Talk:Bnai Ephraim

Question about the validity of this information
Does anyone have sources for this? All of the people I know in Nigeria have never heard of such a group. --EhavEliyahu 06:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

A deliberate hoax, or false information at best
I don't think this group exists, and "emo yo quaim" does not mean anything in standard Yoruba. It may a phonetic rendering of Ondo-dialect Yoruba, but I would take it with a grain of salt at this point. Similar claims to "Jewish" groups among the Igbo are just as suspicious, in my view. They are remnants of colonial anthropology's push to find foreign or "Hamitic" sources for indigenous African cultures. It seems some people have gone much further than even the originators of these myths could have thought. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Osomalo (talk • contribs)


 * I fully agree and would even support the deletion of this unverifiable/dubiously sourced article. As you say, similar claims have been made for the Igbo. I remember a debate some months ago on Talk:Igbo_people. The outcome was, unsurprisingly, that such claims should be taken with a large grain of salt. &mdash; mark &#9998; 12:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Greetings. There is only one book I know of that makes a mention that I believe this Bnai Ephraim article is trying to use as a source.  The problem with the book is that it does not give a source for the information.  It does not state where the claim of such a group came from, i.e. who discovered such a group etc.  I once asked some Igbos who practice Judaism in Nigeria if they knew anything about such a group, and they had never heard of a group called Bnai Ephraim.--EhavEliyahu 03:26, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely a hoax
This article appears to be based on the account of Bata LoBagola, an early 20th century African American entertainer (born Joseph Howard Lee), who invented an exotic African origin for himself.

See:
 * An article in Time from 1930 (this takes LoBagola's claims at face value)
 * An article from the University of Pennsylvania Museum
 * A book which covers his story in some depth

I think this is pretty conclusive. I suggest we change the title of this article and re-configure it to be about Bata LoBagola himself.--Pharos (talk) 05:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've now turned this page into a redirect. Eventually the Bata LoBagola article will explain the whole origin of this "B'nai Ephraim" idea.--Pharos (talk) 07:07, 11 January 2008 (UTC)