The Anthropology and Historiography of Central-South Nigeria Before and Since Igbo-Ukwu

Abstract

This paper is a study of the methods and concerns of anthropology and history in central-south Nigeria in the period since about 1900, and of the changes which they have had to undergo in response to changing times and demands. To highlight the response of either discipline to the differing needs of different times, we shall take 1970, the date of publication of Thurstan Shaw'sIgbo–Ukwu: An Account of Archaeological Discoveries in Eastern Nigeria, as our critical dividing line. Beyond doing that, however, we shall treat the years 1900 to 1970 as failing into sub-periods, withca. 1900 to 1951 representing the high-noon, and 1951 to 1970 the twilight, of colonialism for the practice of either of these disciplines under consideration.It is perhaps necessary to emphasize that for our first sub-period, 1900-1951, we shall be dealing mainly with the methods and concerns of anthropology, rather than also with history strictly speaking. It was a period marked by the unchallenged dominance of anthropology and anthropologists as far as the study of society was concerned. What passed for history, and therefore what, for the period, will be treated as historiography, concerns the speculations of anthropologists about the past of the peoples of central-south Nigeria, and with the work of one or two inspired indigenous amateurs such as Jacob Egharevba. By and large I agree with the view of Bill Freund, supported by Toyin Falola, to the effect that “the colonial period produced very little by way of overtly historical publication. The dominant colonial science was anthropology.” Thus this paper is on the idiosyncratic waywardness of colonial anthropology, the impact of this waywardness on the emergent historiography of central-south Nigeria from 1951 to 1970, the efforts of post-1970 anthropologists and historians to shake off this waywardness, and the part played by Shaw'sIgbo-Ukwuin this struggle to end the baneful influence of that “dominant colonial science.”