24/08/2022
Thought the group will like this..
Professor Ndagi Abdullahi Has Replied Professor Farooq Kperogi
Here is the write-up.
EYAGI AND YORUBA - THEIR NUPE ETYMOLOGIES
By Ndagi Abdullahi Amana Nupe
Recently my inbox was flooded with requests from various quarters asking me to clarify the etymology of Eyagi, the Nupe name for the Yoruba people.
I was busy then, but now here is my answer:
Etymologically, Eyagi was the Old Nupe name for the Spirit or Goddess of the River Niger properly known as Eya.
Several workers related Yoruba traditions confirming that Eya or Oya was a Nupe woman.¹
Eya the Nupe woman, also known as Yamaja by Yoruba traditions, was the wife of Shango whom Professor Leo Frobenius said was Nupe.²
A major Nupe subtribe is known as the Bini.³
So, the Nupe people living on the banks of the River Niger were known as the Bini Eya or Biniya.⁴
According to Dr. William Baikie this Biniya was a former national name of the people we call the Yoruba today.⁵
This means that the Nupe and Yoruba were both known as the Biniya in the past.
In the 1820s Sultan Bello famously wrote that the Nupe and Yoruba were practically one and the same people.⁶
Bishop Crowther was actually told by the Yoruba people themselves that the first people to speak the Yoruba language were the Nupe people of the Mokwa-Jebba axis.⁷
And, Richard Burton was told by the Yoruba people that the Yoruba and other people of Southern Nigeria originated from Nupeland wherein was located Original Ile Ife.⁸
It is in this context that Professor Idris Sha’aba Jimada wrote that the first Yoruba were simply the Biniya Nupe people who crossed the River Niger.⁹
In reference to the Bini Nupe kingdom on the banks of the River Niger, Biniya was usually shortened into Eya.
Eya was variously pronounced as Eyao, Eyeo, Eyo…
Which the colonial scribes transcribed as Oyo.
Oyo is a Latinization of Eya, the Nupe name for the River Niger, which became the name of the Nupe kingdom on the River Niger.
Note that Michael Oluwagbemi wrote that the Yoruba name for the River Niger is Okun.¹⁰
Old Oyo or Oyo Ile was a Nupe kingdom originally known as Biniya which literally translate as ‘Nupe of the River Niger’.
E.M. Lijadu recorded early Yoruba traditions narrating that the Oyo kingdom was founded by a Nupe prince called Mamman or Momo who came from the Nupe town of Gudu.¹¹
Scholars like Professor Robin Law and Professor Leo Frobenius have also discussed the Nupe beginnings of the Oyo kingdom.¹²
In any case, the Nupe people were known as Bini in those days.
And Bini was progressively derived from Gbini, Gbiri, Gbari or Gbara.
Gbara was also known as Bara.
That is why Professor Roger Blench wrote that the Nupe are known to this day as the Ibara, cf. the Bassange Nupe people.¹³
Bini and Bara were cognates.¹⁴
As a matter of fact, an early documented reference to the Yoruba people was by Sheikh Muhammad Dan Masani in his work ‘Tuhfat i-Anbariyya' in which he referred to the Yoruba with their original name as the Anabara or the Bara or Bini people.¹⁵
Professor Leo Frobenius also wrote that the Yoruba were originally known as the Anbara.¹⁶
In his other work, titled ‘Azhar ar-Riba fi Akhbar’, Sheikh Dan Masani wrote that the Anbara were also known as the Riba – a shortening of Anriba or Anraba.¹⁷
Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther related a curious tradition in which he narrated that the Yoruba people were initially a Raba Nupe people.¹⁸
This Riba or Raba is, of course, the mirroring of Bara or Bini.¹⁹
And, as I was saying, Biniya or Bini Eya was also known as Gbara Eya, Gbaraya, or Baraya.
Baraya mirror-image is Yaraba…
Which the Hausa city chroniclers wrote as Yariba…
And the colonialists Latinized as Yoruba.²⁰
Odumobi pointed out long ago that the name ‘Yoruba’ is a Nupe word, it is not a Yoruba word. ²¹
It is this context that Farouk Martins wrote that the Yoruba people don’t know the meaning or etymology of their national name.²²
References:
1 – See Bascom, W. (1977). Oba's Ear: A Yoruba Myth in Cuba and Brazil, African Folklore in the New World, Crowley, D.J. (ed.). University of Texas Press, p. 3-4; Thompson, R.F. (1974). African Art in Motion: Icon and Act. University of California Press, p. 219; Obanifa, B.P.O. Facts About Orisa Oya: The God Of The Wind, One Odua Community, etc., etc.
2 – Frobenius, L. (1913). The Voice of Africa: Being an Account of the Travels of the German Inner African Exploration Expedition in the Years, 1910-1912, vol. II. Translated by Rudolf Blind. London: Hutchinson & Co., p. 629.
3 – Nadel, S.F. (1942). A Black Byzantium: The Kingdom of Nupe in Nigeria. London: Oxford University Press for International African Institute, London, p. 74.
4 - Jimada, I.S. (2005) The Nupe and the Origins and Evolution of the Yoruba c. 1275-1897. Zaria: Abdullahi Smith Centre for Historical Research, p. 44.
5 – FO 2/31, Baikie to Malmesbury, 4th March 1859.
6 - Bello, M. (1826). Historical Account of the Kingdom of Tekroor, Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the Years 1822, 1823, and 1824. Clapperton, H. and Denham, D. London: John Murray, Appendix, Section IV, p. 163.
7 – CMSCA2/03 The Journal of Reverend Samuel Crowther, 25th June 1857.
8 –Burton, R. (1863). Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains: An Exploration, vol. I. London: Tinsley Brothers, p. 229.
9 – Jimada, I.S. (2005) The Nupe and the Origins and Evolution of the Yoruba c. 1275-1897. Zaria: Abdullahi Smith Centre for Historical Research, p. 44.
10 - Oluwagbemi, M. (2012). Yoruba vs. Bini – who founded what?, Chatafrik, Sunday 07 July 2012.
11 - E.M. (1905). Fragments of Egba National History, Egba Government Gazette, p.5.
12 – See Law, R. (1985). How Many Times Can History Repeat Itself? Some Problems in the Traditional History of Oyo, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 18, no. 1, 1985, pp. 33-51; Frobenius, L. (1913). The Voice of Africa: Being an Account of the Travels of the German Inner African Exploration Expedition in the Years, 1910-1912, vol. I. Translated by Rudolf Blind. London: Hutchinson & Co., pp. 177, 210.
13 - Blench, R. (2012). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages, 3rd. Edition. Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation, pg. 68.
14 - Blench, R. (2012). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages, 3rd. Edition. Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation, pg. 68.
15 – Sheikh Muhammad ibn Massana’s book ‘Tuhfat I’Anbariyya’ quoted by Sultan Bello in Bello, M. (1964). Infaq al-Maysur, Abubakar Gummi (ed.), Cairo: Dar wa matabi al-Sha’b, Cairo.
16 - Frobenius, L. (1913). The Voice of Africa: Being an Account of the Travels of the German Inner African Exploration Expedition in the Years, 1910-1912, vol. II. Translated by Rudolf Blind. London: Hutchinson & Co., p. 618.
17 - The title of Sheikh Muhammad ibn Massana’s book ‘Azhar ar-Riba fi Akhbar’ quoted by Sultan Bello in Bello, M. (1964). Infaq al-Maysur, Abubakar Gummi (ed.), Cairo: Dar wa matabi al-Sha’b, Cairo.
18 – Crowther, S.A. and Taylor, J.C. (1968). The Gospel on the Banks of the Niger Journals and Notices of the Native Missionaries Accompanying the Niger Expedition of 1857-59. London.
19 - Alfa, A. (2002). History of the Dendo Dynasty, Nupe Eye Magazine, July 2002. Minna.
20 - Blench, R. (2012). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages, 3rd. Edition. Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation, pg. 91.
21 - Oduwobi, O.T. (1969). “The Question of Ijebu Origins: Are the Ijebu Yoruba?”, Being Text of the 10th Lecture Series of the I-JAY Klub Delivered at the Club House, Stadium Road, Ijebu-Ode, on 28 April 2013, p. 6.
22 - Martins, F. (2006). Yoruba World Exploration And The Loss of Dynasties, Race and History Forum, August 7, 2006.
Credit: NDAGI Abdullahi
NupekoTv-Lafiagi
