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"Issues in African History," Readings in African Humanities ed. by ITK Egonu

Chapter · January 1988

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 ISSUES IN AFRICAN HISTORY
RINA OKONKWO

WHAT IS HISTORY?

History is the study of the past. History is more than "one damn thing - or king after

another It is the explanation and interpretation of past events. Just as the Greek

philosopher Socrates went about asking questions in his belief that "the unexamined

life is not worth living", 2 the historian must critically examine the past and not be

misled by propaganda-serving versions. The historian is as rigorous as the physicist

in his search for truth. The attributes of a good historian are Objectivity and

scepticism.

Historians use both primary and secondary sources as evidence. Primary sources

include official documents, manuscripts, and firsthand accounts by contemporaries

of the event, such as reports of early travelers to Africa, and oral traditions.

Secondary sources are works by historians and other relevant scholarly works on the

subject. "The traditions of the historian's craft have stressed the necessity of using

every scrap of evidence that can be found, but taking nothing at face value". 4 Once

the historian has amassed his material, he will begin the process of reporting the

findings; the narration of the historical events, the explanations and interpretations,

and finally the importance or significance of events in the broader frame-work of

history. 5
ISSUES IN AFRICAN HISTORY

Although African history may be essentially the same discipline as European

history, it does seem that the aims of European and African historians differ. The

professional historian in Europe today views his work as purely an intellectual

activity. Few historians claim that history can solve social problems. "History does

not repeat itself". 6 Each

historical event is unique. One cannot generalize from history to formulate laws or

patterns which can be used to predict the future.7 thus the use of studying history

may be simply to add to our knowledge and enlarge our vision and perspective.

There may be no social purpose beyond the pleasure of losing oneself in another

time. The great German

historian Leopold von Ronke found "historical evidence was more beautiful and . . .

more

interesting than all-romantic fiction". 8 The Cambridge historian, G. R. Elton

justified the study of history, "The future is dark, the present burdensome, only the

past, dead and finished, bears contemplation. Those who look upon it have survived

it; they are its products and its victors. No wonder, therefore, that men concern

themselves with history". 9

In Africa, historians have more urgent tasks before them. Firstly, they must correct

the

distortions of African history perpetuated during the colonial era. The racist attitude

which viewed Africa as an unexplored. Virgin land, a tabula rasa for the white man

to dominate and exploit. Extended to history. Thus Europeans maintained that

Africans had no history, no achievements in the past. They dated the dawn of African

history from the arrival of Europeans to Africa. no one today could make the mistake

of begmrung the study of African history with the advent of colonial rule. The African

historians have in the past twenty-five years succeeded in demonstrating the grandeur

of pre-colonial Africa. They have studied the great civilizations of Ghana, Mali,

Songhai, Zimbabwe, Igbo-ukwu, Ile- Ife, and Benin. Any society which could produce

magnificent bronzes like Benin could never be called "primitive". The Nigerian

historian J. F. Ade Ajayi has gone to the extent of minimizing the importance of the

colonial impact. "Some communities had hardly become aware of Europe's presence

before they began to leave".11 "In any long term historical view of African history

European rule became just another

episode" . 12

The work of reVISIOn of the colonialist versions of the African past is still

continuing. Bala Usman has emphasized the need to correct the European view that

pre-colonial African history was largely the history of wars and brutality. In a study of

pre-colonial relations between Borno and Hausalarid , U sman found +hat commerce,

cultural and educational

exchanges were more important than warfare. 13 Usman has urged historians to

demonstrate the importance of pre-colonial links and exchanges between different

areas of Nigeria to counteract the colonial legacy of divide and rule. Oral traditions

have been defined as "stories

about history or quasi-historical events handed down from generation to generation

and undergoing varying degrees of conscious and/or unconscious depreciation

and/or embellishment in the process". 15 Thus, oral traditions may be altered to

serve the needs of the present ruling group. A tradition may be used to support

claims to political authority by omitting parts which are unfavourable to them. The

victors may delete any mention of the defeated group.

Thus, the historian must scrutinize oral tradition for its authenticity. He must

ask questions about the present-day uses of the tradition. He may collect other

traditions and compare them .16 He may also try to date the origin of the tradition

itself to determine the conditions which gave rise to it.

The task before African historians is not only collecting oral traditions, but also

applying their professional scepticism to judge their historical meaning. A. E.

Afigbo, a Nigerian, has examined the oral traditions about the Nri people.

According to oral tradition, the Igbos are descended from Nri. The first man, Eri,

came down from the sky to find

the earth a watery, marshy land. God, Chukwu , sent an Awka blacksmith with the

bellows to dry the land. Eri died and his son, Nri, had no food. Chukwu or-dered him

to kill and bury his first son and first daughter. Yam grew from the grave of the son

and cocoyam from the grave of the daughter. Nri distributed the food to all the

people and was entrusted with certain rights and powers. 18 Nri people are given

free food throughout Igboland , The

Nri are priests with control over agriculture and markets. They settle disputes

between towns and cleansed a town of abomination. They travel about unharmed

throughout Igboland. The Nt-i CrO'iJT~ the leaders of other towns and officiate at
title-taxing

ceremonies. With their special access to UH.') spirit world, they cure illnesses and tell

fortunes. How does Afigbo interpret the myth of orrgm of the Nri? Linguistic

evidence suggests that the Igbo migrated from the Niger-Benue Confluence over

five thousand years ago.20 Nri could not have been the first settlement. The

institution of the Eze Nri,

the closest institution to divine kingship in Igboland, developed later, perhaps 600 B

C. 21 Afigbo speculates that the Nri themselves devised the tradition of origin,

possibly because their own land was poor, and they could not make a living from

farming. They built their empire on their religious role and used tradition to

legitimize themselves. 22 This does not

deny the importance of Nri. As M. D. V. Jeffreys, a British anthropologist in Awka

Division, 1911 - 1921 noted, "Nri is the fount of all Igbo culture". The Igbos were

in existence before the Nri. All Igbos did not come from Nri, Rather, the Nri

originated and spread Igbo culture i+'

J. A. A tanda, a Nigerian historian, does a similar analysis of the pre-eminence of

He-He in

Yorubaland. According to oral tradition, the world was a mass of water. God sent

duduwa to create the earth. He landed at He-He. There is another tradition in which

Oduduwa migrated from Mecca to He-He.24

How does Atanda reconcile the two traditions?

He rejects the idea that Oduduwa was the first man on earth, but b.ilieves that

Oduduwa was a Yor-uba, judging by his name, rather than an Arab. Afigbo has

noted the pervasive attempt by Muslim scholars to link Africa to Islam. They

assume that all “igbo and civilization" in Africa came from the Arabs. This theory

is similar to' the European interpretation of African history described above, which

saw the Europeans, not the Arabs as the purveyors of civilization in Africa. African

scholars have soundly rejected both external explanations and point to indigenous

origins of African development among peoples in different areas. Fred Anozie, the

archaeologist, suggests that iron-making may have developed independently in

different parts of the world, instead of the secret being passed on froid Turkey to

Meroe to Nigeria as was earlier believed.The theory of Egyptian origins of Nigerian

groups . still lingers among traditionalists, but there has been

no proof, and it may never be proven.

Archaeological discover-ies date settlements in Nsukka back to 2250 BC.34 Linguistic

evidence dates the Yoruba and. Igbo in Nigeria for the past five thousand years. 35

Any external migration must date far back in the past, so far back that it would be

difficult to trace.

Another important issue in £\frican history is the formation of ethnic groups. 36 E. O.

Erim has conducted such a study for the Idoma of the present Benue State, Nigeria.

Erim found that the Idoma were not biologically homogenous. They came from Idah,

Nsukka and Kwararafa .. They did not possess a common identity until colonial rule.
Erim concluded

that "modern African 'tribes' are a complex mixing of ethnic and linguistic groups

over the past centuries". Linguistic unity does not necessarily mean common ethnic

origins. 37 J. A. A tanda noted that the name 'Yoruba' was first popularized in the

nineteenth century. There was no common name for the Yoruba unti then. The word,

'Yoruba' was the word of the people of Sokoto for the inhabitants of the Old Oyo

Empire. 11 later came to mean the descendants of Oduduwa. '

CONCLUSION

Karl Marx wrote, "The traditions of all dead generations .weigh like a mountain on

the brain of the living" What will be the effect on African society of analyzing and

dissecting oral traditions once held sacred? History, like science, has the effect of

undermining oral traditions which explained origins, sanctified institutions,

legitimized authority and were means of social control. By questioning oral

traditions, historians increase the rationality

of the society. They are no, discarding the oral traditions, but extracting useful

information from them and using them to reconstruct African history.

For in the final analysis, African historians are part of the international

historical discipline. Their ultimate goal is to place the history of Africa beside the

history of other countries, to build up world knowledge of the African past. They
wish to share the results of their research with historians everywhere to improve

understanding and appreciation

of Africa.
 END NOTES

Robert Smith, Introduction in

Historical Method (London:
1978), p. vii.
Plato, The Apology (Indianapolis: The
Bobbs Merill Library of the Liberal Arts,
1956), p. 45.
Robert Smith, "Explanation in African
History: How and Why?1t Torikh Historical
Method, p. 10.
Philip D. Curtin, "Field Techniques for
Collecting and Processing Oral Data;'
Journal of African History, IX, 3 (1968),
p. 368.
Robert Smith, "Explanation in African
History", p. 1.
Daniel F. McCall, A [rica in Time
Perspective: A Discussion of Historical
Reconstruction From Unwritten Sources
(New York: Oxford University Press,
1969), p. xiii.

Edward Hallett Carr, What is History (New

York: Vintage Books, 1961), p. 78.
Leopold Van Ronke cited in Daniel McCall,
p. 1.
G. R. Elton, The Practice of History
(London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1984) , p.
11.
Basil, Davidson, The Lost Cities of Africa
(Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1970), p.
138.
J. F. Ade Ajayi, "Colonialism: An Episode
in African History;' in L. H. Gann and
Peter Duignan, (eds.), Colonialism in Africa
1870 - 1960, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: University
Press, 1969), p. 505. .
J. F. Ade Ajayi, "The Continuity of Afr-ican
Institutions Under Colonialism ,f' in T. O.
Ranger, (ed.), Emerging Themes of African

J. A. Atanda, An Introduction to Yoruba

History (Ibadan :University Press, 1980),
pp. 1 - 2.

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