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4.2g Information from a member of a branch of the Ilorin royal family, on the Jimba family: Text

Transcribed by Ann O’Hear from notes made at the time

Date: 1985?

The individual who gave me the information was a member of one of the branches of the Ilorin royal family. He came to see me for advice on his studies, and in the course of the conversation, I recommended that he might want to go and talk to Lawyer Safi Jimba.

[Lawyer Safi Jimba is a member of an Ilorin family whose founder, the original Jimba, was a nineteenth-century elite slave]

The individual said that Jimba was a “brother.”

I asked if his family married members of the Jimba family.

He said the Jimbas were “their” [the royal family’s] slaves.

He said that in the old days, Jimba daughters would marry their sons.

This was to keep the slaves’ loyalty intact.

Would Jimba sons marry their daughters? No.

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