Legend · Sixteenth century in tradition
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Nupe tradition remembers a prince fleeing his father's kingdom with royal treasures, then building a throne among his mother's people.
Nupe tradition says the first king of Nupe was half Igala.
His name was Tsoede, also called Edegi. His mother was a Nupe woman. His father was an Igala prince who later became the Attah, king of Igala, at Idah. The boy grew up at his father's court. That was the problem. His half-brothers saw him as a rival, and they were dangerous. So his father, the story goes, told him to go.
Tsoede fled up the Niger from Idah, towards his mother's people. The tradition says he took royal treasures with him: bronze and copper works of art, and bangles and chains that he later handed out to his followers as badges of rank. A chief who wore one of Tsoede's chains was a chief who belonged to the king.
Some of those objects may survive. Remarkable figures have been found at Tada and Jebba on the Niger, including a striking seated copper figure from Tada. Did Tsoede bring them? No one can prove it. But the people of the river towns have long connected them with him.
Nupeland was not empty when he arrived. There were already towns, chiefs, farmers and river traders. What the tradition credits Tsoede with is pulling them together under one king, by persuasion and, in some versions, by conquest. He became the first Etsu Nupe.
The traditional king lists say he reigned from 1531 to 1591. Historians treat those dates with caution. Bida, the great Nupe capital of today, came much later.
Still, the story says something worth hearing. The Nupe remember their founder as a man of two peoples, Igala on one side and Nupe on the other, who found his home by going up the river to his mother's people.
