The Ewe people of Ghana, Togo and Benin, among others, are believed to have originated in Israel before migrating and settling in their present areas.
This information was revealed by Togbe Adabra IV, the Mankrado of Gbledi Gbogame, during the Afadjato edition of Joy FM's Showbiz A-Z.
He informed Kwame Dadzie that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained information about the history of the Ewe people. Abraham was then known as Abraham the Evreh, he continued.
“There was a time when Nebuchadnezzar launched a war against the Palestinians and a group of the Hebrews escaped from that war. They went to Egypt, then to Sudan then to Ethiopia all the way down to the Niger,” myjoyonline.com quotes Togbe Adabra IV as saying.
He said: The Ewes stayed in the Niger region for a while, just before the Mali and Songhai empires, and when Songhai destroyed Mali, they (the Ewes) migrated to a place in Nigeria called Ile Ife, where they were present when Oyo State came into being.
The Ewes left Ile Ife because they believed they were being persecuted and settled in Tado in western Benin before moving on to Dogbonyigbo and finally Dɔtsie in Togo.
Legend has it that the Ewes of Dɔtsie lived at various times under different traditional chiefs, including Agɔ and Agɔkɔli.
But they had had enough of King Agɔkɔli’s callousness and fled to Daƒe before arriving in Tsevie.
They then split up, with some going to present-day Ghana, Togo and Benin. Between the Volta River in Ghana and the area beyond the Mono River in Benin, there are also some Ewes.
There are currently thought to be 18 main sub-tribes of the Eʋe people.