ILE IFE IS NUPE The people of today’s Ile Ife were originally a Nupe people. They left KinNupe a very long time ago and got to the present location of the city of Ile Ife somewhere around the year 900AD. They were driven out of Central KinNupe by the arrival and rise of the Kisra Nupe people who came from outside the African continent from the Mediterranean, Southern Europe, the Arabian Peninsula and Asia Minor. The Ile Ife people left KinNupe in the days when the Nupe people were known as the Ife. In fact, and as late as the end of the 19th century, Bishop Samuel Ajayi’s and the Lander brothers’ journals categorically showed that the Nupe people were still known as the Nyife or Ife back here in Central KinNupe. That the Ile Ife people originated from KinNupe in very ancient times is also confirmed by the Ifa Oriki panegyrics which stated that the present city of Ile Ife is in fact the last of a series of migrating Ile Ife that originally existed beyond the banks of the River Niger, that is KinNupe. Reveren T.J. Bowen was actually told by Yoruba people of an original Ile Ife that existed on the northern banks of the River Niger, that is right here in Central KinNupe. Professor Obayemi, who is himself a Yorubaman, wrote that the present city of Ile Ife is in fact the last of at least eight different Ile Ifes that have been migrating down from Central KinNupe. In former times the Yoruba people have always looked up to KinNupe as the original Ile Ife. And in fact the very term ‘Ile Ife’ is an Old Yoruba, that is Middle Nupe, term meaning ‘The Land of the Nupes’. So, when the Yoruba traditions talk of Ile Ife being the original homeland of all the Yoruba people, the Yoruba traditions are simply telling you that all the Yoruba people originated from KinNupe the ‘Land of the Nupes’.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 09:18:11 +0000