Nupe

The Nupe live mainly along the Niger and Kaduna rivers in Niger, Kwara and Kogi States, with Bida as their principal traditional centre. They speak Nupe, a Nupoid language, and are known for skilled craft traditions in brass and glass work, as well as for weaving, wood carving and canoe-building linked to their riverine environment. The Nupe kingdom, ruled by the Etsu Nupe from Bida, was drawn into the Sokoto Caliphate in the nineteenth century following a jihad and internal succession conflict, giving Nupe political and religious life a strong Islamic character that continues today.

Oral tradition holds that the Nupe kingdom was founded by Tsoede (also remembered as Edegi), said to be a prince of mixed Nupe and Igala royal parentage who escaped Igala captivity and established an independent Nupe state along the Niger in around the fifteenth or sixteenth century, some traditions crediting him with introducing brass-casting and canoe-building to the kingdom. Some historians treat Tsoede as a genuinely founding figure while others regard the narrative as combining several historical rulers into one dynastic origin story. In the early nineteenth century, a succession dispute among Nupe royals coincided with the wider Fulani jihad led by Usman dan Fodio; Mallam Dendo, a Fulani cleric who had gained influence among Nupe factions, helped install a new ruling line, and the Nupe kingdom subsequently became an emirate within the Sokoto Caliphate, with the Etsu Nupe ruling from Bida under caliphate authority until British conquest at the end of the century.

The Nupe kingdom is headed by the Etsu Nupe, a hereditary ruler based at Bida, supported by a hierarchy of titled office-holders covering administrative, military and craft-related responsibilities, reflecting the kingdom's later incorporation into the emirate structure of the Sokoto Caliphate. Nupe society traditionally included distinct occupational groups, such as brass-smiths, glass-bead makers, weavers and boat-builders, some of whom formed hereditary craft lineages attached to the royal court.

Islam has been the majority religion among the Nupe since the kingdom's incorporation into the Sokoto Caliphate in the nineteenth century, and Nupe Islamic scholarship and Quranic education have a long-established local tradition. Elements of earlier Nupe traditional belief, including reverence for ancestral and river-associated spirits, continue to be practised by some alongside Islam, particularly in masquerade and healing traditions such as the Ndakogboya and related associations.

Nupe craftspeople are noted for glass-bead making, brass and bronze casting, and finely woven cloth, crafts historically associated with royal patronage at Bida. The Gani festival, marking the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, and other Islamic festivals are major communal occasions, alongside horse-riding displays (durbar-style processions) associated with the Etsu Nupe's court.