You are right that the term 'Bini' is foreign.
It has passed into common usage because there just has not been a satisfactory
unique term to describe the Edo speaking people of the core Edo Kingdom - which
has been relatively consistently loyal to the Obaship for over 500 years.
The original term came from a phrase "Ile Ibinu"
[House of Quarrel] reportedly attributed to Oduduwa [or his son] as a way of
describing frustration with the endless quarrels that characterized political
life in Edoland. "Benin" is also of foreign origin - even scholars do not agree
about where it came from. My hunch is that it is a corrupted term from early
Portuguese writings.
Writings by Caucasians like Northcote, Hans Wolff,
Bradbury etc... reflect a struggle with terminology. They interchange "Bini"
with "Benin" with "Edo proper", none of which is satisfactory. I consider the
term "Edo proper" to be potentially offensive to other Edo speaking groups who,
it could be argued, would by default be considered "Edo improper" - a rather
silly connotation. Why did not they describe the 'English' as "English proper",
as against the Scots, Irish and Welsh all of whom are British and speak English
as their primary language.
To illustrate this dilemma, let us take the Oyos,
for example. The solid core of the old Oyo Empire consisted of Oyo speaking
dialects, which Ajayi Crowther used to translate the Bible. Present day "Yoruba"
is actually the 'Oyo' dialect, just as the phrase "Edo" refers to the 'Bini'
dialect. In fact during the early part of this century, Egbas and Ijebus were
not even described in documents as 'Yorubas' by the British. But at no time
was the "Oyo" dialect described as "Yoruba proper". It was just "Yoruba" - a
phrase that was then gradually used to describe all Yoruba-speaking peoples
irrespective of dialect. Based on this perhaps "Bini" should simply be termed
"Edo".
Note that this nomenclatural struggle is not peculiar
to so called 'Binis'.
The term "ISHAN" for example, comes from 'Esa'
which is in turn derived from 'Esafua' , meaning "those who fled". Some Ishan
friends of mine like (or accept) it. Other's do not, preferring to be called
by the names of their villages and sub-clans. I know Ishans who prefer to be
called Edos rather than Ishans.
|