ABSTRACT
In Nupe as everywhere, social patterns, common ideal types, spring up by themselves as 'natural products of long association'. The culture of Nupe, more correctly the culture typical of the section which formed the core in the historical growth of the kingdom, became the representative culture of the whole country, set up as a standard and 'ideal type' for the heterogeneous population. The expansion of the pre-Fulani kingdom appears to have been most marked in the north, and of the Fulani era, in the south. Nupe kingdom would be incomplete without the description of its growth and development. Its inter-tribal and inter-cultural nature cannot be fully understood without the inclusion of the historical viewpoint. The state involves the existence of a specialized privileged ruling group or class separated in training, status, and organization from the main body of the population.
