Braima alias Abraham A Study in Diffusion

canons of their morphology became clearer and plainer. The part played by diffusion is coming to be regarded as of more and more importance. Thus the distinguished anthropologist, Lord Raglan, (1939, 15) has laid it down that: '... no invention, discovery, custom, belief, or even story is known for certain to have originated in two separate cultures.' With this rule let us examine a Yoruba story of origin and see whether the rule applies. The Yoruba are a Sudanic speaking group of Nigerians who inhabit the south-west corner of Southern Nigeria. The earliest written history of the Yoruba of Nigeria occurs in the Infakul Maisuri of Sultan Mohammed Bello, the founder of Sokoto. He died in 1837. Arnett's (1930, I6) translation runs: 'The people of Yoruba are descended from the Kanaana and the kindred of Nimrud. Now the reason of their having settled in the west, according to what we are told, is that Yaarubu son of Kahtou drove them out of Irak to westwards and they travelled between Masar and Habsa until they reached Yoruba....' Masar is Egypt and Habsa is Abyssinia. Turning to Arabia one finds that there was there a tribe by the name of Yaariba. According to Wilson (1954, 78): 'The earliest settlers of Oman appear to have been of EurAfrican (Hamitic) stock. They seem to have been eventually displaced or absorbed by a great Semitic immigration from the north, the invaders being composed of two main stocks the Qahtani (descendants of Joktan or Yoktan), who colonized the Yemen, and the Adnani (or Nizari), who peopled that part of the peninsula farther to the north. .... There appear to have been various waves of immigration of both stocks at successive periods. The earliest settlers from the Yemen were the Yaariba, of Qahtani origin ....' These two accounts of the origin of the Yoruba agree remarkably well together. In Bello's account, Kanaana is clearly Canaan and

Ancient history · Arabic · Art · Ethnology · Genealogy · Linguistics · Literature · Nigerians · Semitic languages · Sociology · Tribe · Yoruba · African history and culture analysis · Anthropology · History · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis · Philosophy

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