ANTHROPOS
106.2011: 579 – 595
Origin of the Yoruba and “The
Lost Tribes of Israel”
Dierk Lange
The article is a revised version of a
paper presented at the Conference “Jews and Judanism in Black Africa and Its
Diaporas” which was held at the School of African and Oriental Studies,
University of London,30 – 31 October 2010.
Abstract.
– On the basis of comparative studies between the dynastic tradition of
the Ọyọ-Yoruba and ancient Near
Eastern history, the present article argues that Yoruba traditions of provenance,
claiming immigration from the Near East, are basically correct. According to Ọyọ-Yoruba tradition, the
ancestral Yoruba saw the Assyrian conquests of the Israelite kingdom from the
ninth and the eighth centuries b.c. from the perspective of the Israelites.
After the fall of Samaria in 722 b.c., they were deported to eastern Syria and
adopted the ruling Assyrian kings as their own. The collapse of the Assyrian
empire is, however, mainly seen through the eyes of the Babylonian conquerors
of Nineveh in 612 b.c. This second shift of perspective reflects the
disillusionment of the Israelite and Babylonian deportees from Syria-Palestine towards
the Assyrian oppressors. After the defeat of the Egypto-Assyrian forces at
Carchemish in Syria in 605 b.c. numerous deportees followed the
fleeing Egypto-Assyrian troops to the Nile valley, before continuing
their migration to sub-Saharan Africa.
([Nigeria, Assyrians in Africa, Lost Tribes of Israel, migrations,
state foundation, conquest state, dynastic traditions, oral traditions, African
king lists] Dierk Lange, Dr. Troisième Cycle (1974 Paris), Thèse
d’État (1987 Paris); Prof. em. of African History, Univ. of Bayreuth. – Field
research in Nigeria, Niger, and Libya. – Publications include books and
articles on the history of the medieval empires of West Africa (Ghana, Mali,
Songhay,Kanem-Bornu) and on the history and anthropology of the Yoruba,
Hausa, and Kanuri. – See References Cited).
Introduction
According
to the present opinion, the Yoruba are of local origin, but this opinion
reflects the great influence of post colonialism on African historiography
rather than sober text-critical research. It involves the
fallacious dismissal of the major traditions of provenance suggesting an origin
of the ancestral Yoruba in the Near East. In fact, before the rise of academic
African historiography in connection with the independence of African states
around 1960, scholars relied more directly on the available traditions of Yoruba
origin and they did some comparative research between Yoruba, ancient Mediterranean
and Israelite cultures. On the basis of this evidence they suggested that the
Yoruba immigrated from far away: either from Phoenicia, the Mediterranean
world, Egypt, or Nubia (Biobaku
1955: 8 – 13; Lange 1995: 40 – 48) . If any of
these suppositions could be shown to be true and present opinion to be
ideologically biased, it would mean that a culture of the ancient world
survived in sub Saharan Africa, which in the area of origin was superseded
by subsequent sweeping developments Such as Hellenization, Christianization and
Islamization (Lange 1995, 1997, 1999).
Academic
historians of the postcolonial period take a hypercritical position by pointing
out several factors thought to invalidate the basic message of the traditions which
formerly had been considered to be of minor significance. They emphasize that
migration of the Yoruba was unlikely as long as people further north were not
immigrants. They estimate that traditions of migration from the Near East were
the result of an Islamic feedback, supposing that local
keepers of traditions manipulated the historical data for the sake of inventing
a prestigious history equivalent to that of Muslims and Christians (Fage
1976: 64 f.; Henige 1982: 81 f.). More particularly they accuse scholars who
do not conform to Afro-centric attempts to reconstruct African history of
following the so-called Hamitic hypothesis, which supposedly denies
Africans the ability to found their own states. With little concern for the available
sources, they claim that any reference to migrations from outside Africa
results mainly from the attempt to justify colonialism by projecting the
colonial situation into the past (Law
2009: 297 f.).
Clearly such ideological preconceptions based on nationalistic historiography erect considerable barriers for any sober approach to the available historical sources. Moreover, they greatly inhibit any attempt to venture beyond the natural barriers of regional studies and they create enormous obstacles for the integration of Africa into world history in ancient times.
Migration from the Near East and the Foundation of the Sahelian States North of the YorubaFrom the ninth century a.d. onward, numerous Arab authors provide information on African states south of the Sahara obtained from Arab and Berber traders who had visited them. Most of these authors were geographers with little interest in history. A great exception is al-Yaʿqūbī, the earliest of the three most important historians of the Arabs, who was born in Iraq and finished his acclaimed Ta’rīkh in 873 in Khurasan. It is very fortunate for African history that al-Yaʿqūbī had a global view of mankind, far transcending the Islamic horizon. After relating the history of the biblical patriarchs and that of the ancient world, he continues with India and China, and then turns his attention to sub- Saharan Africa, beginning his account with a great migration.
The
people of the progeny of Hām, son of Noah, left the country
of Babel, went to the ˙west, crossed the Euphrates,
continued to Egypt and thence moved to East and West Africa. West of the Nile,
the Zaghawa settled in Kanem, next the Hausa (text: HWDN), then the Kawkaw and finally
the people of Ghana˙(Levtzion˙ and Hopkins
1981: 21). Historians tend to discard
this information as fictive because it seems to press all early human history
into the mould of descent from Noah. However, it can be shown that al-Yaʿqūbī was too dedicated to facts to manipulate the
history of African people by inventing ex nihilo details of an early migration
in order to make it fit the preconceived idea of biblical descent. Most likely
he relied in this case on information obtained from travelers who had visited
the Sahelian kingdoms themselves. In fact, two other writers, Ibn Qutayba in
the ninth century and al-Masʿūdī in
the tenth, echo similar partly independent traditions (Levtzion and
Hopkins 1981: 15, 31).
Today
the court historians of these surviving kingdoms still relate stories of early
migrations. This is the case in Kanem-Bornu, where the dynastic hero is
said to have migrated with his people from Baghdad to Yemen and hence to the
region of Lake Chad (Lange 2010b: 89 – 93; 2011b: 3 – 10) . In the central Hausa state of Daura, the great
national tradition claims that the bulk of the people came from Syria-Palestine and
that the leader originated from Baghdad (Palmer
1928: 132 f.; Lange 2004: 289 f.).
Further to the west, in Kebbi traditionalists relate the story of a legendary
hero who departed from a town in the Near East and continued with his followers
via Egypt and Fezzan to the present locations of the people
(Lange 2009: 363 – 366).
The
heroes of these and other stories of migrations can in some cases, such as
Kanem and Kebbi be identified with the great Mesopotamian empire builder Sargon
of Akkad, who mutated into an epoch hero, incorporating into his figure
several, later ancient Near Eastern kings, and finally even leading his people
to West Africa. In other cases, the hero of the migration corresponds to the Assyrian
refugee king, Assuruballit II (612 – 609). From the Babylonian
Chronicle we know the major details of the fall of the Assyrian Empire: the
defeated crown prince fled with his troops from the conquered city of Nineveh,
was crowned as the last king of Assyria in Harran in Syria, and got military
support from the Egyptians, but he became so insignificant that the Chronicle
omits any mention of him in connection with the crushing defeat of the Egyptian
troops at Carchemish in 605 b.c. (Grayson 1975: 94 – 99;Oates
1991: 182 f.).
Assuruballit
II figures prominently in several West African traditions: the great Hausa
legend of Daura calls him after his second name Bayajidda (uballit >baya-jidd(a)), relates
his flight with half of the royal troops from “Baghdad” (as an actualization of
Nineveh), traces his migration to Bornu (for Egypt) where the king of Bornu
lent his troops little by little for his own benefit, until the hero finally
travelled alone on his horse to Daura in Hausaland, where he killed the dragon,
married the queen, who had earlier immigrated with her people
from Syria-Palestine, had children with her, and thus became the founder
of the seven Hausa states (Palmer 1928: 133 f.;
Lange 2004: 290 – 295).
According to the original version of the written reports of Kanem, the leader of the great migration via Egypt and Fezzan was Arku, a name which due to its Akkadian meaning, “the second,” seems to designate Assuruballit II (Lange 2011b: 17 f.). Hence, the traditions of major states situated north of the Yoruba refer to a great migration of state builders from the Near East, in which the heroic leader bears either some form of the name of the greatest Mesopotamian empire builder Sargon of Akkad, venerated in particular by the Sargonic kings of Assyria, or some form of the name of Assur-uballit II, the last king of Assyria.
According to the original version of the written reports of Kanem, the leader of the great migration via Egypt and Fezzan was Arku, a name which due to its Akkadian meaning, “the second,” seems to designate Assuruballit II (Lange 2011b: 17 f.). Hence, the traditions of major states situated north of the Yoruba refer to a great migration of state builders from the Near East, in which the heroic leader bears either some form of the name of the greatest Mesopotamian empire builder Sargon of Akkad, venerated in particular by the Sargonic kings of Assyria, or some form of the name of Assur-uballit II, the last king of Assyria.
The great migration of
refugees from the collapsing Assyrian Empire c. 605 b.c. according to Yoruba
tradition.
Onomastic evidence, derived from Arabic dynastic accounts initiated by earlier Hebrew or Aramaic writings, confirms the validity of the orally transmitted migration legends. For the Near Eastern background of the history of Kanem, we have the king lists and the Dīwān, a chronicle in Arabic based on an earlier chronicle written in Hebrew which can be shown to present a condensé in the form of a short king list dealing with the origin of the state builders of Kanem (Lange 1977: 66 f.).
Beginning
with the figure heads of the three major states of the Fertile Crescent: Sēf/Sargon of Akkad, Ibrāhīm/Abraham of
Israel, Dūkū/Hammurabi of Babylonia, it continues with four kings standing
for the Neo-Assyrian expansion: Fune/Fûl(Tiglath-pileser III) and
three other kings representing Urartian, Elamite, and Hittite deportees; it
ends with two kings indicating the fall of the Assyrian Empire. These last
kings of the ancient prehistory of Kanem are
Bulu/Nabopolassar (626 – 605) and Arku/Assur-uballitII (612 – 609).
The
insertion of Nabopolassar, the Babylonian conqueror of Assyria, into a king
list that otherwise reflects a pro-Assyrian view of the ancient Near
Eastern prehistory of the state founders of Kanem can be explained by the
ambiguous attitude of the different refugee communities of deportees towards
the Assyrian state. On one hand they were indebted to the Assyrian leadership
for their admission to high positions of the Assyrian state and army, but, on
the other hand, they considered the Assyrian elite as their oppressors and
accordingly hailed the Babylonian conquerors. By introducing the name of the
Babylonian conqueror between the names of kings representing the communities of
Assyrian deportees and the last Assyrian king, the ancient chronicler provides
in onomastic form a fairly accurate glimpse of the fall of Assyria (Lange 2011b: 17 f.).
Evidence
derived from the king list of Kebbi confirms the validity of this analysis
based on onomastic material from Kanem-Bornu sources. Just as the
early part of the Dīwān corresponds to the Arabic translation
(and adaptation) of a Hebrew chronicle, the pre-Islamic part of the king
list of Kebbi represents the Arabic translation of an Aramaic king list.
Though including 33 royal names and being, therefore, much more extended than
the Near Eastern part of the Dīwān, it has similar sections and refers
also to deported people such as Kassites, Babylonians, Elamites, Urartians,
Hittites, Arameans, and Israelites.
Moreover,
by the arrangement of royal names its second section offers a précis of
the crucial period of empire-founding by Sargon of Akkad. Its last
section, beginning likewise with Fumi/ Fûl (Tiglath-pileser III),
mentions some supplementary Neo-Assyrian kings and ends, like
the Dīwān, chronologically exactly with the Babylonian conqueror of
Assyria and the Assyrian refugee king, called in this case Maru-Tamau/Nabopolassar (626 – 605)
and Maru-Kanta/Assur-uballit II (612 – 609) (Lange2009: 369 – 375)
.
Therefore, it can hardly be doubted that Kanem and Kebbi and several
other great states north of the Yoruba were founded by refugees from the
collapsing Assyrian empire comprising a few Assyrians and numerous deported
communities settled in the western provinces of the Empire. They were pushed westward to Syria by the advancing
Babylonian and Median troops, where, together with their Egyptian allies they
were defeated in the battle of Carchemish in 605 b.c. and hence fled in the
tracks of their allies to Egypt and thence to West Africa
(Lange 2010a: 105 – 107) .
The Israelite component of these
ancient Near Eastern immigrants
A
word should be said about the Israelite component of these ancient Near Eastern
immigrants. Though numerically the Israelites from the northern state seem to
have been weak, their cultural influence was considerable. In Kanem, the
dynastic hero Sef/Sargon is credited with descent from the biblical patriarchs,
beginning with Adam and ending with Abraham, and the unity of the different
immigrant and local clans was ensured by a national shrine, the Mune/Manna,
which the Imam Ibn Furtū claims to be identical with the Sakina of King Saul
(Lange 2006; Seow, ABD/I: 386 – 393) . In Daura the great Hausa
tradition traces the origin of the seven Hausa states, on the pattern of the
Abrahamic scheme of descent, from a figure equivalent to Isaac, but in this
case turned into a son of the Canaanite queen Maga jiya/Sarah and the Assyrian
refugee king Assuruballit II/Bayajidda (instead of Abraham).
By contrast, the seven non-Hausa states are said to be descended
from the son of the slave maid of the queen, Bagwariya/Hagar, offered by the
queen to the hero, just as Hagar was offered by Sarah to Abraham. She gave
birth to a son equivalent to Ishmael, the ancestor of the twelve Arab tribes,
who in turn engendered the ancestors of the seven non-Hausa states (Palmer 1928: 134; Lange 2004: 294 f.). In the context
of deportees from the northern Israelite state alone, the number of twelve
appears to have been reduced to seven, and the contrast between the two sets of
seven states seems to distinguish between Israelite and non-Israelite state
founders from among immigrant Assyrian deportee groups.
In
Kano, the greatest town of Hausa land, the equivalent of the Ark of the
Covenant called in this case Cukana/ Sakina was destroyed in the
wake of the Fulani Jihad at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Palmer
1928: 116, 127; Last 1980: 172). Other important remnants of Israelite
culture can be traced in the Hausa states of Ƙatsina,
Biram and Kebbi (Palmer 1926/7: 221 f.; Lange 2009: 374). Owing to
postcolonial Afrocentrism, they have not yet attracted the attention they
deserve.
Yoruba Traditions of Migration from
the Near East
The
Yoruba live in a tropical region too far south of the Sahara to have come to
the note of medieval Arab geographers. Although now considered as a single
“tribe” or people, in precolonial times the Yoruba did not form a political
unit, but comprised many separate states in what is now southwestern Nigeria.
“Yoruba” was an alternative name for the largest and most powerful of these
states, Ọyọ, in the north. The name was
extended in the second half of the nineteenth century to the entire linguistic
and cultural group claiming a common origin from Ile Ifẹ, the site of a remarkable myth of creation (Bas-
com 1969: 9 – 11). Therefore, the few remarks on the Yoruba
occurring in writings of African scholars of the Sudanic belt from the
seventeenth to the nineteenth century refer solely to the kingdom of Ọyọ and not to
all Yoruba-speaking people (Hodgkin 1975: 156). The first and only
Sudanic author to provide precise information on the origin of the Yoruba is Muhammad
Bello, the son of the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate and his later successor.
In his “Infāq al.
The
notion of seven – northern Israelite – tribes seems to be based on the omission
of the tribes of Simeon, Judah, Be jamin, Levi, and Ruben (Jeansonne,
ABD/VI: 26; De Geus, ABD/III: 1034 f.; Spencer, ABD/IV: 294; Oller, ABD/V:
693). Maysūr,” written in 1812, he included a brief account of Yoruba origins,
stating that the Yoruba were remnants of the Canaanites of the tribe of Nimrūd
who were expelled from Iraq by Yaʿrub b.
Qahtān ˙˙ and who fled to the west before they proceeded via Egypt and Ethiopia
until they came to Yoruba (Bello 1964: 48; Arnett 1922: 16). On the basis of
the hypercritical Islamic feedback theory most historians nowadays
doubt the validity of claims postulating Near Eastern origins. They believe
that under the influence of Islam African keepers of traditions made up
allegations of migrations from the Near East in order to insert the history of
their own people into what they saw as the mainstream of historical
developments (Fage 1976: 64 f.; Henige 1982: 81 f.). However, more recently
it has been suggested that an Arab-Islamic overlay of these
traditions resulting from an interpretatio Arabica tried to
adapt a previous indigenous tradition to Arab-Islamic notions of
geography and history (Lange 2008; 2011b: 5).
In
particular, certain names of the indigenous tradition seem to have been
equalized with figures known from Arab historiography in order to increase the
comprehensibility of the tradition. Thus, the biblical name Nimrod also known
from other Central Sudanic traditions may since ancient times have been an interpretatio
Hebraica for the great Mesopotamian empire builder Sargon of Akkad,
known in Kanem-Bornu as Sef, in Daura as Najib, in Kebbi as Kanta, in
Songhay as Qanda, and in Yorubaland as Okanbi. The other figure mentioned by
Bello, Yaʿrub b. Qahtān, said to have expelled the Yoruba from
Iraq, was probably chosen from among the ancient kings of the Yemenites on
account of accidental homophony. This choice of a name is, however, not purely
arbitrary, since the early Yemenite kings of the Arab historians can be shown
to correspond to a combined tradition reflecting southern Arabian and Assyrian
history (Lange 2011c). According to Arab historians,Yaʿrub b. Qahtān was the second king following Qahtān/Yoktan,
son of Eber, and on account of his name he was thought to have been the first
Arabic speaker among these kings (al-Yaʿqūbī 1960/I: 195;
Ibn Qutayba 1960: 627).
Though
it is quite unlikely that expelled people would adopt the name of their
conqueror, in the context of an expulsion from Mesopotamia his name could
reflect reminiscences of Nabopolassar, the Babylonian conqueror of Nineveh in
612 b.c. mentioned instead of Ọranyan/Jacob
in Some Yoruba accounts of creation, the
name Yoruba itself is, however, more likely to have been derived from the name
of Jeroboam, designating the founder of the northern Israelite kingdom
(Bowen 1857: 266). Bello mentions further the settlement of kindred refugees
in the hill country presumably south of Sokoto and in the town of Yauri, people
who have traditions of origin bearing great similarities to those of the Ọyọ Yoruba (Hogben
and Kirk-Greene1966: 256 – 260) .
From
the reading of the other traditions of origin recorded by Bello, it appears
that the author credits with Near Eastern origins only those people whom he
highly respects, such as his own Fulani, the Kanuri
of Kanem-Bornu, and the Yoruba. He denies such provenance to those
peo- ple he looks down upon, such as the Hausa, who had recently been subjected
by the Fulani, although the Hausa themselves hold such a tradition which he
mentions without any reference to their prestigious origins. It is
difficult to think of any reason why Bello or other scholars before him on whom
he relies should have invented a tradition of Near Eastern origins to flatter
people with whom he had nothing in common.
Apart
from Muhammad Bello, the dynastic tradition transmitted by bards of the royal
court of Oyo, likewise traces the origin of the Yoruba to the ancient Near
East. According to the version of the tradition recorded by the Yoruba scholar
Samuel Johnson in 1895, the ancestral Yoruba lived in Mecca and their king was
Nimrod. Braima, i.e., Abraham, instigated a revolt against the polytheistic
regime of Nimrod in the course of which Nimrod was killed. There upon Oduduwa,
the son of Nimrod, fled with his followers and the idols to Africa and left en
route some kindred people such as the Kanuri of Kanem-Bornu and the
people of the Hausa kingdoms of Gobir.
He
settled with his people in Yoruba-land, where he founded the holy city of Ile
Ifẹ (Johnson 1921: 3 – 5) Details of the story show
evidence of extensive borrowing from Arabic sources (al-Tabarī 1989: 49 – 61; al-Kisā’ī 1978: 136 – 150)
. However, under the layer of the interpretative Arab story we find some
elements of an authentic tradition: though not necessarily in Mecca, the
ancestors of the Yoruba once lived in the Near East; called by the biblical
name Nimrod their ancestral king was killed in the course of a popular
uprising; his son Oduduwa fled with many people, some of whom settled en route
to later Yoruba-land. Considering the traditions of people on the possible route
of migration between Syria-Palestine, Darfur, and the region of Lake Chad,
we find ample references to countries of provenance and ancient figures belonging
to the history of the Fertile Crescent (Lange 2011a)
In a recent and more faithfully recorded version of the dynastic
tradition of Ọyọ, the original town of the ancestral Yoruba in Arabia
is not called Mecca but Mọndiana. Independently from Johnson the Ọyọ prince Adẹyemi wrote in 1914 that the Yoruba together with their
northern neighbors, the people of Borgu, originated from Medina (Falọla and Doortmont 1989: 313). One might think that
both towns, Mecca and Medina, are mentioned in Yoruba traditions simply because
they had come to the note of the people in consequence of pilgrimages by their
Muslim neighbors. This is only true to the extent that the geography of the
Near East was reduced in the minds of landlocked Africans to those towns
frequently mentioned in oral accounts.
However,
from recent recordings of the royal traditions of Ọyọ it appears that neither
Mecca nor Medina was the name retained by the tradition for the original home
town, but Mọndiana. The royal bards of Ọyọ distinguish Mọndiana from Medina and they clearly localize the town
“beyond Mecca” (Moraes Farias 1990: 121 f.). Such a designation of the place
of origin of the Yoruba comes close to the tradition of provenance of the
Kabawa, localizing the original home of the people in a town called Madayana
not yet accommodated to Arab notions of Near Eastern geography (such as Baghdad
or Yemen) (Lange 2009: 364; HALAT/II: 521).
Both
Mọndiana and Madayana seem to be names derived from the
Aramaic designation madīnah“town, city” referring to a great city
of Mesopotamia. Similarly, several biblical authors mention Nineveh by the
generic Hebrew term îr “city”. In the Yoruba and Kebbi tradition,
the two designations could, therefore, refer to the great city of Nineveh that was
left by the crown prince with his followers after a major disaster. In the
context of a general reevaluation of the ancient history of the Central Sudan
it appears that the theory of a migration of the ancestral Yoruba from
Mesopotamia is in line with the history of their northern neighbors in
the Niger-Chad region. This theory does not postulate a massive
migration of people from the Near East at an undetermined moment in time, but
repercussions from the fall of the Assyrian Empire and the subsequent defeat of
the Egypto-Assyrian army in 605 b.c. (Saggs 1984: 120 f.; Oates
1991: 182 f.).
There
is nothing improbable in the idea that these decisive events are reflected in
the traditions of people whose ancestors seem to have fled in great numbers to
West Africa. Thus the parallel Hausa and Yoruba traditions, mentioning the
death of the last great king in the ancestral capital, refer in all likelihood
to the death of Sin-shar-ishkun in his palace in Nineveh (Palmer 1928:
133; Johnson 1921: 4). His son, called Bayajidda or Oduduwa, fled to West
Africa after the death of the king with the remnants of the people, an event
apparently corresponding to the retreat of Assur-uballit II, the son
of Sin-shar-ishkun, with the remnants of the army, first to Harran in
Syria, 380 km away from Nineveh, and later in the tracks of the fleeing
Egyptian allies to the Nile valley and possibly beyond.
The
written dynastic lists of Kanem and Kebbi in the Central Sudan record these
events more soberly by simply mentioning at the end of the list of ancient Near
Eastern kings the names of the Babylonian conqueror of Nineveh, Nabopolassar
(called either Bulu or Maru-Tamau), and that of the Assyrian refugee
king Assur-uballit II (called Arku or Maru-Kanta). As for al-Yaʿqūbī, his brief account of the great migration of
West African people starting from Babylon relies probably on West African oral
traditions reported by Arab traders, which in his time might have been more
detailed than now. In his case, the name of the famous Babylon seems to have
been substituted for the largely forgotten Nineveh. In view of the elite
orientation of traditions, it is not surprising that the surviving oral
accounts in West Africa insist on the Assyrian leadership and its defeat in the
Mesopotamian capital. By contrast, they largely neglect the origin of the bulk
of the refugees from foreign deportee communities established by the Assyrian
authorities in Syria-Palestine (though the Hausa legend clearly
distinguishes between the first settlement of people
from Syria-Palestine and the later arrival of
Bayajidda/Assur-uballit II himself). Pointers to these deportee
communities are provided by the onomastic evidence in the Central Sudanic king
lists. Apart from exiled Israelites, the available royal names refer also to
Babylonians, Assyrians, Elamites, Kassites, Urartians, Hittites, and Aramaeans
(Lange 2009: 369 – 375; 2011b: 13 – 18).
Moreover,
it appears from the traditions of Kanem-Bornu, Hausa-land, and Yoruba-land
that, although numerically not very important, the Israelites had the greatest
cultural influence of all the different national groups which found their way
to West Africa. Gen 10:12; Jon 1:2; 3:3; 4:11; Jth 1:1; Grayson, ABD/IV:
118 f.; HALAT/II: 521; Lange (2009: 363 f.).
The Dynastic Tradition of Ọyọ as an
Outline of Israelite-Assyrian History
Consisting
of lengthy well-conceived royal poems, the dynastic tradition of
the Ọyọ Yoruba enumerates after the
account of the origin the names and feats of 29 kings who ruled before the
Fulani Jihād beginning in 1804 (Johnson 1921: 187; Hess
1898: 130 – 173). Although there is no synchronism for any of these
kings, it is generally assumed that they were rulers of the Ọyọ Empire whose reigns immediately preceded
the period of the Jihād. This assumption neglects
the well-known phenomenon of the floating gap in oral traditions
which succeeds the period of origin and precedes the period of the recent past,
both characterized by a wealth of information, while for the middle period
there is a total absence of data (Vansina 1985: 23 f.).
Trying
to make sense of some complex events related by the tradition, historians
supposed that they were propagandistic projections of nineteenth century developments
into the past (Law 1985: 33 – 49; Agiri 1975: 5 – 11). Some
time ago it was recognized that the early Sango section of the Ọyọ tradition reflects an episode
of ninth-century Israelite history, but this analysis of a single section
of the tradition found little echo
(Lange 1999: 88 – 99; 2004: 239 – 242) .
The
following development provides a rough overview of the entire Ọyọ tradition, indicating that
in fact the rich pre-Jihād corpus of the tradition refers not to local but
to Israelite-Assyrian history. It is based on a comparison of the
different available records of the tradition, including
the well-known version of the tradition recorded by Samuel Johnson
and the newly discovered slightly abbreviated version of the tradition
translated by the French priest Jean Hess
(Johnson 1921: 143 – 182; Hess 1898: 117 – 175). The
full results of this research dealing with all five sections of the tradition
will hopefully be published in the near future.
First Section
The
first section of the corpus of Ọyọ tradition concerns early Israelite and Assyrian kings.
Recited in a clear sequence the well-structured royal poems of Ọyọ begin with Lamarudu/Nimrod (1),
the biblical name the Sargon of Akkad (2334 – 2279) (Levin
2002: 359 f.). He is followed by Oduduva (2), the legendary founder of Ifẹ, and Ọranyan/Ọranmiyan (3), the legendary founder of Ọyọ. On account of the root dôd“beloved”
applied in the form mdd to the Semitic chaos deity, Yamm, and
the plural ending -āwu >-ūwa, Oduduwa seems to
designate a plurality of half-hostile, half-friendly Assyrian kings.
As
for Ọranyan/Ọranmiyan the
name seems to stand for Jacob son of Isaac also called Israel, the eponymous
ancestor of the Israelites. In view of its derivation from ọrun “heaven”
> ọran, the
first component part of the name Ọranyan/Ọranmiyan is cognate with the Semitic semen “heaven”
included in the name Samemroumos “high heaven,” sometimes thought to be an
epithet of the patriarch Jacob (Meyer 1906: 278; Dijkstra DDD: 863). More
generally, Ọranyan’s key position in both the Ọyọ tradition of origin and
the Ọyọ creation account provides
him with the characteristic of a central figure of Israelite legend and
mythology (Johnson 1921: 143 – 146; Hess 1898: 123 – 127) .
Jes 8:7; 17:13;
Day (1985: 101 – 104); Stolz, DDD: 1390 – 1401; Lange
(2004: 355).
Ọyọ dynastic tradition continues with the epoch ruler
Ajaka (5) corresponding to Isaac. Omitting any reference to David and Solomon,
the kings of the so-called unified kingdom of Israel, it next describes
the rise of the fierce king Sango (pronounced Šàngó), thought to
have ruled over the kingdom for seven years. Sango fought primarily against Ọlọyọkoro, ˙“King
of core Ọyọ,” and when he was about to
vanquish him, he gave his henchman Ọmọsanda the opportunity to de- feat his enemy and to put
him to flight (Hess 1898: 137 – 142; Johnson 1921: 149 – 152). This
succession of events closely corresponds to the first Assyrian intervention in
Israel under Shalmaneser III, which, according to some historians, was an
important factor in the overthrow of Joram by Jehu and the substitution of the
Omrides by the dynasty of Jehu (Astour 1971; Ahlström 1993: 592 – 596)
.
The
name Sango is most likely derived from šangû, the priestly royal
title of Assyrian kings, Olo yo koro (Yoruba: “King of core Ọyọ”) apparently designates Joram,
the last king of the Omrides, while the name Ọmọsanda (Yoruba: “son of Sanda”)
refers to Jehu b. Nimsi (841 – 804), the founder of the second
dynasty of Israel. Supported by some reconstructions of Israelite history, this
account of events describes Jehu as an instrument of Assyrian expansionism. The
dramatic demise of Sango culminating in the destruction of his palace and the
killing of his family, combines the figure of the ninth century Assyrian
conqueror with that of the last king of metropolitan Assyria, who committed
suicide with some members of his family in order to avoid falling into the
hands of the Babylonian conquerors of Nineveh in 612 b.c. After Sango’s death
we find again the epoch hero Ajaka/Isaac on the ˙Ọyọ /Israelite throne, in whose
second name Ajuwon it is tempting to see a slightly changed form of the name
Jehu. From him the tradition shifts to two kings, Aganju (6) and Kọri (7), who according to the story of the former’s
wife and the latter’s mother, Iyayun/Semir-amis, can perhaps be identified with
the Assyrian kings Shamshi-Adad V (824 – 811) and Adad-nira-ri
III (811 – 781)
The
next king mentioned by Ọyọ tradition
is Oluaso (8) who on account of his name appears to correspond to the Israelite
king Joash (804 – 790). Though at first sight both names seem to
have little in common, a simple transformation seems to have taken place: the
theophoric part of the name Jo/Yah- weh was replaced by the neutral El/olu
theophoric element, while the second part of the name was only slightly
changed: aš(has given) > aso. Both kings are
remembered for their peaceful and beneficial reign. The last mentioned king of
preexile Israel is Olugbogi (9), who by his name, the second part of the name
being a dialectical variant of(yāro)bʿām “may the people be great” > (Olug)bogi seems to be
equivalent to Jeroboam II (790 – 750). He was succeeded by three
further Israelite kings, reigning for more than two years –
Menahem (749 – 738), Pekah(740 – 732), and
Hoshea (731 – 722) .
These
minor kings are remembered in other contexts in Ọyọ tradition as Memie/Menahem
and Paku/Pekah and in other Yoruba traditions as Huisi/Hoshea. The
deportation of Israelites began after the conquest of the major part of the
northern kingdom by Ti- glath-pileser III in 733 – 732 and it
was continued after the fall of Samaria in 722 b.c. (Younger
1998: 204 – 224; Liverani 2005: 145 – 147).
It
is, therefore, quite plausible that neglecting the last minor kings of
Israel, Ọyọ tradition concentrates on
Olugbogi/ Jeroboam II as the last ruler of the Israelite kingdom before its
destruction and the deportation of the people. The kings of the first period
of Ọyọ history are described by
Hess as semi-divine (1898: 156). According to Johnson, the skulls of
members of the royal family belonging to the first, or Omride, dynasty are
still worshipped today in the palace of Ọyọ in the name of Ọbatala,
a deity equivalent to Yah- weh. These elements show that the Israelite past of
the Ọyọkings is held in higher esteem
than the sub- sequent history under Assyrian auspices.
Second Section
The
second section of the corpus of Ọyọ tradition deals with the exile of the Israelites in
the Igboho/ Ḫubur region. It is clearly distinguished from the
preceding and the succeeding sections by the supposed burial of its kings in
the town of Igboho, situated 55 km west of Ọyọ. The whole period is conceived of as an exile of the
people and their successive kings in Igboho. Within the dynastic tradition
of Ọyọ it apparently corresponds
to the local projection of the Assyrian exile of Israelites in the Ḫubur region in eastern Syria subsequently to the
Assyrian conquest of Samaria in 722 b.c. Apart from the spatial differentiation
with regard to the residence of the people in Ọyọ and in Igboho, the semi-divine
nature of the early kings as opposed to the human nature of all the other kings
introduces a distinction between two categories of kings who can be shown to
have been first Israelites (with some intermediate Assyrians) and then
Assyrians from the period of exile.
The
first king of the Igboho section of Ọyọ tradition is Ofiran (10), who has been compared with
Sango
and hence with the great Assyrian epoch ruler (Law 1985: 35, 50) His second
name was apparently Ọmọloju
(Yoruba: “son of Loju”) which can be seen as being derived from Ulūlāju, the
birth name or nickname of Shalmaneser V (726 – 722) By a confusion of
sonship and successorship, the “son” of Ulūlāju/Shalmaneser V was most likely
his successor Sargon II (621 – 605), and, therefore, the tradition
seems to have highlighted the difference between Israelite and Assyrian kings.
Indeed, after the conquest of Samaria, Sargon II deported a great number of
Israelites, perhaps the majority of the population, into exile
(Na’aman1993: 106 – 108; Younger 1998: 214 – 219) .
From
this point the tradition incorporates Assyrian rulers into a list of originally
Israelite kings, and thus faithfully reflects the experience of exiled
Israelites, who after deportation from their home country to Gozan/Ḫubur were no longer depending on their own but on
Assyrian authorities. After Ofiran/Sargon II we find a male, a female, and
again a male king, Eguguoju (11), Ọrọm pọtọ (12),
and Ajibojede (13), who on account of their position and their gender can
possibly be identified with the Assyrian royal figures Sennacherib (704 – 781), Naqi’a,
and Esarhaddon (680 – 669) (Johnson 1921: 161 – 164;Hess
1898: 157 f.). Queen Naqi’a, the wife of Sennacherib, was a regent of her
minor son, Esarhaddon, and had great authority at the Assyrian royal court.
Besides her Aramaic name, Naqi’a, she was also known by the Akkadian name of
Zukutu, both meaning “pure” (Streck, RLA/IX: 165). Etymologically, the name
Esarhaddon/Aššur- aḫi-iddin (Assur has given a
brother) may be considered as being cognate to Ajiboyede: without the theophoric
element aššur- we have > aḫi (bother)
> aji, an additional bo and -iddin (given)
> yede = Aji(bo)yede (cf. Weißbach, RLA/I: 198).
Moreover, it is quite conceivable that Ọrọmpọtọ reflects
an original name or a translated name of Queen Naqi’a. If these assumptions are
valid, the number and gender of the Assyrian and Ọyọ series of names between Sargon
II/Ofiran (10) and Assurbanipal/ Abipa (14) (see below) would be identical. Johnson (1921: 155 – 158); Lange
(1999: 96 f.; 2004: 240 f.). Hess (1898: 136; Mémie a son of Ajaka);
Johnson 1921: 152 (Paku a medicine man of Ajaka); Ellis (1894: 55 f.; Huisi
fought with S ango). 7 Johnson (1921: 152, 154); 2 Kgs 10:7; Lange
(1999: 84 f.). 8 Falọla and Doortmont (1989: 313);
Baker, RLA/XI: 586; Burstein (1978: 38; Ptolemaic Canon).
The
last king of the Igboho period of Ọyọ history, according to Johnson’s account of the
tradition, is Abipa (14): Hess omits him and several others of the Igboho
and post-Igboho kings, by sometimes indicating deliberate omissions.
According to the tradition, Abipa was the king who led the people from the
place of their exile back to their original home
(Johnson 1921: 164 – 167; Hess 1898: 158 f.). By his name and his
position he resembles Assurbanipal(668 – 627), whose
name Aššur-bân-apli means “the god Assur is the creator of the son”
(Weibach, RLA/I: 203; Roux 1992: 329). Etymologically, Abipa seems to be a
hypocoristic form of Assurbani- pal with a minor
metathesis; Aššur-bân-apli: A(ššur) > A-,b(ân)-ap(l)i > -bipa >
Abipa. Though it is unlikely that Assurbanipal finished the exile of the Israelites
in Gozan/Ḫubur region, it is quite conceivable that some of the
deportees were allowed to return to Samaria.
Assurbanipal
was the last ruler of the great Assyrian Empire. After his death, there began a
period of civil strife which opened the way for an alliance between two
formerly subordinated regional powers, Babylonia and Media, leading to the
destruction of Nineveh in 612 b.c. Traditions recorded by Ctesias two centuries
after the fall of Assyria depict Sardanapallus/Assurbanipal as the last king of
Assyria who died in the flames of his palace, and thus merge Assurbanipal
with Sin-shar-ishkun (623 – 612)(Diodorus II: 27; Oates
1991: 180). By finishing its account of the Igboho/Ḫubur exile with Abipa/Assurbanipal, Ọyọ tradition is, therefore, fully
in line with the major oral tradition in Mesopotamia itself.
Third
Section
The
third section of the corpus of Ọyọ tradition refers to the final struggle of the Assyrian
Empire but contrary to the previous two sections it offers a multiethnic
perspective on Assyrian history. Its duplication and slight chronological
inconsistency may, therefore, be explained by the attempt to add an Israelite
dimension to the mainly Assyrian royal names of this section. By the
incorporation of the Babylonian conqueror of Assyria into the list of kings, it
resembles the last ancient Near Eastern section of the Kebbi and Kanem king
lists (Lange 2009: 370; 2011b: 14). Beginning with a flashback, this section
first provides a link-up with the earlier Israelite history. In-
deed, before continuing the chronological account of Yoruba-Assyrian history,
it mentions two previous figures, Ọbalokun (15)
and Ajagbo (16) (Johnson 1921: 168 f.; Hess 1898: 159 f.).
In
view of the prestigious ọba element derived from Aramaic baʿl “lord”
> Yor. ọba “king” the first name designates possibly
Hoshea (732 – 722), the last Israelite king. The next king Ajagbo is
characterized by his remarkably long reign, by his resemblance to his brother,
and by the contrast between his warlike behavior during the first half of his
reign and his peacefulness during the second half. He, therefore, resembles
Assurbanipal whose reign of about forty years was the longest of all Neo-Assyrian kings.
His brother Shamash-shuma-ukin (667 – 648) mentioned in the Ọyọ tradition as Ajampati ruled
in Babylonia and the final fifteen years of his reign seem to have been
peaceful (Saggs 1984: 109 – 117; Roux 1992: 336). The
chronological over- lapping between the second section and the beginning of the
third section can perhaps be explained by the attempt of an early chronicler to
add an Israelite perspective to the break-up of the Assyrian Empire.
The
son and successor of Assurbanipal, Assur-etil-ilani (627 – 623),was the
Assyrian king whose reign inaugurated the downfall of the empire. He seems to
be represented in the tradition by two different figures, Oderawu (17) and
Ojigi (22) (Johnson 1921: 169 – 174;Hess 1898: 160 f.). The first
resembles his Assyrian prototype by his relatively short rule and by his
revenge in attacking a distant town, which originally could have been a Babylonian
city, in which one of his adversaries was based. The name Ojigi is possibly
derived from Aššur- etelli-ilāni (Assur, hero of the gods): Aššur-(etelli) >
Oji- and (ilā)ni > -gi.
Gberu
(23), the next king of the tradition, could, on account of his name, correspond
to Nabopolassar (626 – 605), the Babylonian conqueror of
Nineveh; Nabû-apla-usur (O Nabû, protect (my) son): Nabû- >
Gbe- and (-apla-us)ur > -ru. In Oyo tradition,
Nabopolassar is more clearly recognizable in Gbọnka,
the rival governor of Timi/Assur-etil-ilani(627 – 623) and victor over the
epoch hero Sango, here Sin-shar-ishkun (623 – 612), and in Gaha, the
despotic Vizier. That the Chaldean founder of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was
indeed positively remembered by Assyrian refugee groups of the Central Sudan
can be seen from the Assyri-an inspired king lists of Kanem-Borno and Kebbi,
where he is mentioned in the penultimate or ultimate position of the ancient
Near Eastern section of these lists under the names Bulu and Maru-Kanta(Lange
2011b: 14; 2009: 370).
In Ọyọ tradition, Gberu/Nabopolassar is followed by Amuniwaiye (24)
who seems to correspond to Sin-shum-lishir, the eunuch general and successor of
his former protégé Assur-etil-ilani. Amuniwaiye resembles his prototype by
continuing the warlike actions of his predecessor, by his generosity towards
the simple people, indicating perhaps his own formerly poor conditions, and by
a sexual scandal reminiscent through an ironical transposition of the king’s
status of eunuch. Moreover, after omission of the theophoric element sin- (moon god),the
derivation of the name Amuniwaiye from Sinshum-lishir seems to be quite
plausible: (Sin-)šumu> Amu- and -līšir
> -niwaiye.
Next there is Onisile (25), who by his rashness, his
fearlessness, and his suicide clearly resembles Sin-shar-ishkun, the successor
of Amuniwaye/Sinshum-lishir (Johnson 1921: 176 f.; Saggs 1984: 118 –120).
Onisile’s name seems to derive from sîn, the theophoric element of Sin-šarra-iškun, “the god Sin has
appointed the king,” designating the moon god Sin (Roux 1992: 373; Saggs 1984:
203). The prefix oniappears to be related to the Babylonian title oni-/en-“Lord” and thus could
indicate that its bearer started his conquest of Assyria from the territory of
Babylonia (Seux 1964: 396 f.; Oates 1991: 176). Originally meaning “Lord (en),” the prefix oni- “Lord/King” may also be
considered as a Babylonian translation of the second element of his name, the Akkadian
šarru,
“king”. Hence, on account of the parallel features of his reign and his cognate
name,it is very likely that Onis ile corresponds to Sin-sharishkun, who died
during the conquest of Nineveh by Babylonian and Median forces in 612 b.c.
In Johnson’s account of Ọyọ tradition Onis˙ile/Sin-shar-ishkun is the last figure in a
section of rulers called “despotic kings” (1921/XII: 176 f.). Although the
author knew nothing about the transfer of an Israelite-Assyrian tradition to
West Africa, this definition describes the character of the last Assyrian kings
very well. Moreover, it should be noted that the fate of the last king ruling
in the metropolitan capital had such important repercussions on Ọyọ traditions that
different aspects of his destiny were projected onto four different figures:
the destruction of his palace and of his whole family resulting from his own
hubris was cast onto the epoch ruler Sango (5), the stout resistance of the
king in his palace onto Karan (18), the enforced suicide in his palace in
consequence of a divine punishment onto Onis ile (25), and the death in his
palace as a result of the conquest of the town onto Gaha (Johnson 1921: 149 –
186; Hess 1898: 137 – 173).
Owing to the dissociation of the ancient Near Eastern
tradition from its original geographical setting and its engrafting onto the
local West African scenery, the original meaning of events and the character of
the successive figures could not be preserved from distortions and
multiplications. Johnson (1921: 175 f.); Hess (1898: 164 – 166); Oates (1991:
168, 170, 174 f.). Being also recognizable in the Ọọni title of the kings
of Ifẹ,the
Babylonian Oni/en title and the town’s creation myth confer to Ifẹ the status of a
successor town of Babylon under the hegemony of the Assyrian epoch ruler
Oduduwa (cf. Bascom 1969: 9 – 11).
Fourth Section
The fourth section of the corpus of Ọyọ tradition deals with
the Babylonian vassal kings of the second half of the eighth and the seventh
century b.c. It offers a narrative of events, in which the data are arranged in
a partly disturbing way. Thus, the great figure of this section, the despotic
Vizier Gaha, is apparently an epoch ruler who represents the major Neo-Assyrian
kings up till the fall of the last metropolitan king, Sin-shar-ishkun (623 –
612). By contrast, the legitimate kings seem by an amazing shift of the
perspective to correspond to the Neo-Babylonian kings, finishing appropriately
with the conqueror of the Assyrian Empire, Abiọdun (30)/Nabopolassar (626 – 605). The section begins with
Labisi (26) who is characterized by the curious fact that he was nominated but
never crowned, and therefore never entered the palace. Only 17 days after the
beginning of the enthronement rituals Gaha is said to have usurped power. By
his weakness, his incomplete enthronement and his submission to a partly
indigenous, partly foreign leader Labisi resembles Nabonassar (747 – 734), the
Chaldean founder of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom. Having endured anarchy for several
generations, Babylonia enjoyed in his time unprecedented prosperity (Brinkman,
RLA/IX: 6).
Moreover, the name Labisi may be considered as an orally
changed and simplified form of Nabû-nāsir“Nabu protects” by the omission of -nā- and -r: Na-> La-, -bû- > -bi-, si > i. Hence, through
his position as the – fictitious follower of the last metropolitan Assyrian
king Onis˙ile/Sin-shar-ishkun (623 –612) and the inaugurator of a new line of
kings he is in all likelihood identical with Nabonassar, the acclaimed first
ruler of the Babylonian “Nabonassar Era”(Brinkman, RLA/IX: 6). Comparing the
fate of the two kings, we realize that Ọyọ tradition traces a counterfactual continuity from the last
Assyrian to the Neo-Babylonian kings. It appears that the addition of four
Chaldean kings to the last Assyrian rulers
can only be explained by the attempt to bolster the importance of the last
ancient Near Eastern king Abiọdun (30)/Nabopolassar (626 – 605) of
the Ọyọ tradition, owing to the
presence of Babylonian refugees among the Ọyọ state founders.
The
Vizier Gaha is described as a usurper who took over power a few days after the
beginning of the enthronement rituals of Labisi/Nabonassar. Unlike a normal
vizier, he controlled the whole territorial administration of the kingdom and
posted his sons to the different provincial towns, so that all the tributes
were paid to his family (Johnson 1921: 71 f., 280 f.). He therefore behaved
like a foreign king with some kind of local roots who assumed supreme power and
reduced the legitimate ruler to a puppet king. On the other hand, Gaha is mainly
depicted as a blood thirsty local tyrant who oppressed and murdered four
different kings before he was himself killed by the fifth.
The
Basọrun or Vizier Gaha/Ga resembles the Assyrian
ruler Tiglath-pileser III (744 – 727) seen from the
perspective of the Babylonian people. Ti-glath-pileser III seized the
Assyrian throne as a result of a revolution after more than half a century of
political decline. Though he was most likely not a member of the royal family
he was quickly able to assert his power in Assyria, before extending it to the
neighboring countries. Only five months after he ascended the throne, he
launched a campaign against Babylonia, defeated the Arameans and imposed
Assyrian domination on the recently installed king
Labisi/Nabonassar (747 – 734). It is quite conceivable that the name
Gaha is derived from the first part of the name Tukultī-apil-ešara “my
trust is in the son of Esharra,” usually written in the biblical form Tiglath-pileser. The
dropping of the first and the middle syllables of the name and the
transformation of the last element of the name Tukultī-apil- ešara –-ku- > Ga-, -
ešara > -ha may have resulted in the form Ga-ha.
In
support of this identification it should be noted
that Tiglath-pileser III is in spite of his great influence on
Israelite history omitted from the list of preceding Assyrian rulers: Ajaka
(4)/ Isaac, Sango (5)/Shalmaneser III (858 – 824)Agan˙ju (6)/Shamshi-Adad V (824 – 811), Kori(7)/Adad-nirariIII (811 – 781), Oluaso
(8)/Joash (804 – 790), Olubogi (9)/Jerobeam
II (790 – 750) and Ofiran (10)/ Sargon II(721 – 705) . On
account of the recording of his name as Fune (4) in the Chronicle of Kanem-
Bornu and as Fumi (28) in the king list of Kebbi, one would expect him to be
mentioned in the tradition of Ọyọ in the position between Olubogi (9)/Jerobeam
II (790 – 750) and Ofiran (10)/Sargon II (721 – 705).
Generally
the omission of his name from this line of mixed Israelite-Assyrian kings
can hardly be explained otherwise than by the deliberate decision of the early
scholars to avoid double naming whenever possible. The preference given here to
Babylonian history seems to be an important concession to the community of
Babylonians among the state founders of Ọyọ. More particularly however it might have been in
relation to the proclaimed identity of Gaha/Tiglath-pileser III with the
Basọrun, reflecting probably the creation of this office
for Assyrian notables. Such a repercussion of ancient Near Eastern history on
an institution created in Africa made it necessary to
place Gaha/Tiglath-pileser III and with him the whole Babylonian
section of the king list in spite of chronological inconsistencies at the very
end of the list of ancient Near Eastern kings.
The
events leading to the overthrow of Gaha and his death show that the historical
prototype of the defeated Vizier was Sin-shar-ishkun, the last king
of metropolitan Assyria. The insurrection was organized in different provinces
at the same time and Gaha was shut in his palace. Finally the people stormed
the palace, caught the Vizier and discovered that he was disfigured by a
pedunculated tumour on his forehead. They built a big pyre, bound him to a
stake and burned him alive (Johnson 1921: 184 f.). Similar to Ọyọ tradition, Persian
tradition describes Zohak/Sin-shar-ishkun as a despotic king who
suffered from two tumors on his shoulders and whom the people finally defeated
and killed in the ruins of his palace (Liverani 2001: 374 – 377).
According
to Mesopotamian tradition, Sardanapal-lus/Sin-shar-ishkun died during the
combined attack of the Babylonians and the Medes on Ninos/ Nineveh in the
flames of his palace (Diodorus II: 27; Oates 1991: 180). Contrary to the
previous Assyrian figures mentioned in Ọyọ tradition Sango (5), Karan (18) and Onisile (25) Gaha
is seen from the perspective of the Babylonian people. He is considered
contemptuously as a Vizier who usurped power and held in custody several
successive legitimate Babylonian kings: Awọnbioju (27)/Marduk-apla-id-dina
II (721 – 710), Agboluaje (28)/Bel-ibni (702 – 700) and
Majẹogbe (29)/Mushezib-Marduk (692 – 689) (Roux
1992: 312, 321 f.). His disfiguration and his death on a pyre clearly identify
him as Sin-shar- ishkun, the last great Assyrian king.
Fifth
Section
The
despotic and illegitimate Gaha was overthrown by Abiọdun (30), according to Johnson the last king of this
section. Abiọdun is described as a wise and prudent king who was
not a descendant of the old dynasty but a former trader. The details of his
rise to power bring him close to Nabopolassar (626 – 605),the Babylonian
conqueror of Nineveh: first he lived in the shadow of Gaha/Sin-shar-ishkun, then
he secretly contacted his homologue in another town, organizing with him a
concerted uprising in all the provinces of the country, in the course of which
Gaha was caught in his palace and burned on a pyre
(Johnson 1921: 183 – 185). These episodes closely resemble the
events which led to the downfall of Assyria in 612 b.c.: the secret alliance
between Na- bopolassar and the Median king Cyaxares, the concerted attack of
Nineveh, the conquest of the city, and the death of Sin-shar-ishkun in the
flames of the palace.
Subsequently
Abiọdun began his long and beneficial reign, very much
resembling that of Nabopo- lassar who controlled the Assyrian heartlands after
the defeat of the Assyrian army in 612 b.c. (Oates 1991: 189; Roux
1992: 376). Through some further details he also acquires the coloring of an
African salvation figure: meaning “born during the festival,”A-bí-ọdún is the first specifically Yoruba royal name
in the whole Ọyọ tradition;
he is said to have been a person of very black complexion and it is claimed
that with him finished the tranquility and prosperity of life under the great
kings (Abraham 1958: 8; Johnson 1921: 186 f.). Thus, Abiọdun has all the characteristics of an ideal ruler who
on the basis of his primordial identity as the founder of the Babylonian Empire
was by extension also considered as the first king of the people on African
soil, as the first black African king and even as the “father” of
Atiba (1839 – 1858)(Johnson 1921: 68).
Published
by Jean Hess, the second version of the Ọyọ tradition ends the account of ancient kings with Majẹogbe (29) and thus omits any reference to Gaha, and
apparently also to Abiọdun (30). By depicting Majẹogbe as a king guilty of the terrible crime of killing
all the elderly men except one, it confers on him traits of the last Assyrian
ruler which also crop up in several other key figures of the tradition.
Moreover, Hess (1898: 119) insists on the fact that Majẹogbe was the last king remembered within the corpus of
lengthy and well-conceived royal poems following each other in a
series. Although the surviving old man somewhat resembles Abiọdun, Hess’s informant seems to
end pre-African Yoruba history with Majẹogbe.
A similar conclusion can be reached on the basis of Johnson’s rendering of the tradition.
It
first presents Ọyọ history
by successive reigns, but following the reign of Abiọdun it begins an account by successive wars.
Therefore, it appears that his informant, similar to the bard interviewed by
Hess, ended here his recitation of the series of ancient and well-structured poems
and began his account of the recent past on the basis of haphazard praise songs
and personal recollections. Not surprisingly, none of
the pre-nineteenth-century kings mentioned in Ọyọ tradition can be traced in
contemporary West African records. There are two points where synchronisms
with Ọyọ tradition seemed to be
possible on the basis of similar events, but these apparent correspondences for
the years 1754 and 1774 a.d. have to be discarded as fallacious (Law 1977: 54;
[ed.] 1993: 40 f., 64).
As
we have seen above, identifications with successive Israelite and Assyrian kings
are highly plausible. Historians previously overlooked the possibility of such
identifications for different reasons. Neglecting the structural differences
between the accounts of recent and ancient kings, they thought that the recent
kings of Ọyọ were directly preceded by the
ancient kings (of the Near East). Similarly, they disregarded the phenomenon of
the floating gap in orally transmitted king lists that can be detected in a
variety of oral traditions. Moreover, they were misled by the notion of a great
migration misplaced at the beginning of the ancient royal poems of Ọyọ. Above all they were led astray
by the apodictic denial of Near Eastern origins expressed by critics of the
Hamitic hypothesis.
By
contrast, the proposed interpretation of Ọyọ dynastic tradition as an authentic account of Israelite-Assyrian history
will hopefully open up the opportunity to consider numerous key elements of
Yoruba customs as survivals of ancient Near Eastern and particularly Israelite
traditions. (Diodorus (1990 – 2000/II: 24,1 – 27,3); Grayson (1975: 91 – 94);
Oates (1991: 180). The omissions specifically indicated concern the time
between Ọsinyago (21) and Amuniwaije (24) and the time between
Amuniwaije (24) and Agboluaje (28) (Hess 1898: 164, 166).
The
Yoruba as the “Lost Tribes of Israel”
Contrary to other African people
such as also the neighboring Igbo in southwestern Nigeria the Yoruba never
claimed an Israelite identity (Basden1921: 411 – 423; Hodgkin
1975: 218 f.). Although several authors pointed out the existence of Israelite
customs among the Yoruba, they saw them as side effects of Israelite influences
and not as the result of a direct cultural transfer through migration from the
northern kingdom of Israel (Johnson 1921: 6 f., 154; Biobaku 1955: 12 f.).
More recently, reexamination of the Ọyọ dynastic tradition in
combination with a comparison of cultural traits led to the conclusion that
direct links must have existed between the northern Israelites and the Yoruba.
However, owing to the incomplete study
of Ọyọ tradition, this conclusion did not indicate the precise nature
of the historical connection between ancient Israel and the Ọyọ-Yoruba. Avoiding the unmentionable notion of mass
migration from the ancient Near East, it suggested instead that the remnants of
Israelite traditions and culture traits were the result of sporadic influences
from Syria-Palestine via Egypt, or of long-lasting trade
relations between Phoenician North Africa and sub-Saharan West Africa.
According to Akin Akinyẹmi, the poems for the early kings
of Ọyọ are richer and more
original than those for the nineteenth and twenty century kings (2004: 131,
n. 1 and pers. com. 6/4/2010). 15 Similarly, the king lists
of Kanem-Bornu and of Kebbi omit after the ancient Near Eastern rulers
all the African kings until the rise of Islam (Lange 2011b: 14; 2009: 370). (Lange1999: 138 – 140; 2004: 239 – 242)
.
The
notion of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel on the other hand is a convenient
designation for the Northern Israelites deported
by Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II in the second half of the eighth
century b.c. and their descendants. According to different authors, either
the majority of the inhabitants of the northern kingdom or just the upper
social stratum was deported by the Assyrians (Na’aman
1993: 117 – 119;Younger 1998). The Assyrian authorities resettled the
deportees in the region of Ḫubur/
Gozan, in northern Assyria and in the cities of the Medes in Persia. Most often the exiled Israelites are supposed to
have been assimilated in their new settlements by the indigenous populations,
so that the idea of the lost tribes of Israel surviving in some other location
is thought to correspond to a myth without historical foundation (Charlesworth,
ABD/ IV: 372; Parfitt2002: 3 – 24).
However,
the general deportation praxis of the Assyrian authorities consisted in the resettlement
of homogeneous communities in order to sustain high morale and the will to live
and to work (Oded 1979: 33 – 74; Liverani 2005: 151). Also, traces
of Israelite deportees having maintained their identity can be found in Assyri-
an documents from seventh-century Gozan/Guzana, showing that some of these
people were incorporated into the Assyrian army, while others were employed in
the administration (Becking 1992: 61 – 94; Oded1979: 75 – 115)
. Since moreover Israelites are well-known for their strong feelings
of identity based on firm religious bonds, it is unlikely that during their
relatively short Assyrian exile extending over slightly more than a hundred
years they were absorbed by Assyrians or Aramaeans in a region such as Ḫubur/Gozan, where they seem to have settled in
homogeneous groups.
From
a comparative analysis of Ọyọ dynastic
tradition and ancient Near Eastern history, it appears that Israelites migrated
to West Africa subsequently to the fall of the Assyrian Empire, and that their
descendants survive as the core people of the present- day Ọyọ-Yoruba. Indeed, Ọyọ tradition reveals that the
ancestral Yoruba were mainly composed of Israelites, who, in the course of
their history, became influenced by Assyrian views of past events. Providing
precious details about the ancient Near Eastern history of their ancestors, it
begins with some information on the Omride dynasty which ruled over Israel in
the second half of the tenth and the first half of the ninth century.
It
continues by emphasizing the importance of the first Assyrian intervention in
Israelite history which took place in 841 b.c. and at the same time it
underlines the subservient role of Ọmọsanda/Jehu with respect to the Assyrian conquerors.
Subsequently it depicts favourably some of the Israelite kings, and alluding to
the Assyrian conquest of Samaria in 722 b.c., it mentions the departure of the
people into exile under the leadership of Ofiran/Sargon II. From now on
substituting Assyrian for Israelite kings it describes the settlement of the
people under their new kings in the region of Ḫubur/Igboho,
their main place of exile (situated in eastern Syria). It refers to the death
of the last metropolitan Assyrian king in Nineveh in 612 b.c., and hence to the
end of the Assyrian exile, first in a sympathetic and later in a hostile way,
reflecting pro and anti-Assyrian sentiments among immigrant groups to
West Africa.
The
latter attitude would seem to have been particularly appropriate for Babylonian
groups which, though unable to join the fight of their brethren on account of
their settlement in Syria, sided emotionally with them and, therefore, later
styled Abiọdun/Nabopol- assar as a national hero. Indeed, we know
from other early West African sources that refugees from the collapsing
Assyrian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa included besides former Israelites descendants
of deportees from Babylonia, Elam and Urartu, as well as descendants of
deported Kassites, Aramaeans, and Hittites. We also know that Nabopolas-sar
(called Bulu and Maru-Tamau) is given a key position towards the end
of the Near Eastern sections of the king lists of Kanem and Kebbi (Lange
2011b: 13; 2009: 374).
However,
Israelite kings and concepts figure more centrally in Ọyọ tradition than Assyrian and
Babylonian rulers, only Abiọdun/Na- bopolassar acquiring a
disproportionate importance. While this insistence on Israelite history in the
tradition adopted for all immigrant settlers does not prove that Israelites
constituted the majority among the original state founders of Ọyọ, it doubtlessly indicates that
descendants of Israelites were the most relevant ethnic element of all the
immigrant groups with respect to the capacity of shaping and transmitting the
people’s ancient Near Eastern history.
The
Ten Lost Tribes properly speaking are largely absent from Ọyọ dynastic tradition. They appear,
however, in the creation account dealing with the seven princes whom
Olodumare/El let down on a chain to the primordial sea. Each of these princes received
a heritage, but the youngest, Ọranyan/ Ọranmyian, the equivalent of Jacob, was given the
instruments of creation and, therefore, he became the creator of the solid
ground on the water (in Ọyọ/Samaria).
Having thus created the earth, Ọranyan/Jacob
emerged naturally as its ruler. The seven princes dispersed in Yoruba-land
where they founded seven kingdoms,Ọranyan/Jacob
becoming the founder of the Ọyọ/Israelite
Empire (Hess 1898: 121 – 123; Johnson 1921: 8 f.).
As
in the Hausa legend mentioned above, the number of ten tribes is reduced among
the West African immigrants to seven, but in the case of the Yoruba tradition
the right to rule is related to creation, and hence to legitimate power and not
to patriarchal descent. The former Israelite meaning of the concept as far as
we know it from the Hebrew Bible was, therefore, given a quite different, and
in certain aspects perhaps more ancient meaning. Also, while in the biblical
tradition it refers solely to Israelite tribes
(the non-Israelites being the sons of an illegitimate wife), in Ọyọ tradition it connects
Israel with other nations (classified in the Hausa tradition under the sons of
the slave maid) in consequence of Assyrian deportations.
By
providing Ọranyan/Jacob with the role of creator of the earth,
the tradition ipso facto confers on the revived Israelite kingdom
of the Ọyọ- Yoruba by a complete reversal
of the situation created in the Near East by the Assyrian conquests the
legitimate right to dominate all the others, who in the West African context
were the descendants of other deported nations. In line with the Israelite
figures of Ajaka/Isaac, Ọranyan/Ja-
cob and Oluas u/Joash the Yoruba name seems to be derived from Jeroboam (may
the people be great), the name of the founder of the Northern Kingdom of Israel
(Evans, ABD/III: 742 – 745) .
Names of
Israelite, Assyrian and Babylonian kings in the dynastic tradition of Ọyọ
|
||||
S.No.
|
sraelite kings
|
Assyrian, Babyl. kings
|
Original names
|
Chronology
|
LEGENDARY
KINGS OF MESOPOTAMIA
|
||||
1
|
Namudu/Lamarudu
|
Nimrod/Sargon
of Akkad
|
2334 –
2279
|
|
2
|
Oduduwa
|
Dôd/Tiamat
- Assyrian epoch ruler
|
||
ISRAELITE
AND ASSYRIAN KINGS UNTIL THE ASSYRIAN CONQUEST OF ISRAEL IN 722 b.c.
|
||||
3
|
Ọranyan
|
Jacob/Israel
|
||
4
|
Ajaka
|
Isaac/Omrid dynasty
|
884-841
|
|
5
|
Sango
|
Shalmaneser
III (Šulmānu-ašarēd)
|
858-824
|
|
Ọmọ-sanda
|
Jehu b. Nimsi
|
841-815
|
||
Ajaka
|
Isaac/early Nimsid dynasty
|
841-804
|
||
6
|
Aganju
|
Shamshi-Adad V (Šamši-Adad)
|
824-811
|
|
7
|
Kọri
|
Adad-nirari III (Adad-nīrārī)
|
811-781
|
|
8
|
Oluaso
|
Joash
|
804-790
|
|
9
|
Olugbogi
|
Jerobeam II
|
790-750
|
|
ISRAELITES IN EXILE IN THE IGBOHO/ḪU BUR REGION: ASSYRIAN
KINGS FROM 722 TO 627
|
||||
10
|
Ofiran/Ọmọloju
|
Sargon
II (Šarru-kīn)/Son of Ulūlāju
|
721-705
|
|
11
|
Eguguoju
|
Sennacherib
(Sîn-aḫḫē-erība)
|
704-781
|
|
12
|
Ọrọmpọtọ
|
Naqi'a
|
(680-678)
|
|
13
|
Ajibojede
|
Esarhaddon (Aššur-aḫa-iddina)
|
680-669
|
|
14
|
Abipa
|
Assurbanipal (Aššur-bāni-apli)
|
668-627
|
|
FINAL
STRUGGLE OF THE ASSYRIAN KINGS FROM 627 TO 612 b.c.
|
||||
15
|
Ọbalokun
|
Hoshea
(Isr.)
|
721 – 705
|
|
16
|
Ajagbo
|
Assurbanipal (Aššurbāni-apli) (Assyr.)
|
668-627
|
|
17,22
|
Oderawu/Ojigi/Timi
|
Assur-etil-ilani (Aššur-etelli-ilāni) (Assyr.)
|
627-62
|
|
19,20
|
Jayin,
Ayibi
|
? ?
|
? ?
|
|
21
|
Ọsinyago
|
Hallušu-Išušinak
(Elam)
|
699-683
|
|
23
|
Gberu/Gbọnka
|
Nabopolassar
(Nabû-apla-usur) (Bab
|
626-605
|
|
24
|
Amuniwaiye
|
Sin-shum-lishir (Sîn-šumu-līšer) (Assyr.)
|
623
|
|
18,25
|
Karan/Onisile
|
Sin-shar-ishkun (Sîn-šarra-iškun)
Assyr.)
|
623-612
|
|
BABYLONIAN VASSAL KINGS UNDER ASSYRIAN DOMINATION: 744 TO
612 b.c.
|
||||
26
|
Labisi
|
Nabonassar
(Nabû-nāsir) (Bab.)
|
747-734
|
|
Gaha (despotic Vizier)
|
Tiglath-pileser III, Sin-shar-ishkun
(Assyr.)
|
744-727
|
||
623 -612
|
||||
27
|
Awọnbioju
|
Marduk-apla-iddina II
(Bab.)
|
721-710
|
|
28
|
Agboluaje
|
Bel-ibni (Bab.)
|
702-700
|
|
29
|
Majẹogbe
|
Mushezib-Marduk (Bab.)
|
692-689
|
|
FALL OF ASSYRIA IN 612 b.c.
|
||||
30
|
Abiọdun
|
Nabopolassar (Nabû-apla-usur)
(Bab.)
|
626-605
|
|
The
article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Conference “Jews and
Judanism in Black Africa and Its Diaporas” which was held at the School of
African and Oriental Studies, University of London,30 – 31 October 2010.
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