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The Urhobos are people of southern Nigeria, near the northwestern Niger delta. The Urhobo is the major ethnic group in Delta State. Delta State is one of the 36 states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Urhobos speak the Urhobo language. The Urhobo culture is related to several cultures in the Niger-Delta - Isoko are related in language and culture, leading to the missionaries erroneously labelling the Urhobo and Isoko cultural groups as Sobo. This name was strongly rejected by both tribes. The Urhobo nation is made up of twenty three sub-groups, including Okpe the largest of all Urhobo sub-groups. According to the 2006 Nigerian census, there are about one million Urhobos. The word Urhobo refer to a group of people and not geographical territory. The Urhobos have social and cultural affinity to the Edo speaking people of Nigeria (Northcote Thomas, 1910). The Urhobo now live in a territory bounded by latitudes 6°and 5°, 15° North and Longitudes 5°, 40° and 6°, 25° East in the Delta State of Nigeria. Their neighbours are the Isoko to the South East, the Itsekiri to the West, the Bini to the North, Ijaw to the South and Ukwuani people to the North East. The Urhobo territory consist of evergreen forest with many oil palm trees which provide the lucrative palm produce industry for which the Urhobo have some technological preserve. The territory is covered by a network of streams whose volumes of water and flow are directly concerned with the climatic season; wet season (April–October) and dry season (November–March). ==History of Urhobo== The Urhobos belong to the group of people whose written history was largely undocumented. There is almost an absence of European records on the Urhobo as early European arrivals were preoccupied with economic interests on the coastal communities. However, in 1505, Pereira observed that in the hinterland beyond the Forcados River lived the ''Subou'' or ''Sobo'' a name that was corrected to Urhobo in 1938. The traditions of origin of the various Urhobo groups do not contain any specific reference to their ancestor other than that 'we are or we know are Urhobo'. The history of the Urhobo generally began from an Edo territory supposedly around where the ancient town of ''Udo'' and Benin City are currently located. At the end of the Ogiso dynasty, many Urhobo and Edo-groups left Udo in different directions, each at its own pace, in search of more peaceful territories. It was natural that in those compelling circumstances, peace-loving and less powerful Edo-groups had to leave the territory to seek fortunes in less populated but more economically resourceful territories. The Urhobo left under separate leaders in different directions to found separate governmental organization.〔Egharevba (1960:14)〕 When some of these emigrants left Benin, they found in their destinations of Urhobo territory, some Edo-speaking settlers. Each of the 22 socio-political units was called a "clan" by earlier writers, especially by British Colonial Officers in their various intelligence/assessment reports. The word "Urhobo" is used to describe the Urhobo group. Traditions among the Urhobos are replete with assertions of original dwellers and owners of their territory. These autonomous people were believed to be Urhobo, with no known history of migration from anywhere else. These traditions are without documentary or archaeological evidence. R.E. Bradbury refers to Hubbard's 1948 suggestion that 'the distinctive characteristics of the various Urhobo and Isoko tribes are a result of the super imposition of Ijaw, Ibo and later Edo immigration upon on aboriginal strata already speaking Edo-type dialects'.〔The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-Speaking Peoples of South-Western Nigeria. By R.E. Bradbury (1957: 129)〕 While allowing for the absorption of immigrants and their language, as well as for the impact of routes and group sojourns on the history of the Urhobo, linguistic evidence provides a strong principle for integrating and validating other traditions of the Urhobo origin (Thomas, 1910), (Thalbot,1926 vol IV:80). The absence of archaeological prehistoric evidence give credibility to the above traditions of Urhobo origin. The structure of Urhobo ideas and language as well as their culture and other institutional forms imply historical links between them and their neighbours, particularly the Edo-speaking peoples, and other socio-linguistic groups in some yet undefined areas in the Sudan/Egypt 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Urhobo people」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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