The following three videos chronicle the official visit of HRH Ewuare II Oba of Benin with  HRH Alhaji (Dr.) Yahaya Abubakar CFR, Etsu Nupe, Chairman of the Niger State Council of Traditional Rulers Read. This is a significant meeting between two powerful, traditional kingdoms of Nigeria. Take note of the Nupe traditional dance, the music particularly the flute and the durbar. This ceremony was held in Bida, Nigeria at the palace of the ETSU NUPE January 2020.

Above: The Oba of Benin arrives at the Palace of ETSU NUPE

Above: Kakaki trumpeters:

According to tradition the Atta of Igala, to whom the Nupe were subject in mid-fifteenth century, presented Tsoede, founder of the Nupe kingdom, with vari- ous royal insignia “including kakaki or the long royal trumpets” (Hogben & Kirk- Greene 1966:262). As this antedates their acquisition by both Songhai and Kano, which are considerably further north, while the Igala are to the south of the Nupe, one must choose between a southern origin, some form of instrumental leap-frog, or treat the story as legend. Since all evidence points to North Africa as the immed- iate source and simpler explanations are preferred to more contorted if they account for the facts, we are inclined to regard the story of Tsoede’s acquisition as later glorification of a past hero. There is, moreover, no evidence that the Igala ever had long trumpets; when the British 1841 expedition met the then Atta, his interest in the party’s bugle suggested unfamiliarity with both its “gold-like material” (Allen & Thomson 1848:303) and aerophones of longer dimensions. Recent research now dates the introduction of the Nupe kakaki from the reign of Etsu Majaya (1796- 1810)7, which accords with the hypothesis of a north-south diffusion, the trumpet entering Nigeria through Hausaland, whence it passed to the Nupe and so to the Yoruba.  – Gourlay, K.A., Long Trumpets of Northern Nigeria — In History and Today)

S.F. Nadel’s account of kakaki trumpeters in Bida (heart of Nupeland)  in 1930s:  “On Thursday night and again on Friday afternoon the Etsu rides in great state to the mosque in the town, and on Friday at his return holds a reception in his house …”. During the procession, with the “king and courtiers on horseback, in their sumptuous gowns … drummers are beating their drums, three mounted trumpeters blow the huge bronze kakati in an incessant deaf- ening chorus.” (S.F Nadel, A Black Byzantium London Routledge and Kegan. 1942.)

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