Talk:Kingdom of Benin

message: how in the hell did this article fall so far.  i reverted it back to the last version that was READABLE.  Yeah I know that's insulting.  Frankly, I don't care.  The Benin Empire deserves a better page than what it got.  I'mah keep my eye on this page. To all those offended, please see wiki's NPOV guidelines.  This page was written horribly and any wiki editor worth his or her salt would agree. And the page is about the STATE not just the origin or multiple origin theories.  I wouldn't be so p!ssed except that a lot of important stuff was removed.  Aaarrhhhh!Scott Free 04:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Standards 

message: What's this obsession with everyone referring to everything from Benin, or more generally, Africa, as Ceremonial. Look up ancient African Weapons, and the curators and sellers always describe the stuff as "ceremonial" or "used as currency", as if the Africans had no potent military capabilities. What this article doesn't even begin to TOUCH is the fact that the Benin Empire could mobilize up to 35,000 bronze clad warriors in a number of days, and there's a reason for which Benin grew from being a kingdom to an Empire. Military strength. That one pic is definitely of two warriors - carrying umozos, if my terminology is correct - visit http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=964084686&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&filename=964084686.pdf  If all they used were ceremonial swords, then what did they fight their enemies with? Their fists? This is just another attempt to depict Africans as unpractical and petty. I went on the "Capoeira" page (a martial art developed by black slaves in Brazil) and this one dude kept trying to prove that it was first developed as a dance and was not a legitimate "martial art" and described it as "Slave mock-fight dancing" - clearly a derogatory description, which is not true, as people fight and kill with it... anyhow, people are always trying to depict African achievements as petty and impotent, by downgrading their significance and practicality. The claim that a Kushite Queen fended off her Kingdom against Alexander the Great is deemed "legendary" by these famous Wikipedia scholars, the Nubian army deemed uneffective with not substantial evidence - people have made a living off of downgrading black achievements, and there are tons of them out there who live for this bs.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ktheconjurer (talk • contribs) 05:10, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ceremonial Swords 

message: according to most of the information I have read about the kindom of benin, (Jacob egharevba, Paula gershick ben amos. The ogisos rule started sometime between 800 and 900ad aand ended btweed 1070 and 1370 ad. This makes the kingdom at least 200 years older that mentioned in the article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.176.193 (talk) 22:53, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: True, but the article is about the empire and not simply the kingdom. the start period in the table refers to when Benin became an expansionist power.Scott Free (talk) 15:18, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  the ogisos 

message: The remark about the ogisos may be true but at any rate Benin (accoring to this article becomes an empire in the 12th century, during the middle ages. Why does it say early modern period under the historical era when it should say middle ages? the early modern period begins in the 16th century.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.163.228.155 (talk) 06:23, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Middle Ages doesn't even work, because that's a specific period to Europe.(SSJPabs (talk) 07:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date and Era information 

message: Furthermore the article claims the 12th century date as the establishment of the "kingdom" not its emergence as an empire. making the date still innacurate.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.163.228.155 (talk) 06:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ogisos 

message: According to , "At its height, the Benin empire extended from Onitsa to Ghana." Shouldn't a new map be added with the empire at its greatest extent?--189.33.9.33 (talk) 01:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: The whole "Legions of Benin" section of this article appears to be a pile of rubbish - it is riddled with anti-British sentiment, has no citations and the title has no connection to the contents. I currently don't have time to go and do all the research required to rewrite this, so could someone else please try? This page deserves better. Anjwalker  Talk 13:07, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-British Rubbish 

message: Can someone please find a better map. An extremely zoomed out map that includes almost all of north Africa and the subject in question occupies only 3% of the map is hardly useful to give any real information regarding the Benin Empire.207.237.208.153 (talk) 18:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Better map? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This map (from Heroic Africans) can be referenced to create a more precise free use map  czar 06:14, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: The article says: "Nowadays, scientists discovered that the Edo people did have a writing system, their art work which had let the scientists discover their true history." Can someone explain what this means? How was their art a writing system? Philgoetz (talk) 17:08, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Art and writing? 

message: On the phone version, the entire article appears to be stacked under the History section. All the information ranging from the architecture and military to even the references and external links are all under the history section. This has made this section too lengthy on the mobile view. Is there a way to fix this please?(Kwesi Yema (talk) 15:03, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with phone version 

message: PersonablePerson, since you have access to 'Benin, The City of Blood', can you tell me what the source actually says about the burning of Benin and how you can know it was a deliberate act? I do not have access to the source. LastDodo (talk) 13:38, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Burning of Benin in 1897 - Deliberate or Accident? 

message: The article states that after the 1897 conquest, the British 'imposed a system of forced labour in Benin, and in surrounding areas'. Is this a reference to the Native House Rule Ordinance of 1901, or some other system? Because that merely allowed native chiefs to maintain coerced labour, though the British authorities certainly used those chiefs - and therefore that coerced labour. LastDodo (talk) 19:24, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been busy, so I haven't had time to reply to your several questions (which do, in fact, generally require in-depth answers, not brief ones), but for now I would recommend reading Philip Igbafe's book Benin Under British Administration (1979), which discusses the imposition of forced labour by the British authorities on Benin and nearby areas after the conquest of Benin in parts of the book. It cannot be said that the British imposition of a forced labour system on Benin and surrounding areas was merely "allowing native chiefs to maintain coerced labour". At one point, even members of the palace societies were forced by the British to partake in forced labour assignments that they would not ordinarily partake in (see p. 163 of Igbafe's book for the details of that). In addition, areas that would not ordinarily have been under the authority of certain chiefs and would not ordinarily have been required to supply forced labour to those chiefs were placed under the authority of particular chiefs that the British administration used as agents to guarantee a regular supply of labour from those areas. I can add citations of specific pages from Igbafe's book to that statement later on when I get time, if you find the current citation of that other source inadequate, but it's not a priority for me right now so that might be a while from now. PersonablePerson (talk) 04:42, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi PersonablePerson. Thank you for replying. Igbafe seems like a reasonable source, in fact it is his article 'Slavery and Emancipation in Benin, 1897-1945' that I am drawing on. What he says in that article is that after the conquest there were some initial emancipatory measures taken that were primarily about cemeting British control, but after 1900 they became more about principle. In 1900 Benin became part of the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, and antislavery proclamations were passed in 1901, 1908 and 1916. This did not end slavery however because of the Native House Rule Ordinance of 1901 which was meant to apply to the coastal cities of Calabar, Bonny, Warri and others in Southern Nigeria that ran the ‘House System’, but became applied to Benin too. This cemented the traditional obligations of Heads and members of Houses, the latter including labour. This forced labour was used by chiefs who provided the British with services, to the latter’s great benefit. This exception was removed from Benin in 1912 and the House Rule exception was abolished totally in 1915. Is there anything this summary is missing? Is there more to forced labour than the Native House Rule Ordinance? Thanks LastDodo (talk) 09:38, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Post-British conquest forced labour 

message: While the quotation from unnamed foreign observers describes their military forces being "better disciplined than any other Guinea nation", the Guinea hyperlink leads to the Wikipedia entry for the modern country Guinea. It may be better to either add a note mentioning that Guinea was a description of a region of coastal West Africa at the time, or link to an article better describing that region rather than a country. Maabonnet (talk) 18:56, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch but a simple fix sufficed. I sent the link to  Guinea instead. LastDodo (talk) 13:28, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mention of "Guinea" as a region rather than a country under Description -> Military 

message: Hello, LastDodo and PersonablePerson, the book was published by AHFE but I am uncertain whether it is peer reviewed or not. The source is below;
https://books.google.com/books?id=8NyVEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA2&dq=Benin+oil+lamp+street+light&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiY6LiDkY78AhX_UqQEHTEPAR8QuwV6BAgGEAY#v=onepage&q=Benin%20oil%20lamp%20street%20light&f=false Kwesi Yema (talk) 12:05, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I am afraid I am not an expert on Benin, I am mainly just here to try to keep PersonablePerson honest :-) S/he might be more helpful. LastDodo (talk) 16:26, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: An 1855 source is a bit dubious. Claims of early "street lighting" are a perennial area for cultural willy-waving, with medieval Islamic Cordoba being perhaps the most common - this is a useful analysis. In any case, the Benin claim doesn't seem to amount to more than the ruler lighting the approach to his palace, which is a rather different thing. Johnbod (talk) 17:46, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be unreliable. The AHFE source cited a book published in 1903 called Great Benin. I read this Great Benin book and it doesn't mention anything about street lights. The lamps addressed in "Great Benin" were described in the 1850s and said to be lit only in special occasions near the palace. I'm yet to see verification for the claim made by the AFHE that "such lamp posts were lit on streets leading to the palace." ((Kwesi Yema (talk) 13:35, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Found a source about the use of street lighting in Benin; how reliable is it?