(2) BENIN, IFE & IGBO Civilizations From Akalaka-EKpeye Land.

…continued from the last article in the series.

This once-in-a-century book “Akalaka-Ekpeye and How They Ruled Benin, Ile-Ife and Igboland”, here serialized, details the TRUE origin of the civilizations of Yoruba (Oduduwa, Ogun, Sango, etc.), Igbo (Eri, Nri, Aro, etc.) and Benin (Igodo, Ewuare, Ewuakpe, etc.), from what is now Ekpeye, Ikwerre and Ogba lands in Rivers state. Full chapters 13 and 15 are available for download at akalakabook.com

This Mystic-Diviner saw a modest success at Ominije village, and eventually became its Ogele, that is Priest King, or more correctly ‘King with the Authority of the Earth God’. Since the time of the bitter political struggle between the Uzama Lords, led by the Oliha who took the title Ogele, and the Ogiamien who inherited the Ogiso (Sky King) monarchy from his father Evian, through to the subsequent end of the Ogiamien Ogiso dynasty as a result of the conquest by Ewedo, the worship of the Earth God (Ele, called otoe in Edo) had become in the Edo country as important as the Sun God (Usalebuwa/Osanobuwa, who lives in the sky, Iso). This is why this ambitious Mystic gave himself the title of Ogele. Ika (Agbor) history remembers that this Ogele, (also rendered as Ogene or Ogane), led a group of war mongers to invade Ife and Oyo and returned to settle in Agbor[1].

After some years a matured man came among some Akalaka migrants to Ika with his son named Ogwu/Ogu, perhaps because he had him during Akalaka festival, Ogu, as it is common to so name children born during the Ogwu Ede. They met, and sojourned with their kinsman Dr. ‘Ogele’. Ogu’s father appears to have had no profession but lived by plundering, most likely under an alliance with the Ogele/Ogene, who eventually took Ogu under his wing, as trainee physician, mystic and diviner. Ogu’s father then moved with other fellow Akalaka to the next settlement now called Oki. He went around the settlements to plunder, sparing a settlement only if they paid tribute to Ogele, his son’s master, thereby solidifying the claim of the Mystic as the Priest King (Ogele) of the Ika area. Later on, with assistance of his son Ogu, he subdued the country, and finally settled at a new place and named it in Akalaka ‘Ergbor’, meaning ‘clayey or wetland’, which is why Agbor the capital of the Ika nation, means ‘swamp’ in today’s Ika language. This move was in firm collaboration with Ogele/Ogane who then called an Assembly of the fast-growing country and said he had chosen Ogu’s father to be their Politcial Leader. It was Ogele, according to Ika Oral History, who created the title of Oluotu, (regarded as the ‘original’ title of the king of Ika nation). Oluotu of today’s Ika is a slight corruption of the Akalaka word Urlotu which means ‘The Chosen’. ‘Lortu’ = ‘choose’. Ogu’s father, the ‘Choice, Urlotu/Oluotu’ of Ogele, therefore became the first king of Agbor, eventually styling himself Eze, ‘Wealthy or Chieftain’ (today’s Ika’s Nze). Crowned by Ogele, he copied what was going on in Ubini, by having as office insignia, a curved scimitar called Orpia, another Akalaka word for ‘Cutlass’ (in today’s Ika, Opia also means Cutlass).

After his father left for, and became established in Agbor as Eze/Nze, Ogu, who was something more than his father, then replaced him at Oki, styling himself Edhema, (e-dheh-ma, one who + swallow + verb suffix denoting ‘totality’, meaning therefore, ‘One Who Swallows totally’) or, Ekeagba, (‘Large + Jaw’). Those two titular styles of Ogwu/Ogu, the Chief of Oki, are rendered in today’s Ika as Elema or Ekuagba; and this is preserved in the Odu Ifa of Ile-Ife titled ‘Ika’, the details of which I have already related. Because of the warring activities of Ogu’s father (Eze/Nze), Ergbor/Agbor became known as Adhi-Igili, ‘Place of the Brave and Passionate’, rendered in today’s Ika as ‘Ali-Igidi, the land of bravery’. The word ‘ali’ which is now found in some languages classified today as dialects of Igbo, such as Ogba and Ika, as well as the now-Igbo word ‘ani’, both of which are erroneously thought to be dialectical variants of the Igbo word for Land (Ala), actually are corruptions of Akalaka-Ekpeye word ‘adhi’, which means ‘place or location or environment’, rather than ‘land/earth’ which Akalaka-Ekpeye is ‘Erler’. Also, ‘Igidi’, rendered in Ika as ‘bravery’, is the root of the word ‘Agbogidi’, the cognomen not only of nearly all the Kings of the clans in the territory between Benin and River Niger, including Onitsha, but also of the famous Benin Warrior, the Agboghidi of Ugo N’Iyekorhionmwon. It is a slight corruption of the Akalaka-Ekpeye word Igili. The word means ‘Deep/Great Passion, that is, extremely strong or barely controllable emotion’ and expresses (1) bravery when used in forms such as ‘Igili Erta, wrestler’s courage/bravery’, ‘Igili Awa, warrior’s courage/bravery’, etc., and (2) bereavement when used in the phrase ‘Ishigili, ishi-igili, head + igili, that is, head swamped by the deepest emotions’. Agboghidi, the name of the Duke of Ugo N’Iyekorhionmwon, which has remained ‘meaningless’ to the best of Benin historians, and rendered simply as ‘Brave One’ in ‘Western Ibo’, that is, Western Upland Niger Delta, is the Akalaka-Ekpeye phrase agbba-igili, ‘power/strength + barely controllable emotion’. These terms were first introduced in that country by the Akalaka of Ogele/Nze/Ogu era. The term also survives in Ile-Ife following the invation of that city by Ogele and Ogu, c.1430-35. It survives in the form oshirigi (corruption of ishigili), the name of the ‘exclusive drum of the palace of Ooni’. The Oshirigi (Ishigili) drum is beaten mainly on two occasions: during Olojo, the festival in honor of Ogun, the god of war, and when there is bereavement in the palace (Olusegun, 2016). It is to be noted that Olojo itself was established following the death of Ogun, who as we shall soon see, was the one who ended the original dynasty of Odudua and established the present dynasty of Lajemisi. The drum, which is well known to be completely different in form from the ‘native’ drums of Yoruba, took its present sacred connotation after it was first used to mourn Ogun, hence the name Oshirigi (Ishigili).

 …continues in the next article in the series

Loanword Evidences

As a result of the migrations of Akalaka-Ekpeye people, about 2,000 words from Akalaka-Ekpeye language are now scattered in Yoruba, Igbo and Edo languages. Many of them can clearly be decomposed into their constituent elements in Akalaka-Ekpeye, as shown below, but cannot be so decomposed in their borrower Yoruba, Igbo or Edo languages.

Notes: (1) Yoruba ‘gb’ is replaced with ‘gbb’ to distinguish it from Igbo ‘gb’ since both sounds are different but both exist in Ekpeye; (2) vowel ‘under-dots’ are placed just after the vowel, but in the case of Ekpeye, this is replaced with the letter ‘R’ which does not exist in Ekpeye and is therefore not to be sounded, but helps in clarifying the sound of the vowel than the ‘under-dot’ does.

Igbo words originating from Akalaka-Ekpeye language

1.     Li: eat. [dyi: eat]

2.     Yo: beg. [dyor: beg, plead, pray]

3.     Agu.u. : hunger, desire. [gur: hunger for…]

4.     Ga: go, pass, move. [ga: pass through, by or across a place]

5.     Go: buy. [go: buy]

6.     Go. : worship, bless. [gor: invoke a supernatural force; cure]

7.     Gu. : count/read; desire. [gur: count/read; desire]

8.     Igiligi: dew. [igiligi: dew]

9.     Igu: palm branch. [ugu: palm branch]

10. Ngaji: spoon. [irgajir: spoon]

11. Ngali: bribe. [irgele: bribe]

12. Ngo: money, reward received for services rendered; bribe. [ngo: take. NB: short form of ‘gonu’ or ‘gotu’ = take.]

13. Ogulugu: rainbow. [egulugu: rainbow]

14. Ogodo: loin cloth. [orgordor: loin cloth]

15. Ogu: twenty. [urgur: twenty]

Yoruba words originating from Akalaka-Ekpeye language

16. Bi: beget, breed (mammals). [gbir: to breed, beget, (non-mammals only).

17. O.gbbo.lo. : kind of running root, much used as medicine in time of childbirth. [Orgborla: kind of running root, much used as general medicine, especially but not exclusively for children. Its yellowish bark is scrubbed, the grubs mixed with ashes, the resulting paste used as soap for a full body skin cleansing bath. It restores health and vitality.]

18. O.gbbun: ditch, steep valley. [egbu: a place of high elevation, such as a high hill, especially as seen from the depression or valley below]

19. Agbba: great gun, canon. [gbba: shoot gun/arrow. From gbba, to run or move speedily]

20. Agbbara: power, authority, strength, ability, etc. [agbba: power, strength, ability, hence authority]

21. Agbbe: forgetfulness, lapse of memory. [gbbe: think]

22. Agbbon: chin. [agbba: chin, cheek]

23. E.gbbe. : society, club. [1. Ogbbo: society, club. 2. Erkpe: group of people related by blood]

24. E.gbbe: from armpit to waist. [irgbba: from armpit to waist]

25. E.gbbin: foulness. [ergbbu: foulness]

26. Igbba: time; a definite period, duration, interval. [igbbu/igbbe: a time band (or geographical region), other than the present time (or speaker’s location) NB: Ekpeye treats time and space the same]

27. Igbbagbbe: forgetfulness, negligence. [igbbegbe: you did not think (gbbe), hence, negligence. I-gbbe-er-egbbe, pronoun + think + not + thinking]

28. Igbbeso. : a heaving. [igbbeso: you ran, hence, heaving. I-gbba-ersoh, you + run + race]

Edo words originating from Akalaka-Ekpeye language

29. Igho: selling by hawking. [i+go: you+buy: the operational constant refrain of a hawker.]

30. Oghe.e. : prostitution. [urger, from urga wer: unmarried spouse + that, hence that unmarried spouse/lover]

31. O.go. : raffia tree. [urgor: raffia tree]

32. O.ghe.de. : plantain. [irdeni: plantain.] NB: ‘ir-der-nir’ means ‘you fry’. An alternative description is ‘orga-er-der’, ‘oil+it+fry’, ‘oil fries it’, from which came the original word ‘ogede’.

33. Ugie: twenty. [urgiye (urgur Iryer): twenty things.

34. Ugha: quadrangle in Eguae (palace) where an Oba is buried and has his shrine erected. [Okpuga, o-kpu-uga, (kpu = head covering): a roofed structure, typically without walls, but sometimes with a store house, erected where ever regular shelter is needed away from home, e.g., on a farmland

35. Gwa: to dig. [gua: dig it. Gu+a = dig+it]

36. Bigo.bigo.bigo. : tree bent several times. [gbirgogbigo: the swaying this way and that, of a long stick or pole, that is flexible enough to so bend.]

37. Egbbo. : felling trees in a new farm [orgbor: felling trees in a new farm]

38.  Gba: auxiliary verb indicating that main action is by several subjects. [gber: 1. Them. 2. Suffix making pronouns and verbs plural]

39. Gba: tie up. [gburgba: tie or roll up]

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About me:

I was a Student Leadership Activist, became a Senior Legislative Aide to the DSP of NASS, worked in Oil Services sector, returned to public service as a Candidate for House of Assembly, and have since 2012 settled down to my private research and publishing career, based in Port Harcourt, specializing in Research and Publishing of ‘Historicals’. My new Book “Akalaka-Ekpeye & How They Ruled Benin, Ile-Ife and Igboland” is due for release October/November, 2020.

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[1] The best source on the Oral Traditions of Ika is perhaps Iduwe (1979). Although the reader has to be conscious of Iduwe’s apparently anti-Benin position, his information is rich, collected over a period of over 30 years, and unrefined by the analytical tool of an Academic. There are, like all Oral Traditions, some contradictions, all of which I have resolved in my presentations.