Category Archives: Nigeria

by | October 3, 2017 · 10:57 PM

Suicide: The Ultimate Enigma

Becoming suicidal is often but not always indicative of mental illness. Philosophically, it simply means that you do not want to live anymore, and you don’t have to be nuts to feel way. Life’s hard for everyone, and at some point, a lot of people just can’t take it anymore and want to bail out or end the pain. Indeed, a person certainly feels no more pain after suicide.

People kill themselves for all sorts of reasons. Only 70% of suicides are clinically depressed. A lot of people commit suicide simply out of boredom, believe it or not. Some people seem to do it for absolutely no reason at all. It’s as if they did it for shits and giggles or as a way of trolling the human race. I suppose in a way, suicide is the ultimate troll. Suicides are trolling the whole damn world, every one of us.

Suicide is a mystery.

We have been studying it forever, and we still hardly know a thing about it. A man wrote a big book on suicide a while back, and at the end of the book he said he didn’t understand suicide any better at the end than when he had started.

Some countries have high suicide rates, and no one seems to know why. Other countries have low suicide rates, and no one knows why.

Hungary had high suicide rates under feudalism, monarchy, fascism, communism and now democracy. People killed themselves at the same rate in all systems.

The Japanese have always had a high suicide rate, and no one knows why. Impoverished North Korea has an extremely low suicide rate while next door ultra-wealthy Japan has a very high rate. There is no good explanation for the difference.

 

It may be cultural. Some societies may be more pro-suicide than others.

Anti-socialists like to say that Swedes have a high suicide rate. They claim that Swedish socialism gives people everything they need and maybe want, but it leaves them bored and unmotivated and hopeless to improve their lot, so they end it all. But all places on Earth at that latitude have a high suicide rate. It is so dark half the year that the sun only comes out for a few hours a day, and it is cold all the time. There are high suicide rates in Norway, Iceland, Finland, Estonia, Russia (especially Siberia), Alaska, Northern Canada, and Greenland. Anyway, the Swedes had a high suicide rate even before socialism. Other countries have an identical system to Swedish socialism, and they have low suicide rates.

Actually, the suicide rate was comparatively low in the USSR and Eastern Europe under communism. However, with the transition to capitalism in 1990, suicide rates skyrocketed over the next 10-15 years as did forms of slow suicide such as drinking oneself to death. So the Communism/socialism causes suicide theory seems to be washed up. If anything, suicide seems to be linked to capitalism a lot more than it is linked to socialism or Communism.

Nigeria is one of the most hellish and nightmarish places on Earth at least from my perspective, and from any point of view, it’s basically a shithole. In fact, it is probably one of the foulest shitholes on Earth. Yet Nigerians typically among the happiest people on Earth. They’re smiling amid the stinking, crime-infested, ultraviolent ruins, while the Swedes and Japs are blowing their brains out in lavish apartments drowning in luxury.

Go figure.

Bottom line is that a lot of human behavior is either not easily explained or simply doesn’t seem to make much sense at all. People feel however they do for whatever reasons they do, and it’s often hard to figure out why.

At the end of the day, human behavior is largely a mystery.

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Filed under Africa, Asia, Canada, Capitalism, Culture, Economics, Eurasia, Europe, Finland, Hungary, Japan, Left, Marxism, NE Asia, Nigeria, North America, North Korea, Norway, Psychology, Regional, Russia, Siberia, Social Problems, Socialism, Sociology, Sweden, USA, USSR, West Africa

by | October 26, 2016 · 1:39 AM

“The ‘Negro Problem’ Re-evaluated,” by Phil

In the New World and Pre-Colonies alike, efforts were made by Europeans to try to advance Blacks to a European level, which was to be achieved though granting new opportunities in Black  societies or instruction via missionaries. Needless to say, overall the results were very much wanting in light of the expectations of the Blacks’ patrons.

Some may claim hindsight bias or that this was to be expected, but it should be remembered this was during a time when, though on occasion challenged up to the early 20th century, racial science was fairly well accepted in regard to innate distinctions (or at least more thoroughly defended during Galton’s age). However there is a perspective that suggests that advancement is indeed possible, though it deviates from traditional projects.

Before I reveal what that might be, we must understand what went wrong with the initial civilization attempts.

Culture:

Much of the efforts put into “civilizing” Blacks by Christian missionaries were based on literary schooling and the building the consciousness of a God from afar that will punish your sins in the future. For the most part however, most of the natives weren’t very compelled to change their behavior by this fear, and even with the customs Blacks did adopt, they were not applied with the same “spirit” as Europeans did.

A very peculiar and important trait of the Negroes, heretofore entirely overlooked, but repeatedly observed by Ellis, is that they do not concern themselves about any god that is exalted to a very great distance above them. Among the Negroes of the Sudan the gods that are far off are not worshiped at all while those near at hand, and ever ready to inflict immediate punishment command the most respect and obedience. The Christian God is represented as being too far away; and since the punishment which he inflicts will not be visited upon the Negroes until after their death, they do not think much of the consequences of their conduct. They have not the necessary foresight for such remote calculations.

The native religion has the merit of furnishing deities that are believed in, understood and feared, and they act so powerfully upon the Negroes that they seldom violate their own moral code. Now, it is very evident that if faith in their native religion is destroyed and another religion substituted which they do not comprehend and which they interpret to be mere conformity to ceremony and routine, their moral character will not only fail to develop to a higher plane but sink to a much lower one. And that is precisely the result of much missionary preaching.

The Negro Races: A Sociological Study, Volume 1 p. 427-428.

At first it might seem that social diffusion would render it impossible to advance Blacks, but that’s not quite the case, as we shall see below.

The reason of the success of Mohammedanism among the blacks is that it does not effect a radical modification of native institutions. The Mussulman does not, as the Christian missionary, attempt, as the first thing to antagonize old doctrines and infuse new ones, but he begins by living among the natives working and trading among them. He is unobtrusive and tolerant and thus the natives convert themselves by imitation. Whatever other objections may be raised against Mohammedanism the truth of Sevin’s statement cannot be questioned to wit that it is certainly a step towards civilization.

The Negro Races: A Sociological Study, Volume 1, p. 452.

Now for the differences in Black behavior between the two major religions, Islam and Christianity, the evidence is bountiful, with this passage possibly being one of the earliest:

“The Negroes possess some admirable qualities. They are seldom unjust, and have a greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people. Their sultan shows no mercy to anyone who is guilty of the least act of it. There is complete security in their country. Neither traveler nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence. They do not confiscate the property of any white man who dies in their country, even if it be uncounted wealth. On the contrary, they give it into the charge of some trustworthy person among the whites, until the rightful heir takes possession of it. They are careful to observe the hours of prayer, and assiduous in attending them in congregations, and in bringing up their children to them.

On Fridays, if a man does not go early to the mosque, he cannot find a corner to pray in, on account of the crowd. It is a custom of theirs to send each man his boy [to the mosque] with his prayer-mat; the boy spreads it out for his master in a place befitting him [and remains on it] until he comes to the mosque. Their prayer-mats are made of the leaves of a tree resembling a date-palm, but without fruit.

Another of their good qualities is their habit of wearing clean white garments on Fridays. Even if a man has nothing but an old worn shirt, he washes it and cleans it, and wears it to the Friday service. Yet another is their zeal for learning the Koran by heart. They put their children in chains if they show any backwardness in memorizing it, and they are not set free until they have it by heart. I visited the qadi in his house on the day of the festival. His children were chained up, so I said to him, ‘Will you not let them loose?’ He replied, ‘I shall not do so until they learn the Koran by heart’.”

Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354.

And more:

“Judging by the conduct of those Negroes who were the most regular attendants at the Methodist chapel, I am unwillingly driven to the belief that the Methodist missions have done little for the cause of true religion, and have rather helped to foster dangerous delusion. The Methodists I fear have done harm for they have diffused a general feeling among the Negro population that abstaining from dancing, from drinking (a vice by the way which Negroes are rarely prone to), and a certain phraseology, which is mere form on their part, is Christianity.

Now it would be much better if the Negroes were taught that lying, stealing, cruelty to each other, or the brute creation, slander, and disobedience were sins in the sight of God, rather than level their anathemas against dancing-the favorite, and let me say, the innocent, recreation of the negroes; unless when it trenches as it sometimes does upon the sacredness of the Sabbath.

Domestic Manners and Social Condition of the Population of the West Indies , by Mrs. Carmichael.

However, it must be acknowledged that Islam is, well, Islam. This was noted by G. T. Basden:

….Or again compare the statements of another student many years experience in Northern Nigeria who says in his notes upon the Nupe kingdom and the effects its adoption of Islam.

Mohammedanism has introduced no new manufactures, has drenched the country with blood, has destroyed numberless towns and villages, and has as far as one can learn, distinctly lowered the morals of the people. True it has introduced a better idea of justice by creating the office judge as distinct from that of a king, and we must also place to the credit of Islam the beginnings of the idea of education.

It is also a distinct gain to the people that they have been taught the idea of a life beyond the grave, and of rewards and punishments after this life is over. On the other side must be placed the degradation of womanhood that has followed the introduction of Islam. The average pagan Negro has his own ideas as to the of women, but there is nothing to prevent woman from rising by her industry or ability to high positions. But Mohammedanism changes all this and has a distinctly lower position in a Mohammedan than she occupies among pagans.

Among the Ibos of Nigeria by George Thomas Basden

Genetics:

Something that I think will challenge many peoples’ views of Blacks is the idea that Blacks are not monolithic in behavior. Indeed, with actual slaves who were imported to the West, different tribes were noted to have different attributes.

Of character among the Negro tribes.

The Eboe is crafty artful disputative driving a bargain and suspicious of over reached by those with whom he deals, but withal patient industrious saving tractable. The Coromantee is on the fierce violent and revengeful injury and provocation but hardy laborious and manageable under mild and just treatment. This tribe has generally been at head of all insurrections and was the parent stock of the Maroons. The Congo, Papaw, Chamba, Mandingo &c are of more mild and peaceable disposition than Coromantee, but less industrious and than the Eboe.

The Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences p. 551

But we still have to deal with the problem of the consistency of some of these descriptions, in part due to regions being confused with or substituted for tribal names. Thus “Eboe” can refer to either Biafran slaves, people from anywhere in SE Nigeria, or a tribe of slaves from the Bight of Benin. Another factor in this confusion was variation within tribes, even with the Mandingo, which was a more consistent tribal name.

As for the rest, virtues vary according to the districts occupy. In Bambuk they are warlike, the Upper Senegal they are more peaceful, but deceiving and thievish, on the Manza and Gambia they are swaggering foul.

The Standard Natural History, Volume 6 edited by John Sterling Kingsley and Elliott Coues p.329

In order, these would correspond to East Senegal/ Mali, North Senegal, and the coastal regions/ Gambia. This makes sense because the desert is harsh and would support violent nomadic lifestyles. This shows that how interior of Senegal, being a more even woodland/ savannah area, and the Gambia being part savannah and swamp-like, would affect natural selection in these groups.

A second factor could be Eurasian ancestry, but that’s most relevant to pastoralists – Chadic expansionists like the Fulani, who average 8-15% Eurasian (varies by region). The Wolof and similar tribes have been found to have only 2-3%  Eurasian admixture, possibly derived from the Bafour people, who were described as “Fulani-like.” Razib Khan found that in the Mandinka, the Eurasian intervals were between 0-5%.

Other genetic sources in US Blacks could be from Southeast Bantu, Cushitic, Semitic, and South Asian components, and though each varies by tribe, none of these groups are very significant in African-Americans as a whole. One exception was the Mota Study, but its results were dubious due to errors in calculating the spread.

This post addresses the study’s inconsistencies as well as other admixture results.

Now, it does beg the question of why aren’t the personality disparities as evident as they were in the past? Well, one factor could be that even in the Carolinas and Georgia where Senegambian slaves were preferred, the highest single ethnicity by DNA is West Central Nigerian, at least maternally. And overall, West Central DNA also dominates.

That’s not automatically bad in terms of genetic attributes, though this means that the best groups work with would be the Mandingos of the Upper Senegal or the Kru of Coastal Liberia, though inland they were more disposed to violence, hence the recent coup de etat).

Application:

One notion we should dismiss would be Blacks becoming in any sense “White” outside of contributions due to White admixture. This wouldn’t be likely even with the best “stock” such as the Krus. Regarding the Krus, you can look them up in any book, and they were held among most industrious, intelligent, and moral Blacks, who also lacked any significant non-Black admixture, if their features are to speak for them.

The flat nose, the high cheekbones, the yellow eyes, the chalky teeth pointed like the shark’s, the Erotruded like that of a dog monkey combine to form an unusual amount of ugliness.

Their features are distinctly African without a mixture of Arab; the conjunctiva is brown yellow or tarnished a Hamitic peculiarity, and some paint white goggle-like ovals round the orbits, producing the effect of a loop. This is sometimes done for sickness, and individuals are rubbed over with various light and dark colored powders. The skin is very dark, often lamp black others are of a deep rich brown or bronze tint, but a light complexioned man is generally called Tom Coffee.

The back of the cranium is often remarkably flat, and I have seen many heads of the pyramidal shape rising narrow and ported high to the apex.

The Uncivilized Races of Men in All Countries of the World, Volume 1, p. 545

In other words, a flat nose, prognathism, and dark skin. However, what should be noted here is that their heads were flatter than the average as opposed to the more typical elongation of the skull. Brachycephalic heads are indicative of Guineanid Blacks, better known as “Paleo-Negroids”.

But back to the tribe. They’ve been noted to succeed fairly well in adopting European customs, that is until they rejoined others from their homeland.

Very interesting is the fact that these Kroo negroes who, at a distance from their home, seem fully capable of civilization, sink back into their former barbarism on their return to their native land. While they readily acquire foreign languages, and at times give proof of a real attachment and devotion to Europeans in foreign countries on returning home. They take the greatest pains to forget their acquirements as soon as possible, and woe to the European that ventures into their country. However well they may have been treated, they nearly always, after a few years, quit the service of the whites in order to return to their barbarous condition in their native place. So little attraction has our much vaunted civilization for these children of nature!

Africa by Keith Johnston p. 131

With that said though, as a culture, the Krus were comparatively advanced among SSA populations. They partook in some savage practices related to paganism, though they weren’t the typical image of crude savagery, hence the term barbarism. In a true anthropological sense, it’s used to describe societies that bear semblance to fully developed civilization but have the cruder or more primitives aspects accentuated.

What I’m getting at is that, unless in the unlikely event that Whites want groups of Black living next to them so the Whites can influence them, preparations should be made by blacks to generate an culture of reasonably adaptable standards that will at the same time gradually select for preferred skills to improve the society.

Education, for example, should at least partially focus on life skills in morale similar to the religious teachings of Malian Blacks described by Battuta.

From what my father told me, Black education prior to the scholastic focus of integrated schools taught “life” to Black students. Cultural norms and trades were focused on more than actual “book learning”.

In addition, policies that enforce “compulsion” should be laid out. Commenter Sam describes how crucial this is here.

In order to get Blacks to improve their station in life, a focus should be on active practitioners of Christianity, as they already lead a lifestyle that has led to positive results.

Regionally speaking, Blacks in the South seem to have less animosity and to be more developed in a positive sense. That’s not saying that Black pathology doesn’t exist there, but rather that the South has a stronger Black Christian culture than other regions, which is aided by the less crowded rural setting. The murder and incarceration rates in the South as compared to other areas seem to reflect this improved culture. What is interesting about this is that relative to the rest of the country, not only does the region contain more Blacks, but also the Blacks there are significantly blacker than elsewhere as well.

So if such a a better Black culture and social organization could be developed, it along with a selection against individuals less prone to compulsion may improve the standard of Black living by tackling the roots of Black pathologies from a sociological perspective.

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Filed under Africa, Blacks, Christianity, Crime, Culture, Education, Europe, Guest Posts, Islam, Nigeria, North Africa, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, Religion, Senegal, Sociology, South, Sudan, USA, West Africa, Whites

by | August 19, 2016 · 8:42 PM

Gedalia Braun’s Piece on Africans

Sam: A possible explanation for Black behavior.

“…common understanding among blacks of what morality is: not something internalized but something others enforce from the outside…”

https://whitelocust.wordpress.com/morality-and-abstract-thinking-how-africans-may-differ-from-westerners/

Tulio: Interesting article. But I’d like to examine multiple perspectives on this topic before I draw any conclusions. I’ve never been to Africa to observe her findings first hand, and given that the author writes for Amren, this individual has an obvious predisposition.

For example she speaks of cruelty and torture in Africa, but that has existed among whites as well. I’ve seen some of the torture devices used during Europe’s middle period. Even looking at them was unbearable. Even in this country witches were burned at the stake. Blacks were hung from trees on false accusations while whites stood around and cheered.

I don’t like her conclusion that blacks have some inherent flaw that makes them incapable of being moral or having any abstract thoughts. Google a list of African proverbs and they contradict everything she just said.

First of all, Gedalia Braun is a man, not a woman. No idea what that first name is all about.

I actually think he is onto something, especially as he lived in various African countries for many years. That was always one of my favorite articles on Amren. The odd thing about that article is that while is not real flattering towards Africans, the author doesn’t seem to hate Africans at all. In fact, it seems that he is rather fond of them despite it all.

I don’t think just writing for Amren should disqualify you as biased. One of the truly disturbing things about Amren that I learned from hanging out there a very long time is that so much of what those articles say is flat out true. That is hard to swallow. However, the site is dishonest and biased as it only reports the downside to Blacks and never says anything good about them, while I know some of you will be amazed, but there are actually quite a few good things you can say about US Blacks if you are looking to write good things about them.

The Black love of cruelty and sadism does seem to be a part of the race. Yes any culture can become extremely cruel and sadistic, even the “highest” races of all which can become downright genocidal under the right conditions of Organized Violence.  Not long ago, two of the “highest” races of all, the Germans and Japanese, engaged in some spectacular cruelty, sadism, out and out evil and even horrific genocide. And yes, European White did use to be quite sadistic and cruel as the torture devices indicate. However, under normal peacetime conditions, most European Whites in Europe and the West demonstrate remarkably little sadism and cruelty, while with Blacks, even US Blacks, it just seems to go on unabated.

I should note that cruelty and sadism are not Black traits. They are human traits! Humans are naturally cruel, sadistic and downright evil, at least at times. Most human societies and most humans have it in them to be sadistic and cruel. I was a pretty vicious little boy, but all my friends were too, so I just figure that boys are just naturally rather evil. But you grow out of it. I still have cruelty and sadism in me of course, but I try to keep it locked up in a cage inside of me and hope it never comes out. My argument is going to be that Blacks are more susceptible to the normal human tendencies than say Whites or Northeast Asians are, not that Blacks are evil and sadistic and White people are real nice. Screw that.

Some of those things may not be race-dependent. For instance, even if Blacks are bad at abstract thinking as a race, if you push their IQ up, their capacity for abstract thinking ought to grow quite a bit. African Americans appear to be dramatically more intelligent that Africans for whatever reason. One standard deviation is nothing to shake your finger at. Hence, even if US Blacks are have some inherent issue with abstract thinking, pushing that IQ up to one SD is going to make US Blacks a Hell of a lot more abstract than Africans.

I should also note that a number of the other downsides to Africans that he writes about – childlikeness, love of cruelty and sadism, needing morality imposed from the outside rather than from within

A lot of that has been said before. Albert Schweitzer wrote much the same things after working for years as a do-gooder in Africa. The fact that he was such a do-gooder makes his remarks particularly potent, as I do not see how a man with that much of a kind heart would deliberately make up a bunch of evil things about Blacks. In fact, if you study so called racist literature down through the years, you will find many of these things that Braun talks about repeated many times. Much early anthropological writings on Blacks are now called racist because they were pretty blunt about the race, whereas now the field is very PC.

For instance, the thing about Blacks being “childlike.” Childlike is not the same thing as childish. Childlike is not a bad thing really. I would love to be childlike in some ways and I hope I am, actually.

Early American writings including I think Thomas Jefferson noted the same thing: they also said that Blacks were childlike.

The morality thing sort of makes sense. In situations where brute force enforces morality, Blacks do pretty well. I heard they do pretty well under Communism. Supposedly you could walk from one end to the other of Maputo in the middle of the night and no one would bother you. Maputo is the capital of Mozambique.

That was under the Communist like government of Samora Machel, who is actually one of my heroes. Havana is the safest large city in the Americas and it is very Black. Blacks also do well under Islam. Reporters have gone to the parts of West Africa that are under Islam and they say that things are a lot smoother, less chaotic and far less crime ridden than in the non-Muslim countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia to the south.

I hear there are also many Blacks in Yemen, maybe up to 40%. They are light-skinned, but there is a lot of discrimination against them. Racially they look like Ethiopians, which is maybe what they are. They commit almost zero crime, even property crime.

Under both Islam and Communism, morality is for sure imposed from the outside in a pretty heavy handed way. It was similar in the typical African village or villages that was ruled by a king. I have heard that pre-1960, Nigeria was mostly a country of small rural villages. There was almost no crime in these villages.

Not only was law enforcement pretty brutal, there was also a heavy shame factor involved similar to what we see with the Northeast Asians, who do not want to commit crimes or even do bad things in general because it will bring shame unto their families. Amazingly rural Africa was able to operate under the same shame-based morality as the Northeast Asians, yet the NE Asians are usually thought to be a “higher” race than Africans. So it looks like some of those things that make these “higher” races higher can actually be imported and be used by the “lower” races, which seems counterintuitive but is also hopeful.

The notion that Black genes make societies inherently unstable is belied by the fact that North Africa (13% Black by genes) and the Gulf (17-21% Black by genes) are remarkable stable places under normal peacetime conditions.

Also Ancient Egypt was 13% Black by genes and it was one of the greatest countries in the history of the world. So Caucasians having a certain amount of Black genes is not the end of the world.

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Filed under Africa, Anthropology, Antiquity, Asians, Blacks, Cultural, Egypt, Ethics, Europeans, History, Intelligence, Islam, Left, Marxism, Middle East, Mozambique, Nigeria, North Africa, Northeast Asians, Philosophy, Psychology, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, Religion, South Africa, West Africa, Whites, Yemen

by | July 15, 2016 · 5:11 PM

The Development of Metallurgy in Africa

JM8 writes:

There were some in Africa that were equal to or more advanced than those in Eurasia — i.e. Nok and others like it. One might mention the Gajiganna Culture. Cultures on that general level were not rare at the time or in times fairly soon after in West Africa, but those were notably the oldest and most advanced (or among such) in their region at the time. There were also some that were less advanced and/or did not become so until much later. Of course these were not the most advanced cultures on earth…

…Tangentially speaking, not to belabor the point too much: there are especially important developments in Africa that are early and especially stand out by by global standards: for instance, the likely invention of iron metallurgy in West Africa the Igbo region ca. 2000 BC, 1,000 years before its only other independent discoveries in two other places — China and the Near East. Another is one of the few and oldest independent inventions of pottery other than that of Asia (both around the Mesolithic in either Southern Mali or Central Sudan and somewhere between N. E. Russia and China).

I was very interested in this subject at one time, and I did a lot of research into when metallurgy appeared in Africa and whether iron smelting was an independent development in Africa as so many insist.

I read ~90 pages out of a book on subject that was available for reading on the Internet. The author was a respected anthropologist. The claim was that metallurgy was independently developed in Africa in Nigeria before anyone else, and that Africans completely skipped the Copper and Bronze Age precursors and went straight to the Iron Age, a mighty feat if true. However, the conclusion that I reached after all that reading is that Africa did not independently develop metallurgy. In fact, metallurgy developed much earlier in Eurasia as the Copper and Bronze Ages, which appeared long before the Iron Age, the last stage of metallurgy.

So metallurgy itself was developed probably centuries if not millennia before its appearance in Africa with the smelting of copper and bronze, two earlier stages that never showed up in Africa until much later.

And the smelting of iron also does not appear to have developed independently in Africa. Instead it developed first in Anatolia. Anatolians were already familiar with the smelting of copper and bronze, and it appears that iron smelting was invented here some time in the 4th Century BCE.

It then slowly filtered over to Libya, a process that took centuries. The Libyans or pre-Carthaginians traded a lot down through the Sahel with Sub-Saharan Africans.

So iron smelting somehow made its way down the Sahel to Nok, Nigeria, where it appeared 2,900 BP or 900 BCE. It is this well-known Nok development of iron smelting that is the evidence used by misguided people (often Afrocentrists) to claim independent development of iron smelting in Sub-Saharan Africa before anyone else on Earth.

Other than the facts, there were some other suspicious things about this theory. First of all, the claim that Africans were so advanced that they skipped the Copper and Bronze Ages altogether and leaped right to the Iron Age seems suspicious. The normal trend in metallurgy was copper -> bronze -> iron. It went like this the world over. Why would Africans be so advanced that they leapfrogged over the rest of the planet and skipped the first two possibly necessary stages.

Also iron smelting did not appear with the Igbo as claimed above but instead was developed by the more North African/Sahel (and later Islamic) influenced Nok Culture in the far north of Nigeria in what is now the Hausa-speaking region part of Muslim Nigeria.

Nevertheless, I like the Nok Culture, and in my opinion it takes a fairly advanced culture to even borrow things from other cultures, and Nok was very advanced for its time 2,900 YBP.

I would also like to point out that most cultural innovations are actually borrowings. Few major cultural developments occurred independently.

The alphabet is a good example, and most of the world’s alphabets borrowed ultimately from the Phoenician alphabet, the first character set that went on to conquer the world. Even Indian scripts are borrowings from the Phoenician, as are the Arabic, Aramaic, and Persian scripts, etc. There is nothing wrong with borrowing a major cultural advance. Most cultures on Earth obtained most of their major cultural advances via borrowing as opposed to independent development.

Furthermore, it is important to note that after iron smelting occurred at Nok, it spread very quickly through Africa. It appeared in Tanzania not long afterwards, and it rapidly spread through much of the region. Furthermore, Africans made wide, almost stunning variety of innovations in iron smelting, and these innovations were indeed independent developments. Speed of cultural transmission and improvements/innovations in major cultural borrowings are also examples of advanced cultures.

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Filed under Africa, Anthropology, Cultural, East Africa, Eurasia, Libya, Nigeria, Regional, Tanzania, West Africa

by | July 2, 2016 · 6:27 PM

“Black Women and Beauty,” by Phil

This article shall partake in an investigation of “attractive traits” with females of West African extraction in terms of their effects with regard to appearance, along with a discussion of their development. Such an endeavor is undertaken due to Satoshi Kanazawa’s controversial work in analyzing differences in perceived beauty among races.

Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?

In my honest opinion, this was something that I had trouble going through when thinking of women. I mean sure, I could think of attractive black women but typically they were mixed noticeably.

However, it wasn’t until I read and saw pictures of Native African women that I noticed four appealing physical aspects of African women.

Traits:

1. Eye Shape – Defining eye shape of Blacks is sort of weird, for there are various caricatures. The type encompasses the big “wide eyes”, “sad eyes” (almost like triangles, giving a sad look to them), small slits, etc. The big eyes I find to be more common in deeper jungle Blacks, I believe, sad eyes and slits to those that came from the desert. Medium/almond eyes, that are sometimes considered “pseudo Asian” eyes on black women, were among the one I found rather appealing.

2. Lips – While “Big lips” are sometimes seen as unattractive as opposed to small or lips that are just full, depending on the actually shape of the lips themselves they look nice as well. The thing is though is that they are less of a sexual appeal of beauty and just more of a comely feature when they are big but well shaped.

3. Contrast of features against skin – In the case of having attractive features they become more pronounced. Not a huge necessity for standard beauty, but a nice trait at least – though its effect depends on the presence of pre-existing features. The trend was present, although further examining led me to conclude it wasn’t that uncommon.

4. The fourth one has at first a bit of a dubious nature to it. Basically it deals with cases where typically discouraged traits like prognathism and prominent cheek bones look good when coupled with a slimmer face, prominent chin, and not as exaggerated. Basically what this does is further draw attention to these features in an organized and pleasing composition. The issue is that I was unsure of how significantly “common” this trend was, though further examining led me to conclude it wasn’t that uncommon.

Here. This would be a decent example of what I’m talking about.

However, it’s time to get to cons.

1. Head shape – From what I read, at least for the average African American female, they tend to get a wider face. Personally, a face that’s more pointed or oval – that is, having a thinner lower face – is more attractive on women. In the case of Black women this is caused by the larger Jaws of Blacks generally, more prominent cheek bones, and emphasized with a narrower forehead amongst blacks. However, I believe this is more of a male trait than female.

2. Nose – Basically more angular noses are preferred but I think it is more of its relative size and how much the nostrils flare.

3. Body – Reading info from Steve Sailor, while Black men in America have narrower hips than Whites or Latinos, Black women have the widest waists of women and even wider waists than Black men.

This is basically due to a combination of earlier development of female fat distribution in females and Blacks being on average more impulsive, in this case particularly with food. In some African cultures it’s a sign of beauty. Often before marriage ceremonies the women go through a fattening period.

Examination:

While many are probably familiar with European-mix progression, examples of African progression can be seen here amongst these Igbo women, an ethnic group of various looks.

Igbo Women

The two on the right and the second from the left are overall better looking than the one in the middle or on the left end (though the one in the middle is of course notably older). The causes are more noticeable in the one second from the left and the one on the far right, having less prominent cheek bones, more expressive eyes, and smaller lower lips. The eye traits are present in the one second from the right, though she has prominent cheekbones. This trait is complimented with a wider forehead and what I believed to be a more prominent chin.

More African women.

Compared to the one on the far left, the other two look more appealing due to having smaller jaws. But overall none look hideous, just more “ethnic looking” in which they have the traits to a noticeable but not to an exaggerated degree. All three, however, show the cheekbone trait (which I may add looks actually nice when coupled with a smaller jaw) but they seem to have “better” facial proportions where their faces don’t look unpleasingly wide. Their eye shapes seem to vary, too.

Ibo women.

The one on the far left shows African achievement of a face highly reduced of maxillary prognathism, while the one on the right shows one that is only partially reduced but is at a point that displays that unique “attractive” jutting I mentioned earlier. The one second from the right when compared to the one second from the left has wider (more almond) eyes and less prominent cheekbones, appearing more attractive due to a slimmer looking face and more expressive eyes. The one in the very middle is blurry but appears to resemble the type on the far right.

Young Ibo Women of Ibuza

Each of these girls, in my opinion, deviate a fair amount from typical vices due to the lower jaws with smaller lips and noses, though the one on the left seems to have a lower forehead (a vice that I forgot to add as well as possessing more slit eyes. The one on the right is quite the opposite, having quite a wider and higher forehead with bigger eyes.)

Igbo Women

This is a favorite of mine in which it shows a very good example of African progression that I speak of, being prognathism that is subtle and pronounces the fullness of the lips, not extending further than nose length, an overall smaller nose, what appear to be almond eyes, cheek bones that are showing but not overly prominent, with a forehead that is round.

The only concerning “flaw” it the forehead’s height but it’s not that big of a deal.

Biafrans.

The one on the right has the smallest jaw, thinnest lower face, intermediate nose and eyes size, and least exaggerated cheekbones. Still, all are rather pretty in my opinion anyway.

Though we’ve seen many examples of well-formed faces, actual specimens of body shapes yield little variation (from what I could find) to offer in forms of images. Most were slim, lanky forms that, while not truly unpleasing in my opinion, I must admit I would be biased in saying that it wouldn’t have limited appeal. Among African-American women these forms seems occasional but not that common, at least to me. Thus, it is likely due to nutritional factors if not wholly due to admixture, for native Africans were often recorded to be vegetarians, meat being held more commonly as a luxury rather than a given.

However, I’m fortunately in possession of positive commentary of European comments on Gold Coast women of both the Fanti and Ashanti tribes.

“The women when young are ugly in face and beautiful in form, when old they are in both.” (This is likely due to R/K breeding, causing faster maturation and possible loss in the retaining of younger traits).

“In general appearance the Ashanti much resemble the Fanti though they are not perhaps so strongly built. They are however quite as good looking and according to Mr Bowdieh the women are handsomer than those of the Fanti.”

– The Uncivilized Races of Men in All Countries of the World Volume 1. by J. G. Wood

Discussion:

Now that we are familiar with the identification of African progression of attractive female traits, what possible mechanisms in Africa caused the common (without influence of modern opinions) stereotype type to prevail?

Well, Satoshi, after ruling out BMI and intellect differences, claims testosterone differences. The reasoning behind this is due to his findings that, net of intelligence, Black men were rated higher than men of other races. This led him to suggest that difference in testosterone, which produces masculine features and being recorded to being highest in blacks, resulted in Black males deemed more attractive and females not.

I’m unsure of this inference, but it does draw attention to the stronger association between “beauty” and intellect in Black males compared to females. The topic between his research of beauty and intellect can be accessed here for others to discuss in the comments, for now I’m going into some knowledge of why the results are the way they are.

Beautiful People Really Are More Intelligent

One possible reason for these results is social roles in regards to sexual selection. From reading Among the Ibos by George Thomas Basden:

“In the majority of cases young man makes his own choice. He happens to a girl who attracts his attention and he immediately inquiries as to her parents and whether she be engaged or not. If she is free he endeavors to through her friends information concerning her in cooking trading and other useful and profitable accomplishments. He also inquires about her whether she be of good temper quiet industrious and so forth. Should these investigations prove satisfactory he lays his case before his parents or his friend for he cannot make the first advances personally.”

According to this, while initial notice (likely attraction) starts courtship, it is actual character that causes union to follow. Some HBD’rs claim that populations in Eurasia had a more directed course of selection, often described as self-domestication. It’s possible that in cases like here with some African tribes different standards in selection caused for different measures of association of intellect – for example, a proxy of character – that caused the weaker association in black women. It is worth mentioning, however, that based on Satoshi’s research that the correlation between attractiveness and intellect is higher in men than women by about 2.4 IQ points. I believe the association becomes stronger as a society develops. The Ashanti have often been commented to have a higher culture than Fanti, and the women of the Ashanti were commented to be more beautiful as well, though the margin between men was regarded as relatively smaller, with the Fanti males having a better build but the Ashanti being superior in facial features.

Regardless, I’m an amateur at best with the topic and I urge anyone else knowledgeable on the topic to share in the comment section.

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by | June 16, 2016 · 1:06 AM

Crime and Corruption Differentials Northern and Southern Nigeria

Steve writes:

Have you got any solid evidence about the crime rates in northern and southern Nigeria? How do you know its a lot less in the North? Is it recorded the same way in both? What anecdotal evidence have you heard?

Our anti-scammer group was first set up to fight Nigerian scammers. Later it was somewhat expanded to include other countries. We also worked very closely with a number of Nigerians in the course of our work. One guy was sort of a spy for us, and he even wrote a book on the subject. He went undercover to research in the scammer cafes, etc. We learned a lot about Nigerian society just talking to these people.

You know the type of person I am. I have to become the world’s leading expert on everything I dive into. So I dove into the study of Nigeria to figure out this scamming phenomenon. And I studied that country a lot for ~3 years.

One of the things I learned was that there was almost no corruption in the North for some reason. The South was the source of all of that. Also more important to what we were doing, scamming was nonexistent in the North, whereas in the North it seemed to be a way of life. All of the reports out of Nigeria that we received that portrayed as Dante’s Inferno on Earth were all talking about the South.

We never heard anything about the North other than that there was little corruption, basically zero scamming and apparently quite a low crime rate, especially for an African country. If you look at other African Islamic countries in the Sahel, you will find some of the most stable and orderly societies in Africa with some of the lowest crime rates in the sub-Saharan region. Even on the coast in the Muslim areas, the Blacks are a lot more orderly and controlled and much less criminal than in the non-Muslim regions. Blacks in Yemen commit almost no crime.

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Filed under Africa, Corruption, Crime, Islam, Middle East, Nigeria, Regional, Religion, Scams, West Africa, Yemen

by | June 14, 2016 · 9:55 PM

Northern Nigeria Versus Southern Nigeria

Another William Playfair Web writes:

What about Northern Nigeria? Any better? I’ve heard more of corruption in the oil-Rich south, where, well, there’s something to be had.

Yes, although the presence of radical Islam there is serious, most of the victims of Boko Haram have been other Muslims.

There is almost no corruption in the north of Nigeria, and there is also very little crime.

All of the crime and all of the corruption is in the South.

Northern Nigeria is much poorer than the South.

Stuff like this is why hereditardianism leaves me cold. I’m sure those Southern Nigerians all got the crime and corruption genes and somehow the Northern Nigerians got the law-abiding citizens gene </snark>.

Now where are you guys with your “Poverty made ’em do it – it’s not their fault, the poor darling criminals” theory?

Waiting for your  excuses this time. Waiting…

132 Comments

Filed under Africa, Corruption, Crime, Culture, Islam, Nigeria, Radical Islam, Regional, Religion, West Africa

by | June 13, 2016 · 7:33 PM

India Is Where Human Souls Go to Die; Nigeria Is Where They Go To Burn

Another William Playfair Web writes:

I’m skeptical that really any country other than the ones in East Asia have non-European cultures (Europe was all over)

BUT

those Nigerians, wow. Corruption out the wazoo.

They always say that African Blacks act a lot better now than they did when the first explorers showed up, but wow…no where to go but up, but still…I guess they were so low before that they were halfway to China, and now they are out of the molten core and only 1/4 way to China, so yes, that’s technically an improvement, and yet…

Living in Nigeria is like living in a country where lying, cheating and stealing is a way of life. Wait. It’s not like living in a country where lying, cheating and stealing is a way of life, it is living in a country where lying, cheating and stealing are a way of life.

But that’s India too. Or is it the Third World in general? Who knows?

My experience was that the criminality and otherwise base and sleazy nature of Southern Nigerians was off the chart. Keep in mind that we befriended many non-scammer Nigerians, ordinary Nigerians, regular people who joined our Yahoo group to “help fight the scammers.” And we had to throw most of them out of the group for trying to steal from us.

A lot of the “non-thieves” we kept in for some reason, but we had to throw almost all of them out too later on for marriage-scamming the White women.

We had group chats all the time, and the group was full of dating-age White women, a lot of whom looked halfway decent. We would have these group chats every night with me and a bunch of women and maybe one other guy. Mostly just me and a bunch of chicks. It was horrible! 😉

The Nigerians were always coming into the room and asking the White women for private chats, and when the women accepted the chat, the Nigerian would be there jerking his dick in the woman’s face. A lot of the women in our group were traumatized by this behavior, and we had to protect our women by throwing almost all of the rest of the Nigerians out of the group because they wouldn’t stop jacking off at the girls.

We also had some other Africans in the group, all West Africans from places like Ghana and Sierra Leone. They all tried to steal from us too, and we ended up also having to throw them out.

We had some US Blacks in our group, and their behavior was so much better than the Nigerians that it was almost like they were people from two different planets. And we think US Blacks act bad. You ain’t seen nothing yet. After putting up with these Nigerian Homo Erectuses for a while, I would almost prostrate myself on the floor in wild praises to God for giving us these Blacks that we have instead of those damned Nigerians. “Thank God for our great US Blacks!”

I figure US Blacks probably acted like these Nigerian subhumans when they came here 400 years ago. And now look at ’em. The reason they act so much better now is due to several hundred years of intense White Christian civilizing. That shows you the power of Culture, and it is why I always lose patience with hereditaritards.

White man’s burden FTW!

* Marriage scamming is what almost all Nigerian men do. They are all trying to marry a White woman in the West so they can get into the West on a marriage visa. They are all horrible husbands who, control, abuse, beat and live off their wives. They all refuse to work and instead stay home all day on the computer cooking up various scams or in other words trying to steal from Americans. That’s when they are not trolling dating sites trying to screw White women. They all cheat habitually and incessantly. Needless to say, the marriages don’t last long, but the guy has his marriage visa, so it’s all good.

Plus America just gained a useless, sociopathic African with a 70 IQ! Which I personally think is really cool for reparations for slavery and mostly just because diversity is our strength.

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Filed under Africa, Asia, Blacks, Corruption, Crime, Culture, India, Nigeria, Nigerians, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, Scams, South Asia, USA, West Africa, Whites, Women

by | April 4, 2016 · 7:26 PM

Indians Have Created a Worse Environment than Africans

Jm8 writes:

RL: Even in the catastrophic environment of South Asia (often regarded as worse than Black Africa in many ways)…

In terms of disease burden, it does not seem to worse than in Africa but rather the reverse (Africa’s is significantly worse.). See the link below labeled Global Infectious Disease Deaths by Region 2004 from the work of Christopher Eppig, near the top.

What is the cause of all of these diseases? Simply living in a tropical country? Or is it living in utter filth? If Africans have lots of diseases simply due to living in a tropical country, then there is nothing to be done about this, and this is a problem that will go on forever. If they have all of these diseases due to living in utter filth, then that is a problem that could be remedied.

By all accounts, India is a much filthier place than Black Africa.

I agree that Africa has a garbage problem. The garbage, filth, stench and utter depravity of India is only mirrored in some places in Africa. I read a recent travelogue by some men who went to Africa, and as they approached the capital of Burkina Faso, they said the entire desert surrounding the city was covered with swirling garbage. They had to drive through what seemed like tornadoes of swirling garbage on the highway just to get to the city.

The beautiful white sand beaches of Ghana are often dotted with piles of shit because Ghanaians living near the beach are in the ages-old habit of going down to the beach and squatting at the tide line to take a dump.

You see something like an Indian-level collapse in some urban areas in Africa. Urban Nigeria approaches Indian levels of sheer filth, garbage and stench.

Look at Lagos:

Only 1% of the population of Lagos is hooked up to a sewer system. Shitting on streets and sidewalks is very common. Nothing works. The city has a lot of electricity due to oil, but there are continuous blackouts because the people who run the power companies steal most of the oil that is intended to power the city, so there is not enough to power Lagos. Most Lagos residents with any money invest in a generator.

Perhaps not coincidentally, urban Nigeria is also morally collapsed on something like an Indian level.

The slums of Nairobi are horrifying and insanely dangerous. The sheer filth and ruin of these zones approaches the level of a Mumbai slum.

Cities in the “new South Africa” are starting to degenerate into filth, chaos and in particular mass crime, especially violent crime. There is now horrible pollution on some South African beaches because sewer pipes break due to Black workers jerry-rigging things instead of fixing them. Then when the pipes beak, no one comes out to fix them for a few months, and the people who do come out to fix it don’t know how to repair them. South African beaches are now full of garbage.

The sort of collapse there looks something like a Detroit/Newark/Baltimore ruined war zone big city look. The city still functions much as Detroit still does, but it is a mess. Whether America’s urban slums are worse than India, I have no idea. But the entirety of America is not Detroit. And people don’t shit on the sidewalk in Detroit. There are no dead bodies floating in the rivers. There are no rivers of raw sewage flowing down the gutters. The police force is not corrupt and incompetent. There is no mass corruption and bribery in government and business.

This is a higher level of FAIL.

Something has gone seriously wrong in urban South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. Africans just can’t seem to do this modern urban thing.

However, if you look at basic health indicators, they are actually worse in India than in Sub Saharan Africa! Indicators like infant and maternal mortality, malnutrition, stunting and wasting, and especially access to toilets and shitting outdoors are all worse in India, typically much worse, than they are in Africa.

This shows me that Africans seem to care something about these problems. Your average African seems to be unhappy about high levels of infant and maternal mortality and surely malnutrition, stunting and wasting. Your typical African probably looks around his country and says that it sure would be nice if we had less starvation and deaths of mothers and babies in my country.

He probably considers it somewhat shameful that so many of his countrymen lack food and die in the process of childbirth or soon after. I doubt if your typical African hates most of his countrymen. You can say what you will about tribalism, but I do not think that even members of different tribes hate each other that much. I doubt if African Tribe A wants to see the children of African Tribe B starving and mothers and babies dying in childbirth. Perhaps he does, but I haven’t seen much evidence of it. Sure, they fight sometimes, but tribalism in modern Africa does not typically produce that level of sheer callous sociopathy.

I read a lot of articles about the toilet and sewage crisis in the 3rd World. In India, no one seems to care. Those guys shitting over there in the street? Who cares about them? Those are poor or low caste people who deserve to be living such lives of utter misery because their poverty and low caste is proof that they sinned in past lives, and now they are slowly working it off through many generations of purgatory.

Your average Indian looks at the starving, stunted, children, the diseased, deformed and limbless beggars, and the legions of men shitting in the streets and thinks that he could care less whether those people live or die. Now you just don’t see that sort of callous viciousness in Africa. Faced with such scenes of suffering by their countrymen, I think most Africans feel bad for these people who on some level they probably regard as brothers.

The articles all said that the shitting outdoors problem in Africa, while rather serious in a few countries, was nevertheless not nearly as bad as in India, and furthermore the societal response seemed to be completely different. African governments, confronted with reports that their countrymen were shitting outdoors and on the streets, regarded them with embarrassment and shame. Many governments said that they were aware of the problem and had ongoing programs to deal with it. And indeed, in a number of African countries, dramatic progress had been made on this question in the last 5-10 years.

Interviews with local Africans in countries like Ghana showed the same thing. Locals were ashamed, embarassed and humiliated that they or  their countrymen had to shit outdoors. Over and over, they told the reporters things like, “This is just terrible. I cannot believe we have to shit on the sidewalk like this. This is so humiliating. What is wrong with my country that we cannot fix this?” They reacted the same way that the government officials had. Their attitude was that shitting outdoors was embarrassing, shameful and humiliating for them as citizens of that country. They wanted this problem gone, now.

But in India, no one seems to care. The people who shit outdoors either say they like to do this, or they have been so browbeaten and downtrodden that they feel that they are scum for being low caste and that they somehow deserve this degraded fate to have to shit on a beach. Further, even if they thought this was a problem, almost no one seemed to think that anything would be done about it. There was a sense of total hopelessness about them.

It is these sort of things that I am talking about when I say that the environment is worse in India than in Africa and that honestly I think that most Africans are better human beings than Indians. There still seems to be some sort of a real soul and beating heart in there somewhere in most Africans. In India, I just don’t see it. It’s like those ultimate essences of humanity shriveled up and died.

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Filed under Africa, Asia, Burkina Faso, Government, India, Nigeria, North Africa, Regional, Social Problems, Sociology, South Africa, South Asia, Urban Decay, Urban Studies, USA, West Africa

by | April 2, 2016 · 11:51 PM

Niger Delta Beaters, Part 2: High and Dry, by Phil

This is Phil’s latest piece on the inhabitants of the Niger Delta in Nigeria. Enjoy.

Before we go into the main thesis of the article, some points should be about my previous article on this topic, particularly the lineages of some of the Igbos. The lineages of both the Aboh and the Onitsha, for example, show significant Bini heritage, as seen here.

Regarding the Qua:

That the Qua Eboe people are of Andony origin is well known among the natives of these parts, their forefathers having many years ago lived near the site of the town of Opobo, whence they were driven by my predecessor Opobo, the old King of Bonny. From constant intercourse with the Qua people proper, they have learned the language of that race, but they still talk the Andony language, which is unknown to the real Quas.

Until quite recently, they did not think of disowning my sovereignty but were on the most amicable terms with me and my people, with whom they had continual intercourse. As a further proof that my sovereignty was acknowledged in Qua Eboe, some years ago, I may call your special attention to the fact that when the late Mr. McEachen was trading there, he repeatedly offered to pay me money for all the oil that he bought in that river the same as if bought in Opobo.”

– Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command, Volume 74.

This could be the reason why there were varying forms of behavior observed by travelers.

However, this leads to an interesting development:

Mr. W. F. Daniell has given an account of the natives of Old Calabar. He regards them as of Eboe race but presenting some physical deviations which serve to distinguish them from other tribes of a similar derivation. He thinks that the climate of the healthier, more elevated sandstone region of Old Calabar has improved the race beyond the natives of the same origin living in the swamps and low lying ground of the Bonny and adjoining rivers.

The average male stature of the Old Calabar people varies from 5’6 to 5’10 and that of the females from 5 ft to 5’4. Although they possess in a more or less modified form a thick and massive cranium, narrow convex forehead, compressed lateral parietes of the skull, projecting jaw, and oblique contour of the visage, yet they partially lose the thick lips, flat nose, large protuberant eyes, high facial bones, and other facial peculiarities of the Krooman, the most pronounced type of the Negro. These statements of Mr. Daniell as to the cranial characters of these people are substantially confirmed by the examination of the skulls we have just described.

– Journal of Physiology and Anatomy, Volume 3.

This shows the almost alarming precision of  the Igala of Nigeria.

First, we must get into the origins of the Igala.

While not exactly clear, it is clear from cultural and linguistic similarities that they are affiliated with the Yoruba people.

With further commentary in regards to physiology:

Many of the Yoruba people, like the Nufe and other countries, have handsome hands and feet, pleasing features, are well-developed and are altogether noble- looking men.

– Thomas Jefferson Bowen

This is due to the Yoruba being closer to the “Blacker” end of the extreme of a North African to Sub Saharan continuum in West Africa. However, in respect to the Igala, we can compare with the more Negroid Aboh, who descend from a branch of Bini people that possibly mixed with more southern tribes:

The natives of Aboh are comparatively tall for the Western region, well-made and muscular, but the hands .are large The most prevalent color of skin is yellowish or brownish black. The nose and expanded lips rather thick and without pleasing the outline observed in some Negroes. Their forehead is broad and less retreating than their more neighbors, the Eggarahs, but the maxillary are more prognathous or protruding and the angle consequently less favorable.

– A Narrative of the Expedition of the River Niger, Volume 1. 1841.

And:

Egga was the largest town yet seen. On the banks of the river, the population was reckoned at seven or eight thousand. The people were in general tall and well-made. The head, the countenance, and the lighter shade of the skin indicated an intermixture with the Negro race. Manufacturing clothes was found to be the principal occupation of people. There were no less than two hundred looms in various parts of the town.

– The Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton.

While intermixture could be possible to an extent in them, the forehead note shows that it likely it wouldn’t have been from the same source as the Edo Yoruba. While the Igala did eventually come under the Muslim influence of the Junkun, in the link talking of their origins, this Muslim influence was described as recent.

There’s is also this regarding their adherence to Islam:

“The Kingdom of the Attah is called Eggarah and also Igalla, the two names  being frequently interchanged with each other. The capital of Ochejih’s possessions is often called Addah, but the Rev. Mr. Schon, by whom this information came, says that the former names seem more correct. The population is 5,000. Some of the houses are built of bricks. The natives do not burn the bricks, instead they are merely dried in the sun.

The ground is under cultivation. The people seemed of a harmless character, and it is said that they never asked for rum. They all begged  me for paper so they could write on it. They were chiefly pagans, but no idols were up in the town, though it contained many other signs of paganism. The higher classes had embraced the Mahomedan religion, but they knew very little of it.”

– United Service Magazine.

As well, see here:

The Attah of Eggarah appeared to have been much more intelligent and civilized than the Obi. A similar treaty was concluded with them.

Buxton’s Memoirs.

The comments regarding the chiefs would make more sense in two scenarios.

The first would be you start off with a Negroid race that became more orthagnous through locality.

The other would be would be one of a more developed tribe mixing with another, and while the commoners regress, the higher caste retains a purer bloodline, thus resulting in more of a dimorphism between the rulers and the people.

As well, here are the comments on the features of the locality believed to have an effect on the people:

The well-known effects of locality on the development of the human body receives a confirmation in the inhabitants of Iddah, where the greater altitude of the district and its superior dryness operate in their favour. The people are generally well-made and of middling stature. The features are more softened and rounded than the Ibus. The lips protrude, but are less thick, the forehead ample though retreating. Altogether they have a look of superior intelligence.

W. Allen and T. R. H. Thompson, Niger Narrative.

This should be compared to similar comments:

“The natives of the Bonny and Nun, who are purely of Eboe descent,and therefore less amalgamated with the people of other nations, may be taken as the typical illustration by which we may make the comparison. They are generally of a short stature, slight form, and light yellow skin, differing in these respects from the inhabitants of the Callebar towns.

I am of opinion that climate greatly modifies the physical and intellectual development of most African nations, and that people of different localities but originally from one common source, after the lapse of some centuries, offer manifest alterations from their progenital standard. Support for the correctness of this statement could not be furnished, other than that presented in the structural diversities that prevail between the inhabitants of the low swampy districts of the Bonny and the more elevated sandstone regions of Old Callebar.”

– W. F. Daniell, On the Natives of Old Calabar, p. 213.

Though, in reference to the Bonny, the population was actually more of a mix between Eboes who came from the north and aboriginal Ijaws.

See also here and here.

A future article will observe the general conditions and historical locations of some of these tribes to see how well they correspond with commentary given by explorers.

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