A little bit of background: I was gathering a compendium on West African mythological weapons for a personal project, and I was focused on two swords displayed a myriad of times on the famous Benin Bronzes, the Ada and Eben, but sadly there is little information on the two blades, after an eternity of researching and posting on the Historum African Forum I gathered a lacklustre amount of information on its origin and then I was urged to commit the ultimate taboo......... and that was to use Wikipedia for sources on African history, and to my expectations, it was so horrendous I assume it's by a guy who knows nothing about swords or someone who is neither of the Edo or Yoruba ethnic group, So I'll try clean it up, I will detail everything I picked up, here's the Wiki link by the way.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_and_Abere

Background: The editor convolutes his sources, conflates the many different "Ada" for a single sword that is of a similar type, and refuses to make that distinction, despite his source doing so. He then goes into historical revisionism on a bad fringe attempt.

Error Number One taken from the Introduction section: "State swords have been used for centuries to represent the ancient rights bestowed from Ife to various Yoruba, Yoruboid, and neighbouring groups, including the Fon, Ga, and Benin Kingdom". Great!

Slight Problem here is his source for this, (Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power, and Identity, c. 1300) Suzanne Preston Blier says: "During coronations, individual Yoruba Kings would contact the Oranmiyan priest at Ife (Eredumi) to acquire a "sword of state" a tradition purportedly followed by the Edo, Fon, and Gan kings as well. Such a ritual in essence served to both promote and legitimize the use of these ^(long swords) throughout the broader area."

About that...... the Ada nor the Eben are longswords or Long swords or Long-swords (Poynor et. al 2024)

Take a look:

https://umma.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/69362_ca_object_representations_media_1334_original.jpg

And here is a long sword ( https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27966 ):

https://www.theknightshop.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/364x364/f59d29ad4c22cdd1dd61568d41112f23/d/s/dsc_4459__15034_2.jpg

And no, the author has no reason to refer to the Ada or the Eben in this matter as long swords, there is no context in that section of the book where she would need to.

So whatever sword she was referring to was not the Ada or the Eben swords, though as you'll see later on, I'm sure the editor was referring to the Ada.

The next error is found in the "Àdá" section where he states:  "The Ada took the forms of the Hwi and Gubasa which were mandatory among the Fon in the coronation of every ruler". This is FALSE his source for such a claim is "Sandra T Barnes Africa's Ogun, Second, Expanded Edition: Old World and New"

The editor conflates Amose's "Great Sword of Justice and the Fon Sword of Ogun" and then bizarrely conflates both for the Gubassa sword which he then conflates for an Ada blade then he conflates the Benin "Ada" for the Oyo Sword of Justice....... let me put this bluntly THEY ARE NOT THE SAME SWORD. You the reader are confused, aren't you?

Here is the source: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8OWjkR-1btMC&q=gubasa+sword+justice&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=gubasa%20sword%20justice&f=true

Let me break it down: Amos speaks about the symbolic meaning of the sword in the religion of the Fon people not A sword but swords so no particular sword was in the conversation initially,

So next was the Great Sword of Justice that Amos noted to being the same type as an Edo Ada mind you, NOT THE SAME SWORD but the same type of an "Ada" blade, for example

The Longsword Type XVIIIc

https://swordis.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Longsword-Type-XVIIIc.png

 Longsword Type XVa

https://swordis.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Longsword-Type-XVa.png

These are two different longswords, mind you they are the same "type" of a sword but are ultimately different whether it be in grip, ricasso or pommel, which leads to a separate categorization or development (Oakeshott, 1991). The same Idea falls for the "Ada" blade where there are different types of "Ada" one of them being the Sword of Justice referenced by Amos, but the Benin Ada is not the same Sword of Justice and has its separate origin predating the Ife Kingly title (I Joseph, 2014). This shows how the editor conflates blades under the "Ada" category of being the same sword under the Sword of Justice when they are all different. Amos and Poynor adhere to this idea and consistently refer to them as different "types" of swords, but not the same, so it is prevalent in academia.

Now the claim the Gubassa and Hwi are Ada blades is blatant misinformation, I'm not as well studied on the Hwi but I'm confident both blades are different, he claims the sword of Justice "Ada" the Fon King got from Ife was the Gubassa, which in Fon myth is directly from Gu (The Iron and fire God) and is NOT from Ife.

( https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/25-2/Benin.pdf )

So to Summarise this section of the debunk, There are many swords of the "Ada" type as pointed out by Amos, the Sword of Justice, Benin Ada and Ada Ogun, and many more I presume.

The Gubassa and Hwi are NOT ADA SWORDS, nor are they under that classification.

The next section of the debunk is the "Abẹ̀rẹ̀" where he states An Abere is a Yoruba word for a state sword said to be used by different tribes. Cyril Punch in his visit to the king of Benin in 1889, documented the use of a fan-like blade being twirled in the hands of chiefs during a ceremony. In his illustrations, he labelled and referred to the object as an “Ebere”. While his account contains the earliest known written name of the sword in the Benin kingdom, this type of object is more commonly known today as an “Eben” by the Edo people. A divergence in names for the same object is not a strange thing, as even across Yoruba dialects, the Owo people refer to their ceremonial fan blade as an “Ape”.

One thing you'll immediately notice is the lack of information in comparison to the "Ada" Section and it makes complete sense when you realise its unsourced assumption after assumption after assumption, No source to prove the linguistic change from Abere to Ebere from a Yoruba Linguist or a historian shows its already sketchy enough, It is no secret that the Eben Twirling Blade is unique to the Benin Kingdom, unlike the "Ada" types of blade prevalent throughout Yorubaland.

Many Yoruba Kingdoms indeed have the Eben blade, but those are Yoruba Kingdoms (Like Owo, Warri and Lagos) uniquely under domination by the late Benin Empire or within the EdoPeoples's sphere of influence, which due to the empire was quite dominant in eastern Yorubaland ( Akintoye, 1969), the citation here by Professor Akintoye is a well regarded academic on Yoruba History and wrote A History of the Yoruba People in 2010, and still conceded the fact that the Oval sword seen in Northwestern Yorubaland (Eben) is of Edo Origin (Akintoye, 1969).

Now the Pictures he used........ lmao not even those are accurate

One of the pictures is the Udamalore of the Owo Kingdom which is a form of an udà a blade that is distinct from an Àdá (Poynor, 2024).

Here is an Udamalore: https://mitp.silverchair-cdn.com/mitp/content_public/journal/afar/57/3/10.1162_afar_a_00775/3/m_afar_a_00775.figure.15.jpeg?Expires=1733553201&Signature=q5jiTinpZRXs7ldkM65p2ZKQZeMl0zlprXZULIq2WxBDQMG7s-xrWj6wNPyQBTLqqUHX4mrkqFmXMHTLj9luyacBqRxE9UuIdCaVv1lmV5eJwmhQagEtPWv2p1nTmgngQ0fG1vbCjtxaeFLBJqf9~AyjwlV5MC9-JDkRlWi6RPtjJkgwFb4UuSjKI2cPdA9t2RvO6YnzwORXOC-1KVBKlfHWKBVF8bJPJHNjZ7WT9PvD1SN~CvxtI~2SjNIcF6TUFxzP44wRR3XbMUJ6exNeDByToTMZ-ksDlGQTjbkg4VlVO0UpUanqg8ehOBUF4Q54Q7syum80a0kdZy0VC8YOgg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA

And here is an Uda: https://mitp.silverchair-cdn.com/mitp/content_public/journal/afar/57/3/10.1162_afar_a_00775/3/m_afar_a_00775.figure.14b.jpeg?Expires=1733553201&Signature=3CGKsCjuQecAtoD2h8jDu2c~7fvqaGdJX1PzwOXyqaQXJbGYayQ5FAMrLSQonjreArrqIHzJgmR~LxMl00FoF6EYXGE2OKS8sRNDf~vRcfLEkFMH~bk64H6RWexm8WQRU2PMF7Fv3GdhjdXGiB8oKBiWkrY1QbKClPI5cGql4ga0WhZvqMK9ZemmikmgfVhoHlUdnZgybN~R8n2nwIcUvqPfuv9MMy5pvHB6pqeDhUfIvpk14V6YcjKxXgUhTiTELzxdbeJk05J8BlI~QVFbr2mtFnmQ-Ldp-8Uz0zXPwUPHeX88MblP-Zc7MdAS1lVhTdsbdMwwDAoyr~G-IUH-ZQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA

Also, an Ada-Ogun as he shows for some reason, can be any blade or sword as long as it's Ceremonially for Ogun. his source ( mentions sword(s) and not a single sword, another such case...... as well as the insane variety of an "Ada-Ogun"

A Dagger-like Ada-Ogun

https://emuseum.miami.edu/internal/media/dispatcher/8075/preview

A "Hwi but less bulbous" looking Ada-Ogun

https://emuseum.mfah.org/internal/media/dispatcher/286960/preview

The most "Ada-looking" Ada-Ogun

https://cdn.drouot.com/d/image/lot?size=fsquare&path=2331/143487/fcf1062d7264e0a4ef3ba35551298ebd

Those are just examples I've seen.

Next is the Archaeology section, where he states: Whether for ceremonial use, or conventional use, it is evident that swords across these cultures have taken on varied identities, and many early oral traditions point to Ife as a source of their royal authority. Archaeological discoveries of ancient sword carvings in rock have been found in Ife.

" And many early oral traditions point to Ife as a source of their royal authority"

Well no. Let's run the List shall we

Benin Ada and Eben - From the Ogiso (I. Joseph 2014)

Ada-Ogun - From Ogun (Witte, 1976)

Sword of Justice Ada - From Ife (Barnes, 1997)

Gubassa- From Gu ( https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/25-2/Benin.pdf )

Udamalore - From the Ancestors (Poynor, 2024)

And finally, you know one really funny thing that I didn't even realise while making this, NONE OF HIS SOURCES MENTION THE BLADES, absolutely none mention the Eben except dictionaries and only Johnson and Amos indirectly call out the Ada but not the Benin Ada blade lmao but a similar type. It was all a very terrible attempt and a reach by the editor to reach some kind of obvious conclusion that the eben originates from Ife, despite literally 0 scholars claiming so and even for an original Concept the research was so badly put together and incoherent, and people will be believing it to since it's on wiki.

References:

1. I Hold in My Hand … Prestige, Rank, and Power, Robin Poynor and Babatunde Onibode, 2024
2. Vol. 4(1), S/No 13, January, 2015:1-17 ISSN: 2225-8590 (Print) ISSN 2227-5452 (Online) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ijah.v4i1.1
3. Oakeshott, E. (1964). The sword in the age of chivalry. Boydell Press
4. Akintoye, S. A. The North-Eastern Yoruba Districts and the Benin Kingdom. Humanities Press, 1971.

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Welcome to our History Questions Thread!

This thread is for all those history related questions that are too simple, short or a bit too silly to warrant their own post.

So, do you have a question about history and have always been afraid to ask? Well, today is your lucky day. Ask away!

Of course all our regular rules and guidelines still apply and to be just that bit extra clear:

Questions need to be historical in nature. Silly does not mean that your question should be a joke. r/history also has an active discord server where you can discuss history with other enthusiasts and experts.

Hi everybody,

Welcome to our weekly book recommendation thread!

We have found that a lot of people come to this sub to ask for books about history or sources on certain topics. Others make posts about a book they themselves have read and want to share their thoughts about it with the rest of the sub.

We thought it would be a good idea to try and bundle these posts together a bit. One big weekly post where everybody can ask for books or (re)sources on any historic subject or timeperiod, or to share books they recently discovered or read. Giving opinions or asking about their factuality is encouraged!

Of course it’s not limited to *just* books; podcasts, videos, etc. are also welcome. As a reminder, r/history also has a recommended list of things to read, listen to or watch