt gave rise to Brass in Bayelsa.

The first king of Ubani was Alagbarie anglicized Alagbara. The second King of Ubani, Okpara Ndoli, was the first son of Alagbara. Okpara Ndoli was succeeded by Opu Amakuba (Amakubu) and was succeeded by Okpara Azumini (Asimini)

Down the line of king's lineage, one would found names of kings such as Azumini, Edimini(Hippo) and Edi Abali (Bear).

The same thing could be said about Calabarie (Kalabari) whose founders migrated from Obu Amafo. The referenced place of Obu Amafo could have metamorphosed into Obuama of Ikwerre land.

The same thing could be said about Calabarie (Kalabari) whose founders migrated from Obu Amafo. The referenced place of Obu Amafo could have metamorphosed into Obuama of Ikwerre land.

Chyz*:

Where exactly are you all getting some of this information from? Where are the links? Also, I think a trip to River State, for historical purposes, should be in you guys agendas.

Obiagu1:

The problem is that you're so verbose I find it hard to know where to start answering you. I'll try to answer a few.

After going thru your own source, you concluded that most of the names do not sound Igbo ignoring the fact that most where spelt wrongly according to what we know Igbo language to be including the famous Equiano's name.

Manilla Pepple/Erinashabo, Ibaniburufia/Ibani, Ncheke, Sinaminabofori Okponkata, Imo, Ojuigbe/Nkwere, Uranta were all Igbos.

Now let's see what you seem to believe:

1. The European writers who assert, without asking, that the people they encounter at Bonny are "Ibo" are necessarily correct.
Some of them actually interacted with them, those that actually set their foot on the Island have better say on the issue. All of them said they were Igbos.

2. The European writers who say that the people they encounter at Bonny claim ancient Ijaw descent are necessarily incorrect.
Who are those writers that encounter them in Bonny that said such and how did they claim ancient Ijaw when they were not known as Ijaw then?

3. The fact that European writers say that most of the trading houses had Ijaw names, that the rulers of Bonny had Ijaw names and adopted an Ijaw war god associated with iguanas, does not make this thesis that Ijaws were later migrants to Bonny who dwelt along the coast and were not central to the founding of the town or ruling it seem implausible.
No, you are wrong, no European who set his foot on the Island said that the trading houses had Ijaw names. Pepple is not an Ijaw name.

4. "Igbos founded the town."
Yes, I have proof to that.

5. "Ijaws lived there mainly along the coast"
Google Bayelsa state and tell me where Ijaw towns are located including Nembe, coastal or inland?

6.  Those people in Bonny who were called Igbo slaves were not slaves.
This is a point I raised. If you reread my previous post, I said no one has ever try to look at Igbo trade apprenticeship system because in Igboland, we call it “odibo” meaning servant and some might misunderstood it as slave. I maintain that a slave cannot become a master if he did not revolt.
Tell me where such has happened in history except in Igbo related cases.

ChinenyeN:

Regarding the first bolded pair (where you seem to be having difficulty reconciling the Ngwa/Ndoki statements), Ndoki is an Ngwa offshoot. Regarding the second bolded pair (where you seem to be having difficulty reconciling the king issue), Bonny did not actually become a 'kingdom' (in the real sense of the word) until Asimini's 'reign'. That's why he [Asimini] is referred to as the Founding-King of Bonny.

Alagbara, the hunter who discovered Okoloma, is considered the founder (along with a few other notable people), and during the time of the founders, the organizational structure of Bonny was not that of kingship. Instead it was the Opara Ukwuu structure (Leadership by the Eldest). That's not to say that it would necessarily be wrong to refer to the founders as 'kings'. One can if one wants, but I in particular would be wary of using that expression, since the establishment of Bonny as a [i]kingdom [/i]didn't occur until Asimini's time.

Now, much of what I'm saying is what has been told to me (I hang around my elders quite a bit and I ask a lot of questions, especially when they say something intriguing). The information told to me though, has been more or less general. So, I had to research and dig up the gritty details of it all myself, and I found Alagoa, Fombo and Oriji (in particular), as well as Leonard, G.I. Jones and to an extent Talbot, who compliment and add on to the things told to me by my elders.

PhysicsMHD:

Well, Bonny was founded a very long time ago. Can anyone really know? If there were waves of migrations from different groups, who is to say which group arrived first?

Chyz*:

Ndoki an Ngwa offshoot? So does that mean Ngwa is an Mbaise offshoot?

ChinenyeN:

Maybe people should read into the works of Alagoa, Fombo and Oriji, since [i]some don't want to hear when someone tells them something.

ChinenyeN:

I won't hold this one against you. If I had to guess, I would just say that there are some thing you just aren't aware of. For one, Ngwa's link with Mbaise does not extend to all of Mbaise, just Ezilihitte and some fringe communities surrounding it. The rest of Mbaise is occupied by Isu and Uratta elements. Secondly, population densities of Ezilihitte and northern Ngwa are reported to be about the same, indicating settlement at around the same time (reference the very popular and highly celebrated Imo Crossing tale). Thirdly, Ngwa is more populous than all of Mbaise. Offshoots are not more populous than their origins. If anything, Ngwa and Ezilihitte [i]should [/i]have been the same clan, but the Imo made that difficult. But that's beside the point, being that you can't call Ngwa an Mbaise offshoot.

ChinenyeN:

Okay, I take it that you're also unfamiliar with Bonny oral traditions and how they recount their rout of migration, am I right?

Chyz*:

"Bonny" oral history? I think that's the problem that we've been having on this thread ever since,lol. Who or what ethnic group/clan is giving that oral history?

ChinenyeN:

If you really wanted to get an understanding, then you'd let someone explain and you'd digest it as they explain it, rather than try to reason/rationalize it with the color of 'political correctness' you exhibited with your last post (i.e. "I think it would be safer". It gives the impression that simple factual statements are always up for debate. Sometimes, it's important to understand that things are just what they are. So when someone explains something to you, especially if you know you don't know, just take it; take it with a grain of salt though, but don't give the impression that you want to debate something that you yourself may not be too sure of.

Now, addressing your post, I'm really hard-pressed to believe that you know enough about Ngwa history to talk, but I'm willing to hear you out. There's something we'll have to address though, if we're to really continue this discussion and that is whether or not we actually share the same understanding of offshoot. . .

ChinenyeN:

As stated earlier, Bonny people gave the account themselves, and as is the practice with oral traditions, one verifies by inquiring from neighboring communities.

ChinenyeN:

It seems like there is a lot people don't know. Like, for example, oral traditions have it that when the Portuguese came to the coast in the 15th century, it was the descendants of the founder (recollected as being Ngwa), led then by Asimini, that met the Portuguese, and got them to trade at Bonny. This effectively made Asimini the first King of Bonny. His [Asimini's] descendants subsequently ruled after him for some generations. Another interesting thing to note, which people for whatever reason tend not to mention (and consequently many people don't know), is the intensification of Ijo presence in Bonny beginning around the 16th century; a century or so after the Portuguese had established trade relations with Bonny people. Alagoa's chronology of Bonny recognizes/suggests this. This intensification (suggested to be Ijo migration from the west through creeks, to Bonny) is then followed by the massive influx of Igbo due to the slave trade (this one we should all be familiar with).

Hopefully this post could help address the above questions [those numbers]. Well, at the very least, some.

ow11:

We get time o. . . Arguing over inanities actually. 

ow11:

@Obiagu1

Let me rephrase: Kalabari is mutually inteligible by all Ijaw clans whilst Kolokuma is lot more difficult to comprehend by native speakers of other Ijaw dialects. Words are usually the same and I have not seen you decide to read Roger Blench's dictionary and see for yourself. This shows you do NOT even consider your own version of ORAL history to be erroneous in any way and will go to ridiculous lengths like insinuating that Kalabari language is akin to Igbo and has NO relationship to any Ijaw dialect. I am assuming when you say Ijaw, you mean Kolokuma which is only spoken in few communities in Bayelsa state.

PhysicsMHD:

Well, what I meant is, did they even ask them who their people were or were associated with or what clan/tribe/ethnicity/nationality they claimed?

I'm not saying that the people there would actually have answered  that "we are of such and such larger general ethnic group" since groups would have been too divided to do that or have any idea of such a thing. I'm just saying that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that  the European writers who said that the people and kings of Bonny were Igbo actually got that information (or information that implied that they were an Igbo sub-group) directly[i] from the people[/i] of Bonny. But if there is evidence that they did, then those quotes actually have the significance you were imparting to them. If not, then they could be taken as general, descriptive quotes that could just as easily only say something about the high degree of interaction between Igbos and Ijaws in Bonny, rather than supporting your account of Bonny's history.

PhysicsMHD:

An English writer (South African born, actually) who recorded  the claim that the ancestors of the people of Bonny migrated out of the "central Ijaw area" is G.I. Jones, who published Trading States of the Oil Rivers in 1963, and researched the Eastern region of Nigeria directly.

So unless they went to pre-colonial Nigeria and were each independently told the same tall tale, it would seem that this tale of an ancient migration led by "Alagbariye" was an old and authentic story in Bonny. This Alagbariye who "brought his people there" implies a migration, and the name implies an Ijaw leader, unless it's a misspelling.

PhysicsMHD:

I think we might be getting into semantics, because I phrased this sloppily when I originally wrote it. I meant that the Europeans writers say what the names of the trading houses are, and that, by observation, a large number of them are indeed Ijaw names to anyone who looks at them. But once again, if they are just misspellings of Igbo names, do explain what is being misspelled. I do acknowledge that European writers misspelled African names. That's indisputable. However, from what I have read, they did not miss the mark by so much and in exactly such a manner as to consistently parallel the names of a different African language.

And how do you know Erinashabo is not a misspelling of Iringeresibo, an Ijaw name? Please provide a comparable Igbo name, or the name this is supposed to be.

As for "Pepple," why can't that just be a misspelling of an Ijaw name? Is there a comparable Igbo name? I genuinely don't know, so I'm asking out of ignorance.

PhysicsMHD:

I really don't understand this argument. Nembe is further from the ocean than any part of Bonny, right? So what are you saying?

PhysicsMHD:

I am certainly no expert on slavery across different African cultures, but the following is a description of slavery in Bonny (and some other areas) that I found:

ChinenyeN:
I don't get what is so difficult to understand. I've explained this before. Yes, people really do know. Bonny's history isn't shrouded in mystery.



. . . I guess I just have no choice. . .

ChinenyeN:
Maybe people should read into the works of Alagoa, Fombo and Oriji, since some don't want to hear when someone tells them something.

ChinenyeN:
I don't know why some seem to feel (or behave) like everything is up for debate, especially when someone actually wants to explain things to them. It's like I might as well not even bother taking time out to address some people's posts and questions, in this topic and on this issue.

ChinenyeN: It seems like there is a lot people don't know. Like, for example, oral traditions have it that when the Portuguese came to the coast in the 15th century, it was the descendants of the founder (recollected as being Ngwa), led then by Asimini, that met the Portuguese, and got them to trade at Bonny. This effectively made Asimini the first King of Bonny. His [Asimini's] descendants subsequently ruled after him for some generations. Another interesting thing to note, which people for whatever reason tend not to mention (and consequently many people don't know), is the intensification of Ijo presence in Bonny beginning around the 16th century; a century or so after the Portuguese had established trade relations with Bonny people. Alagoa's chronology of Bonny recognizes/suggests this. This intensification (suggested to be Ijo migration from the west through creeks, to Bonny) is then followed by the massive influx of Igbo due to the slave trade (this one we should all be familiar with).

Hopefully this post could help address the above questions [those numbers]. Well, at the very least, some.

Obiagu1:

I'll quote myself:
Igbos are not going to yield an inch of Kalabari, Opobo, Bonny and Okrika to the Ijaws. Those 4 clans MUST remain independent of the Ijaw because they are not Ijaw but majority Igbo and minority Ijaw. They all have Igbo blood running in their veins!

ezeagu:

Erinashaboo doesn't sound Igbo.

PhysicsMHD:

Whereas Alagoa and Fombo write in A chronicle of Grand Bonny:

"It was during Alagbariye's reign that the Portuguese first arrived in Bonny"

http://books.google.com/books?id=VJV1AAAAMAAJ&q=bonny+portuguese&dq=bonny+portuguese&hl=en&ei=n3OsTbP1I7CK0QH9ltX5CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAg

So apparently this founder figure (Alagbariye) is viewed as having a "reign" and is associated with first Portuguese contact. Perhaps the record is not as crystal clear (which is actual commonplace for the early history of  different societies) as you're saying.

PhysicsMHD:

Also, there isn't necessarily much significance in the fact of an intensification of Ijaw presence around the 16th century in the context of what was being discussed  (Obiagu1's contention that the town was founded by an Igbo group and Ijaws were only later migrants). In the same way that the later influx of a large number of Igbos during the slave trade does not somehow prove or show that Igbos were not originally there to begin with, the increase in Ijaw presence after trade was established with the Portuguese doesn't prove that the Ijaws weren't there to begin with. It's an interesting detail, but it's kind of peripheral. Unless it could be established (archaeologically perhaps? With pottery shards/fragments indicating pottery unique to Igbo groups or Ijaw groups?) that Bonny was only of one stock prior to the 16th century, the situation doesn't seem clear cut when there seem to be different accounts. . .

Obiagu1:

I often rely on words from those that actually set their feet on Bonny.

Mean what you say or don't say it at all. It makes the whole stuff twisted.
I'll get where it was said that one of the natives said many more of them Igbos lived in the hinterland.

I asked you who were those writers that encounter them in Bonny that said such and you're telling me about GI Jones. Reread your initial questions and my reply. GI Jones wrote that in 1963, I only rely on those stuff written before all the confusions started ie pre-amalgamation.

Alagbariye is actually Alagbara, an Ngwa migrant that actually set up Bonny. Read Chinenye and Chyz discussion above.

Again, mean it or leave it. Erinashabo is also Manilla Pepple and Manilla Pepple was Igbo.

Pepple came from Pepper.

From Wanderings in West Africa:

"This Opubo, or Obullo, the " Great Man," was grandfather of the present
chief : his son took the name of Pepper (Pepple), which he now
spells with a change,


* These ridiculous names are taken from English ships. The slave
chiefs have all their own native names, e.g., Manilla Pepple is known
as Erinashaboo. All were the property of old King Pepple, who, when
dying, appointed Annie Tepple as guardian of his son's wealth. He
fought with Manilla Pepple, was beaten, took to drink, and died.
His son is the present Annie Pepple."

Nembe is further inland from the ocean but has a huge river or lake beside it. Ijaws are mainly fishermen. So Nembe is still more or less coastal.

I never said there was no slave dealings in Bonny but such slaves cannot rise to become leaders, it's not done anywhere in the world. I maintain that those that rose to high positions in Bonny might actually be "odibo" or servants in Igbo trade apprenticeship system. The slave trade of Bonny community might have been confused with those "odibo" because some of them actually live more like slaves than servants, we still see some of them in such situations today.

They were of varied ancestry but were often Kipchak Turks/Cumans,[1] depending on the period and region in question. While mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, who were not allowed to carry weapons or perform certain tasks. In places such as Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, mamluks were considered to be “true lords,” with social status above freeborn Muslims.[2]

ChinenyeN:

http://books.google.com/books?ei=n3OsTbP1I7CK0QH9ltX5CA&ct=result&id=VJV1AAAAMAAJ&dq=bonny+portuguese&q=asimini+crowned#search_anchor

The founders were not 'kings', in the real sense of the word. Bonny's kingship began with Asimini. That's the point I was making. 
My comment on the intensification of Ijaw presence was not in respect to Bonny's establishment. I was just recounting a simplified chronology. Bonny was jointly founded by Ngwa Igbo and Brass Ijo elements.