ARCHAEOLOGY AND ESAN ORIGIN
By A. I. Okoduwa
Of the cultural history of Esan the origin seem
to be the least studied and the most misconstrued. Where it was studied,
interest was mainly directed at documenting the oral accounts of the Esan
people. These works including the various intelligence
Reports written by colonial officials who were in the area maintained that
the people of Esan had their ancestors in Benin. This view was increasingly
held and popularised by generations of Esan students, scholars and
traditionalist. By it, Esan origin dates back to just about 500 years ago when
emigrants fled Benin for the jungle to avoid the harsh rule of Oba Ewuare in
Benin.
It did not really matter whether people had
lived or were living in the area or
whether emigrations from Benin was part of a grand imperial design to form
annexures to an expanding Benin. Thus Esan origins was not seriously analysed
for general acceptance. Instead, the traditionals simply enabled the individual
to locate himself within his family lineage and the larger community. Origin is
more than this. The aim of this chapter therefore is to examine Esan origin in
the light of archaeological evidence from the area. It is hoped that at the end
a more expanded out look of Esan origin will emerge.
The origin of Esan has been the subject of great
controversy since the major tool for reconstruction of the early Esan history
has been oral traditions in which various communities lay claim to one
migration or the other. On a large scale, these numerous versions have been
unanimously in the contention that the people came directly or indirectly from
Benin. Sometimes the claim has been mainly on some observable similarities in
language and customs of the Esan and Bini people.
Esan as a word has had other variants, for
example, Isa, Esa and Ishan. The early European travellers, writers and
administrators used these word interchangeably. It is evident in the
pre-colonial history of Esan that Esan as a name, referring to a settled people
had long existed before the 15th century. In other words, there are
cultural evidence in Esan oral traditions which are indicative of the fact that
before the 15th century, Esan consciousness was in existence. J
Egharevba, the Bini historian writes:
“The early people of Esan or Ishan were Bini
emigrants from the first and second periods of the Bini Empire. Esan is the
name of the first man who migrated became the founder and progenitor of Esan.”
Two issues are raised by Egharevba, the issue of
origin and that of the derivation of name “Esan” Egharevba had no conclusive
evidence on either the origin of the Esan people or their name. Rather, what
would appear plausible in the assertion is that “Esan progenitors” may have had
a common migrating stock with early Bini settlers. Bini traditional or palace
historians who are essentially imperial in their outlook see the origin of Esan
as beginning from the reign of Oba Ewuare in about 1440 A.D. and the name Esan
being derived from the description of the manner in which the Esan people fled
–‘Esanfua’ – during Ewuare’s reign. Dr Christopher Okojie contradict this when
he says:
“It would at
first appear that Ishan (Esan) did not originate until after 1440, when Oba
Ewuare imposed his selfishness and wickedness on the great Benin stool. No,
before this time there were inhabitants scattered in the jungles now comprising
Ishan as evidence by our own Ishan (Esan) folks lores featured Ogiso – the
common name for Bini rulers before the advent of the great Oranmiyan.”
It would appear pertinent to emphasize the point
that Esan people did not suddenly into existence during the reign of Oba
Ewuare. People has existed in the Esan geographical area and these people had a
knowledge of themselves according to Esan extant traditions. When the exodus
occurred, Bini immigrants fled or moved to various places in what Edo land and
therefore the eventual settlement of these Bini immigrants was not peculiar to
Esan. It is argued, that naturally people hardly migrate to places unknown, the
Bini immigrants went to settle where they had previous contacts with.
Furthermore, migrants would move to places where they hoped to have security
and accommodation. In other words, there were contacts and intersections
between Bini and Esan before the exodus of the 15th century.
‘Esan-fua’ does not explain the origin of Esan. It’s doubtless therefore, that
Esan-fua as a term was a concocted expression often told as jokes against
neighbours. Alagoa describe such a tradition as a “stereotype of abuse.”
Although the Ewuare version of Esan origin may
mean the origin of organized political institutions in the area and the phase
of radical societal restruc-turing due largely to increased migrants from Benin
into the area it would not be appropriate to see it in terms of the origin per se of all that is the Esan entity. This view is
more pronounced since some communities owe their origin to areas other than
Benin. One of such communities is Irrua which according to tradition was the
earliest kingdom founder in Esan by a warriors from Ifeku, an island near Idah.
Butcher in the same vein claims of Irrua origin that some sections of the
community migrated from places like Uke near Benin and Abgede in Etsako while
Otouruwa inhabitants are said to have migrated from Uhe near Ife at about the
same time that Bini people migrated from the region. Like Bradbury in his Bini Studies. Butcher contents that
Esan is of heterogenous origin. Although this view complements the migration
theory, an archaeological dimension to these contentions make them more
plausible than the oral traditions of the Irrua.
Recently, archaeological evidence from the
Ekpoma part of Esan have revealed that people lived in organized politics in the area from about
half a millennium years ago. According to Peter Darling, these people who were
engage in the taste of massive earth constructions known as the Iyala were the inhabitants of a mini –
kingdom at the time.
In his words “The men once engaged in this
gargantuan task were most probably, the ancestors of the present day Bini and
Esan (Ishan) speakers still living in the area.”
Apart from this evidence from Darling, Emessiri
and Webster have shown that despite the similarities in Bini and Esan
languages, their common words and intonation were derived from a common Kwa
stock. Ordinarily, there exist over forty percent differences in both languages
especially in technical terms. These technical terms include words of invisible
objects which learners of a new language can hardly use. They include the word
bone which is Ugboloko in Bini while
in Esan it is known as Ugue. Also
blood in Bini is esagien while in
Esan it is called arhanlen. On the other hand words for common visible
objects are identical. Again, a third category of words derived from the period
of European contact to the present day reveal identical names.
These include fruit names like pine-apple,
pawpaw, banana, plantain etc. the use lexical changes from Esan to Bini has
been put at about forty per cent, phonological changes also forty per cent
while the percentage of Bini derived words has been suggested to be about
eighty percent consequently, out of the a total of sixty words percentages of
similarities and differences of Esan from Bin language been pure as below:
Differences 19 = 32%
Similarities 20 = 33%
Phonological Changes 21 = 35%
Loan words from Bini 41 = 8=68%
The language of Esan is the only linguistic
pattern employed by the people as a group. It serves as a generic name for the
distinct varieties spoken in the numerous chiefdoms spreading over the present
Agbazilo, (now Esan North East and Esan South). Okpegbho, (Now Esan Central,
and Esan West), Etsako, and Akoko –Edo Areas. Esan manifest the closet
linguistic similarity to the Bini language in terms of the lexical terms used
but the intonation in Esan and the over forty percent differences in technical
items demonstrates the survival of the aboriginal Esan linguistic pattern.
Also deserving attention in the quest for the
study of Esan origin is the aspect of totems. A lot of differences exist
between Benin and Esan totemic practices. Fundamental variations in totemic
practices indicate some form of differences in the cultural develop – ment of
the Esan and Bini people. Among the major totem. This is particularly
interesting because the alligator is not a common animal in Esan as the land
does not possess any particular large of water. Perhaps even more significant
is the fact that among the Bini people, the alligator is not a totem. The
contention therefore is that the alligator totem probably reflects the pre-15th
century origin of that part of Esan when cross migration from as far as the
swamps forest of the Niger Delta must have occurred. This suggestions
accentuated by the fact that among the Orogun people of the Niger Delta, the
alligator is the major totem. Also, the long tailed bird (Ogbemensukpe) meaning
“whoever kills me would not last for a year” us a major totem peculiar only to
the Esan people among the diverse Edo speaking group of people.
It’s from this point that any meaningful quest
for Esan origin must begin from the aboriginal settlers of the region. This is
possible through archaeological surveys in the area. Although systematic
archaeological surveys for Stone Age habitations are yet to be carried out in
Esan like the one done R.C. Soper in Northern Nigeria, there is the strong
evidence that Hoeing up the earth for seasonal planting of crops sometimes
revealed polished stone tools knowns as Udo-avan.
Because of their antiquity,
traditions and stories hold that they fell from the sky during thunder storms
since logically no rocks exist in such areas. Rather, Stone Age men and users
had been known to carry their stone tools to areas of need and consequently
caused a dispersal of such stones tools. But oral tradition would not remember
this. There is therefore the growing belief that the Bini had crossed the Esan
geographical area during migration from the Savannah down south into the forest
region. This view is further enhanced by the fact the founder and first Onojie
of Udo, an ancient Benin town was said even in Udo traditions to have been Esan
migrant.
Udo was an earlier Kingdom to Benin. Furthermore
the analysis made on the cultures of the Guinea Coast area and the Congo Basin
by famous ethnographers like Herskovits, Ankermann and Trobenus is of vital
importance. Their submission on the direction of culture dissemination not only
tallied with Professor Greenberg’s study of Bantu migrations, but also
indicates the possibilities of an ancient Benin empire springing out of Esan
region. Large migrations I n the opposite direction (from Benin to Esanland)
only occurred in the 15th
century when as result of the prevailing conditions at the time in
Benin, certain groups of people had cause to retrace their foot- steps back in
the direction from where their ancestors and forbears came. To this extent, the
aboriginal Esan never referred to themselves as the Esan people. It was not
until 1463 when under Oba Ewuare that the word (Esan) came to be increasingly
applied to the Kingdoms and their people North East of Benin City.
The Edo language group to which the Esan and
Bini languages belong like their Igbo and Yoruba languages also belong to the
Kwa language family which in turn was a part of the larger Niger – Congo stock.
The Nigeria Congo group of languages according to language experts commenced
its process of separation about 4,500 years ago, the same time Esan Origin in
the second or third centuries B.C. P.J. Darling archaeological work in Esan
lends credence to this view. It tallies with the dispersal and separation of
the Nigeria – Congo language belt form north to south from the central Nigeria
language and moved straight on South-wards and Eastward into the Congo basin,
and from there fanned out. Thus it was not a migration from the South to the
North or North –East as implied in the existing tradit-ions on Esan origin.
Of necessity, a prelude towards a plausible
study of Esan origin must embrace both the various migration theories and the
aboriginal factor. Each available evidence and document must be meticulously
weighed on its merit. Popular traditions which propound the Ewuare version,
rather than being considered in isolation but also by totemic practices and
general cultural peculiarities of the Esan people. Above all, archaeology must
be an asset. To rigidly peg the origin of Esanland on the 15th
century mass migration from Benin would be too simplistic. The 15th
century migrations and the conference of appeasement between Oba Ewuare and the
various Esan representatives which followed can best be put I n its proper perspective
if seen as a turning point in the evolution of the Esan polity when chiefdoms
built around Enigie as they now exist began to emerge. This marked the
beginning of the prevent socio-political system in Esan, father than it’s
entire origin.
Source:
Department of History. Edo State University Ekpoma, Nigeria.
Department of History. Edo State University Ekpoma, Nigeria.
