Intercourse and Crosscurrents among Nigerian Peoples in Pre-Colonial Times

Abstract

Contrary to the popular myth of our people living in splendid isolation from one another, the evidence is clear that in the course of the migrations and subsequent settlement in the respective areas, many groups came in contact with one another. Inter-marriages, wars, mutual cultural borrowings, short and long-distance trade, membership of secret societies, sharing of major traditional institutions of governance and other important factors tended to blur the exclusive identity of the various groups.