The Igbo Before Christ

This piece is not a new 'expedition'. I am mainly searching among the things other people have found. Searching for the origin of Ndi-Igbo, that is, for the first person or small group of of persons characteristically identifiable as Igbo, and their ab original abode, is a tough pleasure to me. But it is like seaching for a raw grain of rice in a sack of chaff. Every piece looks like it; yet nearly none of the pieces is it. Unlike Jews who point to a man from ancient Iran, Abraham, as the first Jew, the Hebrewman at the beginning of the Jewish branch, Igbo's genesis is beclouded by a plurality of legends and passionate sentiments.

I am sometimes tempted to believe that Ndi-Igbo did not immigrate from anywhere; that they originated where they are now. But some Senegalese documents relate that as recent as the 16th century, Cape Verde had no native inhabitants. And in some other documents, the 13th century is estimated to be the earliest time the region of Rwanda (now teeming with people) began being peopled. So, time there must have been, when most of Africa, including the present Ala-Igbo, was un-peopled.

Among the available works touching on the subject, Mr. Ogbukagu's (The Igbo and the Riddles of their Jewish Origins) is the most definedly assertive. But many of the assertions are incongruent with real-world facts. Other works especially the ones by Cheik Anta Diop (Senegalese) and Kwame Osepetetrekou (Ghanaian) dealt indirectly but heavily on the subject. Diop tracked the cultures of African societies back to some 8000BC (estimate).

Now, let me speculate from the era Before the birth of the Christ.
Within the last 2 to 3 millennia, great migrations happened around the globe: of the Bantu of the Namib region; of the Tamils of south-central Asia; of the forebears of Malagasi people, the non-Negroid population of Madagascar; of the forebears of the Ab-Origins of Australia, believed to have sailed from our continent; et sequens.
Of all these ancient migrants, the Bantu is the closest to the Igbo in racial and cultural dimensions. But, culture-wise, the Igbo is considerably unconnected with the Bantu, unlike Tiv and Itulu ethnic groups of Middle Nigeria who still bear some of their Bantu cultural stamps noticeably.
So I take the speculative search to ancient Egypt and Ethiopiya.
The Biblic book of Chronicles 1 : 7 - 16 tells of the first group of human villages in Africa.
Ancient Egypt, according to Anta Diop and Osepetetrekou was slightly different from the present one geographically. Socio-culturally, it was very, very, different!
Ancient Egypt was originally two kingdoms: Upper and Lower Egypt, spread along the river that is today called Nile. It included large parts of Sudan, parts of Ethiopiya and large parts of the present Arab Egypt. Upper Egyptians were a people slighter in frame, taller and less fair (darker) in complexion than Lower Egyptians of Nile delta (An egyptologist, probably a Senegalese, studied the mummies and their skin pigments). Upper Egyptians conquered their counterparts and unified the kingdom about 3000BC. There was also a sub-Egyptian kingdom, Kush, in the south of Sudan.

Ancient Egyptians lived in clans and worshipped many gods. Some of the gods were Ra (sun god); Asar or Asari ((Oshiris) land god); Ainu (sea god); Kha or Ka (god of the empire of living things = god of life); Amen; Atn or Aton; Yahw or Yawh; et cetera.
The name 'Africa' probably originated from Egyptians' slogan of pride and confidence: a-phi-Ra-Kha (born of, or produced in, the household of Ra and Kha). The presence of a god of the name Yahw in the Egyptian pantheon tempts a belief that Yehovah, the Only true God, was also worshipped by some sections of that ancient society.
Ancient Egypt was a stratified society. Tribes and ethnicities existed specialised in different arts and services.There were the regal clan which was actually the highest cadre of the priestly tribe. Apart from producing kings and queens, priests were guardians and cultivators of literacy and numeracy. Letters (pictograms, signs and hieroglyph) were oracular and divine. There were martial clans, closely allied to the priests; Mosheh (Moses) was of them. There were farmers, artisans, slaves, et cetera.
Later socities seem to have copied this pattern (1 Samuel 22: 19).
Whereas Old Egypt's kings believed they were born of the household of Ra, hence phi-Ra-Ohwo (translated 'pharaoh'), each had his favourite god which he nationalised. Amenhoteppe (Amen is immaculate or 'immaculate Amen') nationalised Amen, also called Amon. King AkNatn nationalized Aton, the most spartan deity in Egypt with some charcteristics of the holy One of Ysrael. Sometimes a king nationalized two or more gods. One of the kings withe name Thuthmose instituted a national cult for the dual deity Amen-Ra (Amon-Ra). Each ethnic group had its own chief god apart from the national one.

Many years before the Hebrew exodus, there was a widespread civil strife in Egypt, similar to the one at th time of the Exodus. Probaly during AkNatn's regime. This king lived by the principles of Satyagraha: he refused to go to war or do anything that shed blood or torture conscience. ome groups inside and outside Egypt took advantage of this and revolted, rebelled or attacked. the result was a massive multi-direction, far-flung immigrations.
Ainu Dhu, a clan whose chief deity was Ainu, migrated to the area between the rivers Indus and Ganga Ma (Ganges). There had always been migratory and commercial dealings between there and Egypt. Ainu Dhu were probaly the earliest human settlers there. Yahw-Bu-Si (... a people intimate with Yahw ), a clan whose chief god was Yahw, migrated to Palestine. They were very probably the Jebus(ites) of the Bible, later assaulted and ousted by Israelites. Kha-na-an (people from the land of Kha, alternatively pronounced Kha-an-na;this is a peculiarity of Ancient Egypt's pronunciation system), migrated to Palestine. Their name is translated 'Canaan'.

There was a town, a microcosmopolis, called On (also pronounced No or nO) that was a potpourri of class and activities, a hybrid but harmonious population. On harboured scientists (astrologers), technologists (experts in smithery), artisans, agriculturists, magicians, papyrus processors et cetera. Most of these deserted Egypt too, apparently (approximately) during the years of the sufferings inflicted on Egypt by Yehovah to compel the new pharaoh to let Ysrael go.

I am believing that the first Igbo were a group Egyptians from On. Perhaps, Phoenician Egyptians who migrated from On about this time.

Different groups in the South-of-Sahara Africa are retaining different measures of their ancient cultures. So far, the Dogon people of Mali are the most conspicuous. Their cosmogony, burial rites, native medical practices, music...are still thickly spiced with elements of the culture that made the mummies, the pyramids and the earliest hieroglyphics.

Akan peoples ( in Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Togo) are believd to have left the north (some Ghanaian scholars say directly from Middle East; some say via the British Isle, where they, under queen BodiKa, first lost a war to Romans) for the south about 50 AD. They lodged in an area intersecting present Mauritania and Mali. About 1400 AD they moved again, southward. Before 1700AD, they: Fante, Ashante, Mossi, Fra-fra et cetera had reached their present locus. These peoples have something in common with the Igbo, such as smithery, native calendar (the way they reckoned their years before the gregorian calendar). Even the Igbo name for 'year', "Afo", is nearly the same in one Twi dialect.

From the work of European archeologists who once toured Igboland, it is believed that Ndi-Igbo were already at their present location by the time of Muhammad (the light of Islam). But it seems also that there were minor exoduses. Early foreign missionaries noted that the peole most receptice to the gospel among West Central Africans had just moved further hinterland. An old convert said that the reference was to the area south of Arochukwu and Ikwerre. In otherwods, Igbo folks vacated the area before non-Igbo folks living there now settled.

I base my faith that Ndi-Igbo came from On on their diversity, industry, cultural significance of the moon to them, absence of islamic or christianic elements in the pristine Igbo cultures, and the fact that no large sections of Ndi-Igbo in Ala-Igbo was ever subdued and ruled by non-Igbo powers to warrant any radical transmutation in cultural character. The section closest to Bini is the only exception. The natives of Obosi and Onicha comprise ab-oroginal natives and descendants of invaders (Bini??) who got neutralized after crossing the Naija eastward.

*Ndi-Igbo are very diverse yet very one. 10 to 14, or more dialectical groupings are identifiable. In fact, some Igbo dialects are close to being distinct languages. This is a characteristic shared even more profoundly by Jukun, another rather even-headed people.

*The Igbo are almost never at ease with the way things are. They are ever actively in search of improvement or better alternatives. Unlike some nearby peoples who relinquish huge human responsibilities to God, the Igbo believe in the supernatural but also, innately, in the active human factor: ability and probability of human beings engineering and driving some events according to their colletcive will, temperament and passion. This has always been the case even before the brazen dollarization of Igbo life, a money-worship trend that has almost de-culturated Ndi-Igbo both at home and in the Diaspora. This is vividly echoed by the apostolic musician, Patrice Obasi, who sang: "Eluigwe o, nyere anyi akao"; and the near-legendary social musician of the pseudonym Oliver de Coque, who chanted: "Onye chi na-azo na-azo onwe ya; onye kwe chi ya ekwe".

*Whereas the Igbo are extra-venturous, they do not colonize other places by force of arms. Fula, Bini, Oduduwa did or still do. Instead, Ndi-Igbo colonize by the force of trading. This is an indiscountable characteristic of ancient Phoenicians.

*I believe that Ndi-Igbo came from Afi-Ri-Kha n side of the Middle East. I believe that the pre-Igbo Igbo traversed the Sudan (Bilad as Soudan), with many members of the conglomeration of emigrants settling along their route, towards the tropical forests of Central and west Africa, before bellingerent Arabian murderers began subduing and enslaving peasant Africans.
The Arabians dominated east and parts of southern Africa, from al-Khaira (Cairo) to Maputo. Only Ethiopia was partly excepted. So the histories of the peoples in this region, including some Ethiopian ethnicities, bear scars of Arab molestation, unlike Igbo history. In fact, the name 'Mozambique' was a standardized mispronunciation. When Portuguese expansionists took the kingdom from Arabian rulers after many hundreds of years of rulership and lordship, they could not pronounce the local chief's name well. So 'Musa bin Ba*i*que' became 'Musambique'.

*Ndi-Igbo, like their India-ward counterparts, must have departed before Christianity emerged. Otherwise, they would have been affected by the Coptic and Amharic versions of christianism that thrived in Egypt and Ethiopiya (Abyssinia) in the first half of the first millennium After-the-birth-of-the-Christ.
Detractingly, mummification and pyramid building, even in diluted or miniaturized forms, are absent and unknown in Igbo Pristine cultures. These are the two most prominent techno-cultural brands of Ancient Egypt.

Being a pleasure, the search for the definite origin of Ndi-Igbo continues...