ILE IFE IS NUPE KinNupe was known in ancient times as Apa. This Apa is also pronounced as Afa or Afe. And Afe was pronounced in latter times Nyife. It is this Nyife that Ibn Batuta transcribed as Yufi. By the times of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther it was already pronounced as Nife. Nife was also pronounced as Nipe since f and p are interchangeable phonemes. And Nipe is also pronounced as Nupe. That is the phonetic origin of the modern national name ‘Nupe’. Nupe was derived from Nife and Nife was derived from Nyife or, simply, Ife. Yes, KinNupe was formerly known as Ife. KinNupe was also referred to, formally, as Ele Ife or the ‘Land of Ife’ since, in Old Nupe, Ele means ‘Land’ and ‘Ife’ is Old Nupe’s form of our Modern national name ‘Nupe’. So, KinNupe was known in ancient times as Ele Ife which is what the Yoruba tongue pronounce as Ile Ife. Again, yes, KinNupe was Original Ile Ife. Professor Alan Ryder categorically wrote that modern Ile Ife in Osun State is not the original Ile Ife that was referred to in the Yoruba traditions. J. O. George also compiled Yoruba traditions reporting that modern Ile Ife in Osun State is not the Ile Ife mentioned in the Oduduwa traditions. The Odu Ifa, recited by Yoruba divination high priests to this very day as the holy panegyrics of the Yoruba traditional religion of Ifa, categorically stated that modern Ile Ife in Osun State is the eight Ile Ife from the Original Ile Ife which was located in Central KinNupe. Professor Obayemi also wrote that modern Ile Ife is the last of several Ile Ifes the earliest ones of which were located in KinNupe. While Professor Roger Blench, Mathew Spriggs, and J. Eboreime wrote that modern Ile Ife is at least the sixth from the Original Ile Ife, Professor Oba Adeyemi said modern Ile Ife is the seventh Ile Ife from the Original KinNupe Ile Ife. The famous Professor L. Babatunde then wrote that Original Ile Ife was located in KinNupe. The journals of the Lander brothers and the works of Professor Frank Willet show that as late as the 1830s the Yorubas were still referring to KinNupe as the Original Ile Ife. It was from Central KinNupe that Ile Ife started its southward journey in those ancient days. The rise of Tsudi’s (Tsoede’s) Nupeko empire was what pushed Ele Ife or Ile Ife out of KinNupe on a gradually journey to the south. From Central KinNupe Ile Ife got to the banks of the River Niger and, gradually, crossed from the north to the south banks. Reverend T. Bowen was told by his Yoruba informants of an Original Ile Ife that was located on the banks of the River Niger in KinNupe. From the southern bank of the River Niger here in KinNupe that Original Nupe Ile Ife continued its journey southwards until it crossed the boundary into modern Yorubaland. It is obvious that Nupe towns including Fogbe, Lapai, Tafian, Patigi and Lafiagi might have been among the earlier Ile Ife in the course of the ‘wandering’, according to Professor Alan Ryder, of Ile Ife from KinNupe into modern Yorubaland. That modern Ile Ife is not the Original Ile Ife of the Oduduwa traditions is evidenced by the fact that while modern Ile Ife is barely a millennium old, the Ile Ife referred to by the Oduduwa traditions is several millennia old. Professor Toyin Falola, Professor Mathew Heaton and others have demonstrated the fact that modern Ile Ife was founded around 900 AD and was established into a power around 1200 AD. But the Original KinNupe Ile Ife of the Oduduwa traditions has been around for millennia before 900 AD. Whenever Yoruba traditions talked of Ile Ife as the origin of mankind these traditions are actually referring to KinNupe the Original Ile Ife. [This write-up is a summary of the chapter titled ‘Ile Ife Is Nupe’ from my book ‘Nupe the Origin’]
Posted on: Tue, 04 Jun 2013 22:14:47 +0000
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