Urhobo people
Professor Peter Palmer Ekeh, Founder of Urhobo Historical Society wrote in his book: Studies in Urhobo Culture, that "Urhobo is [...] in the Atlantic forest belt that stretches from Senegal in West Africa to Angola in central Africa. Historically, this region was the most pristine in all of Africa. Until the Portuguese burst into its territories in the late fifteenth century, its forest peoples cultivated their own forms of civilization, untouched by outside influences. This forest belt of western Africa was reached neither by ancient Christian influences, which had a large foothold in North Africa, nor by Islamic forces that came as far south as Hausaland by the eleventh century. While East Africa and even Central Africa were touched by Asian and Arab influences from across the Indian Ocean, as the amalgam of Swahili bears out, no similar trans-Atlantic influences breached the forest belt until the Portuguese arrival in the late fifteenth century".