Culture and Society in Yorubaland 9782137731

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'Deji Ogunremi 'Biodun Adediran

BA It IB A

f6 &L 'll

Culture and Society

in Yorubaland

QUEERS BOROUGH PUBLIC LIBRARY WTS3NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTER FLUSHING BRANCH, 3RD FLOOR

41-17 MAW STREET FLUSHING. MX 11355

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

edited by ’Deji Ogunremi ’Biodim Adediran

REX CHARLES PUBLICATION

in association with CONNEL PUBLICATIONS

Published by Rex Charles Publication in association with Connel Publications PO. Box 22015, University of Ibadan Post Office Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria 101 Polytechnic-Sango Road, Ibadan, Oyo State.

© Deji Ogunremi and Biodun Adediran

Published in 1998 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic mechan^, photocopying, recording,,or otherwise without the prior written permission of Rex Charles and Connel Publications.

ISBN 978-2137^73-1

v

In Honour of

Professor Isaac Adeagbo Akfnjogbin

Contents List of Contributors.*... Preface .....

ix xi

Chapters 1

Yorubaland up to the Emergence of the States. ’Biodun Adediran

2

Kingdoms of the Yoruba: Socio-Political Developments Before 1800... Funsho Afolayan

1

14

3

Yorubaland in the Era of Revolutionary Changes. Kehinde Faluyi

27

4

British Conquest and Administration of Yorubaland. ’Siyan Oyeweso and Olasiji Oshin

39

5

The Yoruba and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria 1951-1960. S. O. Arifalo

51

6

The Yoruba and Their Neighbours. Isold Olomola

68

7

The Coastal Scene: The Yoruba of Lagos Society Before 1900. ’Kunle Lawal

79

8

Yoruba Intergroup Relations and Diplomacy. R.A. Olaniyan and AG. Adebayo

97

9

Foundations of the Yoruba Economy in the Pre-Colonial Era.. ’Deji Ogunremi

113

10

The Economy of Western Nigeria, 1900-1980. O.C. Adesina and A. Olorunfemi

127

11

Evolution of Religious Culture Among the Yoruba. M.O. Opeloye

139

12

The Role of Women in Traditional Yoruba Society: A Review. Modupeolu Faseke

149

13

Yoruba Art and Art History. C. O. Adepegba

157

14

Varieties of Yoruba Literature. A. Akinyemi

168

15

Forms of Metaphors: Syntactic Considerations....;. A Olabode

177

16* yoruba Dialects...... Femi Adewole and Tunde Olowookere 17

The Inference Dimensions and Other Properties of the Interrogative Morphemes in Yoruba.... Lanre Atoyebi

188

195

18

Aspects of Yoruba Culture in the Diaspora... 203 Charles Adenrele Alade

19

Adeagbo Akinjogbin: Modern Yoruba Poet and Literary Critic. Oyewole Arohunmolase

20

Akinjogbin: The Man and His Works.224 Olusola Akinrinade

21

Yoruba Historical Literature Since 1950..... 243 Adebayo Olaosun

References.....

Vlll \

212

250

List of Contributors Adebayo, A.G. Associate Professor, Department of History, Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Adediran, ’Biodun, Reader and Acting Head, Department of History, Obafemi, Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Adepegba, C.O., Professor and Director, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Ibadan. Adesina, O.C., Lecturer, Department of History, University of Ibadan, Ibadan. Adewole, ’Femi, Senior Lecturer, Department of African Languages and Literature, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Afolayan, Funsho, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of New Hamphsire, Durham, NH, USA. Alade, Charles Adenrele, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Lagos State University, Ojo-Lagos. Akinrinade, Olusola, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Akinyemi, ’Tunde, Senior Lecturer, Department of African Languages and Literature, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Arifalo, S.O., Reader and Acting Head, Department of History, Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti. Arohunmolase, 0„ Principal Lecturer, Faculty of Arts, Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo. Atoyebi, ’Lanre, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Arts, Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo. Faluyi, Kehinde, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Lagos, Lagos. Faseke, Modupeolu, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Lagos State University, Ojo-Lagos. Lawal, ’Kunle, Senior Lecturer and Acting Head, Department of History, Lagos State University, Ojo-Lagos. Ogunremi, ’Deji, Professor of History, Lagos State University, Ojo-Lagos. Olabode, A., Senior Lecturer, Department of Linguistics and African Languages, University of Ibadan, Ibadan. Olaniyan, R.A., Professor of History and Provost, College of Arts and Education, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Olaosun, Adebayo, Principal Librarian, Hezekiah Oluwasanmi Library, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. IX

Olomola, Isola, Reader, Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Olorunfemi, A., Reader, Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Olowokere, ’Tunde, Senior Lecturer, Department of Yoruba Studies, Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti. Opeloye, M.O., Professor and Head, Department of Religions, Lagos State University, Ojo-Lagos. Oshin, Siji, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Oyeweso, ’Siyan, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Lagos State University, Ojo-Lagos.

x

Preface Professor Isaac Adeagbo Akinjogbin, in honour of whom this book is written, has made considerable contribution to knowledge in Yoruba studies, particularly in history. He joined the Academic Staff of the then University of Ife (now Obafemr Awolowo University) in 1963 and has devoted his whole academic career to the teaching of and research into history He has particularly deepened the understanding of Yoruba history and culture. Professor Akinjogbin is the first indigenous Professor and Head of Department of History at Ife. He was also Acting Director of the world-reknowned Ife Institute of African Studies, former Dean of the Faculty of arts and former Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Ife. In this regard, a group of his former students and colleagues believe that he is worthy of an honour to mark his attainment of the age of sixty, retirement from active University service and appointment as Emeritus Professor of History. The intention of the editors of this book, is to present to readers a comprehensive volume of adequate and Well-researched information on various aspects of Yoruba history and culture. Thus, apart from attempts to discuss historical developments in Yorubaland and between the Yoruba and their neighbours, there are discussions on vital aspects of the culture such as the economy, religions, art, literature and language — all aspects of which Professor Akinjogbin’s work covered. It should be stressed that discussions in this book have been limited largely to Western Nigeria which constitutes just about two-thirds of the Yoruba homeland, also it should be known that developments in Yorubaland cannot be isolated from contemporary developments in other parts of the West Africa sub-region. Professor Akinjobgin’s writings actually underscore these facts for his field of study covers the whole of the area encircled by the Volta in modem Ghana and the River Niger in Nigeria. Various constraints dictated the number of contributions that can be accommodated in this volume; and the editors had very difficult tasks in selecting from the over forty papers submitted for publication. Of particular importance are contributions by scholars from the Republics of Benin and Togo which were left out primarily because of the difficulty of language. The contributors to this volume are drawn from different institutions where Yoruba studies are well-entrenched. Each of the contributors is an expert in his chosen field. It is hoped that, apart from being a source-material to students and researchers in the area of Yoruba culture, the volume will also be a useful reference book to the general reader. As a result, attempts have been made to make the various chapter contributions as lucid as possible by reducing the annotations to the bearest minimum. We would wish to express our deep appreciation to the various contributors who responded promptly to our appeals as well as to other colleagues for their encouragement, valuable criticisms and suggestions. The final revision of the volume was carried out in the Fall Semester of 1992 at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, U.S.A. We are grateful to the authorities of that Institution and to Professors Lillian Trager, Frank Egerton and Howard Cohen for the opportunity and congenial atmosphere which contributed immensely to the eventual production of this book. January, 1993

’Deji Ogunremi ’Biodun Adediran

xi

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Yorubaland up to the Emergence of the States ’BIODUN ADEDIRAN

Introduction Two major themes dominate the early history of the Yoruba: the peopling of their habitat and the formation of centralised states. Both issues are explained in the traditions of the emergence of Oduduwa as the ruler of Ile-Ife and the dispersal from there of his descendants.1 The continuous review of these traditions in the light of increasing archaeological and ethnographic data have made possible a fairly comprehensive reconstruction of socio-political developments in the Yoruba section of the forest zone of West Africa before c.1500 A.D. when written materials became available for the region. From a cross-section of Yoruba traditions, a few points are clear, making our reconstruction relatively easy and providing a broad chronological framework. First, Yoruba civilization probably did not crystallise until the second millennium A.D. when a monarchical form of government emerged presumably first at the Ile-Ife and later in other places scattered all over the Yoruba country. Secondly, before the emergence of the monarchical form of government and the crystallisation of the salient aspects of Yoruba civilization, there were viable ‘proto Yoruba’ communities scattered all over Yorubalan^. To some extent, there has been continuity in the traditions of a few of these communities, thus affording a better examination of the relatively remote period of their existence.

The Yoruba Homeland The area traditionally inhabited by the Yoruba is within the rivers Mono in the West and the Niger in the east.2 In this area Yoruba was, in historic times, the major indigenous language. Though t|ie language has many dialectal variants some of which are mutually unintelligible, it is generally agreed that virtually all the indigenous inhabitants belonged to the same linguistic stock. This is strengthened by the fact that most of the names by which the country and its inhabitants were known to outsiders derived essentially from the language.3 For instance, extant traditions in different parts of Yorubaland refer t6 the Yoruba and their language as Anago’, a term which though has died out in many parts of Yorubaland, is still in use among the western neighbours of the Yoruba.4 A similar extant term is ‘Olukumi’ which was documented by European slave traders in the 18th and 19th centuries. Like another term ‘Aku’ coined for Yoruba recaptives in Sierra Leone, it was derived from a common Yoruba form of greeting. Similarly, the current term in use, ‘Yoruba’ was derived externally and its various folk-etymologies indicate that, like the other two terms, it was derived from the language. These examples indicate that language is the basic element of Yoruba civilization. 1

(Courtesy J. Pemberton & Afolayan)

• Limit of Oyo Empire in C.1800

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

2

One factor which has to be emphasised in the development of that civilization is the environment.5 To a great extent, the geographical nature of the country influenced the historical development of its people. The Yoruba homeland is made up of numerous rivers and streams flowing mostly in a north-southerly direction. The prominent rivers are Oluwa, Osun, Ogun, Opara and Weme (Oueme) which provide good drainage making the whole region suitable for agriculture all the year.round. The terrain varies from a low lying coastal fringe rising gently to about 600 metres in the north. The dominant vegetation is the tropical rain forest which merges into savanna woodland in the northwestern section. These geographical features account for a variety of agricultural produces such as root crops like yam, the oil palm, a variety of cereals and legumes which were major food crops and a number of cash crops like kola and shea butter. Folk traditions all over the region also testify that the Yoruba homeland was the habitat of a variety of fauna, some of which were exploited commercially giving rise to powerful guilds of hunters in different parts. Yorubaland also had raw materials for metallurgy particularly iron-working which at a very early period in their development revolutionised the practice of agriculture as well 3$ industrial and military developments. It was also to become prominent for a host of artistic technology such as beadworking, bronze — and brass-casting which provide the basis for the legendary wealth and cultic power of a number of individuals who subsequently became the focus of attention in Yoruba traditions. Two major inferences can be drawn immediately from the geographical nature of the Yoruba country. The first is that it was suited to agriculture, metal technology, industry and commerce, each of which was an important factor for urbanisation. Indeed, the Yoruba country exhibits a remarkably high population density for sub-Saharan Africa.6 Secondly, the variety in the flora and fauna of the Yoruba country stimulated widespread population movements making possible continuous interactions among inhabitants of different sections. The Yoruba themselves emphasise the significance of their geographical environment in their religious and oral literature, particularly those concerned with the peopling of the Yoruba country and early political developments.

The Peopling of the Yoruba Country: The archaeological and linguistic data Archaeology, the only means by which the remote past of man can be studied is still in its infancy in West Africa. XMy a few pre-historic sites have been identified and a great percentage of artefacts found in the West African sub-region consist of surface finds as opposed to exhumed artefacts. This, of course, can be related to the acidic soil condition of West Africa; which, together with the activities of termites and the tropical climate, impede the preservation of archaeological artefacts. Also,the concentration of the archaeologists on a few popular sites particularly Ife and Oyo has led to the unevenness of archaeological data for the Yoruba country. Nevertheless, archaeologists have opined that the West African sub-continent had been occupied for long by man’s ancestors. It has been argued that in the distant past, the ecological conditions of West Africa were similar to what obtained in Eastern African during the era of the australopithecines and that further archaeological investigations may bring to light evidence of major stages in the evolutionary trend of man. Evidence of Stone

3

Yorubaland up to the Emergence of the States Age habitation including fragments of the skeletal remains of an early Stone Age hominid are scattered all over West Africa. In Yorubaland, archaeological sites presumably dating to the Stone Age period have been identified in Mejiro cave near Old Oyo in the northwest and evidence abound that ‘Neolithic’ man inhabited a widespread area of the Yoruba country. A skeletal remain dated to c.9200 B.C. from Iwo Eleru -(near Akure) in the southeastern part of Yorubaland is believed to belong to a later New Stone Age creature.8 Summing up the fruits of archaeological research in the Yoruba culture area, the widespread, though meagre evidence so far collected suggest a great antiquity for man in the region. If dates associated with the Stone Age artefacts are anything to go by, man’s ancestors were already moving about in the Yoruba homeland by c.15,000 B.C. when pre-historic man in West Africa entered the ‘Neolithic’ period. By then, a host of economic activities were embarked upon and the level of cultural development was remarkably high. It can be conjectured that by then a number of centres of agriculture had emerged and some crops such as yam had probably been domesticated. Many of these agricultural centres were later to become viable population centres. From the ‘Nok’ example in Northern Nigeria,9 which has been studied in detail, it is clear that as the society became more complex, social, political and economic institutions began to emerge. There were also remarkable developments in the material culture and the development of an artistic culture. It is presumable that the crystallisation of such communities and the localised socio-political developments soon gave way to widespread population expansion. Evidence from linguistic studies corroborate the inferences by archaeologists. To the north of the Yoruba country in the Niger-Benue confluence area, there is a concentration of ethno-linguistie groups.10 Most of the languages spoken are closely related to the Yoruba language. By the method of dating called glottochronology, possible dates of separation of some of these languages have been suggested showing that many of the ethnic groups developed in situ as early as about 3,000 B.C. for instance.11 It is further suggested mat the Yoruba language originally formed a single linguistic continuum with the Edo and the Niger-Benue languages; and this can be taken as a confirmation of the antiquity of human habitation in the Yoruba country. From the preceding conjectures, the picture that emerges at the present state of our knowledge is this: by -.1000 A.D., scattered communities had emerged in the Yoruba homeland. The differentiation of the Yoruba from the neighbouring ethnic groups had reached an advanced state though the salient aspects of the Yoruba as a cohesive culture-group were still being worked out. This process which eventuaifyfled to the emergence of the Yoruba ethnic group, the peopling of their region and the formation of many dynastic states is well articulated in the traditions.

The Peopling of the Yoruba Country: the oral accounts Attempts at explaining the peopling of the Yoruba country have been made in oral traditions in different parts of Yorubaland. There are two major categories of these traditional accounts. In the first category are traditions which talk of mass emigration of the whole ethnic group from somewhere outside the area presently identified as Yorubaland. These accounts which were popularised by the Reverend Samuel Johnson’s publication of The History of the Yorubas12 were amplified by successive

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

4

chroniclers of Yoruba history as well as the first corps of academic historians.14 Thus using the occasion of the 1976 Ife Conference on Yoruba civilization, Professor Saburi Biobaku reiterated a view which he first expressed in his 1955 Lugard Lecture that thd Yoruba must have migrated into their present homeland in different waves between 600 and 1000 A.D., from the northern part of Africa, “where they came under ancient Egyptian, Etruscan and Jewish influences.”15 A few observations could be made on these traditions. First in spite of their popularity in scholarly circles, they are actually not popular among the ‘non-westernised’ Yoruba. For instance, traditions of external migrations are remarkably absent among the western and eastern Yoruba sub-groups. The only traditions of migrations among these sub-groups refer to movements within the Yoruba country itself. It is only in central Yorubaland, among the Oyo, Ijebu and Egba, that such traditions appear to be of prominence. This suggests that the traditions of external origins must have derived primarily from the Oyo-Yoruba who themselves appear to have derived the account from northern (Hausa-Fulani) versions of ancestral migration's. Indeed, analyses of these accounts have shown that they are twarted reminiscences of early brushes which the northern Yoruba subgroups had with their northern neighbours and with Islam.16 The events alluded to in them refer to relatively recent times, and as such could not have been referring to the peopling of the Yoruba country. The second category of traditions about the peopling of the Yoruba country suggests that prehistoric man lived in parts of Yorubaland. These traditions are usually represented by the Ife account of the descent of man in Ile-Ife and the migration of people from there to other parts of Yorubaland.17 These traditions, to which more attention is now being paid by scholars, do not remember a period in historic time when the whole of Yorubaland was unpeopled. They refer to autochthonous inhabitants whose traditions and cultures are in many ways continuous with those of the Various peoples who now inhabit the Yoruba country. The Ife example is graphically expressed by Chief Ajayi Fabunmi, a celebrated traditional historian of Ife: Oodua (Oduduwa) descended from Heaven charged by Olodumare, the Lord of Heaven, to establish the ldngdom of the earth. The surface of the earth was covered with water, and aTive-fingered fowl was sent by him from the summit of the Heavens with magical sand under the charge of a priest, whose title was Ojumu. The Ojumu threw the sand while the fowl spread it all over the earth. By the power and ordinance of Olodumare, dry land appeared, and Oodua, with the reputed sixteen elders and their followers, descended by means of a chain...18 The prominence given to Ife does not necessarily mean that it is the only centre where the ‘act of creation’ is believed to have taken place in Yorubaland. Contrary to the widespread folk tradition that Ile-Ife was ‘the first land created out of primordial water’, accounts of inhabitants claiming autochthonous origins similar to those claimed for Ife are extant in a few places especially in the periphery of the Yoruba country. These include Oba-Ile near Akure in the eastern Yoruba country. Here the indigenous inhabitants organised themselves around an earth cult believed to have been established by the founder of the town which is claimed to be the first human settlement on earth.19 Also at Oba-Igbomina in the northern part of Yorubaland, there

5

Yorubaland up to the Emergence of the Stales

is a strong earth cult ostensibly established by the founder of the town who. is. believed to have descended from the skies in a manner similar to that in the Ife narrative.20 Similarly in Igbo-Idaisa (Dassa-Zoume) in present day Republic of Benin, there are widespread traditions of autochthonous inhabitants who simply emerged from the ground.21 Layers of such aboriginal inhabitants have been identified from various local accounts as the Igbo, Ifore, and Efene;22 and it is presumable that these were contemporaneous with such early inhabitants as the ‘Igodo’'in the Edo country, and the ‘So’ of the Kanuri. Analyses of both categories of traditions indicate dearly that there were two major periods of early Yoruba history23 The first was that of the pre-migration, aboriginal inhabitants who occupied cojnmunities scattered over different parts of what is now known as Yorubaland. The second and relatively recent period was that alluded to in the traditions of migrations. This latter period is better documented as events alluded to in them appear to have been accompanied by the emergence of dynastic states for which the Yoruba were later to become well known. The consensus in scholarly cirdes as at now is that what later became the Yoruba culture represents an amalgam that resulted from the hybridisation of the aboriginal cultures in different localities with later migrant elements from neighbouring localities. It is also generally agreed, on the strength of the consensus in the different versions of the traditions, that such hybridisation first took place in Ile-Ife which has since become idealised in the Yoruba world-view as “the cradle of Yoruba civilization’ and in their cosmogony as the centre where the earth was created and the whole world was peopled.24 Evidence from various parts of Yorubaland recognize the two distind periods, though it is not yet clear whether identifiable pre-Qduduwa communities in different parts of Yorubaland formed a single cultural continuum or not. ItisTiowever now certain that the Oduduwa period was not the beginning of Yoruba history as the Yoruba cosmogony conceives it; rather, it was the beginning of a new period under a new leadei^hip. Of course a change, of leadership entails the generation of new ideas which ultimately affect pre-existing realties.25 J

The Oduduwa 'revolution' aj*d the emergence of the Ife State Perhaps the major development which took place in Yorubaland before c.1500 A.D. was the emergence of Ife as a focus of power and authority m the Yoruba culture area! Although the picture of early Ife is still blurred, it is certain that Ile-Ife was the seat of an early monarchy and that Oduduwa played an important role in its development It has been rightly suggested that the famous Ife brass heads and some of the terracotta sculptures were associated with an early form of sacred kingship.26 Most of the legends of Ife are too well-known to require a recapitulation here.27 From a cross-section of these legends, it has been possible to catch a glimpse of early Ife. The earliest archaeological date in the region is 350 B.C.,28 but if inferences from linguistic and ethnographic studies are anything to go by human habitation in the Ife region would date to thousands of years before the turn of this millennium. According to traditions on the eve of the Oduduwa revolution, the Ife region was made up of semi-autonomous lineage-settlements, thirteen of which have been identified:29 These are: Omoloogun Parakin, Iwinrin Oke-Awo, Ijugbe, Iraye, Imojubi, Oke-Oja, Odin, Ideta, Oloromu, Ido and Horan. Leadership of each was vested in an individual who combined political

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

6

and spiritual duties. A few of them possessed chieftaincy institutions which Suggest fairly complex socio-political systems. It would appear that there was a confederacy of some or all of these settlements dictated by the geographical factor of contiguity within a ‘valley surrounded by hills.30 Leadership of the confederacy wq? rotated among the heads of settlements; however each settlement continued to regard itself as autonomous, basing its claims on the possession of the parcel of land on which it was installed, the possession of distinctive customs and peculiar cults or deities. Presumably, the alliance was voluntary, temporary andtilastic. With the advent of Oduduwa, the nature of the confederacy changed. The alliance became more permanent and leadership became the monopoly of one group. The Oduduwa group would appear not to belong to the confederacy in the valley. This seems to be the purport of the traditions that Oduduwa was a new comer who led a group into Ife from ‘the east.’ Ife traditions vividly remember how he led a group from Oke Ora (one of the hills to the east of Ile-Ife) and was settled in the valley on a site allocated him31 presumably by the leader of the confederacy. Events that followed the settlement of Oduduwa and his-group among the confederates were neither peaceful nor straight forward. One account metaphorically records that there was a ‘deluge’ from which only Oduduwa and sixteen ‘immortals’ (presumably heads of settlements) survived.32 The sixteen survivors under the leadership of Oduduwa set out to perform the task of reconstruction. Invariably a new settlement emerged from the hybridisation of remnants of the pre-existing settlements. The emergence of the new settlement and the ascendancy of the Oduduwa group as a dynastic group went on together. It appears therefore that adequate attention has to be given to the beginnings of the Ooni title for the ruler of Ile-Ife. . . The Rev. Samuel Johnson recorded a tradition about the beginning of the title, suggesting that the Ooni dynasty did not derive from the Oduduwa group.33 While this tradition would appear at first glance to be mainly Johnsons own fabrication in support of his claims of political paramountcy of theAlaafin of Oyo vis-a-vis the Ooni of Ife,34 it ought to be taken seriously in view of the fact that the belief that the first Ooni was not the rightful heir to the throne of Ife was not confined to the Oyo but, also held by the Ijesa and Ketu, two other major sub-groups of the Yoruba. In the latter place, this tradition is very strong because of the belief that the rightful heir to the throne of Ile-Ife was Soipasan the putative progenitor of theAlaketu dynasty.35 On the basis of materials collected in Ketu, it has been argued that this tradition derived mainly from the fact that the Oduduwa group which took over and monopolised political leadership in Ile-Ife was an intrusive minority in the ‘valley occupied by the pre-Oduduwa settlements.36 , , . The Ife explanation of the term Ooni suggests that it arose out of the fact that political authority in pre-Qdydiiwa times, was based on the possession of parcels of land Although the Oduduwa group successfully imposed its political leadership over the pre-existing communities, it had no parcel of land to lay claims to,38 hence the tradition that before Oduduwa, the whole world was covered with water! Not even the legend that it was Oduduwa who created land out of premodial water could win for the group a parcel of land. This, was because the possession of a parcel of land carried with it certain ritual obligations which the Oduduwa group, as new arrivals in the region, were not qualified to perform. Therefore, for the existence of the new settlement formed from the ruins of the pre-Oduduwa settlements, the Oduduwa

7

Yorubaland up to the Emergence of the States

group had to depend on the pre-existing land-owning groups. This is why, in spite of its apparent superior rhilitary power, the Oduduwa group embarked on series erf negotiations to reconcile with some pre-existing inhabitants dislodged from their settlements. The full development of the Ooniship after these early beginnings demands a more exhaustive study than can be attempted here. As at now, the ascendancy of the Oduduwa dynastic group appears to have been closely associated with the development of the aafin (palace) as an institution and the emergence of some secret cults, especially the Imole cult devoted to the worship of the earth deity. The little that is known about these institutions indicates that they enhanced the image of the Ooni as a ruler higher than the heads of the pre-Oduduwa communities.39 An important aspect of royalty which also developed with Oduduwa was the use of crowns with beaded fringes, Ade Ileke. It must be pointed out that the use of beads and the wearing of crowns adorned with beads were not unknown in different parts of Yorubaland during the pre-Oduduwa era.40 In Ile-Ife itself, heads of pre-Oduduwa communities made use of beaded head wears. With the ascendancy of the Oduduwa group and the emergence of the Ooni dynasty, beads, especially the white variety called Sese efun became an exclusive preserve of the Ooni. One of the most important aspects of the investiture of an Ooni is the visit by the Ooni-elect to Ido, the pre-Oduduwa settlement of Ompetu, to receive a crown.41 The Aare which is the most important part of the Ooni’s crown belonged to the head of another pre-Oduduwa community before it was forcibly taken over by Oduduwa as his symbol of ascendancy. The Ooni’s crown is made up of ingredients collected from various other heads of pre-Oduduwa communities. The suggestion being made here is that part of the Oduduwa revolution was the withdrawal of the, privilege of using beads or crowns from the pre-Oduduwa heads; and the beginning of the use of Ade Ileke as a symbol of political authority. Beads (Ileke) among the Yoruba are prerogatives of the .gods and only those closely associated with them make use of beads.42 The exclusive use of beads by the Ooni therefore connotes power and political authority sustained by the sanction of the gods. When exactly the Oduduwa ‘revolution’ was completed is one of the mysteries about early Ife that is yet to be unravelled. It is certain however, that it did not end during Oduduwa’s life time, for during the reign of Obalufon Alayemore, the fourth Ooni, there were still vigorous attempts to reconcile with the Igbo, one of the dislodged pre-Oduduwa groups. But even before the Oduduwa dynasty at Ile-Ife consolidated itself, the ideas of the revolution were already being diffused to other parts of Yorubaland. This phenomenal spread of the Oduduwa type of kingship institution is today represented in the traditions of dispersal of sons or grandsons of Oduduwa from Ile-Ife to other parts of Yorubaland where they successfully repeated the Oduduwa revolution by displacing heads of pre-Oduduwa states and in many cases combining many settlements together to form single communities.

Dispersal from Ife The issue of the foundation of Yoruba kingdoms and the legendary dispersal from Ile-Ife has been an enigmatic one. As Robin Law aptly observes, “traditions of origin seem commonly to have ... political functions, seeking to legitimate the present political order by placing its origins in remotest antiquity.”43 Although the Yoruba are

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

8

not known to have been organised into a single political unit in pre-colonial times, there are accounts which suggest that in the remote past, possibly before the emergence of the Yoruba as a distinct ethnic-group, the whole of Yorubaland was organised into a single polity under the leadership of Ile-Ife.44 In historic times the Yoruba were organised into many independent kingdoms. Nevertheless, there existed a consciousness of belonging to a single socio-political entity which Professor Akinjogbin Christians ‘the Ebi Commonwealth’45 As demonstrated elsewhere, this consciousness was woven around the belief that Ile-Ife was the first home where the Yoruba discovered their identity as-an ethnic group and the place where the idea of state-formation diffused to other parts in the Yoruba culture-area. As stated in a consensus of the traditions, the oldest Yoruba kingdom was established at Ile-Ife by Oduduwa, their legendary culture-hero. Later, some individuals migrated from Ile-Ife to repeat the type of experiment initiated by Oduduwa, and it was this exercise that resulted in the formation of various Yoruba kingdoms. Variants of this tradition were recorded in the 15th century by visitors to the coast of Benin.47 Later accounts collected among the Yoruba in the Republics of Benin and Togo and in far away Sierra Leone, Mali and Burkina Faso indicate that the traditions of Ife’s primacy were not mere impressionistic accounts confined to a small area.48 , , . . . , . There are overwhelming oral evidence, ethnographic and archaeological data which confirm that Ile-Ife influenced political developments of some Yoruba kingdoms 49 The traditional Ife version of the Oduduwa traditions and the general belief among the Yoruba that Ile-Ife was the cradle of humanity,50 suggest that Ife was '

a ‘pristine’ state which became the model for the whole of Yorubaland. The picture of early Ife drawn so far gives a synopsis of the development of its monarchical institutions.51 Early Ife was a conglomeration of thirteen semi-autono¬ mous settlements most of whose heads featured in local traditions as orisa (deities). Oduduwa’s fame among these orisa hinged on his creating a single political community out of the semi-autonomous settlements. It is assumed that the first major wave of migrations took place after a meeting at a place which still bears the suggestive name of Ita Ijero52 (the place of deliberation). A host of re-enactment ceremonies confirm that the accounts regarding Ife’s role in the state-formation process are not mere fabrications and indicate that some migrations actually took place. Thus, the legendary migrations of ‘children of Oduduwa’ from Ile-Ife and the resultant formation of states on Ife model are seen as part of the socio-political revolution initiated by Oduduwa. Two major groups appear to have left Ife during the first wave of migrations. The first group took an easterly direction to a place known as Ita Ijamo where their guide decided to return to lie- Ife, leaving the migrants under the leadership of Olibini (founder of Benin). Subsequently the group broke up with the Olibini leading the major group further .eastwards resulting in the foundation of the Yoruba dynasty in Benin and later formation of the eastern Yoruba kingdoms. The second group to leave Ile-Ife migrated westwards to a place called Ita Marun where it also broke up into two, the Oloyo (founder of Oyo leading the major section northwestward! resulting in the foundation of the Alaafin dynasty in Oyo and the subsequent emergence of the western Yoruba kingdoms.55 As far as Ife authorities are concerned, most Yoruba kingdoms could only adequately explain their links with Ile-Ife by reference to either Ita Ijero, Ita Ijamo or Ita Marun.

9

Yorubaland up to the Emergence of the States

An issue which apparently dortiinated the politics of the era was that of Ade (crown) which was (and still is) the most crucial symbol of an Oba’s status. It is the crowning of an Oba that transforms him to the status of an orisa and gives ritual validation to his authority. On the few occasions when the Oba puts on the crown, he incarnates divine power. As Babatunde Lawal wrote, the Ade ... de-personalises the living king to emphasize the eternal values of divine kingship. The face on the front of the crown, being generic and having identified all the past kings in public, communicates the continuity of kingship — a synthesis of the world of the dead and the world of the living — the king as a living ancestor.56 Certainly, the use of Ade is of faiily long antiquity in Yorubaland. Investigations in different parts of Yorubaland indicate that the wearing of crowns was not unknown in the pre- Oduduwa period. But its use appears to have been confined to rituals. For instance, in Ile-Ife, heads of the thirteen pre-Oduduwa communities made use of simple undecorated headwears (Oro) made of straw as part of their regalia. Part of the Oduduwa ‘revolution’ was the withdrawal of that privilege from some pre-Oduduwa heads, the making of a complex, intricately decorated headwear and its "veneration ^s the symbol of royalty itself. It is being suggested therefore that the use of Ade as a political instrument was an innovation by Oduduwa. It may well be true that the widespread reference in Yoruba traditions to Ile-Ife as the source of political authority derived from the exportation of Ade to different parts of Yorubaland57 and not necessarily the physical migrations of the various dynasties. Getting the accounts clearly, it would appear that only a handful of states were established from Ile-Ife. These became dispersal centres from which other states were founded. For instance, in spite of the articulated tradition that the major wave of dynastic migrations from Ile-Ife took place after the Ita-Ijero conference, a few states were already in existence by then. One of these pre-Ita-Ijero kingdoms was Owu whose dynastic founder, Asunkungbade, is generally accepted as the first to receive a crown from Oduduwa.58 Owu traditions corroborated by those of Ife, remember that it was Oduduwa himself who allotted the founder of Owu a site on which to found his kingdom.59 This tradition of seniority of the Olowu among Yoruba rulers is further buttressed by the established history of early Oyo which indicates that Owu was already a strong kingdom before Oyo was founded.60 It is conceivable that Owu had already become a centre from which some individuals obtained mandate to establish new states. It was however during the Ita Ijero phase that the process of state-formation reached a peak. It was during this phase that the processes for the foundation of qiost of the states whose rulers claim descent from Oduduwa were initiated. It is always not realised however, that there were two distinct stages. The first of these was the creation of ‘primary states established as a result of direct migrations from Ita Marun and Ita Ijamo camps referred to earlier. The second was the creation of new states following splits in the original groups that left Ile-Ife. Of the ‘primary states that emerged from the first stage, only Oyo and Benin are now known,62 and both became dispersal centres: Oyo for western Yorubaland and Benin for the east. The western Yoruba cases of Ketu and Sabe, which have been examined in detail, indicate that they were ‘secondary states founded from Oyo rather than directly from

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

10

Ile-Ife. The accounts of the migrations of the dynastic founders of the two states follow the general pattern for the major Yoruba states.64 The consensus is that the first king of ,}Cetu (Alaketu) and the founder of Sabe (Onisabe) left Ile-Ife at the same time with the founder of Oyo. The three migrated together to the upper reaches of the Oyan river where they separated, the Alaafin moving in a north-easterly direction, the Onisabe migrating northwesterly into the Borgu country, while the Alaketu followed the Oyan river southwards. This tradition is not that of a single generation or migration, but refers to events in one of those periods of indeterminable lengths which traditions often telescope. A few details in the tradition; make it possible to fix the dynastic migrations of Sabe and Ketu into the better known events of early Oyo; and thereby reconstruct the events that led to the formation of the two kingdoms. Local traditions in both Ketu and Sabe recollect that after the separation at Oke-Oyan, the Alaafin took a direction which led him first to Igboho and later to Oyo Oro. The Sabe version adds that the Onisabe settled with the Alaafin at Igboho before migrating into the Borgu country from where he later went to found his own kingdom. The mention of Igbpho and Oyo Oro immediately suggests that origins of the two dynasties should be sought in the confusion that gripped the Oyo region during the 16th century when Oyo-Ile was evacuated and at least six Alaafin had to live in exile.65 It is thus not coincidental that the Oke-Oyan of Sabe and Ketu accounts was in the region of Sftki from where the Alaafin occupied Igboho preparatory to the re-occupation of Oyo-Ile. During the confusion of the Igboho period, pockets of Oyo Yoruba refugees scattered all over the western half of Yorubaland. Some of these groups of refugees eventually embarked on series of conquests'and became strong dynasties which established decentralised states of which Ketu, Sabe and the Egba states66 are examples. In eastern Yorubaland, Benin was destined to play a role similar to that of Oyo. This is clearly borne out in the traditions of ancestral connections between the eastern Yoruba kingdoms of Ijesa, Akure, Owo, Ondo and the Ekjti.67 For instance, in spite of its proximity to Ile-Ife, the kingdom of Ijesa was not a ‘primary state as it was not established from either Ita Marun or Ita Ijamo but directiy from Ile-Ife itself. It’s dynastic founder Owa Ajaka Ajibogun is believed not to be among the people who met at Ita Ijero. It is related that shortly before the meeting, Ajaka travelled out and that by the time of his return the other princes had dispersed; consequently he had to obtain a separate mandate before he could found a state. The purport of this tradition and others like it should be clear; states founded from Ile-Ife after the Ita-Ijero episode should be regarded as secondary states as the mandate received by their rulers post-dated those received by the Oloyo and the Olibini for Like the Owa, Ojugbelu, the dynastic founder of Owo though allegedly an Ife prince was absent from Ile-Ife on a hunting trip when the Ita-Ijero conference took place. Even if the Owo dynasty was founded directly from Ile-Ife, it was certainly after the Ita Ijero phase and its development was gready influenced by Benin, first under Ewuare and then under Ozolua.69 Related to these episodes are the accounts about the emergence of Akure and Ondo. Although local traditions trace the origins of the monarchies to Ile-Ife they agree that the dynasties which established them owed a lot to Benin.70 Among the Ekiti where the terrain allowed for the emergence of many foci of power,

11

Yorubaland up to the Emergence of the States

there were about twenty independent kingdoms of which sixteen are traditionally recognised as having crowned rulers. But as the late Monsignor Oguntuyi observed, “it was (sic) not to be imagined that the Obas arrived in Ekiti in a group. They came in one by one.71 In actual fact only a few of the crowned Ekiti rulers have credible traditions of ancestral connections with Ife, and as suggested elsewhere, none of them would appear to be of ‘primary state status 72

Conclusion The Yoruba concept of tate-formation, as embodied in the Oduduwa traditions is an over-simplification of the issue. Apart from the mechanism of formation of each state (which has not been treated) the process of diffusion of the ideas of state-formation was in three major stages. First there was the establishment in Ile-Ife of the monarchical structure in which the Ade became the mQSt important symbol. Next there was the establishment of the ‘primary states which became the principal centres from which the ideas of state-formation were diffused widely. Lastly, there was the establishment of ‘secondary states from ‘primary states. Whether the rulers of ‘secondary kingdoms went to Ile-Ife to obtain their Ade is at this stage not certain. But it is known that virtually all of them got incorporated into Ife rituals, possibly in the attempt to legitimize their rights to the Ade It is also clear that once incorporated into Ife rituals, a ‘secondary state enjoyed equal status as the ‘primary state from which it was derived.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

For a cross section of these tradition^ see S. Johnson. The History of the Yorubas, C.M.S. Lagos, 1922 pp. 3-5 and R.S. Smith, Kingdoms of the Ycruba, Methuen, 1969''•?'/ I.A. Akinjogbin, ‘Towards a Historical Geography of Yorubaland’ in I.A. Akinjogbin and G.O. Ekemode (eds.), Yoruba Ci ilization Vol. 1, Ile-Ife, 1976, pp. 19 -33. ' V A Adediran, ‘Yoruba Ethnic Groups or a Yoruba ethnic group? A review of the problem of ethnic identification,’ Africa, Sao Paulo, No. 7, 1984, pp. 57-70. O.J Igue and O. Yai. ‘The Yoruba Speaking People of Dahomey and Togo,’ Yoruba Vol. 1, Apnl, 1973, p. 4. For a discussion of the environment see R.J. Udo, The Geographical Regions of Nigeria, London, 1970. A.K. Mabogunje, Yoruba Towns, Ibadan, 1962. See R. Leakey, ‘African Fossil Man,’ in J.K. Zerbo (ed.), General History of Africa, Vol. 1, Heinemann and UNESCO, 1981, pp. 439-451. T. Shaw, ‘The Prehistory of West Africa,’ in J.F. Ade-Ajayi and M. Crowther (eds.), History of West Africa Vol. 1, Longman, 1985, pp. 67-73. See for instance Ibid. pp. 77-79. See C.D. Forde (ed.), Peoples of the Niger-Benue Conference, International African Institute, London, 1955. See R.G. Armstrong, The Study of West African Languages, Ibadan, 1964, pp. 12-13; also his ‘Linguistic and ethnographic data in Idoma and Yoruba history in J. Vansina, et. al (eds.) The Historian in Tropical Africa, Oxford, 1964. Although published in 1921, Johnson’s account was completed by 1897 and from then had been available in excerpts. On this see R.C. Law, ‘Early Yoruba Historiography History in Africa 3/1976 pp. 69-89; also his ‘How truly traditional is our traditional history? the case of Samuel Johnson and

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

12

the Recording of Yoruba Oral Tradition’ History in Africa, Vol. 11/1984 pp. 195-221 and ‘How Many times can history repeat itself? Some problems in the traditional history of Oyo’ International Journal of African Historical Studies 18/1, 1985, pp. 33-51. 14. See for instances S.O. Biobaku, The Origins of the Yorubas, Lagos, 1955. 15. I.A. Akinjogbin and G.O. Ekemode (eds.) Yoruba Civilization op. cit., pp. 8-9. 16. Cf. J.A. Atanda, ‘The historian and the problem of origins of people in Nigerian society, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria JHSN, X:3, 1980 pp. 63-77; R.C. Law, ‘How Traditional...’ op. cit., pp. 199-205. 17. See for instance T.J. Bowen, Adventures and Missionary Labours in Several Countries in the Interior of Africa 1849-1852, New York, 1968, p. 256; S. Crowther, Ketu in the Yoruba Country C.M.S. Intelligencer, 1858, p. 58. 18. M.A. Fabunmi, Ife Shrines, University of Ife Press, 1969, pp. 3-4. 19. U. Beier, ‘Before Oduduwa’ ODU 3, p. 30, O. Esan, ‘Before Oduduwa Correspondence’ ODU 8, 1960, pp. 75-76. 20. S.E Afolayan, ‘The Foundations of Igbomina Society’ (Mimeo) 1988. 21. ‘Biodun Adediran, ‘Idaisa: The Making of a' Frontier Yoruba State’ Cahiers d’etudes Africaine xxiv/1, 93, 1984, pp. 71-85. 22. I. Olomola, ‘The Eastern Yoruba Country Before Oduduwa: A Reassessment,’ in I.A. Akinjogbin and G.O. Ekemode, (eds.) Yoruba Civilisation, op. cit., pp. 34-73. 23. A. Obayemi, ‘The Yoruba and Edo-Speaking Peoples and their neighbours before 1600’ in J.F. Ajayi and M. Crowder (eds.) History of West Africa, op. cit. 258-312. 24. See this in E.B. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, Longman 1970, Ch. I. 25. See for instance A. Obayemi, “The Yoruba and Edo,’ p. 205 and B.A. Agiri, ‘Early Oyo , History Reconsidered,’ History in Africa Vol. 2, 1975, p. 7. 26. R.C. Law, The Oyo Empire, c. 1600-1836, Oxford Clarendon, 1977, pp. 119-23. 27. See however, M.A. Fabunmi, Ife Shrines, Ife University Press, 1969, J. A. Adamakinwa; Ife Cradle'of the Yoruba 2 parts Lagos 1958; E.B. Idowu, op. cit., pp. 11-17. 28. R Ozanne, ‘A New Archaeological Survey of Ife’ ODU (N.S.) No. I, April, 1969, p. 32. 29. O. Eluyemi, Adesoji Aderemi: 50 Years in the History of Ile-Ife (Ife, Ogunbiyi Press, 1980). 30. ’Biodun Adediran ‘The early beginnings of the Ife State’ in I.A. Akinjogbin (ed.) The Cradle of a race: Ile-Ife from the beginning to 1980 (Port Harcourt: Sunray 1992), pp. 77-95. 31. Oral Traditions collected in Ile-Ife at various times between 1974 and 1989. 32. M.A. Fabunmi, Ife Shrines, op. cit., p. 4. 33. S. Johnson, History, pp. 11-12. 34. R.C. Law, ‘The Heritage of Oduduwa: The Traditional History and Political Propaganda Among the Yoruba,’ Journal of African History, 13: ii, 1975 pp. 207-222. 35. E.G. Parrinder, The Story of Ketu (Ibadan University Press, 1967), p. 14. 36. A.A. Adediran, ‘The Emergence of Western Yourba States’ Ph.D, Ife 1980, pp. 101-108. 37. The term is contracted from Oni ni He, (meaning ‘he who owns land’). 38. See M.A. Fabunmi, op. cit., pp. 3-4. 39. ’Biodun Adediran, ‘A Descriptive Analysis of Ife Palace Organisation,’ The African Historian 8, 1976, pp. 3-30. 40. R.R Bertho ‘Coiffures-Masques a franges de perles chez les Yoruba du Dahomey’ Notes Africaines 40 (1950); S.O. Babayemi ‘Upper Ogun: An Historical Sketch’ African Notes 6:iii, 1971, p. 7. 41. M.A. Makindejlfe-lfe: Art Introduction (Ibadan, 1970), p. 23. 42. R.O. Ajetunmobi, ‘The Origin, Development and Decline of the Glass Bead Industry in Ile-Ife,’ M.A. History Dissertation, O.A.U., Ife, 1989. 43. R.C. Law ‘The Heritage of Oduduwa,’ op. cit. 44. E.B. Idowu, Olodumare, op. cit., p. 15. 45. I.A. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbours, Cambridge, 1967, pp. 14-17.

13

YorubaLajxd up to the Emergence of the States j-

46. 47.

4.-

_

’Biodun Adediran, 'Yoruba Ethnic Groups...’jopriit , See excerpts in S.O. Biobaku (ed.) Sources of Yoruba History, "Oxford,, Clarendon, 1973,

pp. 17-19' . S. Crowther, ‘Ketu in the Yoruba Country QMS Intelligencer, 19.53- 5. W. Koelle, PolyglottaAfricana (first published, 1953), London, 1963 edition, p,5;L.Frobenius, Voice of Africa, Vol. I (New York, 1968 edition), p. 69. 49. • F. Willet, ‘A Survey of Recent Results in the Radio-Carbon 'Chronology of Western and Northern Africa,’ Journal of African History, xii, .in, 1971, p. 366. 50. i.A. Ade'makinwa, 7/e: Cradle of the Yoruba, 2 Vols., Lagos, 1958; E.B. Idowu, Olodumare, pp. 11-17. ' ' 51. O. Eluyemi, Oba Adesoji Aderemi, op. cit, Adediran, A. ‘The early beginnings of the Ife state,’ op. cit. v 521 M.A. Fabunmi, Ife Shrines pp. 25-26; also his “Notes on Ile-lfe” Nigeria Magazine 100, April, 1969, pp. 400-404. ■ , ..v v " 53. I.A, Akinjogbin and O. Ayandele, ‘Yorubaland up to 1800,’ in O. Ikime (ed.), Groundwork on Nigeria History, Heinemann, 1980, pp. 131-132; S. Johnson, The History, p. 8. 54. ’Biodun Adediran, ‘In Search of Identity? The Eastern Yoruba and the Oduduwa traditions’ ODU, 36, July, 1989, pp. 114-136. 55. ’Biodun Adediran, ‘Ife-Westem Yoruba dynastic links re-examined’, Afrika Zamani Nos. 14 & 15, 1984, pp. 82-95. / 56. B. Lawal, ‘The Living Dead: Art and Immortality among the Yoruba of Nigeria,’ Africa 47:i, 1977, p. 56. 57. A Obayemi, Ancient Ife: Another Culture Historical re-interpretation JHSN 9:iy 1979, pp. 151-186. 58. Johnson, The History, p. 8. _ 59- A.L. Mabogunje and J. Omer-Coopef, Owu in Yoruba History,Ibadan, 1971, p. 110. 60b, S. Johnson, The History, p. 149. 61. See for instance the account on the Ijebu recorded in Ibid., p. 19. 62. Cf. I.A. Akinjogbin, ‘The expansion of Oyo and the rise of Dahomey, 1600-1800’ in J.F. Ajayiand M. Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa Vol. 1, Longman, 1977, p. 308. 63. ’Biodun Adediran, ‘Ife-Westem Yoruba dynastic links.’ 64. See E.C. Parrinder, The Story of Ketu Ch. 3; Moulero, T., ‘Histoire et Legende de Chabe’ s (Save) Etudes Dahomeenes, (N.S.) No. 2, Juin, 1964, p. 52. 65. For details see R.S. Smith* ‘The Alafin in exile: A Study of the Igboho period of Oyo history,’ Journal of African History, 6:i, 1965, pp. 57-77. 66. A.K. Ajisafe, Iwe ItariAbeokuta, Abeokuta, 1914; also Oral interviews with Alake Oyebade Lipede and Chiefs 13/12/78. 67. See ’Biodun Adediran, ‘In search of identity?’ 68. J.D.E. Abiola, et. al, Iwe Itan Ijesa Obokun, Ilesha, 1932, pp. 44-48. 69. M.B. Asara, The History ofOwo, 1951, p. 10; Egharevba, J.U., A Short History of Benin, Ibadan, 1968, pp. 15, 24, 33-34. 70. See for instance, T.S. Adeloye, ‘The Origin and development of the monarchy in Akure,’ M.A. History Dissertation, University of Ife, 1981; S.O. Bada, Iwe Itan Ondo 1940 cf. ’Biodun Adediran, ‘In search of identity?’ 7T. A? Oguntuyi, History ofEkiti, Bisi Books, Ibadan, 1979, p. 45. 72. 'Biorfun Adediran, ‘In search of identity?’ 48.

OONI OF IFE OBA OKUNADE OLUBUSE II (Courtesy tfe Genesis of Yoruba Race)

Kingdoms of the Yoruba: Socio-Political Development Before 1800 FUNSHO AFOLAYAN

Probably more than any other ethnic group in West Afrida, the socio-political history of the Yoruba over the years was characterised by the existence of several kingdoms. These kingdoms varied in size from the miniature states of Akoko to the extensive megastates of which Oyo empire was the most famous. These kingdoms developed at different times and in different places conditioned by various factors. A discussion of the origin of the Yoruba kingdoms brings us to a consideration of the place of Ife in Yoruba history and cosmology. The primacy of Ife in the socio-political evolution of Yoruba people is generally admitted in the extant traditions of the various Yoruba kingdoms. Though much controversy still surrounds the study of Ife history, lie-Ife is regarded in extant Yoruba traditions as the orirun or fountain head of the Yoruba people. The emergence of Ife as the pristine centre of Yoruba civilization is closely associated with the advent and career of Oduduwa generally regarded asthe eponymous founder of most Yoruba ruling dynasties. Under Oduduwa, Ife developed a centralised and highly sophisticated political system. The climax of this development was the emergence of kingdoms, in different parts of what later became Yorubaland, established presumably by princes and followers of the Oduduwa dynasty from Ife. These individuals and groups, responding to diverse political, economic and demographic pressures ended up in most cases and in various ways and at different places and times, in re-enacting the Ife drama: seizing political power from pre-existing groups, establishing their own primacy and states and extending the frontiers of their states.1 Of the kingdoms established as a result of the demographic movement from Ife, Owu was the earliest. Established by one Asunkungbade, believed to be the oldest child of Oduduwa, Owu soon became the most dominant centre of power in northern Yorubaland. Established in the open grassland region and probably relying on cavalry force, it took advantage of its early consolidation to impose its political paramountcy on the nascent Oyo and Igbomina groups. At its peak, the kingdom appeared to have extended from the area of Old Oyo in the north to the lagoon in the south. However, Owu soon came into conflict with its equally powerful neighbours. Attacked and defeated by Oyo and repeatedly harassed by Borgu, Owu began to decline. External pressures coupled with internal internecine disputes set the state on the path of disintegration and the constant shifting of capital culminating in the final destruction of the kingdom in the early decades of the 19th century.2 Following closely on Owu, was the kingdom of Oyo which rose to become the largest

14

Kingdoms of .the Yoruba: Socio-Political Development Before 1800

15

and the most powerful state, established in Yorubaland before the 19th century. Its advent is connected with the career of Oranmiyan, a son or grandson of Oduduwa. His epic adventure which took him north-westward of Ife through the Nupe and Bariba countries ended with the foundation of the Oyo kingdom. He was succeeded by Ajaka whose inability to deal effectively with the threats posed to Oyo’s independence by its Owu, Bariba and Nupe neighbours led to his deposition by his brother and successor, Sango. Highly impetuous and warlike, Sango was responsible for the effective consolidation of the nascent Oyo kingdom. First he refused the tribute which the Olowu had demanded from Ajaka, routed the Owu army and proceeded to destroy the Owu kingdom. Thereafter he removed the capital from Oko, whence Oranmiyan had moved it, to a more easily defensible location, Oyo lie, over which he established his rule displacing the pre-existing ruler, the Oloyokoro. Further, Sango pursued peaceful relations with the Nupe from where his mother came as well as with the Bariba. At home his violent nature and tactlessness resulted in disaster which ended with his suicide, his entrance into the Yoruba pantheon as a god of thunder and lightning, and the return of Ajaka to the throne. Under the rulerships of Ajaka, Aganju and Oluaso, Oyo expanded steadily reaching, during the reign of Kori, the Niger in the north and as far as Benin about 160 kilometres to the south.3 This trend was however not to continue unabated”. During the reign of Onigbogi, taking advantage of the internal dissension in Oyo and while the Oyo army was busy suppressing a rebellion by one of its subordinate politic, the Nupe invaded Oyo sacking the capital. The Alaafin and his people took to flight finally finding refuge and friends in Gbere in the Borgu country. Relations with the Borgawa however deteriorated putting the Oyo again in hasty flight which took them through Kusu, Saki and Igboho. Four Alaafin reigned and were buried at Igboho. The Nupe sack of Oyo lie was significant in the subsequent development of Oyo empire. Repeatedly harassed and brought to their wit’s end, the Oyo rulers realised that to survive, amidst their hostile neighbours they must depend more on their fighting strength and on diplomatic alliances. While at Kusu, to strengthen the mythical base of the monarchy, the Alaafin was initiated into the Ifa and Egungun mysteries. Militarily, the Oyo forces underwent a complete reorganisation. Realising the contribution of mounted troops to Nupe’s spectacular successes, Oyo also developed a cavalry force which by the late 16th century had become the most important characteristic of Oyo army. Further, Igboho was fortified as a military base for the Oyo army. It became famous for its triple walls. Important towns like Ikoyi, fresa and Igbon developed as military training centres for the Oyo army. During this period also, the Alaafin also acquired and retained considerable power, effectively controlling the army especially as he continued to lead his subjects into war. By the time of the reoccupation of Oyo He, all the Oyo Mesi (nobility) titles and most of the Eso (military) titles had emerged.4 This internal socio-political reorganisation and the development of a new military system prepared the way for Oyo’s successive defeats of the Bariba and the Nupe and the reoccupation of the ancient capital, Oyo He by Alaafin Abipa during the first decade of the 17th century. With the reoccupation, Oyo was poised for imperial expansion. The first direction was south westward in the grassland of Egbado easily amenable to calvary conquest. In this region, Oyo imposed its rule on the Egbado, Egba, Ketu, Weme and Ajase (Porto Novo) on the Coast. The early 18th century witnessed the subjection

ALAAFIN OF OYO OBA LAMIDI ADEYEMI II (Courtesy J. A. Atanda, An Introduction to Yoruba History, Ibadan, URL)

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

16

of the Fon kingdom of Dahomey to tributary status. By the 1750s even the distant Asante kingdom came to feel the negative impact of Oyo imperial push, to the west and north of the capital, the Oyo armies conquered parts of the territories of their old enemies and neighbours, the Nupe and the Borgu reducing them to tributary status till late in the 18th century. In north eastern Yorubaland, Oyo subjected the Ibolo and the greater part of Igbomina to tributary status. However, Oyo’s attempts to penetrate into central and eastern Yoruba countries met with repeated reverses. llie rugged and hilly topography of Ekiti and the forest of Ijesa and Qndo made imperial penetration by Oyo cavalry an herculean task. Nevertheless, by 1750 Oyo empire stood at th& zenith of its power and at its greatest territorial extent. Its army which was then the most impressive military machine in West Africa was said to strike ‘such a terror into all the circumjacent Negroes, that they can scarcely hear them mentioned without trembling. And they tell a thousand strange things about them.’5 Many factors accounted for the meteoric rise of Oyo kingdom. First its location in thq southern fringe of the savanna and in a cultural frontier zone gave it added advantage. The region was fertile and thus agriculturally productive enough to support an expanding population. Oyo controlled and profitted from the north-south trade linking Yorubaland and Dahomey with Borgu, Nupe and the Central Sudan. Also, Oyo’s active involvement, especially from the 17th century onwards, in the transatlantic trade, its collection of taxes, tolls and tributes over a wide area contributed to the finance of the elaborate imperial administration which developed. Besides, Oyo’s army was large, well armed, well organised and deadly efficient. Further, Oyo had able and warlike leaders who presided over a stable political system characterised by checks and balances with the Alaafin at the top, reverenced, advised and checked by various officers of state with clearly well defined functions. Generally, Oyo’s rule in the subordinate province was not oppressive. There were institutionalised arrangements to ensure the loyalty of the empire’s subjects whose rulers were expected to regularly visit the Alaafin during the Bere and Bebe festivals to renew their allegiances to the crown. Against this background, Oyo grew to become the largest and the most powerful political unit in Yorubaland and a stabilizing force in the region. It is not surprising that its collapse which began in the closing years of the 18th century had consequences which reverberated throughout the length and breadth of the Yoruba country especially m the 19th century. ;_k k k k k~

To the east of Ife, a number of kingdoms also developed. The most important of these was Ijesa, founded by Ajaka or Ajibogun, a son of Oduduwa. On leaving Ife, Ajaka and his followers moved eastward and settled at Igbadaye. His son Owa Oke Okile moved his people to Ilowa. Successive Owa were responsible for the conquest of Ilemure renamed Obokun following the displacement of its previous ruler, the Ita' by the Owa. Thereafter, the kingdom of Ilare was conquered after which the next Owa, Owari moved to Ilaje which was later renamed Ipole Ijesa. It was the fifth Owa, Oge, who finally chose Ilesa as the capital displacing its ruler, the Onila, who had built the town. The Onila reemerged in the new arrangement as the deputy to the Owa with the title of Obala. The Ijesa state continued to expand reaching its peak during ffie reign of the intrepid

17

Kingdoms of the Yoruba: Socio-Political Development Before 1800

Atakunmosa and the series of famous warrior Owa who succeeded him. At its greatest extent, it expanded to the Osun area where Osogbo marked its boundary with Oyo. In Igbomina it carried its conquest to Kosegbe (Ora) and Idofian in northern Yorubaland. To the east its influence was felt increasingly among the Ekiti, Akoko and Owo. Though the attempt of the Oyo to subdue Ijesa failed, it came increasingly to feel the menace of Benin imperial adventures in eastern Yorubaland. To ensure the effective integration of conquered places, the Owa placed his sons as Loja or rulers of these places Seventeen of such Loja titles were created.7 Among the Ekiti, the rugged topographical terrain which gave the country its name permitted the emergence and proliferation of many foci of power which eventually developed into independent states. Though not less than twenty Ekiti kingdoms existed, sixteen are traditionally recognised as crowned rulers locally referred to as alade merindinlogun. All these claimed descent from the Oduduwa dynasty of Ife though only a few of them namely, Ado, Ijer'o, Otun, Oye and Akure developed to be of major consequence in the region.8 Ado, the most central of the Ekiti states according to local traditions, was established by a son of Oduduwa whose historical skill earned him the title of Ewi ‘the speaker’. From Ife, Ewi found his way to Benin but his ambition sopn brought him into conflict with the local ruler. He fled with his followers who ended up settling in the area of present Ado during the reign of Ewi Awamaro. Here, they met a community called Ilesun ruled by the Elesun who welcomed the new comers. However, a subsequent struggle for power ended in the overthrow and execution of the Elesun and the ascendancy of the Ewi party. The integration of the Ilesun group was achieved through a religious observance which demanded that all Ewi elect must carry out propitiatory ceremonies at the grave site of the last Elesun as part of their installation rites. From Ado, the Em began toTmpose their authority over the other aboriginal groups in the area eventually establishing dominance over seventeen subordinate towns of which Igede was the largest. The rapid expansion of Ado brought it into conflict with benin, another power with imperialistic designs in Ekiti, Responding to the invitation by Ado’s neighbouring states who had become unduly alarmed by the consolidation and excesses of the Em’s power, Benin army invaded and subjugated Aao in addition to overrunning most of the other Ekiti states some of whose ruling uynasties, as in Ikere, were replaced.9 Akure is another kingdom that rose in this region. Founded according to tradition by a sdon or oduduwa family from Ife, Asodeboyede, it grew to establish its paramountcy over a large number of pre-existing ministates located within a twenty kilometre radius of Akure, These were Oba, Ibule, Ipogun,, Ilara, Ikota, Ijare, Iju, Ita-Ogbolu, Igboba, Ero, Isartm, Igbara-Qke, Isold and Isikan. Akure appeared to have come under Ijesa’s influence especially from the 16th century when Owa Atakunmosa planted a prince on the Akure throne with the name of Olufadeji from whence the title of Deji borne by subsequent rulers derived. Extant evidence also indicates that Akure, like Ado, came firmly under Benin’s influence. The close relations between the two led to the settlement of a sizeable population of Edo people known as the Ado-Akure, subject to a chief known as the Olotu Ekiran. Akure became the base for Benin’s trade with eastern Yorubaland.10 In the north eastern Yoruba country lived the Tbolo, Igbomina and Okun-Yoruha groups. The Igbomina as a dialectal unit of the Yoruba are made up of a number of definable sub-units. According to local traditions, the earliest Igbomina states were

OBA FESTUS ADESANOYE OSEMAWE OF ONDO

18

Culture and Society in Yorubaland -

established by dynastic migrants from Ile-Ife and Oyo. Of these Ila was the most notable. It established an early paramountcy in southwestern Igbomina area., Ila reached th6 peak of its development during the time of Orangun Igbonnibi, who appeared to have reigned in the 16th century. Apart from Ila, by the early 18th cenfcury many independent state structures could be identified. These included Ajase, Omu, Aran, Isanlu-Isin, Iwo, Oro Ago, Oro, Eku Apa, Ora, Aun, Ikosin and Igbaja. Each of these possessed separate traditions of foundations and growth distinct from that of the Ila kingdom. Though tihere were considerable interactions between the various Igbomina units, the Igbomina before the 19th century never formed a single political entity. The Orangun's traditions of links with the Oduduwa dynasty at Ife earned him some respect. But neither the Orangun nor any other Igbomina rpler could be regarded as the ‘paramount ruler’ of all Igbomina before the 19th century. Though there were variations, the ‘ministate’ was the commonest feature of their socio-political organisation. No Igbomina state was strong enough to’impose its authority and rule over the whole of Igbomina. This pattern of organisation, however, came under considerable stress in the 17th and 18th centuries when the Igbomina were subjected to constant military pressures from their more powerful neighbours. The first were the Oyo who subjected them to imperial rule for nearly two centuries. Oyo was followed by the Nupe whose advent was characterised by pillage and destruction which made the closing years of the 18th century harrowing ones for the different Igbomina groups.11 To the east of Igbomina lived the Okun-Yoruba, a name derived from the word ‘okun’ a mode of greeting common to all the groups which included the Owo, Yagba, Bunu, Ijumu, and Oworo. Again like the other Yoruba groups, Oyo and Ife featured prominently in their traditions of origin. A look at the socio-political system shows that the Okun-Yoruba groups represent a mixture of several migrants of diverse origins. For instance, the Bunu area appeared to have been peopled by migrants from Ido in Ekiti and Idah in Igala countries to mention just a few. With the kingdom of Owo we come to the most north-easterly of the major Yoruba kingdoms. Its location in a cultural frontier zone opened it to influences from Benin and other Yoruba groups. Established by one Asunlola or Ojugbelu, a prince of Ife who first settled at Upata where he clashed with the pre-existing ruler, the Oluwa, before fleeing to Efene ruled by the Elefene. The rivalries and conflicts between the two potentates led first to the expulsion of the Elefene into the forest by Olowo Opa and eventually the suppression of the Elefene title after another four reigns. The establishment of Owo kingdom involved the conquest and integration of several pre-existing groups. Notable among these were the seven autonomous settlements of Idasin ruled by the Alale. The integration of the Idasin group involved the adoption, by the new leadership, of the Idasin powerful and centralising deity ‘Ogho’ (Owo) which eventually became the name of the emergent kingdom. The Alale as a principal chief also continued to play important roles in the administration of the state. Other states conquered and fused with Owo were Iyare, Iso and probably Isuada and Upenmen. At its peak, Owo extended to as far as Kabba in the north, Akoko in the northeast and Okeluse in the south. The prominence of military accoutrements such as iron gown, and spears among the items introduced by the early Olowo attest to the fierce,

ALAKE OF EGBALAND and a Court Messenger in the 1970s (Courtesy Prof. Biodun Adediran)

19 Kingdoms of the Yoruba: Socio-Political Development Before 1800 violent and militaristic nature of the Olowo’s advent and of Owo’s early growth and consolidation. But Owo like other eastern Yoruba states soon came under Benin s imperial rule. From the reign of Oba Ozolua of Benin, and as part of the tributary obligation, Owo’s heir apparent had to undergo a period of pupilage in Benin court as emeda (sword-bearer). Like Ife, Owo became famous for its terracotta sfulpture and as a centre of brass casting and of sculpture in wood and ivory. Though Owo art contained elements identifiable with ‘the stylistic hallmarks of Ife and Benin art,’ it contained features showing independent Owo innovations.12 Ondo is another eastern Yoruba kingdom about which we have some evidence. Founded by one Pupupu, a twin daughter of one of the wives of Qduduwa (or of Alaafin Ajaka according to Johnson) who had to migrate from Ife (orOyo) for giving birth to twins, an occurrence then considered a taboo. The elder twin, a male founded Epe. Pupupu and her successors with the aid of their followers and using the policy of divide and rule were able to subdue and subject the indigenous groups: Idoko, Oka, and Ifore and others to their rule while establishing Ode Ondo as the capital of the kingdom. But the hostility of the indigenous groups continued unabated until the reign of Airo in the 16th century. With his ascension as the fifst male Osemawe, succession system changed from being matrilineal to being patrilineal. But in recognition of the female origin of the Osemawe dynasty, women played a more important role in the political organisation of Ondo than what obtained in other Yoruba kingdoms. There is an institution of female chiefs as influential as that of male chiefs, while the installation of the Osemawe was performed by the leading female chief — the Lisa Lobun. Secondly, Airo transferred the palace from Erihkita to a more central location reorganising in the process, the position and functions of his principal chiefs to ensure their loyalty and efficiency. Uke other eastern Yoruba groups, Ondo had to contend with the threats of external invasions especially from its immediate neighbours. The repulse of this initial threat has been identified with the career of one Jomu Nla (the great Jomu) a warrior who aided Ondo to defeat, subdue, integrate or destroy the hostile states of Owu, Oka, Ilayinyon, Ilagbarro, and Iladindin. Further, more than among any of the other Yoruba groups, traces of Benin influences survived as permanent features of Ondo socio-political system. Many Edo principal titles such as Lisa, Jomu, Odofin, Sasere and Logbosere became leading Ondo titles while Benin traditions traced the origin of Osemawe dynasty to Benin.13 k k k k k k

To the south of Ife a number of kingdoms were established among the Ijebu, Egba, Egbado and Awori. The accounts of the history of the foundation of the Ijebu kingdom speak of three successive waves of migrations from Ife area led respectively by Olu-lwa, Arisu and Ogborogan. The third led by Ogborogan or Obanta was the most important. Apart from claiming an Ife royal origin it was this group that founded the kingdom and established the Awujale dynasty. The ascendancy of the Ogborogan’s party was not an easy one. It involved in most cases fierce military struggle and conquest. After gaining the support and allegiances of the two groups predating him at Ijebu Ode, Ogborogan embarked on a systematic subjugation of all the neighbouring groups over whom he placed his followers as rulers. To ensure the effective integration of the pre-existing groups Obanta adopted the predynastic Agemo deity and cultic

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

20

institution. He made it into a national festival and a symbol of unity for the amalgamation of the domains of the pre-dynastic groups ruled by die Olu Igbo, Oloko, Elese, Jaginrin, Nogosu and others. From its capital, Ijebu grew to become the second largest kingdom in Yorubaland surpassed only by Oyo. At its peak, it covered an area of-about 4,000 square kilometres extending from the neighbourhood of Owu in the north to the lagoon on the Atlantic and from Iseri on river Ogun in the west to river Oni and Mahin in the east. Great as the kingdom was, its homogeneity in culture and dialect was not reflected in its political organisation which was largely fragmented. It was divided into two main groups: Ode and Remo ruled respectively by the Awujale and the Akarigbo based at Ofin Sagamu. Nevertheless, the political division notwithstanding, the Ijebu were able to preserve their cultural identity, their economic independence while developing a strong local patriotism which earned them an unenviable reputation as a group with strong antipathy to strangers. This stereotype attitude notwithstanding, the Ijebu country was not entirely closed to foreign influences. Diviners in the Ifa system, warriors, traders in beads and others came to settle in Ijebu from east and central Yoruba areas. The Ijebu also exploited the advantage of their location to become one of the most proficient nation of traders in the southwestern Yoruba area. Like their Yoruba neighbours, the Ijebu came under successive Benin, Oyo and Dahomey imperial assaults especially in the 17th and 18th centuries.14 To the northwest of Ijebu lay the Egba country which before the 19th century included the sites later occupied by Ibadan and Ijaye. Like the Ijebu, the Egba were not politically homogenous but were made up of a federation of towns running, in some accounts, to about 300. They were in turn grouped into three representing the three waves of migrations that peopled the Egba country. The first to arrive were the Gbagura led by the Agura of Iddo, then the Oke Ona under the Osile or Oloko of Oko, followed by the Agbeyin under the Ojoko of Ijoko. The advent of the Alake among the Agbeyin group proved to be of revolutionary significance. The first Alake, Ajalake, reputedly a prince of Oduduwa, was able to use the advantage of his royal bearing and military ability to destroy the Ojoko’s town of Ijoko and replace him as the leading southern Oba of the Egba. This must also have paved the way for his ascendancy and acceptance as the most senior of the Egba rulers followed by the Osile and the Agura. But while the Egba were still evolving a socio-political arrangement for their kingdom, they found themselves under the clutch of Oyo imperialism. The excesses and ruthlessness of the Oyo Ajele described as ‘the lords of even the kings’ provoked a national uprising which ended with the independence of the Egba under Lisabi of Itoku. Thereafter, the Egba improved their arms and fortifications. This aided them in repeatedly repulsing the incessant predatory incursions of their fierce neighbours, the Dahomeans. They also became actively involved in long distance trade especially in kolanut. But the internecine conflicts that followed Lisabi’s death opened up the Egba country to the devastating consequences the collapse of Oyo whose refugees displaced and scattered the northern Egba, the majority of who eventually converged establishing the new town of Abeokuta early in the 19th century.15 West of the Egba were the Egbado or Egbaluwe, ‘the wanderers towards the river’, a name derived probably from their location on the Yewa river. They did net constitute a single political unit but were made up of fairly well defined dialectal groups notable among which we have the Anago, Egun, and Awori. The earliest of these communities

21

Kingdoms of the Yolmba: Socio-Political Development Before 1800

appear to be the Ilobi and Erinja who claimed to have come from Ife via Ketu. They were followed by the Ado and Ipokia who traced their origins to Benin from whence they arrived before the Igan, Egua, and Ayetoro founded by Anago groups. However, from the 17th century onwards, to protect her economic and strategic interests in this region, while checking the growing menace of Benin and Dahomey to these interests Oyo began a systematic colonisation of Egbado. Oyo imperialism came to substantially reshape the political map of this region. New settlements were established. Haro and Ijana became the two leading Oyo towns. Tolls and tributes flowed to the Alaafin while the Egbado grew wealthy from the booming Oyo trading network.16 Tfie region west of Oyo and north West of Egbado also experienced the development of number of kingdoms. The most notable of these were Ketu, Sabe and Idaisa. The traditions of Ketu ascribe its foundation to the advent of one Soipasan, a grandson or (in some accounts) husband of Oduduwa. The migrating party moved westward settling at Oke Oyan and later Aro. But it was not until the reign of the seventh Obar Ede, that Ketu was established. Thereafter Ede and his successors especially Sa and Epo subdued the pre-existing groups over which they established their paramountcy. At its height Ketu kingdom included Meko and extended as far as river Weme in the west, Opala in the north and the marshlands of the decentralised Anago in the south. The capital was well fortified with massive earthen walls, outer ditches planted with thorns and a large gate or fortress described as the most impressive example of Yoruba military architecture in existence. The military preparedness of Ketu becomes understandable when it is remembered that her location- amidst hostile and more aggressive neighbours such as Oyo, Dahomey and Egba rendered her particularly vulnerable to external aggression. But the fortifications notwithstanding .by the ,18th century Ketu came under Oyo imperial rule. Dahomey also continued to be a menace checked only by the Oyo. But with the weakening of Oyo’s influence, a Dahomean force invaded Ketu in 1789, crushing all resistance and carrying off many captives.17 *k *k "k "k

* k

Though the different Yoruba groups and kingdoms varied in size and in complexity, the basic socio-political system followed a similar pattern with occasional local variations arising frorh local peculiarities.18 The smallest unit of organisation was the family, usually the extended type Agbo lie) headed by the compound head (or Baale). An agglomeration of patrilineally related families was known as lineage or ebi headed by the lineage head or Olori ebi, usually the most senior male member. This is a consequence of the traditional Yoruba respect for age and experience. An Ilu, town or village (depending on the size) is usually a federation of two or more lineages. The town or Ilu was the basic political unit The importance of towns in their socio-political organisation made the Yoruba for long the most urbanised people in West Africa. At the head or centre of each town was a crowned king (Oba) who had the right to wear a beaded crown with fringes (ade) or an uncrowned ruler who wore coronet (akoro) or beadless caps depending on the traditional political status of the town. The office of the Obalike that of most of his chiefs was hereditary within a lineage or group of lineages.. The Oba had a specific title usually describing him as the Lord or owner of the town such as the Otowo of Owo, AlaketiL of Ketu or it may derive from other circumstances connected with the history of the town such as the Ooni of

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

22

Ife or Orangurt of LLa,As the supreme head of his people, the Qba’s office and person were sacred He was the priest and protector of his people. As a divine ruler and a personification and reincarnation of all his ancestors, he was surrounded by elaborate rituals and taboos. As a fountain of honour, he bestowed and could withdraw titles and riches. Regarded as Oba alase ekeji orisa, king, ruler and companion of the gods, he was addressed as kabiyesi implying that there is no questioning of his authority. Though in practice, the Oba exercised considerable power, he was not an autocrat. His power to reward, arrest, punish or even behead his subjects was exercised with caution and discretion. Surrounded by elaborate ceremonies, subject to many rules and ritual restraints and secluded in his palace he could not rule his people alone. He was advised, assisted and checked by the Igbimo or Ilu (Council of chiefs) known as variously as Oyomesi in Oyo, the Ilamuren in Ijebu Ode, the Ogboni in Egba, and the Iwarefa in Ife, Ijesa, Ua and Ekiti towns. The Igbimo was usually made up of the most senior and usually the most powerful title holders (Ijoye) in the town or state. As ward or lineage heads,.they stood for the collective conscience and the voice of the people. They served as a check on the ruler and an Oba who became oppressive or unpopular could be removed in various ways. Resentment cohld be expressed through the boycott of his palace by his chiefs or through a general insurrection by his people. In Oyo with the most elaborate and most developed political system, the Alaafin was assisted by the Oyomesi, a council of eight (or seven). Headed by the Basorun as the prime minister. Other members of the council were, the Agbaakin, the Samu, the Alapinpi, the Lagunna, the Akiniku, the Asipa and the Modeke(7). A decision of the Oyomesi to remove an Alaafin became effective whenever the Basorun presented the unwanted king with an empty calabash or one containing parrot eggs with the pronouncement ‘the gods reject you, the earth rejects you, the people reject you’. Thereafter the Alaafin had one option open to him: suicide. The check on the Oyomesi lay in the fact that one of their members, as abobaku, must also die with the Alaafin. The effectiveness of such unwritten constitutional practice was seen in the 17th century when nine Alaafin were removed. Its destabilising tendencies became apparent in the 18th century when this power was repeatedly and recklessly abused by the overbearing Basorun Gaa (1754-74) who, after contriving the demise of four Alaafin, set the stage for the eventual collapse of the empire.19 Nevertheless, it was this ‘delicate balance of power* that prevented the Yoruba monarchies from developing into the absolutist and authoritarian political system characteristic of their neighbours such as Benin and Dahomey. Besides the Igbimo, there were other categories of chiefs concerned with particular aspects of daily life. In Ijebu, apart from the Ilamuren there were two other councils of chiefs. The first of these was the Osugbo under the Oluwo who had charge of law and order as well as the dispensing of justice. The third council, the Pompa, was made up of the younger men who took charge of day-to-day administration and warfare. Among the Egba, the Parakoyi were the trade chiefs, while the hunters grouped themselves together as Egbe Ode. The war Chiefs were known as Olorogun. The class of spiritual chiefs were known variously as Aworo, Isom or Otu who performed sacrifices and maintained social control. Usually, the chiefs also had specific functions attached to their offices. It could be political or religious functions though often a combination of the two. Among the Oyomesi in Oyo, in addition to their political functions the Alaapini was head of Egungun, the Lagunna was in charge of Ogun (god

23 Kingdoms of the Yoruba: Socio-Political Development Before 1800 of iron and war). Others had charge of the Ogboni, Osugbo, Imole and and Oro cults. Day-to-day administration centered on the palace. Within the palace the Oba was attended to by numerous and carefully graded officials. These included eunuchs called Wordings of the palace’ by Johnson20 or Iwefa like the three Ona, the Otun and Osr efa who performed judicial, religious and administrative functions respectively for the Alaafin. The Oba also had at his disposal other royal slaves and messengers like the Odi in Ijebu, Emese in ife, Ila and Ijesa or the Ilari scarheads of Oyo. Women also featured prominently in the political system. Ife, Ilesa and Ondo preserved traditions of women rulers. In some places such as Ondo (founded by a woman) the leading titles had women pairs who exercised great influence. The leading woman chief or Oba binrin was known as Iyalode or as Lisa Lobun in Ondo or Orangun in Owu. In Ajase-Po, Igbomina, the choice of a new Olupo Was the exclusive prerogative of the princesses of the royal family. Women also featured as ladies of the palace such as lya Oba, official mother of the king or ay aba, queens and as priestesses. The administrative structure was hierarchical. At the lowest level of government was the compound head who settled cases within his compound. The next level was that of the lineage where the Olori settled intra-lineage cases involving compounds within his own lineage. The ward or quarter head had to oversee inter-lineage affairs within his quarter of the town. Cases cutting across wards as well as criminal offences or others beyond the power of the ward heads such as murder or treason fell within the jurisdiction of the Oba’s court which, as the supreme court of the state alone could impose capital punishment. Appeals went in turn from the court of the Baale to that of Olori ebi thence to that of Olori itun or adugbo (ward) before terminating in the Oba’s court, the highest court of appeal. Further, in places where kingdoms or empires emerged, provincial administrations were developed. At the centre of each kingdom was the capital usually an ilu alade with a crowned ruler. Subordinate towns were classified as ilu ereko or outlying towns which ranged from the ilu Oloja (with the Oloja meaning owner of the town rather, than owner of the market) headed by a beadless crowned ruler to the Ileto or village headed by Baale (in Oyo) or Loja {in Ondo). In Oyo which was the largest kingdom, there were four provinces: Ekun Osi (or left hand district) Ekun Otun (right hand), Ibolo and Epo. Each of these provinces had a dozen or more Oba ruling over their towns or states that were usually internally autonomous though responsible to the ekun or provincial head such as the Onikoyi of Ikoyi for Ekun Osi and theAresa of Iresa for Ibolo. The provincial rulers were in turn attached to patron chiefs in the metropolitan capital who as Babakekere or Baba Isale served as intermediaries between their clients and the central monarch. The provincial rulers were left generally autonomous provided they paid their tributes regularly, contributed contingents to fight for the Alaafin, visited the capital periodically to-pay homage annually or during the here and bebe festivals. Another example was the Ife kingdom. In precolonial times, it was divided into five provinces head quartered at and headed by the rulers of Alaye, lwara, Ido, Oke Awo and Ijugbe. On another note, among the Ijebu and Egba where the Awujale and Alake were respectively pre-eminent, a confederal system operated which involved the association of distinct and generally autonomous sub-kingdoms. However, the highly centralised administrative system, the fixed urban capitals, powerful dynastic monarchies and well organised war machine characteristic of the mega-state structure did not emerge all over Yorubala^. In the north-eastern

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

24

extremities of Yorubaland especially among the Okun-Yoruba, Akoko, parts of Ekiti an4 Igbomina, the level of socio-political organisation remained simple. Traditions in Ekiti speak of the existence of some sixteen kingdoms. But even within one Ekiti kihgdom, there were some towns claiming autonomy. The authority of an Oba in much of eastern Yorubaland did not extend over a wide area. A more extreme case is found anlong the small but independent villages of Akoko where according to Daryll Forde, ‘no right or authority beyond that of the village is recognised and each village or quarter of a village .has its own particular tract of land, the boundaries of which are jealously guarded.’21 In the same vein, by 1800 the Okun-Yoruba societies were still at the ‘mini-state’ Stage. Each community was autonomous and self-governing. The aku or clan was the pjost important unit of socio-political organisation. A community was usually a confederation of semi-autonomous clans. The role of the overall clan head was essentially that of primus inter pares. Here as with most societies of eastern Yorubaland, the age grade associations featured prominently. Under this system, members of the societies were organised into different age groups performing specified functions and occupying particular position in the structure of the society. Usually, the lower grades provided the labour and fighting forces while the higher grades functioned like titled societies taking charge of administration and religious duties. The different grades yrere known by various names among the different communities. Among the Owo, Ipere were five grades. The first grade consistecl of boys in the pre-puberty stage known a$ Olusek. This was followed successively by the Omeko, Gemo, Oroto and Ololu. Like their male counterparts, women were also organised into the Ofosi (junior) and Imole (senior) cults. These cults served as the machinery for inspiring and mobilising women to play specific and important roles in the society.22 The foregoing discussion shows that all the component groups were adequately taken care of by the polttical arrangement. The royal elements apart from producing the king also had a class of royal chiefs who stood for and defended royal interests. The most prominent title holders were usually those described as town chiefs who were usually from the'non-royal elements and who stood for the commoners’ interest vis-a-vis that of the rdyal. Though the interaction of the two groups involved a lot of frjqtidh and compromises, the political system was not inherently characterised by crises dnd conflict and there is no basis for postulating an inherent or inevitable dichotomy between the ruler and the ruled. Provisions were also made for the representations of the aboriginal groups. This constitutional compromise between the immigrant conqueror and the aboriginals or owners of the land took several forms. In some places such as Ilesa, they became deputy to the king. In others they assumed important religious titles. In others they held other notable titles such as the Obawinrin, Obarena, Obariyun and Woyeasiri in Ife; the ten Idejo or white cap chiefs in Eko to mention just a few. Also the aboriginals were further given a sense of belonging by being made actively involved in the ceremonies connected with the installation and burial of the kings. In Ilesa for instance, the Oba or Ogbohl of Ijebu-Jesa (a pre-Owa kingling) must host the Owa-elect for three days during his coronation rites while the Ogboni’s consent must be sought before the Owa could carry out capital punishment. Inspite of the division of the Yoruba into many groups and the emergence of several kingdoms there were considerable interactions between the various Yoruba societies;

25

Kingdoms of the Yoruba: Socio-Political Development Before 1800

Besides their geographical location and the language which joined them together, the reverence for Ile-Ife as the cradle of the ‘race’ and the respect for elders appeared universal. This uniformity in language, culture and political system has led to the postulation of the social theory of ebi commonwealth. Under this system, first enunciated and clearly articulated by Akinjogbin, the different Yoruba groups are described as belonging to one all embracing family within which the Ooni as the occupant of the throne of Oduduwa was regarded as the father and family head. This theory of societal organisation was not political. It was social. It was not based on foi;ce or conquest but on common descent and natural loyalty.24 Though in recent years the ebi social theory, as conceived by Akinjogbin, has come under sharp criticisms it remains today the- boldest and most clear sighted attempt at conceptualising and explaining the nature and pattern of Yoruba socio-political organisation before the 19 th century. Whatever, the political system was not static. Societies all over Yorubaland remained dynamic and the flexibility of the political system allowed for a continuous process of change and adjustment Further, while the boundaries of the different groups, states and settlements were fairly well delineated there were a lot of intra and inter-group migrations throughout Yorubaland. Thess resulted in considerable demographic changes and far reaching socio-political reorganisation and experi¬ mentations even well before the upheavals of the 19th century. Besides, environmental^ factors* able leadership as well as the pressure of external relations also came to substantially affect the nature and pattern of state formation in different parts of the Yoruba country.

Notes 1.

On the early history of Ife see S. Johnson, The History of Yoruba, CMS Lagos, 1921; J,A. Ademakinwa, Ife, Cradle of the Yorubas 2 parts, Lagos, 1958 and ’Biodun Adediran ‘The early beginnings of the Ife State,’ ini.A. Akinjogbin (ed.), The Cradle of a Race, op. cit., pp. 77-95. 2. Johnson, TheHistory 149; see AT- Mabogunje and J. Omer-Cooper, Owu in Yoruba History, IUB 1971. 3. On the history of Oyo empire see Johnson, TheHistory, pp. 143-197; R.S. Smith, Kingdoms of the Yoruba, Methuen, 1969; Akinjogbin, ‘The Oyo Empire in the Eighteenth Century,’ JH$N, III, 3, 1966, and R.C.C. Law, The Oyo Empire, C1600-1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Oxford, 1977; A. Adediran, ‘The Yoruba Kingdoms’ in T. Falola and A Adediran (eds.), A New History of Nigeria Peoples, States and Culture Before 1800, Lagos: John West, 1986, pp. 103-122. 4. Ibid, Akinjogbin, ‘The expansion of Oyo and the rise of Dahomey, 1600-1800,’ in J.F.A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder (edsHistory of West Africa, Vol. 1, 1976, pp. 374-412. 5. A. Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, London, 1705, pp. 397-8. 6. S. Johnson, The History; Law, The Oyo Empire and J.A: Atanda, The New Oyo Empire, Longman, 1973, pp. 1-44. 7. S. Johnson, TheHistory, 23-4,156; J.D.E. Abiola etal, ItanIlesa, 1932, E.A. Kenyo, Yoruba Natural Rulers and their Origin, Ibadan, 1964 and J.D.Y. Peel, Ijeshas and Nigerians, Cambridge, 1983. 8. A Adediran, ‘The Yoruba Kingdoms’ op. cit. 9. A. Oguntuyi, A Short History ofAdo-Ekiti, Part II, Akure, 19S7rpp. 17-39; S.A. Akintoye,

• - > •

-

Culture and Society in Yorubaland _ 26

‘The North-eastern Yoruba Districts and the Benin Kingdom/ JHSN, 4.4, 1969. ’Biodun Adediran, ‘Pleasant Imperialism Conjectures on Benin Hegemony in Eastern Yorubaland,’ African Notes Vol. XV/1&2, 1991, pp. 85-95. 11. S.F. Afolayan, ‘Socio-political transformation and external relations in Igbomina,’ Ph.D. Ife, 1991. / 12. On the-history of Owo see MAI, J.H. Beley, Intelligence Report on Owo and Ifon, M.B. Ashara, The History of Owo, Owo, 1952 and Ade Obayemi, The Yoruba and Edo-speaking Peoples and their neigbours before 1600/ in Ajayi and Crowder (eds.), pp. 226-228. 13. On the' traditions and history of Ondo see S.O. Bada, Iwe I Urn Ondo, Ondo, 1940, EC. Lloyd, Yoruba Land Law, London, OUR 1962 arid J. U. Egharveba, A Short History of Benin, Ibadan, I960, p..26. Cf B. Adediran ‘Pleasant Imperialism...’ 14. Smith, Kingdoms, 75-6; j0, Ogunba, ‘The Agemo Cult in Ijebuland/Nigeria Magazine 86, 1965, pp. 176-186; Obayemi, ‘The Yprubaand Edo ...’ pp. 223-4. 15. S.O. Biobaku, The Egba and their Neighbours, Oxford, 1957. 16. Kola FoLayan, ‘Egbado iruhe Nineteenth Century,’ M.A. Thesis, Ibadan, 1967. 17. On Ketu and Western Yorubaland see G. Parrinder, The Story ofRetu, An Ancient Yoruba Kingdom, (edited by I.A. Akinjogbin), IU, 1967; and ’Biodun Adediran, The Frontier States of Western Yorubaland c. 1600-1889, Ibadan: IFRA, 1994. 18. On-the socio-political system of the Yoruba see Johnson, The History pp. 40-78; Lloyd, Yorubaland Law, Smith, Kingdoms, pp. 107-119; D. Forde, The Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of South-Western Nigeria, London, 1951; G.J.A. Ojo, Yoruba Palaces, London: 1966; J.A. Atanda, ‘Government of Yorubaland in the Pre-Colonial Period,’ Tarikh, 4, 2. 19. Akinjogbin, ‘The Oyo Empire in the eighteenth century ...,’ pp. 449-60; La.w, The Oyo

10.

20. 2122-

23. 24.

-

Empire. S. Johnson, The History, p. 59. - • D. Forde, The Yoruba, p. 60; see also S.A. Akintoye, Revolution and Power Politics in Yorubaland, Londman, 1971. D. Forde, The Yoruba, pp. 77; see also Z.O. Apata, ‘Administrative Oranges and Reorganisations in the Old Kabba Province of Northern Nigeria 1897-1939/ Ph.D Thesis, Ife, 1985. Abiola, Itan Ilesa, p. 83; Ademakinwa, I/e, Part II, p. 42. On the ebi system of social relations see Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 1708-1818, Cambridge, 1967; ‘Agaja and the Conquest ofithe Aja Coastal States,’ JHSN, II, 1963, pp. 545-66^‘Tlie Prelude to tile Yoruba Civil Wars of the 19th Century’ ODU, l’ 2, January 1965, pp.24-46. For a critique of Akinjogbiris position see Law, Oyo Empire, pp. 117-123- and for two replies to Law see Akinjogbin ‘The Ebi System Reconsidered,’ History Departmental Seminar, University of Ife, 1978/79, and Adediran, ‘Yoruba Ethnic Groups or A-Yoruba Ethnic Group: A Review of the Problem of Ethnic Identification/ ' Africa, Sao Paulo, No. 7,198.4, pp. 57-70.

Yorubaland in the Era of Revolutionary Changes. KEHINDE FALUYI

Perhaps the greatest number of published and unpublished works on Yoruba history covered mostly the events of the 19th century. The only notable exceptions to this trend are Asiwaju, Atanda and Adediran.^ Even in the first two examples, the first section of their works give considerable attention to events of the later part of the 19th century. The reason for the concentration is obvious. The period witnessed an unprecedented number of activities in the West African region. The century opened with the collapse of the Oyo empire, the erstwhile most powerful state in Yorubaland. Later, there was a long period of wars which covered many decades.-2 There was hardly a decade which did i\ot experience one stupendous event or the other. Indeed, the 19th century has been particularly lucky for its richness in Yoruba historiography. Yorubaland did not only provide the events, but also men who brought the period into focus in the annals of Nigerian history. Some of the works on the period are of general nature. Professor Ade Ajayi, and R.S. Smith as well as S.A. Akintoye’s works fall into this category.3 They discuss the events in Yorubaland generally. But a good number of studies concentrate on specific areas of Yorubaland. For instance, Kola Folayan focuses on events in Egbado4 while Atanda discusses the events in the ‘New Oyo Empire’, following the collapse of the Old Empire; Asiwaju highlights the problems of border communities under colonial rule; while Awe5 demonstrates the emergence of Ibadan as the most powerful state in Yorubaland in the 19th century. Many others follow similar pattern. Although the works cover different parts of Yorubaland and are diverse in themes, there is a general communality in all of them. Whether the themes are political, social, religious or economic, all tend to emphasise that there were fundamental changes all over Yorubaland during the century. The changes took various forms. Some changes occurred throughout Yorubaland, while some were limited to particular areas. But essentially, the changes affected every part and touched the generality of the entire Yoruba race. The aim of this chapter therefore, is to discuss some of the changes as a way of justifying the consensus among historians of the Yoruba, that the 19th century was an era of revolution or revolutionary changes.

Yorubaland in the First Half of the 19th Century Yorubaland began the century with instability. The Oyo empire, the most prominent state in Yorubaland, was fast in decay. It was plagued with internal strife and afflicted by external crisis. The provincial rulers were not only in revolt, the vassal states

27

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

28

succeeded in freeing themselves from Oyo control. For instance, Borgu and Nupe declared themselves independent of Oyo control and effectively put an embargo on the importation of horses to Oyo empire. With shrinking or diminishing sources of revenue, Oyo suffered from severe economic depression. The deplorable situation in Oyo only needed a mere speck to put the whole state in conflagration. This was aptly -|2rovided for by the Fulani invasion of the capital in about 1837. Such was the affliction that Samuel J&hnson attributed the demise of Oyo to the wrath of God.7 Later writer8 however are of the view that po single event could explain the collapse of the Oyo empire. Its fall was brought about by a combination of internal strain and stresses, external attack, and declining economic fortune following the collapse of the economic edifice on which tha empire was built and sustained. The effect of this development was the eruption of fighting within Oyo and its consequent attack by the Fulani from Ilorin. Indeed, the Fulani attack in the words of Atanda, was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The fall of the capital of the Oyo empire set ip motion a series of events in Yorubaland which terminated with the British occupation of the Yoruba country in 1893. Among the major events were the new political arrangement initiated byAlaafin Atiba in which the entire Yorubaland was broken in two under separate supervisions. Others include'the emergence of new centres of authority, with the rise of Ijaye and Abeokuta, the ‘Oyo’ diaspora within the other Yoruba groups and Ibadan’s expansionary adventures in eastern Yorubaland. All these events brought about fundamental changes, which modified very drastically the old order all over Yorubaland. But while the crack in Oyo was very apparent by 1800, the final demise did not come until about 1837. In a way therefore, by 1837, apart from the fact that the former Oyo empire was no more, the new headquarters, as well as the Alaafin realised that the old pattern of government could no longer hold the remains of the empire together. Alaafin Atiba’s readiness to accept the new political situation did not only help in reviving the empire, if only in name, but saved Yorubaland from total conquest % the Fulani Jihadists. Adequate attention has been given to this aspect of Yoruba history in many works. Of particular interest is the impact of the events which originally centered around the northern fringes of Yorubaland on the rest of the country. But when the northern part of Yorubaland was restive, similar clouds were gathering around the south western part. It started with the dynastic problem in Lagos between Osilokun and Adele,9 which Led to Adele’s exile to Badagry and later the Kosokp- Akintoye dispute which led to the British occupation of Lagos in 1851.10 It would appear that the political climate all over Yorubaland in the first part of the 19th century prepared the ground for the wind of change which swept across the whole country. By the middle of the 19th century, the situation in Yorubaland can be summarised as follows. The Oyo empire had fallen and a new one had emerged with a new capital at Ago renamed Oyo. Secondly, the downward thrust of the Fulani had been halted at Osogbo. Thirdly, Ibadan had started to assert her prominence as a powerful state out of the demise of Oyo. Similarly, it would appear that the population movement from northern Yorubaland to the south had been completed. Thus, the shift in centre of authority and population concentration from the savanna to the forest produced the most interesting episode in Yoruba history during the period under review.

29

Yorubaland in the Era of Revolutionary Changes

The division of Yorubaland, into two parts under Kurunmi of Ijaye and Ibadan’s Oliiyole for effective control of the remaining part of the country, would appear to have encouraged rivalry and acrimony between the two leaders which was only fettled ..with the'destruction of Ijaye in 1865.11 Although the twp leaders may have had some scores to settle between themselves, it was unlikely that the situation would have degenerated into a major war. Perhaps, Atiba’s political arrangement did not only fuel the problems between the two leaders, it set them against each other indirectly. Atiba’s intention was to relkin the erstwhile supremacy of the Alaafin but, he, by commission or omission created rival authority. The respect accorded Alaafin Atiba by Basorun Oluyole of Ibadan was perhaps not due to his physical force but by virtue of tradition, and share courtesy. The Ibadan leader could afford to defy Atiba’s order and get away with it as Ibadan posed the military strength hot only to toss with the constitution, but to destroy the new Oyo. Kurunmi would have succeeded in dislodging the Alaafin, if Ibadan had not stepped in to save or preserve the new settlement. Thus, it would appear that Atiba’s arrangement was to divert the efforts of the two leaders from the affairs of Oyo metropolis at the time. As eventsxrystallised, in the interior of the Yoruba country, an event of major implication was also taking place at the coast. This was the missionary penetration into Yorubaland and the spread of Christianity. It started with the abolition of the slave trade, and the return of the ‘Saros’ into Yorubaland. The ex-slaves who made some fortune in their new home in Sierra Leone initiated the crusade with the aim of reuniting with their families, and more importantly, of introducing Christianity into the Yoruba country.12 It is within the context of these diverse events that the changes in the 19th century can be well understood.

Movement of Population to the South One effect of general dimension consequent on the fall of Oyo was the movement of people, mostly of the Oyo stock from the centre of the-old empire to the south. It was like the forced migration generated by the Zulu military uprising in South Africa at about the same time in the 19th century in which the war weary boys pounced on villages, pillaging and looting them of their property and farmlands.13 Those who were strong enough resisted the invasion, while those who were not, fled to other areas to settle Such was the general confusion and devastation that the Egba were driven out of their original home by tire remnant of Oyo warriors, and pursued until they found refuge under Olumo rock in 1830.14 Similarly the wandering war boys had to find a place of residence, which was fulfilled with the founding of Ibadan in 1829. On the whole, several towns and villages were either dislodged or completely destroyed in the process.15 No one can say precisely the number involved in the movement as no census was conducted in any part of Nigeria until the second half of the 19th century,16 but a substantial number must have been involved in the southward migration. Some of the beneficiaries of the movements were Iwo, Ogbomoso, Osogbo, Ile-Ife which received large influx of refugees who fled from the savanna to the forested part of Yorubaland. The movement greatly modified the existing pattern of setdement. Whereas, the savanna to the north of Oyo was known to be the centre of population concentration in Yorubaland before the 19th century, this trend was reversed in favour of the forest. Sueh was the population concentration

Culture arid Society in Yorubaland

30

in the soifth, that today hardly can one travel twenty kilometres without passing through cluster of towns and villages. But on the other hand, as one approaches the northern part, the distance between one town and the other increases. For instance the new Oyo capital, Ago, is about forty-five kilometres to Iseyin, the next important town in Oyo north; Okaka another town is between eighteen and thirty-two kilometres, while Ago-Are is about thirty to forty-five kilometres away. Igboho to Ago is roughly sixty-five kilometres, while Kisi is thirty kilometres. There are over five important towns with an interval of about fifteen kilometres in-between. The same is also true of Ibadan to Ife, Ibadan to Ijebu and other places. The movement brought about cultural diffusion and assimilation. While Oyo culture diffused in some places where they found themselves, they were assimilated in others depending on their numerical strength. Before the fall of Oyo, one can say that the population of each Yoruba -group was nearly homogenous. The new development turned each group into an heterogeneous entity where people from different areas were accommodated. Even after the fall, the trend continued in other places as could be seen in the settlement Of large number of Hausa and Nupe elements in Lagos during the wars of Kosoko and Akintoye. Such southward movement was not without its strain, stresses and problems. Apart from the fact that the movement strained the food resources of the forest people, it created distrust and discord between the migrants and their hosts. In a place where the whole town moved with their Oba to take refuge in another town, acrimony bordering on distrust and trivialities, dominated the early days of their relationship. Such conflict often came into open where a crowned Oba took refuge under a chief. By tradition, a Baale was expected to be under a crowned Oba, but the circumstance which forced a^rowned Oba, to seek shelter under his junior inevitably made him to succumb to tire unexpected. Such indignity was often resisted not only by the crowned Oba, but also by his subjects; as the position was not only intolerable but unacceptable, because sudr communities still lived in the world of their past glory under the old empire. The attempt to solve the impasse was the evolution of new forms of administration in many parts of Yorubaland in the 19th century.18 Perhaps, the most adverse effect of the southward movement of population was the gradual erosion of the institution of Obaship or the traditional institution in Yorubaland.19 In the Old Oyo Empire, the paramount Oba was held in great esteem and sacredness. By tradition he hardly left his domain, where he stretched his long arm of justice and authority to his far flung empire. However, the movement of refugees from Old Oyo to settle within the domain of many chiefs or rulers tended to have eroded their position and the traditional respect often accorded their institutions. Examples of this trend abound all over Yorubaland. For instance the refugees from Oyo who settled in Modakeke under the Ooni of Ife abused the Ooni’s hospitality, and destroyed his town in 1882 forcing the Qomelect, Derin, to seek refuge at Oke-Igbo.20 The Alaafin of Oyo as pointed out earlier only retained the trappings of his former authority with the emergence of Ibadan as an imperial force in Yorubaland.21 The situation did fare better in other areas. It would appear that these antecedents coupled with share militarism influenced some individuals, mostly the war lords, to rival and even challenge the authority of their respective rulers after the civfl wars. Similarly small towns with varying success challenged the authority of their overlords in attempts to gain their independence. Ifaki’s ill-fated challenge to the Olojudo's

31

Yorubaland in the Era of Revolutionary Changes ♦

authority and Osi’s successful challenge to the Ewi’s sovereignty were clear demonstrations of the changing status of traditional rulers in the 19th century.22 Associated with and closely related to the movement of people from the savanna to the forest area was the modification that came in the settlement pattern. The unsettled condition in Yorubaland forced some to move from their former settlement to the hill top in response to frequent raids and devastation. Those who did not move to the hill top retreated to larger towns because of their position and size. Example of this type of settlement abound. Eruwa was settled by those dislodged from Iwafin north of Old Oyo and Irawo located near Saki.23 A good number of towns in north eastern Yorubaland moved to the highest point for similar reason. Oka, Ikare and Idanre were located in places which could not be considered suitable for settlement under normal condition.24 Early travellers and missionaries to Yorubaland observed that a large number of villages were located on the hill. Thus the quest for security during the century also affected the spatial pattern in the area. A good number of these villages remained on the old sites even up till modem times, in spite of persistent appeal to them to move to the plains where government amenities could easily reach them.

Movement of People from Outside to Yorubaland As there was internal movement of people from one part of Yorubaland to the other, so there were migrations into Yorubaland across territorial boundaries, and across the Atlantic. Those who moved into Yorubaland in the 19th century came from two directions, Brazil and Sierra Leone, The two groups were made up of freed slaves and the recaptives following the abolition of the slave trade. Most of the recaptives were those freed by the British Naval Squadron stationed along the West African coast to enforce the law abolishing the slave trade. Thus, the abolition of slave trade led to the return of many Africans to West Africa. Some of the migrants were motivated to return to West Africa in general and Nigeria in particular for the loveof the fatherland, but a good number were also forced out of Brazil following the black revolt in Bahia in 1835.25 While those from Brazil were forced out, those from Sierra Leone came for commercial interest, and partly to introduce Christianity to Yorubaland.-A substantial number among them served first in Badagry and Abeokuta from where they moved to Lagos. A number of them may have migrated further into the hinterland. The importance of these two groups cannot be over-emphasised as they brought about tremendous changes in the Yoruba country. Their importance could be seen in four major areas. First, thosdfrom Sierra Leone propagated the Christian religion in Yorubaland. With their arrival a foreign religion came to compete with the erstwhile existing traditional religion, as well as with Islam tyhich was aiso relatively new. Secondly, those who came from Brazil became famous, among other things, for their architecture which had by the last quarter of the 19th century transformed Lagos into the “African Brazil”.26 Thirdly, the group, particularly the ‘Saros’ revolutionized trade and commerce by stimulating the demand for European goods. Lastly the arrival of the two groups brought noticeable changes in agriculture as demonstrated by the expansion of export of palm produce, and Oleaginous products. Indeed, the arrival of the Brazilians and the ‘Saros’ in Lagos launched Yorubaland into the era of agricultural revolution which accelerated the circulation of European currency in Lagos in the last quarter of the 19th country. The establishment of the Bank of West Africa in 1872 was

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

32

a demonstration of the rapidly expanding commerce and indeed economy of Lagos.27 Also associated with the arrival of the migrants was the growth of western education which spread among the people of Lagos and Abeokuta in the second half of the 19th century. By the arrival of these immigrants, the light of western education was being provided from whete it radiated to other parts of Nigeria. Whereas, no western type of educational institution existed anywhere in Nigeria in 1800, by 1865 the C.M.S. alone had over 256 pupils in Lagos schools and 549 in nine schools located within the Yoruba country.28 The products of western education, were responsible for the reduction of local languages into writing and therefore incorporated the study of local languages into the school curriculum. Samuel Ajayi Crowther was a pioneer in this respect. His effort also encouraged similar studies in other places. Of major importance to the historians, and indeed to Nigerian historiography was the input into the writing of the history of some Nigerian communities. Samuel Johnson’s History of the Yorubas in spite of its limitations has since become a reference book for all the historians of Yorubaland. Osunfekunde’s account provided some useful information on Ijebu history and culture.29 Thus, the migrants initiated a tradition of historical writing, and therefore contributed to the development of Nigerian historiography. Although ‘nationalism’ could be said to have started in West Africa for long as the local rulers jealously guarded their trade monopoly and land by keeping Europeans at'the coast, the migrants, particularly the ‘Saros’ and people of the African Church, initiated the era of modern nationalism in Nigeria. The arrival of the freed slaves from Brazil and Sierra Leone in Yorubaland apart from ushering in an era of westernization, enhanced rapid socio-economic and even political development. The missionaries through the influence of the ‘Saros’, did not only try to evangelise the interior of Yorubaland, but acted as advisers to the combatants during the Yoruba wars.30 To some extent, though it may not be perceived from this angle initially, the arrival of the missionaries created a sense of awareness or consciousness among the Yoruba and showed the need to act together for mutual interest. Although Ijebuland was in what Ayandele called an era of splendid isolation, in the 19th century, the activities of the missionaries in Abeokuta and Lagos forced her to abandon her isolation for some time.31 The fear that the pervasive influence of Christianity might disrupt Ijebu solidarity forced the Awujale to prevent its entry into Ijebuland. The Awujale did not limit his activities to his domain, he opened communication with other Yoruba leaders urging them to prevent thfc establishment of Christianity in their land. In a way therefore, the fear pf a loss of independence on one hand, and a disruption of the tradition of Ijebuland on the other forced the Awujdie to seek co-operation of other Yoruba rulers to act in common concert. The alliances of the Egba, and Ijebu, Egba-Ijaye, Ife and Ijebu during the Owu and Ijaye wars and those among the Ekiti Parapo between 1877 and 1893, demonstrated the need for Yoruba cooperation. The development was perhaps an innovation in Yorubaland as no such* initiative was made by any leader before. In tire era of the Old Oyo empire, Oyo merely extended its influence to some other parts of Yorubaland through conquest. At least, no record of any common understanding existed among the Yoruba before the 19th century. Therefore, the advent of Christianity initiated a new form of association, basdd on mutual understanding rather than conquest and imperialism.

33

Yorubaland in th/e Era of Revolutionary Changes

Economic Changes Just as there were socio-political changes in Yorubaland in the 19th century, so also were there changes in economic spheres. Agriculture remained the main occupation of the people. Similarly, production was based on subsistence level. Production remained traditional, utilising local implements and family labour. Production was not essentially market oriented. Even when there were surpluses, these were disposed off as gifts. In other words, production was not purposely for the market. However, with the abolition of the slave trade, there was a gradual shift from the traditional pattern. The growth of commodity trade emphasised the production of palm produce and other oil producing crops for export. The stimulus was provided by the European demand for palm oil for the manufacture of soap and lubricants following the Industrial Revolution in Europe. The early response to European demand for palm oil in Nigeria started in the Delta area, but by the middle of the 19th century, the production of oil for export had spread to parts of Yorubaland. Apart from the stimulus provided by European demand, the good price paid for the commodity also encouraged production. Thus men and women diverted part of their effort to the production of palm oil and kernel as against the past when all efforts were concentrated on production for domestic consumption. The availability of European goods in large quantity provided added incentive for production for export, farmers saw the cultivation and processing of oil for export as the surest opportunity to earn money for the purchase of imported goods. The arrival of the Sierra Leonians in Yorubaland enhanced commercial activities, particularly the trade in palm oil. The ‘Saros’ made contact with their kit and kins in the Yoruba hinterland for the promotion of the trade. Thus the migrants successfully exploited their' close knowledge of the interior to promote commerce and stimulate agricultural production for export.32 For many decades palm produce remained the major exports from West Africa. However, this monopoly was challenged in the second half of the 19th century, with the demand for cotton, in West Africa following the American Civil War which disrupted cotton production and supply from the United States. The American War affected the supply of cotton to Lancaster mills hence it became imperative for Britain to look for alternative source of supply so as to reduce British dependence on the American cotton. By 1850, various efforts were made by British firms to experiment cotton cultivation in West Africa for the same purpose.33 By 1857 the Cotton Supply Association had been formed to encourage cotton cultivation, and by 1870 considerable quantity of cotton were being exported from Abeokuta and other parts of Yorubaland. Such was the success that between 1852 and 1859 Abeokuta had more than 300 gins and about six presses in operation.34 But export declined before the end of the century because of the low price paid for cotton and because of the tremendous success achieved in the cultivation of cocoa and maize in Western Nigeria. The dramatic entry of rubber into the export trade also challenged the predominance of palm oil. The demand for rubber came at about the last quarter of the century and grew rapidly in the 1880s, but export declined before the end of the century due to reckless tapping of para rubber which destroyed the trees. Efforts were made by the Agricultural Department to resuscitate the rubber industry bv experimenting with various rubber plant trees. Similarly farmers were taught the best ways of tapping and processing in order to raise yields. However, in spite of the effort

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

34

production declined progressively until the early decades of the century.35 The second half of the 19th century also witnessed the introduction of new export crops and increased propagation of the existing ones. Cocoa was introduced to Yorubaland by one Mr. J.RL. Davies who established a cocoa farm at Ijan near Abeokuta in about 1880.36 Later, cocoa farm was established at Agege from where it spread to other parts of Yorubaland. By 1887 the Lagos government planted.cocoa seeds in the Lagos Botanical Garden for distribution to farmers.37 The role of the members of the African Church and the Missionary bodies in the spread of cocoa in Western Nigeria cannot be over-emphasised. Individuals in the church also, used their influence to propagate the knowledge of cocoa culture.38 Perhaps the greatest apostle of cocoa cultivation and indeed the apostle of the ‘Bible and Plough’ was Rev. Phillips who persistently urged his church members to take up cocoa cultivation. He devoted his serttions on several occasions to the gospel of cocoa and coffee growing.39 At the church conferences, the major theme of his sermons was that the members should take up farm Work and produce oil, kernel and plant cocoa and coffee, as a means of helping the church financially.40 It is important to note that similar appeal Tor cultivation of the soil in place of the slave trade had been made to Kosoko in 1851.41 Initially, cocoa was slow to develop, but by the first decade of the century, cocoa had become the important export crop in Nigeria. Perhaps the situation within Yorubaland in the last quarter accounted for the late take off and rapid expansion. However, as people realised the economic value of cocoa and heard about the prosperity which cocoa conferred on the people of the Gold Coast, it spread quickly to Ibadan, Ife, Ilesa, Ondo, Ado and Idanre areas of Yorubaland.42 Such was the enthusiasm generated in cocoa cultivation that even areas whose climate were known not to favour cocoa culture tried to experiment with the crop. The areas whose soil could not support cocoa cultivation found consolation in the production of kolanuts. Ijebu Remo, Egbado and some other parts of Yorubaland could not produce cocoa in any appreciable quantity. But they took up the cultivation of Cola Nitida which also became important in Western Nigeria by the end of the 19th century. Agiri’s work clearly demonstrates the intense interest generated in the production of Kolanut among the people of Sagamu and Ota 42 Although Cola Nitida was not an export crop, its production generated new economic activities. Whereas virtually all cola consumed in Nigeria were imported from the Gold Coast before the last quarter of the century, this position was drastically reversed before the end of the century because of the production of kola from Yorubaland. Ota and Abeokuta as well as Sagamu became important centres for the production of this important item. Another crop which also became popular in Yorubaland in the 19th century was cassava. Although cassava had been introduced to the West African Coast since thd 16th century it did not become important in any part of Yorubaland until the late 19th century. Even then, cassava was only known to the interior in the 20th century. The arrival of the Brazilians and the ‘Saros’ would appear to have encouraged the spread of cassava. Being familiar with its processing and preparation, they were able to utilize available land around Agege and Ebute Metta for the cultivation of cassava. From Lagos, cassava production spread to Ijebu and by the end of the century its cultivation had spread; such that it had become the most important article of trade among the people of Epe and its environs.44 As the migrants and Church Missionary Society moved to south western part of

35

Yorubaland. in the Era of Revolutionary Changes

Yorubaland, agriculture received a great boost. Every effort was made to encourage agriculture. In Lagos where the soil was not all that suitable for agriculture the Brazilians put vast areas under cultivation in an effort to improve the food and economic base of the teeming population. The import of the Brazilians to Lagos area was being emphasised by Governor Glover when he said, The Soil of the virgin forest is rich stiff-red clay. There can be no doubt that is destined to be peopled and cultivated by returning emancipated slaves from Brazil.45 Similarly in Badagry area, between the lagoon and the sea,'the people put the available land to the cultivation of coconut on a large scale. There was also the plan to grow and develop a copra trade. Nuts were imported from Porto Novo and probably Togoland, while the farmers were urged to exchange nuts for young plants so as to stimulate increased production and replace the old nuts. Initially there was, great enthusiasm to grow more nuts, but this could not be sustained as the people became skeptical about the suitability of their soil for such a venture. Secondly, they erroneously believed that to embark on large scale agriculture was to encourage another invasion by the Dahomeans.46 However, there was a growing awareness everywhere of the need to produce export crops generally. Whereas, at the beginning of the 19th century, a substantial part of the trade from Yorubaland went to the north, and perhaps to north Africa, by the second half of the century virtually all commerce of Yorubaland had been diverted towards the coast. This had been facilitated by the increase in the number of European ships and steamers visiting West African ports, particularly Lagos. The increase in the number of Europeans at Lagos and the influx of Sierra Ldofieans would appear to have encouraged the diversion of trade to the coast. As noted earlier, they established trade contact with the interior and thereby attracted the commerce to Lagos and other coastal settlements. For example, north-eastern Yorubaland which formerly traded with Benin and the north before the middle of the 19th century, had by 1900 established, trade links with Lagos, Ejirin, Badagry and E^bado areas. Thus, the increased economic activities at the coast which centered around Lagos, Epe and Ejirin also diverted the trade, commerce and merchandise of Yorubaland to the coast marking a drastic departure from the past.

Conclusion The 19th century was a momentous period ip the history of Yorubaland. It was a century of conflicts and wars. It was a period of alliances and re-alignments. In spite of its momentous nature, it was a century of mixed blessings. The century started with wars which disrupted its population and modified settlement pattern in the country. It did not only result in population movements, it effected basic constitutional changes which affected traditional authorities and their chieftaincy institution. The situation in which an uncrowned head lorded it over crowned head contrary to tradition was a clear demonstration of this change.47 The coming of Christianity and its attendant western education would appear to have dealt a more devastating blow to the traditional institution based on birth as talent and industry as well as education became the matrix for influence and authority generally. Thus, the wars of the 19th

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

36

century which dislodged many crowned rulers from their homes, and the rise of educated elite eroded the position of the traditional authority throughout the Yoruba country. Of more fundamental change was the economy which shifted from slave trade to that of commodity trade. The involvement of the masses in production for export, enhanced agriculture and attached value to land and labour. Thus the export trade ushered in an era of hired labour and brought the economy into the stream of international commerce. All points considered, the changes in Yorubaland in the 19th century were of various nature. Some were general covering the entire Yoruba couhtry, while others were confined to some areas. Such were the events and the rapidity in which they occurred, and so tremendous and fundamental were their effects on Yorubaland in particular and Nigeria in general that one cannot but agree with the consensus of historians that the 19th century was an era of revolutionary change in Yorubaland.

Notes 1.

2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

A.I. Asiwaju, Western Yorubaland Under Colonial Rule 1885-1945, Longman 1983. J.A. Atanda, The New Oyo Empire, Indirect Rule in Western Nigeria, Longman, 1973, Biodun Adediran, The Frontier States of Western Yorubaland, Ibadan: IFRA, 1994. I.A. Akinjogbin, et. al, War and Peace in Yorubaland, 1793-1893 (Heinemann, forthcoming). J.F. Ade Ajayi and R.S. Smith, Yoruba Warfare in the 19th Century, Cambridge University Press, 1974. S.A. Akintoye, Revolution and Power Politics in Yorubaland 1840-1893, Longman, 1971. Kola Folayan, “Egbado in 1832,” M.A. Thesis (Unpublished) University of Ibadan, 1967. B.A. Awe, “The Rise of Ibadan as a Yoruba Power 1951-1893,” D.Phil. Thesis (Unpublished) Oxford 1964. Robin Law; The Oyo Empire; c. 1600-1836, Clarendon Press, 1977, pp. 261-299. Samuel Johnson; History of the Yoruba, C.M.S. 1921, p. 188. See for instance, J.A. Atanda; The New Oyo Empire, Ch. 1 J.F. Ade Ajayi and M. Crowder (ed.), History of West Africa, Vol. II, Ch. 5, R.S. Smith, The Kingdoms of the Yoruba, Methuen, 1969, Ch. X, pp. 155-177. Robin Law, op. tit:, pp. 261-299. Robin Law, “The Career of Adele at Lagos and Badagry c. 1807-C.1837” J.H.S.N. Vol. IX, No. 2, June 1978, pp. 35-59. R.S. Smith, TheLagos Consulate, 1951-1861, Macmillan Press Ltd. & University of Lagos, 1978. J.F. Ade Ajayi and R.S. Smith, Yoruba Warfare in the 19th Century. J.F. Ade Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841-1981 London, 1965. See also B.H. Hodder, “Badagry Slave Port and Mission Centre.” Nigerian Geographical Journal, Vol. 5, Dec. 1962, No. 2, pp. 75-84. Similar population movement was induced by the military activities of Shaka of the Zulus in South Africa at the beginning of the 19th century in what is known in history as Mfecane. See J.O. Omer Cooper; The Zulu Aftermath Longman, 1965, pp. 24-4-8. E.A. Ayandele, Nigerian Historical Studies, Frank Cass 1979, p. 22. R.S. Smith, op. cit., pp. 176-177. For Census in Nigeria in the 19th Century, see R.S. Kuczynski, Demographic Survey of British West Africa: Oxfordf University Press, 1948, pp. 542-560. J.F. Ade Ajayi, ‘The Aftermath of the Fall of Old Oyo,’ in J.F. Ade Ajayi and M. Crowder, History of West Africa, II op. cit., pp. 145-156.

37 18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31.

32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

Yorubaland in the Era of Revolutionary Changes G.O. Oguntomisin, ‘Political Change and Adaptation in Yorubaland in the 19th Century,’ Canadian Journal of African Studies Vol. 15, No. 2, 1981, pp. 223-237. For Effects of 19th Century Wars on Chieftaincy Institution; see Wale Oyemakinde, “Impact of 19th Century Warfare on Yoruba Chieftaincy,” J.H.S.N., Vol., 9, Nq. 2, June 1978, pp. 21-34. Biodun Adediran, ‘Kiriji, the Yoruba and their kings, 1878-1886,’ ODU, No. 32, 1986. ’Biodun Adediran ’Derin Ologbenla: ‘The Ooni-elect of Ife and the Kiriji/Ekitiparapo War,’ in I.A. Akinjogbin et al (eds.), War and Peace. Bolanle Awe, “The^jele System,” J.H.S.N., Vol. 3, No. 1, pp.47-55. His Highness Olayisade II, The Olojudo of Ido-Ekiti, “Xhe Stpry of my Life,” unpublished Ch. I. See also Michael Crowder and O. Ikime, West Africa Chiefs, Ile-Ife: University of Ife Press, 1970. Michael B. Gleave, “His Settlements and th£ir abandonment in Western Yorubaland.” Africa Vol. 33, No. 1, (1963), pp. 343-340) In North-Eastern Yorubaland, particularly Akoko area, the movement to the hill top was accentuated by the Nupe invasion of the 19th century, and the Benin invasion earlier. Pierre Verger, Trade Relations, between the Bight of Benin and Bahia, I7th-19th centuries. Ibadan: University of Ibpdan Press, 1976, p. 532. Pierre Verger, “Brazil, Cuba and Nigeria, Nigerian Magazine, Independence Edition 1960, see Pierre Verge4,op. cit., pp. 31-37. Richard Fry, Bankers in West Africa, Hutchinson, Benham 1976, pp. 13-29. A. Fajana, Education in Nigeria 1842-1939, Longman 1978, pp. 24-45. Philip Curtin et al. (eds.) Africa Remembered Madison, the University of Wisconsin Press, 1967. For the Missionary involvement in Yoruba Wars of the 19th Century, see Ade Ajayi and R.S. Smith, Yoruba Warfare in the 19th Century, Ch. V See also E.A. Ayandele, Nigerian Historical Studies, op. cit., pp. 21-24. E.A. Ayandele, (‘Ijebuland 1880-1891: Era of Splendid Isolation,” in G.O. Olusanya, Studies in Yoruba and History and Culture, University of Ibadan Press, 1983, pp. 88-108. See also “Britain and Yorubaland in the 19th Century,” Nigerian Historical Studies, Ch. 2. cf ’Biodun Adediran ‘Benevolent Neutrality? The Ijebu and the Kiriji/Ekitiparapo War, 1877-1892,’ Ife Annals No. 4, 1993., pp. 63-72. For the activities of the Sierra Leonians in Yorubaland, see J.H. Kopytoff, A Preface to Modern Nigeria, Wisconsin, 1965. A.O. Anjorin, “European Attempts to Develop Cotton in West Africa 1850-1910,” ODU Vol. 3, No. 1, July 1966, pp. 5-6. Arthur Lewis, Tropical Development 1880-1913, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1970, p. 159. See also S.A. Agboola, ‘Agricultural Changes in West Western Nigeria 185.0-1910” in I.A. Akinjogbin and S.O. Osoba (ed.), Topics on Nigerian Economic and Social History, Ile-Ife: University of Ife Press, 1980, pp. 133-136. See also S.O. Biobaku, op. cit, pp. 53-63. W Arthur Lewis, op. cit., p. 156. W. Arthur Lewis, op. cit., p. 157. J.C. De-Graft Johnson, African Experiment, Watts (1958), p. 48. National Archives, Ibadan, henceforth N.A.I. RG/F4; W Fowler; A report on the land of the Colony District, p. 11. N.A.I. CMS (Yoruba) Rev. Phillips Diary, Jan. 2, 1895. N.A.I. CMS (Yoruba) Report of the Conference held at Ilesha April 16,. 1903. For the spread of cocoa cultivation in Yorubaland, see Sara S. Beriy, Cocoa, Custom and Socio-Economic Change in Rural Western Nigeria, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1975. S.A. Agboola, “Agricultural Changes in Western Nigeria,” op. cit., pp. 134-135. B.A. Agiri, Aspects of Socio-Economic Changes Among the .A‘,ori, Egba and Ijebu-Remo

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

44.

45. 46. 47.

381

Communities during the 19th CenturyJ.H.S.N., Vol. 7, No. 3, Dec. 1974, pp. 385-402. For his major work on Kola, see B.A. Agiri, “The Cultivation of Kola Nitida in Western Nigeria 1890-1930. A History of the Cultivation of Kola Nitida in Owode, Ijebu Remo, Iwo and Ota areas,” Ph.D. Thesis (Unpublished), Wisconsin, 1972. See also “The Introduction of Nitida Kola into Nigerian Agriculture, 1880-1920.” African Economic History No. 3, Spring 1977, pp. 1-14. S.A. Agboola, “Agricultural Changes in Western Nigeria,” op. cit., 130-140. For the popularity of cassava in Lagos, though with some exaggeration. See also Fote, Reflections of Central American and the West Coast of Africa, T. Cauteley Newbay'1869, p. 216. Pierre Verger, Trade Relations between the Bight of Benin, and Bahia, 17th-19th centuries, Ibadan: University of Ibadan Press, 1976, p. 522. B.W. Hodder, “Badagry, One Hundred Years of Change,” Nigerian Geographical Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, (1963), pp. 18-19. Wale Oyemakinde, ‘Impact of 19th Century Warfare,’ op. cit., pp. 28-32.

4

British Conquest and Administration of Yorubaland ’SIYAN OYEWESO and OLASIJI OSHIN

The colonial period has remained an irhportant epoch in the socio-political evolution of Nigeria. As in the other parts of the country, Yorubaland cams under British colonial administration at the turn of the twentieth century, and was effectively governed until independence in 1960. Yorubaland under the British, witnessed such socio-political and economic transformations that left their impact on post-colonial Yorubaland. This chapter examines the advent of the British in Yorubaland, with particular reference to the British forcible occupation and administration of the territory.

Advent of the British The earliest contact of the British with Yorubaland dates back to the activities of the British traders and Christian missionaries in Badagry and Egbaland in the 1840’s.1 From these two centres, the missionaries made steady and certain incursions into the heartland of Yorubaland. By the close of the decade, some major Yoruba towns such as Ibadan, Ijaye, Oyo and Ogbomoso were well under the rule of British missionary and steT)f government in that region. Zik, however, disagreed with those who alleged that he A G had rigged the elections. Rather, he blamed the constitution saying that beca fhe’system flowed individuals to campaign as individuals right to the last minute nartt lineTbecame blurred. He thought that if the elections had been found on a direct basil basis candidates would have been able to declare their party alleSian^^ fmm the start He declared that there was no anti-Igbo feeling during the election fTadded to even to *e East there were bargainings before a government was formed.49 Awolowo was quoted as saying later: “We have never induced an wi neve induce any member of the NCNC to cross to our side. It is grossly immoral to do so .

Election into the House or Representatives from the Western House or Assembly ,

.

■

.

,

,

.

unlloP 0f Representatives was based on the electoral college

2K

-Xs

s

two NCNC members to >represt1Lagos ante centre^ Ms ^ ^ty The first sea:^°n of the ^ n House of Assemblyfor ^ wo seats ^

is# practitioner, who wasd*vvTrectfye' of the party that one of them should step down bluntly refused to abide by d ? rtv5i If the NCNC had been able to in favour of Zik, The Nation^I Resident had no choicebut put forward only two . theSince the two men were to simply send them to tne . A., „ of all the five Lagos members, unyielding, the NCNC was force to su mi e ta^en, Zik was defeated this playing into the hands of itsenemyWhenthe blow t0 zik. „

he “Uld "°l0nger ,6ad ^ NCNC ^ ta rS:faS"fiis crucial election has been attributed to ethnic

61

The Yomba and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria 1951-1960

chauvinism. But a closer look at the circumstances surrounding this election would reveal that Zik was not defeated by ethnic chauvinism but the brazen indiscipline, disloyalty and lack of team spirit among members of the NCNC.52 It was a common knowledge that the NCNC was the most undisciplined party in Nigeri^T In fact, indiscipline can be regarded at the hallmark of the party. It was a disease which plaguedthe party for years.53 For instance, on the return of its delegation from London to Nigeria ml 947 its leader began to quarrel among themselves over the expenditure ° e £1? °/?° collected f°r the trip. This led to the expulsion of some top officials of the party. On several occasions members of the party simply blatantly ignored party irectives and did what they liked. Party leaders often issued contradictory statements on domestic and international affairs.55 4

Zik himself blamed neither the A.G. nor ethnic chauvinism for his defeat. He knew precisely what went wrong. He severely criticised the new constitution which he saw as the instrument employed for his defeat and then his own party. His words .“It is a tragedy when you are made a prisoner by those that should defend you. The A G was not responsible for the tragedy.”55 He theh called for a strict part/discipline,' whTch he considered as the main cause of his failure. He then advised the members-of the party to be courageous to demonstrate to the world that neither opportunism nor careerism would affect their stand for a free country based on a democratic m the NGNP ^ Tident’ indisdPline gained an intractable problem L ak he 1SSf uWas 50 dlsturbing to Zik that he had to declare as follows at the Aba convention of the party in 1957' diastic control of the NCNC even in a totalitarian manner had to become necessary The simation in our rank and 6Ie is to be likened to the Great Plajttie in London which required a Great Fire to purify it.87 6

it,/™,” W!77?%b-fn S3id ab0TO’ k should U clear *at i' i8 fallacibus to attribute the cause of Zik s failure to get into the House of Representatives in -1952 to Yoruba ethnic cnauvimsm. Indiscipline and lack of cohesion within the NCNC caused his "r ,Zlk had won his seat easily in Lagos, which was a Yoruba.d“e be deSed “

men

W™81115’ Akil,ola Maja and M'A' °8un

to

The A.G. and the Other Regions One of ihe major problems facing the A.G. after the 1951 elections in the country was how to expand into the East and the North. The leaders of the party fully realised that power at the federal level could only be secured by a political party s2ng enough of tbh mr;r .SeaDtS in tW0 of Ae re2lons ™ the federation. At the annual coiif ess P3iy ^ f !? BfT Qty in 1952 if was resolved that the party sSd be found!irTh°n federaI.basiS m conformity with the original conation of the ounders. The constitution of the party was amended accordingly. Even then the noTfi nnS °f °fficers ,was deferred because it was felt that the North and the East were ° i S f rfpreSented-At the next annual congress of the party which was held in Warri Si £ e!fCr °f fflCGrS t0°k PIace‘ was made FederaTpresidem and a Vvoe President was elected from the other regions. A Federal Cpnomi also elected with Assistant Secretaries from each region.59 Thus the A.G berarTto acquire a pan-Nigerian character I. was ready to move into the o*er r^ont

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

62

By 1952 the NCNC in the East and the NPC in the North had consolidated their strong hold among the Igbo and Hausa respectively. This made it difficult foi the A.G. to penetrate these regions- The patty had to embark on a strategy by which it could exploit minority grievances or work through minority parties.60 It began to advocate the grouping onnon-lgbo, speaking areas into a separate region on the east. This waS to be made up of Ogoja, Calabar and Rivers Provinces. By the end of 1953 the A.G. had appointed three organising secretaries for these provinces. Within a short time eight active branches of the party had mushroomed in Aba, Owerri, Enugu, Port Harcouit, Abonema, Buguma, Ikot Ekpene and Calabar.61 The activities of the officials ill these areas yielded some positive results for the A.G. In the 1954 Federal Elections it won three seats in the Eastern Region. In the 1957 elections in the region, the A.G. wpn 13 seats while its ally the United Natiopal Independent Party (UNIP), which was made up of NCNC dissidents, won five seats. The fact that these seats were won mainly in non-Igbo areas was due to Igbo solidarity with the NCNC. In the Northern Region, the A.G. went into alliances with three important minority parties, namely the Ilorin Talaka Parapo (ITP), the-United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) and the Bornu Youth Movement (BYM). In Ilorin Province and the Western wart of Kabba Province lived about half a million Yoruba speaking people, who had close cultural affinities with the Yoruba in the West. The 1950 Constitutional Conference had referred the issue of whether the boundary between Western and Northern Nigeria should be redrawn in order to Include the Yoruba in the two provinces within the West. The Governor had ruled against such an idea 62 The A.G. did not accept that ruling as final and continued to demand the readjustment of the boundary In 1956, the A.G. went into an alliance with the ITP which had been formed in 1954 by young educated radicals in llorm.66 As the first mass political movement in the area, it was critical of the N.A. systdlp. With A.G. s financial and organisational support, the ITP became more articulate ahd supporte the merger of the area with the West. The efforts of the A.G. in the ared bore fruit in 1956 regional election in which the alliance swept the four seats ill the Division. In the local elections which took place between January and May 1957 the alliance won in 22 out of 31 Districts in the area. It also won the elections into the Ilorin Town Council 64 Although these electoral victories were short-lived, the A.G. had gained a foothold in a part of Northern Nigeria, an area which had hitherto been an exclusive preserve of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC). / The U.M.B.C. was a federated body of people living in the Middle Belt of Northern Nigeria, which comprised Benue, Niger, Plateau, Bauchi Provinces and Southern ZariaTwo things initially drew the people of these areas together — opposition to the authoritarianism of the N.A. system in the North and the fear of Hausd/Fulam domination. The declared objectives of the organisation were to work for the unity and progress of the people of the Middle Belt, to demand a separate region, to Agitate for self-rule in or before 1956 and to support the Nigerian federation with d Strong federal government to control the regions.65 Since the A.G. was the greatest protagonist of federalism and the creation of more regions in Nigeria, it went into.an alliance with the U.M.B.C. in 1958. The A.G. alliance with the U.M.B C. brought a new life and vigour to the latter which was hitherto weak organisationally and financially. The alliance between the A.G. andthe U.M.B.C. was not an ordinary alliance. It became almost a total fusion of the parties. J.S. Tarka, the leader of the U.M.B.C. wds in fact

63

The Yoruba and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria 1951-1960

elected as one of the National Vice-Presidents of the A.G. By this post in the A.G. Tarka according to Sklar, emerged as “a symbol of national unity through party competition in the North ...”66 During the federal elections in Nigeria, the alliance won 25 seats in the Middle Belt area which was a feat.67 The Bornu Youth Movement was formed in 1954 by the Bomu radicals, who regarded the Kanuri as minorities in the North and were naturally opposed to the autocratic N.A. system in the North. This group also tried to exploit the Kanuri consciousness. They thought that Borno as an ancient empire was much older than the Sokoto Caliphate whose invasion the Kanuri successfully resisted in the 19th century. Among the declared objectives the movement was the creation of the North Eastern Region. The movement first joined the NCNC-NEPU alliance. But in June 1958 it backed out of the alliance and entered a new one with the A.G. Among the reasons given by the BYM for the change were the alleged plan of the NCNC to form a pact with the NPC which'was opposed to the creation of new states in the North, the failure of the NCNC to come to the aid of minorities in the North when the Minorities Commissioners visited the North in 1958 in order to appease the NPC and the total commitment of the A.G. to the creation of more states in Nigeria.68 As a result of the alliance the A,G. put its financial and legal resources at the disposal of BYN. Between 1958 and 1959 the A.G. Voted over £12,000 for its operations in Borno.69 Subsequently the BYM became absorbed into the A.G. Thus, the A.G. was able to secure a foothold in the Upper North, which was a predominantly muslim area. With the establishment of branches both in the North and the East, the A.G. could rightly proclaim itself as the A.G. of Nigeria. It was no longer the A.G. of Yorubaland or of Western Nigeria. It must be recalled that after the 1951 elections the A.G. had fully committed itself to the struggle for Nigeria’s independence. In 1953, the ^arty through one of its leaders A. Enahoro tabled in the House of Representatives, “the self-government in 1956 motion”. Consequent upon the reactions of Northern leaders, who thought that Nigeria was not ripe for self-government, a major constitutional crisis ensued. Although the British Government did not grant self-government to Nigeria in 1956, it granted it to the East and the West in 1957. Self-government was granted to the North in 1959. The 1959 Federal Elections in Nigeria provided a unique opportunity for the A.G. to demonstrate its pan-Nigerian commitments. On June 4, 1959, Awolowo, at a press conference held in Ibadan, presented the party’s “14 point programme” to be followed if it came to power in the country. In general, the programme contained what the A.G. regarded as the basic needs of all Nigerians irrespective of their regions. It hoped to do for the whole country what it had done for the West in the field of education, health services, agriculture and social services. Awolowo realised that most of the facilities enumerated in the programme were not subjects which were within the competence of the Federal Government, but were actually regional matters. He declared: ... this does not mean that the Federal Government must fold its arms and allow a section of the country to go to the dogs through planlessness, mismanagemement, incompetence, or just sheer political dishonesty. Every Nigenan undei out constitution has a dual citizenship. He i s a citizen of the Region to which he belongs as well as a citizen of the federation. Anything, therefore, that affects his progress, welfare, happiness and civil liberties must

Culture arid Society in Yorubaland

64

be a matter of serious # mcem to the Federal Govemm ent as it is to the Regional Government.70 In addition, the programme promised four other things.71 First, it would set aside at least, a sum of £500,000 for the rehabilitation of the ex-serviCemen, who had hitherto been neglected. Second, the party promised the creation by October 1, ^960, of Calabar/Ogoja/Rivers State and the Middle Belt State. It would also effect; the merging of Ilorin and Kabba Provinces with Western Nigeria. Third, after accusing the NPC and the NCNC of dictatorial tendencies of the “Hitlerite or Nasserite type”, the party promised to introduce “liberal democracy” of the Western Region to both the North and the East. Four, the party promised to grant amnesty to political prisoners, particularly in the North, where according to Awolowo, a lot of people had been sent to jail for frivolous offences. By the declarations in the programme the A.G. wanted to demonstrate that the welfare of the ethnic groups in other regidhs of Nigeria was as much of paramount interest to it as was that of the Yoruba people. Although, the A.G. did not win the election, it emerged as a force to be reckoned with in Nigerian politics. The party and its allies won 75 seats 35 from the Western Region, 1, from Lagos, 25 from the North and 14 from the East. By this performance, the party came up as the only party to capture a majority of its seats outside the region of its traditional base.72

Conclusion In this chapter an attempt has been made to debunk some of the major allegations levelled against the A.G. and Yoruba leaders. In the first it place, it has been shown that even though some leaders of the Yoruba cultural organisation, the Egbe Omo Oduduwa -formed the A.G. the two organisations remained separate and distinct entities. The A.G. was not an arm of the Egbe. Secondly, it has been argued in the chapter that the NCNC lost the election in the West in 1951 because of poor organisation and poor strategy. It has been shown that the A.G. won because it exploited to the full its network of connections in the region. Thirdly, it has been argued that Zik failed to be elected from the Western House of Assembly to the House of Representatives in 1952 as a result of the gross indiscipline which was the hallmark of his party. His failure was not caused by Yoruba ethnic chauvinism which has been alleged. It has been shown that even though the A.G. was formed as a Western or, regional party it soon moved into other regions in the country. By 1960 it had become a national political party with branches in many towns and villages all over the country. Apart from being in control of the Western Region, it was the official opposition in the Eastern and Northern Houses of Assembly. It also constituted the opposition party in the House of Representatives with its members drawn from all the regions of the country. It will be erroneous to accuse Yoruba leaders of either introducing ethnic politics into Nigeria or encouraging it. Ethnicity was already a factor in Nigerian politics before Yoruba leaders came together to organise the A.G.

65

The Yoruba and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria 1951-1960

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 2l. 28.

E.E. Obahiegbon, “The Party in Western Nigeria,” West Africa, May 19, 1951, p. 441. Nnamdi Asjkiwe, Zik: A Selection from the Speeches of Nnamdi Azikiwe, (London, Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 324-325. Okwudiba Nnoli, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria, (Enugu, Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1983), p. 58. Chinua Achebe, The Trouble With Nigeria, (Enugu, Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1983), p. 58. Obaro Ikime, In Search of Nigerians: Changing Patterns of Inter-Group Relations in an Evolving Nation State, (Presidential Inaugural Lecture delivered at the 30th Congress of the Historical Society of Nigeria, at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka on 1, May, 1985), p. 23. K.O. Mbadiwe, “Vision of the Third Republic.” The Guardian, September 21, 1989. J.S. Coleman, “The Emergence of African Political Parties” in Grove Haines (ed.) Africa Today, (Baltimore, The John Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 234. The Daily Service, May 7, 1951. Obafemi Awolowo, Path to Nigerian Freedom, (London: Faber and Faber, 1947), p. 52. The Daily Times, October 11, 1947 and November 1, 1947. Awolowo, Path to Nigerian Freedom, p. 53. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism, (Berkeley: University of California Press 1958), pp. 324; and 348-349. Awolowo, Awo: the Autobiography of Chief Obafemi AwoIqwo, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1960), p. 217. Awolowo, Aw.o: The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolpwo, p. 14. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism, p. 350. Among other things, Balewa said: “Southern Tribes who are now pouring to the North in ever increasing numbers, alld are more or less domiciled here do not mix with the Northern people in social matters and even the North looks up to them as invaders.” Legislative Council Debates, March 4, 1943. p. 227. Awolowo, Awo, p. 220. Ibid., p. 221. Minutes of Third Meeting of the A.G. held in Awolowo’s Oke-Bola residence in Ibadan June 4, 1950. The Daily Times, March 21,1951. Ibid. The Daily Times, March 21,1951. Richard L., Sklar, Nigerian/Political Parties, (New York: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 106. ’ ’ Ibid., p. 105. The conversation took blace in Awolowo’s Ikenne residence on December 26 1977 The Daily Times, March 21, 1951. See the circular letter to supporters and potential supporters 6f the A.G. in the West A G files. ’ Awolowo, Awo, p. 222.

29'

(rwJ'T,from A-iaIU Olujare to the Central Executive Committee of the Egbe, dated typed wntten copy in Egbe Omo Oduduwa Correspondence files, Awolowo's library, Oke-Bola^ Ibadan.

30.

Awolowo, Voice of Reason, (Akure: Olaiya Fagbamigbe Press, 1981), p. 201

31*

^^^onstimtional Development in Nigeria, (London: Cambridge University Press,

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

66

32.

Babatunde Williams, “Nationalism and Federalism in Nigeria,” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Illinois, U.S.A. 1959, p. 248. 33. Coleman, Nigeria Background to Nationalism, p. 295. 34. West Africa, January 6, 1951, p. 1235. 35. Ibid. September 15, 1951, p. 850. 36. EC. Lloyd, “Development of Political Parties in Western Nigeria,” American Political Science Review, Vol. XLIX, No. 3, September 1955, p. 699. 37. West Africa, October 6, 1951, p?914. 38. O. Idowu Odumosu, Nigerian Constitution: History and Development, (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1963) p. 205. 39. K.W.J. Post, The Nigerian Federal Elections of 1959, (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 36. 40. 41. 42.

Ibid. Ibid. Thomas Hodgkin, “Background to Nigerian Nationalism How Do The Nationalists Stand Now?” West Africa, October 13, 1951, p. 943. 43. West Africa, September 29, 1951, p. 890. 44. Ibid.,. October 20, 1951, p. 975. 45. Ganiyu Dawodu, “Mbadiwe and 1951 Western Elections,” The Guardian, Fnday, October 20, 1989. 46. 47.

Kalu Ezera, Constitutional Development in Nigeria, p. 137. Coleman has described this situation as “Attentistiee” which was characteristic of early political party development in Modem Europe. Ezera quotes Coleman as explaining the development thus: “The emergent majority parties (in Tropical Africa) have acquired sudden landslide accessions of strength as a result of independents or Attentestes declaring their membership-in the victorious party.”

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

Nnamdi Azikiwe, “Dr. Azikiwe Looks Ahead,” West Africa, May 17, 1952. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties, p. 116. Ezera, Constitutional Development in Nigeria, pp. 156-157. Ibid. West Africa, February 23, 1952, p. 159. Qdumosu, Nigerian Constitution: History and Development, p. 203. ■ As a result of the quarrel among the leaders of the party, three members of the Executive Committee — the Vice President, the Secretary and the Treasurer were expelled. Williams, Nationalism and Federalism in Nigeria, p. 250. 55. Odumosu, Nigerian Constitution: History and Development, p. 203. 56. Azikiwe, “The Price of Liberty,” West African Pilot January 4, 1952. West Africa January 57.

WestAJrtca] November 9, 19567, cited by Post, Nigerian Federal Elections of 1959, pp.

58

Zik scored 12,711 votes while F.R.A. Williams scored 7,070 votes. Daily Times, November

59, 60.

22, 1951. Post, Nigerian Federal Elections of 1959, p. 106. Ibid., p. 109.

-

62. Nigerian Gazette Extra-Ordinary, No. 46, 1952, pp. 985-100. 63. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties, p. 351. 64* Ibid., p. 353. 65. Ibid., p. 340. 66. Ibid., p. 376.

67 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

Thv Yorvha and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria 1951-1960 Ibid Ibid, p. 342, Noie 32. Awolowo, Action Group 14-Point Programme (Ibadan: A.G. Publication, June 14/1959),. p. 27. Ibid, pp. 18-26. Frederick, A.O., Schwarz Jr., Nigeria: the Tribes, the Nation or the Race — The Politics of Independencer (Cambridge: the M.T.I. Press, 1965) p. 111. , '' '

The Yoruba and Their Neighbours

ISOLA OLOMOLA

An examination of interaction between ait ethnic group on the one hand and its neighbours on the other requires a look into a wide range of possibilities, the evidence and process of contact over time. In this chapter, the focus is on the Yoruba and the neighbours with whom the Yoruba-speaking people had direct contact in the course of their historical vicissitudes. We do not know when the Yoruba and these neighbours became conscious of their respective distinctive cultures. The Yoruba-speaking people, for example, must have become conscious of. their uniqueness as an ethnic nation more than six hundred years ago. We do not know exactly when and how this came to be but from what can be gleaned from available information about the fluidity of the ‘border’ areas and the ease with which ‘wandering’ people criss-crossed the region in search of settlement and the ease with which they established themselves, oftentimes in new places and oftentimes among pre-existing communities, it is safe to say that the consciousness of ethnicity took a long time to crystalize. We can assume and postulate that the consciousness process began With the adoption of ethnic or sub-ethnic names by the Yoruba-speaking people themselves and the ascription of common names for the people by non-Yoruba neighbours. The various sub-ethnic- units coined names which were largely derived from their respective geographical features, e.g. Ekiti1 and Egbado, the large number of people involved in their ‘wanderings’ in search of settlement, e.g. Egba;2 the vastness of the homeland, e.g. Ife;. mysteries associated with foundation of their metropolis, e.g. Oyo, and, other historical experiences of the dynastic ancestors, e.g. Ijebu, Ikale and Iyagba.3 In all, the principal sub-ethnic divisions of the Yoruba are: the Awori and Egun in Porto-Novo, and Lagos; the Anago in Southeastern Republic of Benin; the Egbado, the Ijebu, Ikale and Ilaje in and nehr the coastal lowland; the Sabe (Save) between the rivers Weme and Opara; the clusters of Idaisa, Ife, Manigri in the eastern and central Republic of Benin, the Ketu astride Republic of Benin and Nigeria, the Egba, Oyo, Ife, Igbomina, Ibolo ijesa, Ekiti, Ondo, Akoko, Iyagba and the clusters of communities of Ijumu, Owe, Oworo and Abunu4 all of Southwestern Nigeria. The uniqueness and distinctiveness of the Yoruba-speaking people were such that non-Yoruba neighbours gave certain common names to these culturally-homogeneous people. Prominent among these perogative names are Yoruba; Olukumi, Anago and Certain unique features of the culture of Yoruba-speaking people also became distinguishable from those of their neighbours. Among the most distinguishable was the mutually-intelligible language and the political use of a common cultural heritage, the hall mark of which was the dynastic descent directly or indirectly from an •

'

68

EWI OF ADO-EKITI OBA ADEYEMO ADEJUGBE ALADESANMI III

The Yoruba and Their Neighbours

69

eponymous ancestor, Oduduwa. For, although each sub-ethnic division had its dialects, language experts have classified these dialects into three: the Western — spoken by the Oyo-Yoruba and related sub-ethnic divisions such as Egbado, Sabe, Ketu and Egba with most of which old Oyo had close historical ties of suzerainty6 and dialect is spoken by the Ife, Ijesa, and Ekiti, and to some extent, Igbomina.7 The Southeastern dialect has strong Edo-Benin connections such as Edo-Benin consonant sound and these related dialects are spoken in Ondo, Owo Ikale, Ilaje and Ijebu.8 The northeastern dialect spoken by the Iyagba, Ijumu, Abunu, Owe and Oworo is akin and close to the southwestern dialect spoken in Manigri and Idaisa in the Republic of Benin.9 The foregoing discourse shows that the traditional homeland of the Yorubaspeaking people covered during much of their history, a vast region.10 It thus follows that the immediate neighbours of these Yoruba-speaking people were those ethnic people inhabiting the region outside this traditional homeland: the Edo-Beninspeaking people immediately east of the Ofosu-Benin rivers on the east, the Igala at the eastern confluence of the rivers Benue and Niger on the northeast, the Nupe on the basins of the river Niger and the Hausa as well as the Fulani farther north, Bariba (Borgu) on the northwest, the Mahi farther northwest, the Akan (Ashanti) farther west and the pon on the southwest. Just as we do not know exactly when these ethnic cultures developed, we only have glimpses of the antiquity of their contact with their neighbouring Yoruba-speaking people. Available historical evidence of probable contact between the ancient inhabitants of parts of Yorubaland and their counterparts outside have come from archaeological relics dug up in Nok in Central Nigeria and Ile-Ife in central Yorubaland. Of particular interest has been the similarities which are noticed between the treatment of the eyesr use (depiction) of personal adornment on the terra-cotta dug up in Nok and those in Ile-Ife, which have warranted scholars to hazard suggestions that the more naturalistic Ile-Ife relics probably represent an advancement from that of Nok; suggestions whieh tend to represent the Ife art, and its culture, as an offshoot of that of Nok.11 One of the pointers to this age-old close relationship between the proto-Yoruba and their counterparts in the region is the fact that the Yoruba language belongs to (and is classified as part of) a cluster of languages grouped together as Kwa.12 Other languages so grouped together as belonging to this Kwa include those of Igala, Gwari, Idoma, Ebira and Nupe. Of particular interest is that of Igala, for a language expert, Armstrong, who has worked on the Yoruba and Igala has picked out cognate pairs of both languages and concliided with a suggestion that the two languages might have developed from a parent language and that the proto-Yoruba and proto-Igala probably separated some 6,000 years ago.13 The urban culture of the Yoruba must have taken a long time and process to evolve and develop. During this long period, presumably spanning many generations, the Yoruba-speaking people or their proto-Yoruba antecedents encountered many of their counterparts from outside. Evidence of this distant contact can be gleaned from activities of waves of ‘invaders’ reported to have penetrated the region and encountered host communities of the proto-Yoruba, l4 whose traditional aristocracies they displaced but who probably culturally assimilated their conquerors thereafter. Traditional accounts mention the homelands from where invaders came as Arabia, Upper Egypt, Wadai,15 the Niger Benue region and even Borgu. The Kisra legend

70

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

among the Borgu contains what can be interpreted as kinship relationship between the proto-Borgu and their proto-Yoruba counterparts for in their traditional history, Oduduwa, the eponymous ancestor of the Yoruba is depicted as an offspring of the dynastic ancestor of Bussa.16 As if buttressing this claim, Ojo, the Bada of Saki has asserted in his account of the migration of Oduduwa that the eponym entered the Yoruba world through Saki.17 We are on surer grounds concerning the very dose association between Old Oyo on the one.hand and their northern neighbours notably the Borgu and Nupe from evidence gleaned from the viccissitudes of Oranmiyan and Sango, the earliest Alaafin. Johnson mentioned a tradition whereby Oranmiyan embarked upon an expedition against the antagonists of his ancestor in the ancestral homeland but ran itito difficulties and had to seek assistance from an unnamed king of Bussa with whose aid he established 'himself in Oyo-Ile.18 We have evidence to suspect strong affinal relationship between the old Oyo on the one hand and Borgu and Nupe on the other to the end that members of the ruling class were blood relations. The mother of Oranmiyan, the first Alaafin whom Agiri suggested was a Borgu invader,1^ was described as a Nupe princess; while one of the wives of Oranmiyan, named Torosi, daughter (princess) of Elempe, king of the Nupe, was mother of Sango20 who became Alaafin. Sango’s most prominent wife, Oyo, deified among the Oyo-Yoruba as the goddess of the river Niger, was a Nupe, from a town named Ira. The frontier between the Oyo-Yoruba and these northern neighbours was porous; people, goods and ideas passed all the while, and conceivably aspects of religious beliefs of these non-Yoruba were adopted in Oyo. Obayemi has claimed that Sango worship, associated with the historic Alaafin was probably an adaptation of a Malian god,21 imported through Borgu. Johnson’s and Fagunwa’s accounts of the introduction of the Sango worship is suggestive of importation direct from Borgu. The deification and worship of Oya, the river Niger appeared to have derived from Nupeland as the egungun worship and cult in Oyo were introduced from Nupe by Nupe adherents in the 16th century. It is here suggested that much of the religious beliefs and practices of Oyo-Yoruba have Borgu or Nupe origin and vice versa. , ' The military tradition, characterized by or culminating in the tradition of a standing army, and creation of a number of military chieftaincies diffused from these northern neighbours. For while Oyo developed and built up professional armies made up of infantry and cavalry22.other Yoruba-speaking counterparts of Old Oyo depended on their local levies, called up from their daily works and were armed with homepieces. The militarist tradition resulted from adaptations of the tradition of these northern neighbours who Were reputed to have, up to the 16th century, constantly harassed the Oyo.23 It was probably in this period of ascendancy of the Oyo that princes and military chiefs (perhaps those who led unsuccessful expeditions) or ordinary citizens of Oyo extraction established themselves in the vast areas of Oyo-Yorubaland, in Ibololand and Jyagbaland, or resident consuls becoming rulers of their subject people for example, the Ilaro-Egbado. It is generally assumed that the Yoruba evolved its generally acclaimed urban Culture, The cause of this culture has been ascribed to the desire for greater security and the need for greater and varied economic activities.24 The fact is generally overlooked that chieftaincy or royal authority was the main attraction among the Yoruba, that a common trend in their history was the emergence of a dynasty, a

The Yoruba and Their Neighbours

71

monarchy and a feature of the emergence of this was a culmination of a senes of activities and conquest of Some communities, or settlement in a new environment followed by conquest of the neighbouring communities and eventual establishment of a kingdom with a metropolis of the Oba, the King and a number of subordinate towns and villages. , , This political centralization, a territorial expression and its attendant urban culture, must have been an issue about whichlhere has been a lot of borrowing and adaptation between the Yoruba and their immediate neighbours. We may not be definitive about which of these neighbours was the earliest to evolve the culture. The traditions of the Borgu and Nupe are indicative of some urban culture although the population involved might be small. Nevertheless it appears the culture developed in many of these places in identical circumstances. The episode of Oranmiyan, His encounter with and conquest of the mini communities of the Uze Ado or Efa or Ogodo and the emergence of a more centralized polity under Eweka I about the middle of the 13th century makes the development of Edo-Benin dynasty and urban culture a mainstream of the history and culturedf the Yoruba. Certain Edo-Benin princes and military commanders were involved ifl identical exploits in other areas. One such personage of Edo-Benin extraction named Ojuwo Atogu, wielded the mini-state of the Okpoto into the Ig a Kingdom and became the first Attah, while Tsoede, an offspring of a later Attah is said to have established a centralized polity among the Nupe m the 15th century and titled ^Tiowever! available evidence, point to the fact that the development of political centralization and resultant urban culture among the Fon is a direct result of their contact with and adaptation from Oyo-Yoruba. Originally, mini communities of the Fon inhabited the Abomey plateau west of Ketu. The political and social culture of Ketu and more, especially, contact with Old Oyo and an endeavour to build up a strong state capable of overthrowing the suzerainty of Old Oyo over the various Aja communities caused Agaja, head of one of the communities, to commence the process of state formation by subjugating other small communities and he succeeded on establishing a capital at Abomey in 1730.27 But this conquest and the crushing peace treaty created favourable circumstances whereby the state of Dahomey adopted many aspect of Oyo political and social .culture. The clauses of the peace treaty included Stic marriage arrangement between the Alaafin and Agaja and the taking away of Avissu, son of Agaja, to Old Oyo as a hostage. The political and cultural ties between Old Oyo and Dahomey became very strong during the rest of the 18th century an up to about 1818, by which time the state of Dahomey as a vassal state of Old Oyo had learnt and adopted all it required of court tradition and protocol, divine kingship, and hereditary chieftainship. Gezo became king over a powerful and centralized state wi a metropole and large number of provincial and subordinate towns. ' A maze of trade routes connected the various Yoruba-speakmg people and by extension with their various neighbours. The variety of natural environment of the Yoruba sub-ethnic divisions and the component units of respective kingdoms and states occasioned the exchange of a wide variety of goods and services. This regiona ^penalization of produce and services caused ceaseless and profuse network of exchange which-transcended ethnic boundaries. This exchange was reinforced or enhanced by the cowrie currency which was a common medium of exchange at least from about the 14 century28 and a common market culture based on a 4-day week (orun).

72

Culture and Society in Yombaland

The features highlighted above occasioned and intensified the development and growth of local trade among the component units of a state, these operated a local circuit so that there was a principal market located in the metropolis of the state29 and a number of markets, programmed to hold in each of the subordinate communities. Long-distance trade developed between neighbouring states and communities and stimulated the establishment and growth of nodal markets and famous commercial centres such as Old Oyo, Akure, and Apomu at the meeting place of many trade routes. Thus did trade routes connect the Yoruba communities with their neighbours near and far. From available works, it is known that a principal trade route crossed the river Weme linking the Popo, Fon, Egun, Anago, Ketu and Mahi in the north.30 From the famous nodal market at Ketu, a route went westwards to Togo and Ashahti while from another nodal market at Ofia, a route went to Imeko and Iseyin where it joined the famous road from Porto Novo to Old Oyo. Oyo was a nodal market and commercial town whence trade routes went northwards to Borgu, Nupe dnd Hausa communities. From glimpses of the past obtained from records of early 19th century European travellers and missionaries, it is known that numerous trade routes linked the coastal areas with the Niger basin in the north.31 The principal ones included the Lagos-Ilorin; Lagos-Ijebu-Ode-Oru-Ilorin and Rabba route; Benin-Owo-Akure-Ilesa-Ila-Old Oyo route; Benin-Ifon-Owo-Kabba-Bida routes. From Bida and Rabba these routes went farther linking the northern Yoruba with Hausa states. Generally speaking, most of these ethnic communities cultivated a variety of foodcrops and brewed beer from corn and bananas. Yet there existed a variety of environment and resultant variety of production of goods and specialized domestic and craft industries. In western Yorubaland, the Egbado, Anago and Ketu were specialists in wood and calabash carvings, metal works and weaving while Imeko was famous for blacksmithing.32 The broad loom featured in the southern parts and was a preserve of the womenfolk while the long loom featured in the savanna and mainly among the menfolk. While the coastal communities produced salt and fish; the forest communities produced the indigo dye and camwood paste. The Yoruba forest region especially Ijesaland and Ekiti, notably Ijare were famous for their indigenous kolanut — cola acuminata; and the derived savanna region of northern Yoruba, Nupe, Borgu and Hausa, was famous for livestock and cattle and related1 craft industries such as leather-work. In this process of exchange, goods and services from one area reached ahother through long-distance traders so that, for example, camwood paste of the rainforest areas of eastern Yoruba and Edo-Benin reached Old Oyo.33 Similarly, goods produced outside the Yoruba world, notably salt and horses from Hausaland, natron, potash, swords from North Africa into Hausaland, reached the Yoruba through Nupe middlemen.34 After the 15th century, goods of European manufacture such as gin, guns, umbrella, cloth, traps, and locks reached the hinterland Yoruba communities through Edo-Benin, Ijebu, and the Fon at the coasts.33 Even though, archaeological evidence points to Ife as a centre of manufacture of beads, an item of lucrative trade in chiefly regalia and adornment among the Yoruba yet, the European beads appeared to have displaced/replaced this indigenous source by the 15th century, so were imports of cowry shells; for, thereafter, the supply of beads and cowries reached the rest of Yorubaland through Benin.

The Yoruba and Their Neighbours

73

The antiquity of this exchange of a wide range of goods and produce cannot be dated exactly. But it is possible to have evolved and developer following the emergence of the states and kingdoms of the Yoruba, and appeared to have become cbmmon place by the 16th century. For instance, although the antiquity of the trade between the Yoruba and their northern neighbours, especially the Hausa is not known yet there is a tradition that Queen Aminat of Zazzau (Zaria) obtained her supplies of indigenous kolanut or gbanja, cola nitida, the supply of the former must have come from the rainforest region of Yorubaland and the latter from Gonja located north of Ashanti and tunnelled through Yorubaland by Hausa long-distance traders or Yoruba and Nupe middlemen. The trade in Yoruba produce and product of domestic industry on the one hand and those of ‘Hausaland’ must have become so flourishing and lucrative in subsequent generations to warrant the existence of an Ogbomoso community — apparently Oyo-Yoruba trading community, reported in Kano in the 17th century, as well as the existence of Hausa and Fulani communities reported in some Oyo-Yoruba toWns and villages such as Kisi in the early 19th century by the Landers brothers. The situation in other regions of Yorubaland vis-a-vis their non-Yoruba neighbours is identical to the above. For instance, the art of brass-casting for which Edo-Benin has become famous was derived from Ile-ife about the 14th century. A Benin tradition says that Oba Oguola of Benin invited brassmiths notably ‘Iguegha’ from Ile-Ife to teach his people.38 There was constant movement of people, goods and ideas especially between the Owo, Ekiti, Ondo, Ikale, Ilaje and the vast hinterland on the one hand and Edo-Benin communities on the other. The importation of European goods and wares into Benin intensified this age-old trade relations, for a class of Edo-Benin long-distance traders, the eken-egbo traversed the eastern Yoruba hinterland, selling velvet and beads while these traders and their Yoruba counterparts sold the products of local broad loom in Bepin communities. The result of the aforementioned two-way traffic of people, goods and ideas over many centuries between the Yoruba and their neighbours was the intermingling of people and diffusion of ethnic cultures. Mention has been made of aspects of the religious worship of the Borgu and including the egungun cults which diffused among the Oyo-Yoruba in the 15th and 16th centuries. In the course of relations between Oyo and Dahomey between the 1680s and 1730, also aforementioned, Oyo political culture was adopted in Dahomey. The adoption is generally associated with Avissu, the prince hostage sent to the Alaafin court as a part of the 1730 peace package and who, when he later succeeded to the throne in Dahomey as Tegbesu, reputedly introduced aspects of Oyo political and social institutions which waxed strong during the reigns of his successors and which persisted under Gezo in spite of the development of strong nationalist or anti-Oyo feelings. v . In similar circumstances, many of the eastern and southeastern Yoruba communities adopted many aspects of Edo-Benin social and political institutions. For although Benin itself was a part of Yoruba history, its dynasty being an offshoot of the House of Oduduwa like its principal Yoruba counterparts, yet it developed certain peculiar ethnic cultures and became a powerful kingdom during and after the reign of Oba Ewuare, in the second half of the 15th century.40 Benin armies were very active in most of eastern Yoruba between the 16th and early 19th^enturies. During the hey-days of Benin expansion, many of its princes and military commanders are known to have established themselves in many places over an area

74

Culture and Society in Yorubaland

expending to Lagos along the coast and parts of Ekiti and Akoko41 in the northwest of the Benin kingdom.This led to the adoption, in theseareas of aspects of Benin political an4 social institutions, including its chieftaincy titles such as Ezono, Era> Ologbosere, and Edaikmi adapted as chieftaincy titles and personal names jjs Ojomo, Afo, Ologbosere and Odaniki respectively.42 Also the dialects spoken in Owo, Ondo, Ikale, and Ilaje which, as mentioned earlier, have strong EdO'Benin influence. In Owo, for example, Benin influence was so all-pervading that Akintoye has referred to it as an example of ‘Zones of ... cultural hybridization’.43 Owo, the most easterly of Yoruba kingdoms and adjacent to Benin, stood at a ‘transitional zone between the Yoruba states and Benin’.44 Traditions say that sometimes in the 15th century, Betiiri conquerors took away Osogboye, one of the prince of Owo as a hostage to the Benin court. The prince is reputed to have succeeded to the throne in Owo much later, perhaps early in the 16th century and is credited with thfe introduction of aspects of Benin palace culture, use of heads and Benin military tradition.45 There was an apparent increase in the tempo of interaction between the Yoruba-speaking people and their neighbours during the 19th century. Ironically this state of affairs was occasioned largely by a series of external aggression by these neighbouring people, namely the Fulani in the north, the Fon in the southwest hnd Edo-Benin in the southeast. Great political and social crises erupted in some of the communities in this region of \Vest Africa in the early 19th century. Earlier on about the middle of the 18th century, Old Oyo had suffered a political setback in the wake of the inordinate ambition of Basorun Gaa, and suffered Military reverses thereafter -from the so-called peaceful reign of Alaafin Abiodun.46 The Egba vassal had in the middle of the 18th century thrown off the yoke of Oyo domination, while in 1783 and 1791 the Borgu and Nupe had revolted against Oyo domination. In the early 19tH. century, fresh internal crises occasioned by constitutional conflicts spearheaded by Aare Afonja against the Alaafin Aole led to a break down of relations between Old Oyo hnd llorin, one of its provincial capitals. For, in his endeavour to maintain his independence, Afonja sought the assistance of Alimi, a Fulani muslim cleric, recruited northern elements and built up a formidable army with which he successfully withstood add eventually thwarted the military efforts of the central authorities to crush his rebellion.47 After the death of Afonja in 1824, these northern elements: the Fulani, Hausa, etc. turned llorin into a base of aggression against Oyo, destroyed the last concerted military action against it by inflicting devastating defeat on an Oyo-Borgu army in 1835.48 An Ilorin-Fulani dynasty which had emerged in 1831 turned llorin into a base for its jihad, and between the 1840s and 1860s ravaged communities of Oyo, Ibolp, Igbomina and northwestern Ekiti 49 In the meantime, a Nupe-Fulani dynasty had arisen in Rqba about 1830. After it had established a new base in Bida, its rulers Usman Zaki, Massaba and Umoru Majigi, ben/veep the 1840s and 1870s subjugated the Yoruba-speaking Iyagba, Owe, Oworo and Akoko m north-eastern parts by force of arms.50 These communities remained under Nupe-Fulani domination till the last decade of the 19th century. Tlie Yoruba-speaking people of the west notably the Sabe, Ketu Idaisa as well as uP., and Egbawere subiected to the constant threat and aggression of Dahomey which had grown into a militarist kingdom under Gezo. Gezo’s armies invaded the region at regular intervals between the 1830s and 1850s. His successors Glele and

The Yoruba and Their Neighbours

75

Gbehanzin continued the military subjugation of most of these Yoruba-speaking states and statelets between the 1860’s and 1880’s; during which time, the Dahomeyan armies sacked Oke Odan, Isaga, Ibara, Imeko, Sabe, Idaisa and Ketu among others.

The Edo-Benin resuscitated its age-old military expansion in the southeas districts of Yorubaland in the second decade of the 19th century Its armies sacked Akure in 1815 and invaded the district up to parts of present-day Ado and Ijero locd government areas.53 In these places, it re-established its imperial domination mid posted resident consuls right up to the advent of British colomd rule m h*1890 s. These external aggressions had mapiMd impact on the social and political history of the Yoruba-speaking people in the 19th century and after. Yoruba captives were sold into slavery or settled as domestic slaves in these non-Yoruba communities. Refugees milled from areas under threat of invasion into the security of the communities in e forest or hilly regions, swelling up the population of host communities. Massrv enslavement and abandonment of old homelands caused the depopulation an extinction of many Yoruba towns and villages.53 . The constant aggression of these neighbours produced some positive reactions as many of these Yoruba-speaking communities built up confederate armiess to common aggressors. In the 1830’s, Ketu and Sabe joined forces with their Mahi neighbours^ built up a confederate army, commanded by one Balogun Ajinaku, and MUctela crushing defeat on Gezo and his armies at Kakpalokm n dte e^y 1850's the Ketu and Anago combined and withstood G“°

^

and Oke-Odan pooled their armies against Porto Novo. Between 1884 and 188bme various Yoruba-speaking subject people of Nupe, namely Akoko, Iyagba and Owe built and engaged the Nupe-Fulani armies in a series of battles around

hostility of these neighbours was the emergence of private armies. Many local warriors emerged in the communities where the ravages and aggression of these invaders were mure pronounced. Notable were Afun and Agidigbo of Ketu; Somoye of Abeokuta, Esubiyi of lye and Aiyede, Fajembol the 01ugbosun§of Egosi (now Ilupeju) Arogunyo and Bakare of Afa (now Oke Agbe^ Akoko) Of course, their emergence is generally hitherto associated with ^ militarism nf Ibadan because the most prominent of these, notably Ogedengbe of Ilesa, Isola Fabunnd’of ImesUgbo Odo (now Okemesi), Aduloju of Ado and Faboro of Ido, were Pt„Tof°*e

Um^ttTmore lasting effects of these wars between the

“ Eng

Ae imperceptible introduction and growth of Islam among the Yoruba-speaking the impe P, u -i ntu Onturv.54 The aforementioned conquests of

UOTin-Fulanf and*Nupe-Fulani represented the jihad in Yorubaland^ For, although mu hms aroeared to have existed in some of the Yoruba communities bordering those

76

Culture and Society in Yombaland

communities in the 1850; Bowen in Abeokuta, Iseyin, Ijaye and Ogbomoso,56 Hinderer and Clarke in Ibadan, Ijesaland and Igbomina.57

Conclusion The incidences and proliferations of foreign relations between the various polities/communities of the Yoruba-speaking people and their neighbours highlighted in this chapter bring into focus both general and specific circumstances or the growth and enrichment of indigenous culture. Relations between the Yoruba and non-Yoruba neighbours have fluctuated but they have occasioned a two-way diffusion for aspects of each other’s culture. Naturally cross-cultural borrowing have resulted over many centuries. The few principal actors mentioned in the text represent a broad representative of numerous unnamed prince warriors, traders, artisans and priests who have constituted the channels as well as agents of this secondary diffusion of culture.

Notes 1. 2. 3.

4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14.

Rev H. Dallimore, ‘The religions beliefs of the Ekiti People,’ Western Equatorial Africa: Church Magazine of the Dioceses of Lagos and the Niger,. March, 1930, p. 30. A.K. Ajisafe, History of Abeokuta, Lagos, Kash and Klare Bookshop, 1948, p. 5. Oral evidence supplied by Oba Usman Atobatele, the Olukotun of Ife-Olukotun, Iyagba, 29 March 1975, and B.J.A. Matthews, “Assessment Report on the Ikale District, Okitipupa Division, Ondo Province,” p. 2. I.A. Akinjngbin, Dahomey and Its Neigbours, 1708-1818, Cambridge, University Press, 1967, p. 9; A.B. Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, 2nd impression. London, Curzon Press/Lagos, Pilgrims Books, 1978, pp. 2-3, 10 & 13; John Igue and O. Yai, ‘The Yoruba-speaking people of Dahomey and Togo,’ Yoruba No. 1, Vol. 1, 1973, pp. 10, 12-26. I.A. Asiwaju, Western Yoruba under European rule, 1880-1945, London, Longman Group, 1976, pp. 17, 20 & 21. < N.A. Fadipe, The Sociology of the Yoruba (eds.), F.O. Okediji and O.O. Okediji, Ibadan University Press, 1970, p. 37. S.O. Biobaku, Sources of Yoruba History, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973, pp. 183-185. O. Oyelaran, ‘Linguistic speculation on Yoruba history,’ Dept, of African Languages and Literatures Seminar Paper, University of Ife, 30 may, 1977, p. 17. See ’Biodun Adediran, ‘Iforubaland up to the emergence of the states,’ Ch. I in this volume. F. Willett, Ife in the history of West African Sculpture, London, Thomas & Hudson Ltd., 1967, pp. 119-120. Ade Obayemi, ‘The Yoruba and Edo-speaking peoples and their neighbours before 1600,’ in J.E Ade Ajayi & M Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa, Vol. One, 2nd Edition, London, Longman Group Ltd., 1976, p. 200. R.G. Armstrong, ‘The use of linguistic and ethnographical data in the study of Idoma and Yoruba history,’ Jan Vansina, R. Mauny et al, (eds.), The Historian in Tropical Africa, London, OUR 1964. I. Olomola, ‘Eastern Yorubaland before Oduduwa: a reassessment,’ in LA. Akinjogbin and G.O. Ekemode (eds.), Proceedings of. the Conference on Yoruba Civilization, July 1976, University of Ife, (Obafemi Awolowo University).

The Yoruba and Their Neighbours

15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

77

J.A. Olusola, Ancient Ijebu-Ode, Ibadan, Abiodun Printing Works, 1968, pp. 2-6. R Stevens, ‘The Kisra Legend and the distortions of historical traditions,’ Journal of African History (JAH), Vol. XVI, No. 2, 1975, pp. 185 & 188; & M.D.W., Jeffreys, ‘Braima, alias Abraham: a study in diffusion,’ Folklore Vol. 70, March, 1939, p. 331. S.O. Qjo, Iwe Itan Saki, Oyo, Atoro Press, 1937, p. 10. Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yoruba, reprinted, Lagos, CSS Bookshop, 1969, p. 7. B.A. Agiri, ‘Early Oyo History Reconsidered,’ History in Africa, Vol. 2, 1975. S. Johnson, op. cit., p. 150. Discussion with Ade Obayemi. , Ade Obayemi, ‘The Yoruba and Edo-Speaking Peoples and their neighbours before 1600, op. cit., p. 230. S Johnson, op. cit., p. 159, and R. Law, The Oyo Empire, c. 1600-1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Oxford, Clarendon, 1977, pp. 38-14. RC. Lloyd, Yorubaland Law, London, OUR 1964, p. 51, W. Hodder and U.I. Ukwu Markets in West Africa, Ibadan University Press, 1969, p. 24. J.U. Egharevba, A Short History of Benin, University of Ibadan Press, I960, pp. 1, 7, &31, RA. Igbafe, ‘Benin in pre-colonial era,’ Tarikh, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1974, pp. 3 & 5. S.F. Nadel, A Black Byzantium: The Kingdom of Nupe in Nigeria, London: OUR 1965, T. Hodgkin, Nigerian Perspectives: an historical anthology, London, OUR 1960. I.A. Akinjogbin, op. cit., pp. 68, 82 & 86. . , RE. Lovejoy, ‘International monetary flow in pre-colomal trade of Nigena, JAH, Vol. XV, No 4 1974 pp 373-374; A.F.C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans, 1485-1897, London, Longmans Green & Co. ltd., 1969, p. 60; T. Hodgkin, The Nigerian Perspectives, op. at, p. 117. E. Krapf-Askari, Yoruba Towns and Cities, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1969, pp. 39 & 50. I.A. Asiwaju, op. cit., pp. 9& 23. A.F. Mockler-Ferryman, Up the Niger, narratives of Major Claude Macdonalds mission to the Niger and Benue rivers in West Africa, London, G. Phillip & Sons 1892, p. 311; RC. Lloyd, The Political Development of Yoruba Kingdoms in the 18th and 19th centuries, London, 1971, p. 24; A. Moloney to Knutford, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Oct. 24, 1888 in C.O. 147/66 Vol. W, pp. 329 & 382. I.A. Asiwaju, op. cit., p. 23. . .... , D.,f Hugh Clapperton, Journal of a Second Expedition into the interior of Africa from the Bight, of Benin to Saccatoo, London, Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1966, p. 46. . T. Hodgkins, Nigerian Perspectives, op. cit, p. 205; J.F. Ade Ajayi, Journal of the Rev. J.F. Schon & Mr. S.A. Crowther up the Niger in 1841, p. 137; & R. Law, The Horse in Societies of Pre-colonial West Africa, London, OUR 1980, pp. 17, 21-23. I. A. Akinjogbin, op. cit., pp. 134 & 140. R.A. Adeleye, ‘Hausaland, 1600-1800,’ in J.F Ade Ajayi & M Crowder feds.), History of West Africa, Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 561. T , _ , , R. Hallet, (ed.), The Niger Journal of Richard and John Lander, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965, p. 103. . ,Ann, Ade Obayemi, ‘The Yoruba and Edo-speaking Peoples and their neighbours before 1600, FLE. Bradbury, Benin Studies, London, OUP, 1973, p. 49; RC. Lloyd, The Political development of the Yoruba Kingdoms in the 18th and 19th Centuries, op. cit., p. 24. J. U. Egharevba, op. cit, pp. 24 & 27; R E. Bradbury, op. at, p. 48. S. A. Akintoye, ‘The Northeast Yoruba districts and Benin Kingdoms, JHSN, Vol. IV No. 4, 'IZlpmoh.’Yomba9^ and Civilization before 1900: a Study of Patterns of inter-state relations, forthcoming, p. 177*178.

78

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50.

51. 52. 53: 54.

55. 56. 57.

Culture and Society in Yorubaland Ade Obayemi, op. cit., p. 235. Ade Obayemi, ibid., p. 226. Oral evidence from Chief M.B. Asara, Owo Local Historian, 10 April, 1975. I.A. Akinjogbin, ‘The expansion of Oyo and the rise of Dahomey, 1600-1800,’ J.F Ade Ajayi & M. Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa Vol. One, op. cit., pp. 407-408, 410-411. S. Johnson, op. cit., pp. 201-202; S.O. Ojo, A Short History ofllorin, Oyo, 1975, p. 25. S. Johnson, op. cit, p. 267; R. Law, The Oyo Empire, C.1600 -1836, op. cit, p. 295. K.V Elphinston, Gazetteer ofllorin Province, 1920, pp. 15-19; & M. Perham and M. Bull, The diaries of Lord Lugard, Vol. 4, Nigeria, 894-1895, and 1898, London, Faber & Faber, 1963, pp. 261-264. PT. Davis, Historical Notes on Kabba, 1960, pp. 2-4; M. Mason, ‘The Jihad in the south; an outline of the nineteenth century Nupe hegemony in north-eastern Yorubaland and Afenmai, JHSN, Vol. V No. 2, June, 1970, pp. 195-196. E.g. Parrinder, The Story ofKetu: an ancientYorubaKingdom (ed.), I.A. Akinjogbin, Ibadan University Press, 1967, pp. 35-37. S.A. Akintoye, “The northeastern Yoruba districts and Benin Kingdom,’ op. cit., pp. 550-551. I.A. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and its neighbours, op. cit, p. 29. M. Oduyoye, The vocabulary Of Yoruba religious discourse, Ibadan, Daystar Press, 1971, p. 2 & R. Hallen*77ie Niger Journal of Richard and John Lander, op. cit, p. 103, & S. Johnson, The History of the Yorubas, op. cit, pp. 44 & 51. R. Hallett, ibid. T.J. Bowen, Adventures and Missionary Labours in the interior of Africa from 1849-1856, Charleston & Co. Ltd., 1968, pp. 153, 161 & 169. Anne Hinder, Seventeen Years in the Yoruba Country, London, Beeky Jackson & Halliday, 1872, pp. 171 & 198.

OBA ADEYINKA OYEKAN II (Courtesy Spring of Monarch, Law Ebod Nig. Ltd.)

The Coastal Scene: The Yoruba of Lagos Society1 Before 1900 ’KUNLE LAWAL

Introduction Until very recently, modern professional historians had paid little attention to the historical development of the Lagos Society especially in the precolonial period. As Professor Aderibigbe has noted, Lagos was not much a subject of historical attention when compared with Other aireas of Yorubaland. The aim of this chapter therefore is to contribute to the growing literature and accounts of the historical development of Lagos from the dawn of its settlement to the eve of effective foreign control in 1,900. Some of the issues to be raised will be largely an exposition and examination of the adequacy or otherwise of. some of the views that have been expressed; but fresh information based on current research foldings will also be brought forth.

Traditions of Origin and Patterns of Early Settlement There is a deep-seated controversy over who the earliest settlers in Lagos actually were. The controversy can be narrowed down to two distinct schools of thought. These are the Edo and Yoruba versions of the settlement story. Many writers3 have suggested that the island of Lagos started as an Edo settlement. According to Jacob'Egharevba, Lagos was used initially as a military camp by an Edo monarch, Orhogbua who stopped at Lagos to organise military expeditions against some of the towns to its north. Orhogbua was said to have stayed quite unexpectedly long on this expedition and he returned to Benin only when it was rumoured that one of his sons was going to be made Oba in his place. He soon returned to Benin from where he sent one of his grandsons, Eskipa, to be the head of his war camp, Eko, and the first Eleko of Eko. In what may be rightly regarded as obvious reference to the account by Egharevba, some other sources easily refer to Lagos as being originally a settlement of the Edo. Undoubtedly, this version must have been of great antiquity as much earlier accounts by some European writers such as Alan Burns and Armoury Talbot suggest that Lagos was a Benin settlement, jndeed, while some writers talked about some “Beninese soldiers occupying Lagos”, Talbot was more specific saying that the earliest settlers in Lagos were the remnants of a Benin “invading army which was defeated at Ogulata” during the reign of Oba Orhogbua, C.1550. He concluded that these soldiers, because of their inability to return to Benin decided to settle down in Lagos and develop another settlement. Although th« Lagos or Yoruba version acknowledges the relevance of a Benin factor

79

^ Culture and Society in Yorubaland

80

in its history, there is a fundamental disagreement on how this came about. Unlike the Edo version, the Yoruba claim that Benin control over Lagos was achieved through conquest and not just an easy settlement. The most popular account of the earliest settlement of the Lagos Island is the one derived from Losi’s History of Lagos4 which now appears to be the official version in Lagos circles. According to J.B.O. Losi, the earliest settlers of Lagos were Yoruba who migrated from Ile-Ife under one Ogunfunminire, a prince of the Ife ruling house who led a migration to Isheri — a town situated about twenty kilometres north of Lagos. It was from this initial settlement at Isheri on the Ogun River that series of migrations took place to such places as Ota, Ado (Odo), Irenpa, Ojo, Ogudu, Ojodu, Agboyi, Iro, etc. —all old Awori speaking towns. With Isheri acting as a dispersal centre, a southward movement from this point took the migrants to Yaba from where they moved further down to Ebute Metta and from where they subsequently moved to lie Olofin (modern Iddo Island). It was from lie Olofin that one Aromire led a migration across the lagoon to the present Lagos Island. The movement led by Aromire to the Lagos Island was said to have been encouraged by its attraction as a possible farmstead and fishing settlement especially as1(these early settlers seemed to have embraced fishing quite early in their history. The account further states that the mother settlement of Lagos at He Olofin soon became a melting pot of cultures as many peoples from various areas started settling in the area and its immediate vicinity. Such peoples included the Ijebu and Egbado as well as other Awori speaking peoples of the adjoining territories. It was with this type of background that the significant event concerning one wealthy female personality, Aina, who had a quarrel with the landowners in the area, took place. The account claims that this woman felt cheated and, as a result of her inability to secure justice in lie Olofin, appealed to the Oba of Benin for redress who subsequently attacked and conquered Lagos after a protracted struggle.5 The Oba of Benin themstationed one of his war chiefs, Aseru*(Iseru) in Lagos as a military commander. Aseru undertook many military expeditions to the towns situated north of Lagos and was killed in one ofisuch operations in the marshes of Iseri. One Yoruba personality, Asipa was said to have led. an Iseri party that took Aseru’s body to Benin for burial in accordance with Benin tradition. This act of returning Aseru’s body to Benin was rewarded by the Oba of. Benin who made Ashipa the first Eleko of Eko or Oloiiogun, i.e. the head warrior or military commander of his troops in Lagos. At his death, Asipa was succeeded by Ado, his son who was in turn succeeded by Gabaro and Akinsemoyin (in that order). But it is this Asipa (Eskipa) that the Edo version claims tyas sent by Orhogbua to be the Eleko of Eko after his return to Benin. The account states that he was succeeded by bis own son Edo (Ado) who was in turn succeeded by his son, Guobaro (Gabaro}. The two accounts can not be right at the same time. Available evidence seem to be pointing to the fact thaUhe control of Lagos by the Benin was achieved by military conquest and the fact that the earliest settlers were not the Edo. The reasons for this position are not far to seek. Viewed from the linguistic angle, it appears that the language more indigenous to Lagos is the Awoli dialect of the Yoruba. Although colonial records hold that the language in Lagos then was “Awori-Benin”,6 yet the observation by the late Samuel Ajayi Crowther that the language being spoken in Lagos in the early 19th century was more akin to Yoruba7 clearly cements the position that Lagos was Yoruba-speaking. The view being held here on the indigenous language of Lagos vis-a-vis the question

/

OBA ESUGBAYI ELEKO (1901-1925, 1931-1933)

(Courtesy Spring of Monarch, Law F.bod Nig. Ltd.)

The Coastal Scene: The Yoruba of Lagos Society Before 1900

81:

of its autochtonous people may be further cemented by the fact that the island ofla«os had enjoyed a geographical contiguity with all its neighbours who were (and arestill) coiectivelv referred to as the Awori. There is the need to point out however that the type of Awori spoken in Lagos appears unique and slightly dilferent !"°” * °^lt western and eastern neighbours like the Ojo, Mushin, Isolo, Ikeja, Okun A)a» etc I would also appear that this is so because unlike those neighbours, Lagos-had a more intense influx of a sdb-group of the flqje, known as Mahm and whose brand of Ilaie dialect enjoys a close similarity to Awori in some respect. Another useful evidence for the position that the Awori were the earhestseUers, to be found in some of the oral accounts relating to the founding of hagos. The vernacular version of Losi’s History of Lagos,» from, which the EngUsh ««» translated, discloses that it was not Olofin that first encamped on Iddo ^and dAough the settlement became known as his later. It is pointed out m that book that the leaders of the earliest settlers were Olopon, Omuse and Olunwen who had migrated to the area from Egan Ibeji near Iro (incidentally one of the earliest Awori settlements) to the east of tafml it is still not clear whether the settlement at Egun Ibej, was founded £££* with die one at Iseri or drat of Iro, it would appear that die£* enc^ nf Iddo oredated the coming of the Iseri group which was led by the Olohn. It was probably an amalgam of-the earlier group headed by Olopon;°^7Se^td^it J .U. iatter one led by the Olofin (but who became the head of the seraemen ™bf«v afa result of some political wizardry)'" that the invading Benin army attacked in the late 16th or early 17th century. This view seemsto enjoy a confirmation ^SthouS the « “os made some reference to the ama (c

fill

th century) giving a

15

Dprliflnc more useful for our understanding of the question or rne

y

r:ddS—hip hf 1603, Lagos was under an effective occupation by Benin forces.12 nucleus of the earliest Benin setdement in Lagos . It is being suggested here“athe evidence of Edo architecture,

Ea)®^ T'^l^^^^lt^Uing s^a'ofitteii^Awori brethren^Dini^g the^reign^B^o

at Enu-Owa by the Awori and Edo r«Pec

7

7

p

period of the

periods in the erndy populating of the Uaje early sojourn of the Awon settlersacti^ties took them out of their taS to°theeilaTe country to areas much to the east of Lagos. On the other hand.

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Culture and Society in Yorubaland

the Enu-Owa period would seem to refer to the latter era of Benin military activities on the Island. Although the two periods were not contemporaneous, the areas occupied by them were naturally contiguous. The two areas came under a single or unified political control when as a result of military might, the Enu-Owa settlers took over the Awori settlement of Iganran to their west. From the foregoing therefore, a fairly reasonable reconstruction of the early settlement pattern of modem Lagos metropolis can be made. The dawn of history in this area may then be traced to the earliest settlers of modem Iddo Island (former lie Olofin and known by the colonial officials as Bruce Island) where a sedentary settlement was established by a group of Awori speaking peoples who probably migrated from Ile-Ife, the “ancestral” home of the Yoruba. A latter group appeared to have joined the earlier one with its leader, the Olofin, playing the legendary role of most heros civiliseteur with his superior culture syndrome. It would appear that it was this latter group that enhanced fishing and farming ideas in this area (although they may not necessarily have introduced these to them) especially with their forming the Aladejo or fishermen cooperative society under the leadership of the Olofin. It was one of these14 that first led led a settlement party to the Island across the lagoon to the present Lagos Island. Much later, around the late 16th century, the Benin under Aseru might have successfully invaded this (lie Olofin) settlement and established a military camp on a land not too far away from the pepper and vegetable farms of the earlier Awori settlers. The settlement invaded by the Edo warriors was indeed the headquarters or capital of a loose confederation or even association of districts consaguinally and or maritally bound together. These member-states of what became known as the landowners or Idejo (Aladejo) were not all established at the same time. While some of them were established as a result of adventure (e.g. downtown Lagos or the modern nucleus of the traditional population of Lagos), others like Isolo, Idumota, Iru, Ikoyi and Aja came into existence as a result of political or familial land-sharing operation. During the pre-Benin era, these settlements upder chiefs or community heads maintained a political and diplomatic relation with the Olofin that had its roots in familial, blood and marital bases. No intra-Idejo feud was recorded and there appeared to be a generally accepted principle of protecting the sanctity of their original or ancestral headquarters. It was over these localities that the Benin invaders established their political overlordship about early 17th century. Much later, probably in the late 17th or early 18th century, during the apogee of the Benin hegemony, these original landowning classes were incorporated into the political set up under the new dispensation and a few areas added into their ranks of aristocracy by the incorporation of the landowners or heads of some nearby localities who had married into the royal house established by the Edo.15 This may best explain how Oluwa and Onisiwo (whose homeland were in the Badagry creek and Tarkwa Bay respectively) came to be part of the Lag6s society. This was the set up of the earlier,t permanent settlers of Lagos and its immediate environs until the 19th century when new areas were opened up and new populations moved into the areas. For instance, freed slaves and returnees who had earlier been settled at Freetown took up dwellings in a section of Lagos known as Oke-Olowogbowo, while those from Brazil, Cuba and Portugal settled in the area vacated by earliest Portuguese slave traders in Lagos and known as Popo Aguda or Portuguese colony. In between the periods of the Sierra Leonean and Cuban returnees

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settlement, the Lafiaji and Itafaji (up to the site of the present Central Mosque) were settled by the Nupe and a group that migrated from the Orimedu and Lekki areas respectively. By the end of the 19th century, Lagos had become both in number and variety largely, a motley community.16 Nevertheless, the distinctive traditional elements of its population can still be identified both linguistically and culturally as being essentially Yoruba.

Political Organisation and System of Government If it is agreed that the earliest society of Lagos was largely decentralised and appeared somewhat stateless, its political evolution up to the eve of the 20th century clearly reflected a transformation from a loose confederacy to a royal oligarchy. In other words, the political history of the Lagos society may be rightly seen as that of a transformation from a confederal type of government to that of vassalage or at best, a vice-royalty. However, one thing that should be noted here is that whether at the level of loose confederation or that of the more centralised administration, the government of Lagos never lost its essential Yoruba culture and traits. This view may be appreciated if a brief exposition is attempted on the two periods.

The Confederal Periods Aderibigbe has identified two periods in the history of the political evolution of Lagos before 1900. He has labelled the first one the Olofin period17 largely because it was a period in which the Olofin held the reins of final political authority. But this is as far as one may agree with his position as a deeper understanding of the political arrangement during this period would seem to suggest a confederal type of organisation. In this regard, although the Olofin occupied a central point in the political ladder, the day-to-day administration of the component parts of the society was firmly in the hands of the heads of the different communities that made up the settlement. It is necessary to recall that the society of Lagos in the confederal period was made up of different settlements owned by a group of equal but related families who seemed to have enjoyed a common ancestry and political consanguinity, since they all traced their origin to the Olorin — the legendary father of these landowners. It should then not be surprising to find out that the close camaraderie which is common place among the .Yoruba was easily noticeable in the Lagos society of this period. Since the various communities that made up the confederacy claimed common origin and ancestry, they all evolved and organised themselves under similar organisational structure. The head of each community of settlers bore names that reflected his power of political control over its citizenry and resources, the same as would be found in any traditional society. Consequently, the Onikoyi controlled the landed properties at Ikoyi with its headquarters near modern Ikoyi. Its boundary commenced from Ikorita {cross road) at the point where Moloney street and Obalende road along the foot-road to Ito Ije (Ije creek) opens to Lagos lagoon. Its land included Bamgbose, Ikoyi, Moba, Ajegunle and Awusa villages; the Oniru who controlled the whole of Iru (modern Victoria Island); the Oloto whose land extended from Oto to Ebute Metta and also inclusive of Abebe village; Onitano who controlled parts of Alakoro area as well as Idumota wharf; the Onitolo whose area extended from Itolo to the site of the former Lagos Club at Brook street; the Olumegbon who controlled

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the whole of A/a near Curamo Islands; and Aromire the legendary first settler on the Island of Lagos and whose jurisdiction extended from Ebute Ero to Brook street and who had controlling rights over the land of Lagos. The political system in this period allowed for the different component parts to exercise some reasonable amount of autonomy over their areas of jurisdiction. The government of the various territories enjoyed freedom in matters concerning settlement of disputes among their subjects; making of traditional sacrifices as well as economic administration as they were in charge of licenses and rights ter fish in the lagoon and sea surrounding their settlements. Undoubtedly, the political relationship between the different communities was further cemented, apart from the claim to common ancestry, by intermarriages which were meant to increase the familial bond between them. For instance, Sooku, the Ogboni Iduntafa gave one of his daughters, Oluro to Aromire Eriwa during the 18th century.18 However it should be noted that whilst the heads of these communities settled minor disputes , and maintained the peace, it was commonplace to find some of them referring more important matters to the Olofin in Iddo. In other words, the pre-eminent position of the Olefin was well respected and acknowledged by the different settlements which claimed descent from him — the spirit of Oduduwa among Yoruba states seemed alive in Lagos too. To this extent, all the “children” of the Olofin made it a sacred duty to defend the integrity of what could be rightly described as their homeland. The Onitolo, because of the strategic location of his own settlement, was made the Akogun Olofin (or the chief defender of the Olofin) as he was saddled with the responsibility of defending the homeland. This picture remained largely undisturbed until the society came under the control of the Benin Kingdom probably in the late 16th or early 17th century.

The Period of Oligarchy Whichever of the stories relating to how Benin influence came to be entrenched in Lagos one accepts the most salient is that it brought about significant changes in the socio-political organisation of Lagos society. With the effective control of Lagos Island, the Edo soon moved the seat of their administration from the Enu-Owa area to the seemingly more developed site of Aromire’s pepper farm at Idun-ganran populated largely by the Awori-speaking Yoruba. The type of political Organisation discernible in Lagos after the Benin conquest was clearly different from that operated during the Olofin or confederal era. However, the fact that the Edo were at the apex of the political ladder did not necessarily overshadow the fundamental Yoruba elements in the system of government. Rather, the Edo factor merely became absorbed into an essentially Awori set up which was deeply rooted in traditional Yoruba political system. At the same time, this may not imply that clearly discernible impacts were not made on the political scene by the Benin conquerors. Essentially, the dawn of Benin hegemony in Lagos witnessed the introduction of a centralised form of government along the lines of a monarchy. However, effective centralisation of administration of the emergent Lagos society of the Edo period did not occur until the reign of Akinsemoyin (the third Eleko) as the first two rulers (Ado and Gabaro) seemed occupied with the consolidation of their administration. Adefuye19 has rightly noted that Akinsemoyin was the founder of modern Lagos and this is largely indicative of the immense contributions that he made towards the

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modernisation of Lagos and the effective assertion of his powers. It was during the time of this ruler that the government of Lagos was effectively brought under the control of the Benin viceroy who, though was the socio-religious, economic and political head of the society, still delegated powers to some groups of people. Thus, apart from the Eleko, there were some chiefs who constituted his close and immediate aides. When coming from Benin, Ashipa was given an array of political officials, courtiers and administrative' assistants who were to assist him in the day-to-day administration of Lagos. These officials, known as Akarigbere, became the main hereditary political chiefs and formed the nucleus of the inner cabinet of the Eleko. This class of chiefs was soon extended, under Akinsemoyin, to include Yoruba personalities who made very important contributions to the political or social upliftment of the society. This perhaps would be the explanation for the inclusion of the Eletu Ijebu20 (chief of Ijebu affairs) chieftaincy in the largely Edo-dominated Akarigbere class. The head of this class was the Eletu Odibo. Although it was the responsibility of the Eletu Odibo to crown a new Eleko, the process of the latter’s selection was somewhat more complex and followed some of the patterns noticeable among the Yoruba generally. The principle of primogeniture was not necessarily followed and all claimants to the throne were normally presented to the Ifa oracle for the selection of the best candidate. The candidate chosen by the Ifa was expected to take the body of the deceased Eleko to Benin for burial before his coronation in the same fashion that Benin rulers were expected to be buried in lie Ife at the legendary site ctf Orun Oba Ado. This practice was continued till 1851 when it was stopped by the British. In practical terms, the political system of Lagos before the cession treaty in 1861 ensured that the Eleko was the overall authority in the whole area and most of its immediate environs. Although the elders of the various component parts of the communities settled minor disputes and maintained the peace, more important matters were often'taken to Lagos for settlement.21 Even if the physical control of the Eleko was tenuous, his presence was felt through the activities of the various white cap chiefs that normally met fortnightly in Lagos to deliberate on issues affecting the society. This meeting was known as the Ose-Iga22 and it was largely a forum where the king and his lieutenants deliberated on issues affecting the welfare of the settlement. Whenever an issue required a general consensus of the whole town, a general meeting of the people was called. This was the Ilupeju (the town meets) and the meetings were usually held at the Ilepesi (i.e. the town meets over this) where a general decision was usually taken. Incidentally, this type of institution has been found to have operated among the Awori of the southwestern borders of Lagos.23 This would perhaps suggest that the institution may in fact predate the coming of the Edo, although there is nothing against assuming that it was introduced to those areas from But the existence of the Ilupeju did not mean that decisions were usually taken by , general consensus. Rather and more often than not, political decisions were taken bv an oligarchy made up of the Eleko and his white cap chiefs. Many explanations exist for the origin of the “white caps" in Lagos. One view is that these were originally the lining or inner cloth of the crowns and were worn more often than the latter which was found to be more cumbersome and heavier.** This view may not suffice. It is more probable that white caps may in fact have originated from the usual habit of the

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original inhabitants of the Lagos (the Idejo) who wore white head dress when worshipping their deities. The invading Benin warriors and their leaders would seem to have copied this from the Idejo subsequently. In the more recent times, it became extended to all classes of chiefs in Lagos in an attempt to bring about uniformity in their official dressing. In spite of this uniformity in dressing, there were still differences in the duties and offices performed by the different chiefs. In fact, the chiefs belonged to different classes with different focus in terms of roles and traditional functions in the society. The origin and function of Akarigbere or first class chiefs has already been mentioned. They are followed by the Idejo — the collective name for all the original landowning class of Lagos and who enjoyed rights of control over the land of Lagos and most of its immediate environs. The Idejo were the ones who operated a confederal type of political system in the pre-Benin period. Their inclusion in the political machinery of the Edo era stemmed from the reorganisation introduced by Akinsemoyin in the mid-18th century whereby he grouped all the chiefs and elders into different classes. While the nucleus of the political and administrative assistants sent with Asipa from Benin were grouped under the Akarigbere or first cla$s chieftaincy with the Abere or bl^ded sword as their insignia; the original landowners, the fdejo became the second class chiefs with the Oluinegbon as their head and the lya or horsetail as their insignia of office; the traditional physicians and Ifa priests were grouped under the Obanikoro to form the Ogalade or third class chiefs with Abebe or fan as their insignia; the war captains or military chiefs were made the fourth class chiefs known as the Abagbon25 with the top hat or Kerevesi as their insignia of office. While the Akarigbere and Idejo performed political and economic functions respective the. Ogalade and the Abagbon were mostly in charge of the material and spiritual upliftment of the people as well as the defence of the ruling class and the territorial integrity of the society respectively. In the period between 1°600 and mid-1700, the governmental system in Lagos appeared largely monarchical with the Eleko or Ologun enjoying vast powers over the people and available resources. It was also a period in which the powers of the viceroy however vast and all-embracing it may appear in theory, was actually tenuous in practical terms as the period was largely that of consolidation of Benin control. In addition-, it was also the period that Lagos was largely a frontier town26 most useful to Benin invaders as war camp from which punitive expeditions were carried out on neighbouring communities. The measure of control enjoyed by the Eleko during this early period was thus largely ensured as a result of the element of military force at its disposal. In fact, it has been pointed put that the early period pf Benin control in Lagos was also that of conscious attempt by some original settlers to assert their freedom. This would perhaps explain the refusal of the Oloto to recognise the control of or overlordship of the Benin who had over the years attacked the Idejo capital of lie Olofin without much success. For a long time, the Edo lived on the Lagos Island with their Awori counterparts while the Oloto27 and his people lived peacefully on the Iddo Island. They both saw each other as equal until Lagos became vastly more prosperous than Iddo as the slave trade developed. The impact of the slave trade on the political developments of Lagos was fundamental. The development of Lagos as a “veritable slave emporium”28 especially with the decline of the slave ports of Allada and Whydah in the early 18th century as a result of the Dahomey wars, brought about a new definition of the role and powers

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of the ruling elites. Unlike the states of the Yoruba interior, the Eleko found it increasingly irresistible to partake in the new booming trade in human cargoes. At the same time, it was just as well that he was getting personally interested as his chiefs who could have represented his interest were equally fascinated by the prospects of quick money which the slave trade offered. More fundamentally, power and influence in the Lagos society became gradually but steadily a matter of status which invariably was derived from wealth accruable from the slave trade. Soon enough the machineries of government became manipulable by the richmen of the slave trade era. The different chiefs seized the opportunity of the new wealth to become more assertive at the Ose Iga as they found it more financially convenient to perform the Iwuye29 ceremonies which entitled them to more recognised participation in the administration of the society. This situation of a more assertive council of chiefs often assisted by the wealthy but non-titled individuals may have informed the position of Patrick Cole that the government of Lagos was essentially an oligarchy.30 However, the interesting thing about the Lagos oligarchy is that well after the abolition of the slave trade, it remained very much important and formed the nucleus of the traditional elite group which mobilised the traditional populace against British rule in the early 20th century.31 •The impact of the slave trade on the politics was also noticeable in the area of succession and inheritance. Like most Yoruba societies, the system of monarchical succession in Lagos was limited to the royal household generally. There is no known occasion when the Lagos throne was occupied by a female. The circle of eligible candidates for the Lagos throne was however limited to the Omo-ori-ite, i.e. those born while the deceased Eleko was reigning. Were this rule followed in all cases, it is possible that the society of Lagos may have been saved some of the violent social and political uprisings that punctuated its, history especially in the 19th century.32 A somewhat wretched admixture of purely traditional Yoruba system of choosing a successor to the throne through the Ifa divination and the gerontocratic wielding of powers by a loosely defined council of chiefs or kingmakers became a ready milieu for a new social relations generated by the profits from the slave trade which soon became a constant source of political upheavals between 1800 and 1851. In this regard, the various princes of the Lagos royalty who, as a result of the wealth accruing to the ruler from the slave trade, often became attracted to the throne and as such bitterly engaged in rivalry and disputes for the throne. Irrespective of what factors traditional accounts might suggest for the phenomena of political disputes and civil uprisings in 19th century Lagos, it would appear that the major reason is to be found in the impact of the new slave trade economy on the politics of the society. Indeed, between 1805 (after the death of Eleko Ologun Kutere) and 1851 when the British violently and militarily intervened in the politics of Lagos, one important feature of the socio-political scene of this society was in-fighting for the throne among the princes. As a result of this, disputes occurred between Esilokun and Adele c.1819; and between Kosoko and Oluwole (c.1835); and Kosoko and Akintoye, 1845.33 In some cases, these disputes assumed the dimension of civil uprisings on a scale capable of and actually threatening the peace of society. Such civil wars and disturbances as the 1835 Ewekoko war between Oluwole and descendants of Esilokun as well as the Olomiro (salt water) was between Akintoye and Kosoko in 1845 are typical examples of this regard. The frequency of the disputes over the throne at the death of many a Lagos ruler was such that one may be tempted to conclude that its socio-political

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history between 1800 and 1850 was largely that of turbulence. Indeed, it could have continued had the British not taken over the administration of the society and its immediate environs because the control of the politics was a sure avenue to unlimited wealth through customs dues and tax over the goods that exchanged hands in the geo-polity of Lagos. „ , „ . . , This was essentially the political picture of Lagos before 1851 when the British bombarded Lagos arid re-instated Akintoye. However, between 1853 and 1900, the British ensured that only candidates that were favourably disposed to their interests ascended the throne and this appears to be the root of the effective overthrow of the traditional system of succession in Lagos and along the established line of other Yoruba kingdom.34 The same process was noticeable at the deqth of Dosunmu in 1885 when his son, Oyekan was installed in 1900 when Prince Esugbayi was invited from his fishing job to be the Eleko of Lagos. \ _ ■-» ■

*

The Economy of Lagos Before 1900 Hunting and farming were popular calling amongst Yoruha people generally and it is no surprise therefore that pre-20th century Lagosians being predominantly Yoruba were most'y farmers and hunters. However, it should not be construed to mean that hunting and farming were the only activities which they engaged in. Indeed, being an Island, early Lagosians took to fishing alongside these other callings. By the end of the 19th century, a picture of the economic organisation and commercial activities of Lagos had become clearer and easy to discern. Broadly, these included fishing, farming, hunting, smithing, salt-making, wine tapping, and a wide and intricate network of trading system that involved not only daily and periodic market activities but also short and long distance trading practices. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that at the twilight of the 18th and 19th centuries, the phenomenon of slave trade became a significant feature of Lagos commerce. So important was the slave trade that one could be tempted to conclude that it was the most important feature of the economic set-up in the society. But as will be shown subsequently, this is largely an erroneous view as it was ^ transient phenomenon in the commercial history of Lagos before 1900. Traditions of earliest settlement of the Lagos area made reference to some migrant groups from Ile-Ife led by a powerful hunter, Ogunfunminire who had earlier used the Iseri area as a hunting ground.35 In the follow up drama of further settlement and dispersal of the earliest group, the art of hunting was developed further and thus became an important part of daily existence especially in terms of provision of protein. However, by the end of the 19th century, hunting had become a past time for both the European colonial officials as well as the growing class of educated elites. This latter group in fact went one or two steps further by the beginning of the 20th century by forming the Lagos Hunters Union with the aim of “developing good marksmanship and to keep men well skilled in game hunting.”36 In the case of fishing, its popularity as an economic activity should not be surprising. The people were mostly fishermen and in fact, the modern metropolis of Lagos was said to have started as a resting place for fishermen.37 The type of Fishing undertaken by these early Lagosians was perhaps lagoon fishing as opposed to the deep sea fishing which was more common with some of her eastern neighbours. Nevertheless, the

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fishing activities of the Lagosians were aided significantly by the use of canoes which were built from burnt woods supplied from the eastern part of her boirders especially the Lekki and Makun areas.^8 Most of the fish procured from their fishing trips were mostly for domestic consumption and only a few quantity was sold as a kind oi export. In this regard, the commonest type of exported fish was the smoked or dried ohes, the preparation of which was aided by the ready availability of salt. Salt-making from both the lagoon and sea water was another popular economic activity in Lagos before 1900. Salt-making, like fishing, was said to have been introduced into Lagos by the tlaje and Ijo peoples who were (and still are) predominantly fishing settlements to the east of Lagos. Yet in the period under consideration, non-Lagosians needed to obtain permission from the relevant Idejo who might be holding claim over the lagoon or sea portion of the shelf before any fishing could take place. In return for permission to fish in the area, the strangers were expected to pay some stipends.39 Lagos was however more popular for its trading activities, both as a centre and as the land of traders. As has been pointed out already, the people of Lagos operated a vast network of trading activities for which a contemporary observer described them as having: a policy to be ... themselves the traders rather than brokers. They went in their canoes to Ardrah and Badagiy and to the towns situated at the north-east extremities of the Cradoo lake where they purchased slaves, “Jaboo cloth” and other articles of domestic consumption.

Like other Yoruba societies, slave was an important element of Lagos commercial activity but definitely not the only one. Indeed, long before the beginning of slave trade, Lagos was a useful venue for trade in articles of domestic consumption which Captain J.B. Adams noted towards the end of the 18th century at the Ebute Ero market as being very much in abundance and well within the reach of the common men. The Ebute Ero market was particularly noted for its popularity with people from far and near who came to trade there. So also was the Obun Eko market, probably established by the Ijebu and where periodic market activities were undertaken by all and sundry. . . , At the domestic level, daily markets were operated by Lagosians where articles of daily need were exchanged. It is still not clear what exactly was the mode of exchange but it is generally assumed that trade was by barter until cowrie shells, European goods and later currency notes were introduced. By the time that slave trade was introduced, human beings became an added article of trade as well as a measure of value. In this regard, human beings were easily exchanged for European goods such as umbrella, gin and rum, mirror and cloths. Nevertheless it should be noted that much as slave trade dominated and almost eclipsed the other forms of commercial activities, it was not the only feature. Its impact on the domestic economy was the decline of the trade in other articles although the latter did not witness any complete collapse. The other impact of slave trade on the socio-political set up of the Lagos society as enumerated earlier is that it brought about a new social class with a new concept of status symbol. This new class was the few wealthy individuals who were made rich by the trade and who used their wealth as a stepping stone into political reckoning in the society. Their status symbol like those of the royal or chiefly classes included the possession of European goods and building their houses in a new architectural style which was

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admixture of local and Portuguese style. By the middle of the 19th century, the economic history of Lagos had become largely reflective of the many influences to which it was opened because of its motley nature. Within the traditional set up, a section of the settlement was developed as a haven of blacksmithing and befittingly named Isale Agbede.42 But among the returnees, trading especially mercantile ones and Europe an-oriented artisanship and crafts became noticeable features. The Sierra Leone returnees, known locally as Krio (Creoles) or Saro were mostly traders and did much to improve the import and export trade of Lagos.43 The freed slaves from Brazil and Cuba on the other hand, developed into a vast population of bricklayers, tailors, carpenters etc.44 and other artisans, individually and collectively, brought vast developments into the economy of Lagos. Their impacts were not limited to the commercial sphere alone. These impacts were equally pronounced in the socio-cultural spheres.

Socio-Religious Developments Like its political history, the socio-cultural developments of the society of Lagos followed a pattern discernible in the politjpal sphere where two periods could be identified and after which a convenient blend was forced between them. In the pre-Benin era, different kinds of religious activities were performed in order to bring about material and spiritual upliftment of the people. For instance, the Onitari which was a group of religious and spiritual leaders, performed the ceremonies of propitiation (etutu) for the Olofin. Individually, the various chieftaincy houses (like other Yoruba societies) had their different religious practices. A few examples will suffice. The Oniru was in charge of the propitiations to the goddess of the ocean, Olokun for whom an annual elaborate festival was performed to avoid flooding on the ocean banks;45 the Onitana performed sacrifices during the rainy season to the Onita (the legendary first settler on the Island) in order to avoid calamities;46 the Oloto performed the Agba ritual which lasted some seven days in order to “bring prosperity to the people”.47 With the coming of the Edo into Lagos on a more permanent basis, some other forms of religious practice were introduced. Perhaps the most popular of these was the Ikanse at Oju-Egun48 (i.e. supplication at ancestral shrine). This form of ancestral worship soon became common to all traditional title holders in Lagos and it is usual to find each chieftaincy house (known as Iga) with its own Oju-Egun (ancestral shrine) within its household. Apart from this, the royalty introduced some other religious practices which were however restricted to the royal circles. Some of these included the worship of Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron, and Esu as well as Edan Ara and Osanyin Ibeji.^9 Clearly there was a freedom of religion in the society and in both the pre-and post-Benin eras one may conclude that almost every corner of the settlement had one form of spiritual practice or the other. It would appear that it was this atmosphere of relative freedom that encouraged the easy run which Islam and Christianity had in Lagos. The actual date of the beginning of Islam in Lagos is still largely speculative, but there is no doubt that by the 1790s, it was being practiced as far south of Lagos as Ba'dagry. Gbadamosi has suggested that Islam got to Lagos through its northern neighbours such as the Ijebu, Ibadan and farther still, Ilorin.50 I.A3, Balogun opfned

The Coastal Scene: The Yoruba of Lagos Society Before 1900 91 that the first mosque was built at Idoluwo in 1776.51 It would then appear reasonable to suggest that Lagos has witnessed the presence of Islam as far back as the 1760s although it may have been on a rather quiet and low-keyed level. By the first decade of the 19th century, Islam had become reasonably popular with some members of the royalty openly embracing it.52 In fact, at the outbreak of the civil war between Akitoye and Kos6ko in 1845. the majority of the latter’s supporters were muslims who were in the majority. On the other hand, Christianity did not enjoy as much followership as Islam at its advent, first during the sojourn of Portuguese traders and much later after the slave trade was abolished. It may be that the indigenous population was skeptical about the intentions of the missionaries who were mostly seen as the successors to the slave traders. The growth of Christianity in Lagos took place much after it was introduced into Badagry about 1842.53 But significantly, its growth on the Lagos Island was engendered more by the sanctuary it offered to deviants and those persecuted by the ruling class. The latter group found the Missionary house near the present Christ Church Cathedral a refugee camp and more like a castle where the occupants were readily and sympathetically disposed to their problems. Christianity subsequently made its journey/to other parts of Yorubaland from Lagos. Religious practices in traditional African societies were often bound with some other forms of cultural activities more akin to entertainment and those of the Yoruba people were no exception. The Lagos society being predominantly Yoruba, and indeed an integral part of it, was very much a veritable pattern of this phenomenon. Indeed, a prince of the royal household had written in 1954 that: the people had faith in festivals to appease the goddesses of the lagoon and of the sfea to propitiate them so that the people who were mainly fishermen could be abundantly rewarded.54 Some festivals were not necessarily for religious purposes although it may be difficult to discern a dividing line between religion and pure entertainment. To this category belongs Eyo, the Adamu Orisa festival of Lagos. Believed to be the most picturesque and popular social festival in Lagos, the Eyo is staged in memory of deceased Oba, Chief or prominent personalities in Lagos as part of the final funeral rites of the dead. Along the same lines, various forms of Egungun festivals were introduced into Lagos by some of its Yoruba neighbours. Most prominent in this regard were the Awori of the southwest of Lagos who introduced such masquerades as Alagbada, Alabala and Erudi56 while the Iseyin and Oyo people introduced the Oya and Adegboro (Obebe). Other forms of masquerades introduced into Lagos included Igunnuko by the Nupe, it was used as a form of socio-religious festival held annually to cleanse the society and pray for its prosperity. Although the ustfal form of Gelede appeared to have been introduced by the Egbado, another form known as Alapafuja57 was introduced by Abijoh, a returnee from Brazil. But apart from the foregoing festivals and masquerades with which the pre-colonial Lagosians tended to enjoy themselves, there were yet others that were noticeable. These included the purely indigenous music and entertainment pattern and those that were introduced much later after the returnees had settled in Lagos. The former was essentially in the area of traditional music and songs which often, apart from their entertainment value were also repository of past events in the society. Indeed, M.J.C. Echeruo has pointed out that every social event was recorded in the memory of the women58 of Lagos and these were easily recalled

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through the various songs made therefrom. The music indigenous to Lagos was Keri-Keri and Batakoto59 which may indeed be an offshoot of the Sakara and Apala music common among the Yoruba people generally. Other ones included Igbe and Gbedu which were mostly limited to the royalty. However, by the end of 19th century, the social scene in Lagos had witnessed some additions to its already packed and stimulating entertainment industry. By the 1850s when new settlers were moving into Lagos from Sierra Leone and South America, new forms of entertainment started to feature in the social history of the settlement. The Saro, introduced the Garretta masquerade while those from Cuba brought into existence, such entertainment phenomena as the Bonfin festival and the Meuboi masquerade. The latter group also introduced the samba drum into Lagos and popularised various kinds of Portuguese or Brazilian culture. On the other hand, the Saro became the harbinger of western culture and not too surprisingly dominated Victorian Lagos as they controlled the press and the mercantile trade as well as education and Christianity of the Anglican persuasion. By the dawn of the 20th century, Lagos had become in all respects, a motley community of a rather unique " blend of various peoples, cultures and persuasion and this seemed to engender a positive inter-group relations although it still retained its predominant “Yorubaness”.

Aspects of Intergroup Relations The cosmopolitan nature of Lagos is decidedly historical rather than accidental. By the end of the 19th century, the population of Lagos showed a diversity of people that had come to shape the direction of its sociocultural, economic and political developments. Apart from the autochtonous Awori Yoruba who could be regarded as the earliest settlers, and the Edo who were said to have settled there after them, Lagos by the beginning of 1900 was made up of the returnees from Sierra Leone and South America; the small number of Europeans, mainly British, French, Dutch and Portuguese; and a host of other peoples from different parts of modem Nigeria. At the same time, the Lagos society retained its essential Yoruba features. It evolved and .sustained various forms of social and cultural traits which were unmistakably Yoruba, and these were exemplified by the different sociocultural and political institutions that were visible in Lagos of this period. The activities of people from other parts of Yorubaland in Lagos such as the Egbado who introduced the Gelede, the Ijebu who introduced Eyo and a host of other cultural or customary phenomenon which still survive today continue to reinforce the essential Yojruba attributes of Lagos Society up tin the end of the 19th century. In terms of linguistic consideration, the language of the indigenous (far from that of the later immigrants) populations of Lagos was and still is essentially Awori, a sub-group of the Yoruba. Yet in temporal dimensions, Lagos had not been in practical terms an Island unto itself, and it interacted with her neighbours and vice-versa. In the pre-colonial times, Lagos acted not only as the Crowning authority over some of her neighbours, but also contributed immensely to, the founding of a number of them.60 These towns were essentially Awori towns either to its immediate surrounding in the east, or west.61 Significantly, Lagos played an important role in the eventual settlement of the 19th century political crisis that engulfed the whole of Yorubaland through the

The Coastal Scene: The Yornba of Lagos Society Before 1900

93

instrumentality of Europeans who made it the centre of diplomatic activities designed to bring the warring factions to the negotiating tables. Yet it should be remembered that Lagos did much to heighten tension in the Yoruba interior because of the activities of the returnees who used their position in Lagos to acquire and supply ammunitions to the warring parties in the hinterland. At the same time, the relationship between pre-20th century Lagos and her neighbours was not one-sided. It is salient to point out that Lagos influenced her neighbours as much as she was influenced by them. The growth of the traditional economy of Lagos in the period under consideration could be seen in the light of the activities of many of her neighbours who patronised her markets and brought agricultural products from the hinterland.6^ Even from the viewpoint of settiement, those returnees who came back from either Sierra Leone or South America appeared to have done so because as Yoruba, many of them remembered that it was from Lagos that they were transported abroad. In the final analysis, the migration to Lagos of these people has tended- to enhance the status of the metropolis as the economic headquar ters of not only the Yoruba but also of the whole of modem Nigeria. *

Conclusion

'

''

. '

I

r ‘

1

f

• ■

‘

'

1

f

, ;

The question of the evolution and development of Lagos within the framework of urbanization and change has been very attractive as a subject of study. This chapter has highlighted the basic pattern of the growth of what I have described elsewhere as Nigeria’s economic lifeline. Yet it will be erroneous to assume that because of its dOsmopolitan and Metropolitan nature, Lagos has lost its traditionality or originality. In the '20th century, the traditional political history of Lagos has reflected a consistent struggle for the retention pf its identity. Early in the centuiy, traditional elites joined forces with modern ones to engage the colonial administration in a battle of wits over the rights of the indigenous population to run its own affairs. Between 1900 and 1950, the political history of Lagos could be described as that of turbulence as traditional elements viewed colonial administration with disgust and saw it essentially as an undue interference in their affairs. Between 195Q and 1967, a different kind of battle was visible and this had to do with the status of Lagos within the Nigerian geopolity. In the event, modern Yoruba elite who were in politics fought to prevent the excision of Lagos from the rest of Yorubaland,6^ One of the major arguments put forward was that Lagos was an integral part of Yorubaland of which the old Western Region was just a political or geographical expression. Although this irredentist dimension to the modern liistory of Lagos did not prevent the creation of a separate state of Lagos in 1967, the dynamics of historical development and urbanisation has not necessarily obliterated the essential features of a Yoruba society which it is in real terms. -—

/'

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Culture and Society in Yorubaland

Notes 1.

The Lagos Society being examined here is the city of Lagos (down town Lagos or Isale Eko) and its immediate environs, e.g. Ebute Metta, Yaba, Ijora, Apapa, Agege, Isolo, etc. which all make up Greater Lagos. 2. A.B. Aderibigbe. Early History of Benin People I.U.P 1960; RA. Talbot The Peoples of Southern Nigeria 2 Vols, London, 1926, Alan Bums, History of Nigeria, London, 1946, RD. Cole, Modern and Traditional Elites in the Politics of Lagos, C.U.R, 1975. 3. See for instance ibid. 4. C.M.S., 1914. 5. Details of the Aina episode and origin of Benin hegemony in Lagos can be found in Losi, J.B.O. op. cit., p. 5. 6. See CSO 1/29939 Intelligence Report on Ikeja Districts, National Archives, Ibadan. 7. See Funso Akere’s chapter on linguistic factor in the history of Lagos in Ade Adefuye et al A History of the Peoples of Lagos State, Lantern Books, 1987. 8. I hope to develop this theme elsewhere as ‘The relevance of the Mahin. Factor in Lagos History.’ 9. Iwe Itan Eko. 10. Oral accounts refer to him as a mighty man full of wisdom. 11. Duarte Pacheco Perreira (trans. and ed. by G.H.T. Kimble) Esmeraldo de situ Orbis, 1937. 12. Cited by B.A. Agiri and Sandra T. Barnes, ‘Lagos Before 1603,’ in Adefuye et ai (eds.), A History of the People of Lagos State, op. cit. 13. This is an Awori word meaning Idun: Place; and Iganran: Pepper. Aderibigbe would rather use the phrase “Oko and Eko represent two different periods in the history of Lagos,” op. cit. 14. Onita probably nicknamed Aromire (lover of water). 15. For instance the Oluwa was said to have been married to one of the daughters of Eleko Akinsemoyin (c. 1749) and he allocated a section near hisi place to him to build his chieftaincy house (Iga). 16. _ For instance the population census of 1871 gave a breakdown of the different number of non-indigenes than living in Lagos. 17. Aderibigbe, A.B., ‘Early History to 1850, op. cit. 18. See CSO 26/31154/S4A Onilegbale Family claims to certain land in Lagos (NAI). 19. Ade Adefuye, ‘Akinsemoyin and the rise of Modem Lagos,’ in Adefuye, et al (eds.), A History of the Peoples of Lagos State, op. cit 20. The first Eletu Ijebu was reputed to have introduced to Lagos, the cult of Osugbo (Ogboni} — a traditional secret society which performed judicial functions in most Yoruba society 21. See CSO 26/29939 Int. Report on Ikeja Districts NAI. 22. The Ose Iga may be literarily translated as “the week of the palace.” It was usually held every forthmght and membership was opened to all white cap chiefs although only those who had performed the lwuye could take active part in the deliberations. 23. This is examined in a survey work the writer is presently doing on the Awori-speaking peoples of Lagos State. 24. CSO 26/30030 Int. Report on Badagry Districts, NAI. 25. The name Abagbon is said to have been derived from the hairstyle worn by members of this group. They are usually clean shaven but leave a small patch of hair (Agbon) on the hill of the head, hence the name. 26. See the Diary of Joshua Andreas Ulsheimer cited in Agiri and Barnes ‘Lagos Before 1603,’ in Adefuye et al, op. cit 27.

The Oloto seemed to have succeeded the Olofin as ruler of Idoo although he did not take the title. See Aderibigbe, A.B. ‘Early History to 1850.’

The Coastal Scene; The Yoruba of Lagos Society Before 1900 28. 29.

30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55

56. 57.

95

This commercial picture of Lagos was still true up to the 1850s. Sir Richard Burton in fact described it as a veritable slave emporium in his Wanderings in Africa, London, 1863. The Iwuye ceremonies are a series of activities marking the official installation of a chief ' or Eleko. A chief who did not perform the Iwuye was not allowed to talk at the Ose Iga or sit'down on a chair or even allowed to wash his hands after eating in the Eleko’s palace. RD. Cole, Modem and Traditional Elites in the Politics of Lagos, C.U.R, 1975. Details of the growth gjid activities of the oligarchy can be found in my “The role of the Ilu Committee in the Politics of Lagos Society — 1990-1950.” in Odu 35, Jan. 1989. See Law, R.C.G. See Losi J.B., History of Lagos, op. cit. A useful summary of this phenomenon ran also be found in ^ despatch by Captain J.H. Glover (administrator) to Secretary of States for the Colonies in 1863: “The ex-king Decemo is both rogue and fool ... I would like to suggest to your Grace that H.M.’s Government impress upon him like that he was not king by his own right or might, anti that same power which placed his father as king of Lagos and who at his death, took him out of a fishing, canoe and made him king against the wish of his chiefs, had full right to unking him,” see CSO 26/29939 NAI. See Losik J.B. History of Lagos, op. cit., for the details. See CSO 26/23610/S620 in NAI. Losi, op. cit. See R.S. Smith The Lagos Consulate 1851-1861, Macmillan, 1978, Chapter 1. Union of Colony Fishermen to Chief Secretary of the Federation, 16 April, 1956 in CSO 26/38322/S .887 in NAI. J.B. Adams, Remarks on the country extending from Lake Palamas to the River Congo, London, 1823. Some of the towns visited by early Lagosians included Ojo, Iworo and Badargy to the south-west, and Agbowa, Ikorodu, Ijede, Ejinrin, etc. to the north-east. lbi±

Lit: ‘Blacksmiths section or quarter’. It was situated on the site of modem St. John’s Church Aroloya in Lagos. See J.H. Kopytoff, A Preface of Modern Nigeria, Madison, 1965. A.B. Laotan, “Torch Bearers or Old Brazilian Colony ...” Nigerian Magazine No,69,1961. Interview with Chief Oniru of Lagos, Feb., 1987. Interview with Chief Onitana of Lagos, Feb., 1987. Interview with Alhaji Fagbayi c. 75 yrs., Feb., 1987. T.G.O. Gbadamosi: “Aspects of Lagos Religious History,” in Aderibigbe (ed.), Lagos: The Development of an African City, op. cit. Interview with Chief Y. Taiwo the Baariyo of Lagos, Feb., 1987.

A more detailed study of the growth of Islam in Lagos can be found in T.G.O. Gbadamosi,, The Growth of Islam among the Yoruba, Longman, 1979. I.A.S. Balogun, “Excellence lbr LASU.’ Send off Lecture delivered in the Lagos State University, 1986. Losi, History of Lagos, op. cit. J.F. Ade-Ajayi, Christian Missions in Modem Nigeria, Longmans, 1965. Prince TAJ. Ogunbiyi, ‘Origins and early History of Lagos,’in Nigerian Fields, 19,2,1954, p. 66. An account of its origin, role and scope can be found in Kunle A. Lawal and Alaba Simpson, Eyo: The Adamu Orisa Festival of Lagos, A LASU Commissioned Research Project, forthcoming. Gbadamosi, ‘Aspects of Lagos Religious History, op. cit. ALapafuja is a masquerade with a protruding arm tending' towards being bogus. Hence the name ALapafuja, i.e. the one with the bogus arm.

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Culture and Society in YorubaLand

,

;

58. . M.J.C. Echeruo, Victorian Lagos, Macmillan, 1978. 59. Kerikeri and Batakoto were so popular that “women often followed its musicians for days without going back to their houses.” Ibid. ■ ' 60. See S.T. Barnes, Patrons and Power: Creating a political community in metropolitan Lagos, Manchester Univ. Press, 1986. , 61. Some of these are Bariga, Mushin, Somolu, Oshodi, etc. Ibid. 62. For example, vegetable from Ikorodu; palm kernel and coconut from her south-western neighbours in the Awori towns of Ojo Iworo and Ilogbo; as well as cloth from Ijebu. 63. See ’Kunle Lawal, ‘Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the politics of the creation of Lagos State 1950-1967.’ Paper presented at the Conference on Chief Obafemi Awolowo: the end of an era? Obafemi Awolowo University, October, 1987.

8

Yoruba Intergroup Relations and Diplomacy R.A. OLANIYAN and A.G. ADEBAYO

Introduction Over a decade ago, the first step was taken to study Yoruba diplomacy.1 This has stimulated further works,2 and it can now be said that the interest in relations between pre-colonial African states and peoples has proved rewarding. We have chosen to return to this theme here, both to sustain that academic interest, and to utilise new empirical data that have come to light on ths subject. Indeed, in the last two decades, research activities have increased on Oyo and other Yoruba groups, and our understanding of the relations between these groups as well as the conduct of Yoruba diplomacy has been enhanced. This study intends to benefit from these more recent works, and to reach firm and definitive conclusions.

The Yoruba State System Students of international relations employ many concepts in their analysis of relations between states in modern times. Some of these, when appropriately adapted, can be found useful in the study of pre-colonial African situations. The' concept of ‘international political system’ is one of such concepts. An international system is defined by Joseph Frankel as ‘a number of units which interact’. He elaborates further that it is clear that these units conduct their relations not in a vacuum but within a broader system which evolves its own structure, norms and rules of behaviour. Grounding themselves in the works of such scholars as Herbert Spiro, Charles McClelland, Samuel Beer, Norman Padelford et al, Olusola Ojo apd Amadu Sesay4 have identified the following as features of the international system: N

- 1.

2.

3.

o

the state is the most basic unit of thh system; thus, the system can be seen as a collection of states constantly interacting both at the official or governmental, and unofficial levels; , . the system'is highly decentralised, i.e. there'is no central administrative, political or military authority; this decentralisation allows for a high degree of interdependence among the units or states; the actions of the states are guided by enlightened self interest, and policies are conducted to conform to norms and rules of intercourse accepted by all the component units of the system.

Adapting this concept, and characterising the Yoruba state system, of necessity, involves a valued reference to lEbi Commonwealth’, one of the most controversial concepts in Yoruba historiography. Since its suggestion by Professor I.A. Akinjogbin 97

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Culture and Society in Yorubaland

in 1967,5 the Ebi concept has continued to draw pugilists on both sides.6 Akinjogbin would prefer that an African phenomenon be explained within the context of African historical and cultural experiences, not on any theoretical formulation, especially when the theory has a foreign origin. This preference is quite understandable, as antagonists of the Ebi concept have relied on theory as well as empirical evidence in their arguments. The fact is that, only by a greater reliance on theory can any hypothesis be convincing, a fact that is also recognised in philosophy of history. As will soon be demonstrated, the concept of ‘Yoruba state system’ goes to confirm Akinjogbin’s Ebi concept while at the same time straightens out some of the controversial positions taken by the antagonists of the Ebi concept. What is taken as the Yoruba state system in this study coincides geographically with the boundaries of Yorubaland which Samuel Johnson has delimited as lying: to the immediate-West of the River Niger (below the confluence) and South of the Quorra (i.e., the Western branch of the same River above the confluence), having Dahomey on the West and the Bight of Benin to the South. It is roughly speaking between latitude 6° and 9° North, and longitude 2°30' and 6°30' .East.7 There is no doubt that in this system there were many states (or kingdoms). Their number is not clear: seven, sixteen, twenty-one, and twenty-six have been mentioned. The origin of each of the states has also been the subject of much controversy, the debate increasingly iriade more complex by two fairly related issues: the existence of more than one account of the tradition of origin of each state, and the contemporary search for legitimacy and seniority by the numerous fractions and factions of the riding class in each state. What is not in dispute is the fact that the ruling group in most of the states claim descent from Oduduwa and Ile-Ife. Moreover, each of the kingdoms was independent and autonomous in its internal affair. According to Adediran, the major Yoruba states are: The Yagba, Owo, Akoko, Ekiti, Igbomina, Ijesa, Ife, Ilaje and Ondo in the east; the Oyo, Egba, Owu, Egbado, Awori and Ijebu in the centre and the Sabe, Ketu, Anago, Idaisa, Manigri, Isa and Ana in the West.8 The above were the ‘state actors’ in the Yoruba international political system. Each of them had well defined boundaries recognised by the others and respected as such. The states conducted relations bilaterally or multilaterally depending upon the specific situation. As we shall'soon demonstrate, these relations might be peaceful or conflictive depending upon the circumstances. The Yoruba state system was highly decentralised. Each of the states had a monarchical system of government. Most of the monarchs could trace their origin, the origin of their crown and other instruments of office to Ile-Ife. Indeed, all Yoruba people look upon Ile-Ife as their place of origin. This, fact conferred some position of significance on Ile-Ife. In any case, the provision that the erirun must be kept sacrosanct ensured the survival of Ile-Ife, small, weak, and defenceless. On the other hand, in spite of its extensive size and proven military strength, Oyo was not regarded as the power centre for all Yoruba. This raises the question that brings us back to the Ebi Commonwealth. If the system was so decentralised, and if neither Ile-Ife nor Oyo was considered youths, money, expensive clothes, powerful gods etc. This was similar to the situation of an inter-state war in which a victor had clearly emerged- the terms of the peace, the boundary adjustment, the number of prisoners to provide and the amount to pay as indemnity, all were dictated by the victor. In extreme circumstances this might involve the total and wanton destruction of the community of the vanquished and the pronouncement of an interdict on the city. Typical examples were Old Oyo4i and Owu. A stalemate was a different matter entirely. This did not occur regularly enough in Yoruba warfare to enable us make generalisations. The stalemate that has been well documented is .the Ibadan-Ekitiparapo War, and its termination in 1886 involved the intervention oi third parties -- the Alaafin, the Oom-elect, and the British a ministration of Lagos. It also involved the application of something unprecedented in he annals of Yoruba history and intergroup relations — the signing (or was it the thumb-printing?) of a paper agreement in September 1886. However the events c-c

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1886 and beyond were to reveal the irrelevance (for the Yoruba) of this novel approach to war termination. In the first place, the agreement which had been ready since June could not be ‘signed’ until September. Neither the principal belligerents nor their allies were ready to initial the treaty. All had to wait until the Yoruba traditional ‘ceremony of ending a war was held at the appointed place on the battlefield. Secondly, some of those states who ‘signed’ the treaty felt they could not be bound by the agreements and repudiated them forthwith.42 A Yoruba peace treaty would not be repudiated like that. In 1986, as part of the academic conference organised to mark the Centenary of the Kiriji-Ekitiparapo Peace, a reconnaissance trip was made to the site of the ‘signing’ of the peace treaty.43 What was found is instructive on the Yoruba approach to war termination. The following pbservations are made from the site evidence. Firstly, war termination involved boundary adjustments, and the new boundaries were delineated by the planting of dracaenia perennial tree (peregun). At this peace site, the two peregun trees still proudly stand demarcating the Ibadan-Ekitiparapo territories and reminding all belligerents of the cessation of hostilities. The advantages of peregun are in its perennial features (it is not easily destroyed by fire, it survives droughts, and it sprouts quickly if accidentally cut) as well as in the taboo the Yoruba have built around it — it must not be uprooted, and wherever peregun stands the area is regarded as sacred. Secondly, war termination involved the performance of certain rituals. At the Ekitiparapo site, there are ten stones (only about 10 cms of each can be seen above the ground) which indicate that something had been buried under the ground. Yoruba people sealed all major agreements with the soil (He) by symbolically drinking the soil (mu’le). Agreements sealed in this, way are meant to last forever. In other words, the process of war termination ii> Yoruba military tradition was enshrined in, and guided by the customary law to which the belligerents subscribed. These provisions gave Yoruba traditional ‘treaties’ characters of permanence and inviolability. The impression must not be giverrthat the system also perpetuated unjust treaties. For, agreements are known to haYe been broken when the weaker state or its leader became strong enough to take a revenge. A good example was the agreement Ogedengbe was said to have entered into in Ibadan, which agreement he broke in the face of newer political and military expediencies.

Conclusion

v

This chapter has re-visited intergroup relations and diplomacy in Yorubaland with renewed interest and profit. It has confirmed Professor Akinjogbin’s concept of Ebi Commonwealth, but it has also advanced the study a little further. A number of clearly definitive conclusions are reached. Firstly, the Yoruba people identified with (and are identified by) their states. In other words, a decentralised state system obtained in which each state possessed its own distinct dialect of the Yoruba language and variants of the Yoruba social, political and economic organisations. Secondly, descent from Oduduwa, or origin of the ruling elite fromlle-Ife (in short, blood relations among the people), was the main tie that bound the various peoples and states together. This blood relation was raised to an institutional level — the Ebi Commonwealth; but it was not strong enough to determine relations between Ife and

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imperial Oyo and other powerful kingdoms when they began to re-define their power positions. In any case, the Ebi Commonwealth did not survive the 19th century revolutions anithe revisions of the traditions in Yoruba states. Thirdly, in the conduct of intergroup relations and diplomacy, Yoruba peoples and states subscribed to, and devoutly observed, certain customary laws. The laws were even stronger than the Ebi Commonwealth in dealing with the changing patterns of relations. So strong were the customs that they were still employed in the 19th century, the period of marked and irreversible changes. Finally, relations among the peoples and states of Yorubaland were never static. The character of relations changed as rapidly as the relative power positions of the component states changed.

Notes 1.

2.

3. 4.

Richard Olaniyan, ‘Elements of Yoruba Traditional Diplomacy: An Assessment,’ in Wande Abimbola (ed.), Yoruba Oral Tradition: Poetry in Music, Dance and Drama (Ile-Ife: Department of African Languages Literature, 1975), pp. 293-332. Among such works are A.G. Adebayo and Toyin Falola, ‘Intergroup Relations in Nigeria,’ in Toyin Falola and Biodun Adediran (eds.), Nigeria: Peoples, States and Culture Before 1800 (Lagos: John West, 1986), pp. 177-193; Toyin Falola, ‘The Foreign Policy of Ibadan in the 19th Century,’ ODU: A Journal of West African Studies, No. 22, Jan/July 1982, pp. 91-108; Ade Adefuye, ’Ozeyga Adi and Wukari-Keana Relations,’ ODU, No. 22, pp. 154-187. Joseph Frankel, Contemporary Theory and the Behaviour of States (Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 47. Olusola Ojo and Amadu Sesay, Concepts in International Relations (Lagos: JAD Publishers,

1988), pp. 15-16. 5.

6.

I.A. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 1708-1818 (Cambridge University Press, 1967), pp. 14-19: or his ‘The Ebi System Reconsidered,’ Department of History Seminar Papers, 1978/79, pp. 1-25. The Ebi concept was attacked by the.Ibadan School of History See R.C.C. Law, The Oyo Empire C. 1600-1836: A Wet African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Clarendon, 1977); J.A. Atanda, The New Oyo Empire: Indirect Rule and Change in Western Nigeria, 1894-1934 (London: Longman, 1973): R.S. Smith, Kingdoms of the Yoruba

(London: Methuen, 1969). The concept has, on the other hand, received the support of the Ife School. See among others, Biodun Adediran, ‘Yoruba Ethnic Groups or a Yoruba Ethnic Group? Africa, Sao Paulo, No. 7, 1984, pp. 57-70, and Isola Olomola, ‘How Realistic are the Historical Claims of Affinity among the Yoruba,’ Department of History Seminar Papers, 1978/89, pp. 26-58. 7. Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yorubas (first published 1921, Lagos: CSS Bookshops reprint, 1976), p. XIX. A passing acknowledgement should be made here to that aspect of the growing literature on Yorubaland regarding the appropriateness of the name Yoruba to other groups than the Oyo. For a thorough discussion, see Biodun Adediran, op. cit. His conclusion that In spite of the dialectal and social variations, the Yoruba is a single cultural group from the point of view of a common language and a sense of common history (p. 70) is also well taken. 8. Biodun Adediran, ‘Yoruba Ethnic Groups,’ p. 58. 9. See A. Adetugbo, ‘The Yoruba Language in Yoruba History,’ in S.O. Biobaku (ed.), Sources of Yoruba History (Oxford, 1973), p. 177, 184-5; a'nd I.O. Delano, The Soul of Nigeria (London, 1977), pp. 157-197. 10. I.A. Akinjogbin, ‘The Ebi System Reconsidered,’ pp. 15-16.

Yoruba Intergroup Relations and Diplomacy 11.

111

These 19th century revolutionary events have been the subject of several vorks. A recent volume is I.A. Akinjogbin etal (eds.), War and Peace in Yorubaland, 1793-1893 (Ibadan: Heinemann, forthcoming). 12. Concerning some of these changes, especially relative to the position of kings in Yorubaland, see Biodun Adediran, ‘The 19th century wars and Yoruba royalty,’ in I.A. Akinjogbin, et al, op. cit. 13. RA. Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, 4 Vols. (London, 1926). 14. The problem with this formulation is that while the Ooni was generally accepted as the spiritual head of all Yorubas, presiding over the Irorun and taking care of the pan-Yoruba deities, the Alaafin was not accepted as the political and military head of the Yoruba beyond the Oyo Empire. 15. T.O. Elias made the remark in his contribution to a symposium on ‘Sovereignty within the Law’. See A. Larsen, (ed.) Sovereignty within the Law (New York, 1965), pp. 210-222. 16. Johnson, The History of the Yorubas, pp. 130-131. 17. Ibid. 18. Sir Ernest Satow, A Guide to Diplomatic Practice (London: Longman, 1975), p. 1. 19'. Olusola Ojo and Amadu Sesay, Concepts in International Relations, p. 141. 20. Richard Olaniyan, ‘Elements of Yoruba Traditional Diplomacy,’ p. 301. 21. ‘Foreign affairs officers’ of the various Yoruba states were appointed by the oba. These officers (ajele or ilari) often saw themselves as performing duties for the king, oba ran mi n’ise, ‘the king has delegated me’; or Iranse oba, (the king’s messenger). But then, ‘government’ in Yoruba language is ijoba and this might have confused the officer into ' believing he is working for the,oba. 22. This is not significantly different from the situation in 20th century Europe, particularly the conduct of foreign policy in the cold war era. Thus, in their foreign policy the satellite states of the NATO and Warsaw Pact are independent. But on issue affecting the whole Patt, or the leaders of the Pacts (USA for NATO, USSR for Warsaw) the states are to adopt the policies of the head of the satellites. For details, see Peter Calvocoressi, World Politics Since 1945 (London: Longman, 1968, 3rd Edition, 1977). 23. After the collapse of Oyo Empire, the successor state of Ibadan also employed the Ajele system in its foreign policy. For details, see Bolanle Awe, “The Ajele System: A Study of 19th Century Ibadan Imperialism,” JHSN, Vol. 3^ No. 1, 1966. 24. Samuel Johnson, History of the Yorubas, p. 61. 25. The Yoruba differentiate spying (ami) from tale-bearing (ofofo). Whereas a tale-bearer isuot paid (ofofo ko gba egbaaa), the spy is maintained and is seen as performing a useful task (ed oba n’ile, ed oba I’oko, eniyan nije bee). 26. Arnold Wolfers, ‘The Actors in World Politics,’ in Arnold Wolfers, (ed.) Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore Hopkins, 1962). See also Raymond E. Hopkins and Manshbach (eds.) Structure and Process in International Politics (New York: Harper and Row, 1973). 27. A.L. Mabogunje and J.D. Omer-Cooper, Owu in Yoruba History (Ibadan, I.U.R, 1971). 28. JohnsonHistory of the Yorubas,p. 187. 29. Law, The Oyo Empire, also his The Horse in West African History (London, OUD 1980) reviewed by Murray Last in JAH Vol. 23, No. 4, 1982. 30. -Mahdi Adamu, “Distribution of Trading Centres in the Central Sudan in the 18th and 19th Centuries,” in YB- Usman, Studies in the History of the Sokoto Caliphate (New York: Third Press International, 1979), pp. 80-81. 31. E. Adeniyi Oroge, The Institution of Slavery in Yorubaland with Particular Reference to the 19th Century. (Ph.D Thesis, Birmingham, 1971). 32. See Deji Ogunremi, ‘Human Porterage in Nigeria in the 19th Century. A Pillar in the Indigenous Economy,’ JHSN, Vol. Ill, No. 1, December, 1975, pp. 37-59.

112 33.

34. .35.

Culture and Society in Yorubaland An old work on this subject is still relevant today. See B.W. Hodder and UI. Ukwu, Markets in West Africa: Studies of Markets and Trade Among the Yoruba and Ibo (Ibadan, I.U. ., 1969), pp. 3-109. Johnson, History ofYorubas, pp. 19-20. „ , See Richard Olaniyan, “Elements of Yoruba Traditional Diplomacy, pp. 319-320; lunde Olowokeere and Gbenga Fagborun, “Systems of Communication in Yoruba Wars, ,m I.A. Akinjogbin, et al (eds.). Wdr and Peace in Yorubaland, pp. 481-506.

36. .Ibid. 37. Johnson, The History of the Yorubas, p. 131. 38. Ibid., pp. 219-301. . 39. ibid., pp. 486. 40. This event has been well examined in Richard Olaniyan “Conflict Reduction and War Termination,” in I.A. Akinjogbin et al, War and Peace in Yorubaland, pp. 537-573. 41. For a more recent article on this issue, see I.A. Akinjogbin, Wars in Yorubaland, 1793-1893: An Analytical Categorisation,’ in I.A. Akinjogbin et al (eds.) War and Peace 42.

43.

in Yorubaland, pp. 47-90.( R.A. Olaniyan, ‘Conflict Reduction and War Termination,’ pp. 568. This gives the example of Modakeke which signed the treaty of 1886 but refused to evacuate lle-Ife as required. It was later discovered in 1894 that the Modakeke had put false marks on the treaty. For more details on this reconnaissance trip, see the report prepared by O. Onabajo, ‘Archaeological Reconnaissance Survey at the Site of the Kiriji/Ekitiparapo War Camps,’ in I.A. Akinjogbin et al (ed.) Wdr and Peace in Yorubaland, pp. 1076-1079.*

Foundations of the Yoruba Economy in the Pre-Colonial Era ’DEJI OGUNREMI

In terms of geographical spread and of the length of time of the pre-colonial period, writing the economic history of the Yoruba in the pre-colonial era is a rather difficult task. Such is the large extent of Yorubaland that it can boast of complimentarily in its economy. The Savanna products of the North can be exchanged for those of the forest and coastal South and vice-versa. Laterally, too, the Savanna crops of Egbado in the West can also be exchanged for those of the forest kingdoms of the Ekiti in the East. The other factor that makes this chapter difficult is the period being covered — the pre-colonial. This period started from as early as when the first man or group of people settled in Yorubaland and it continued till about the end of the 19th century. We are therefore not quite sure of the number of centuries we are examining. What is certain, however, is that the economy was not (and could- not have been) static. The early settlers’ economy based on hunting, gathering, using simple technology to scratch the land for bare subsistence must be different from that of the later setders who had settled down to farming and exchanges of surplus commodities qnd whose technology had considerably improved — using fire to smelt iron-ore and using metals for farming and manufacturing. With the advent of European merchants on the coast as from the 15th century, and of the European explorers and missionaries in the 19th century, the Yoruba, economy underwent dynamic changes. These changes will be examined briefly in production of agricultural, mineral and craft products and their distributions in market places, on the short and long distances, employing various modes of transportation and using all forms of currencies as means of exchange. All these, of course, happened within the political economy of the Yoruba people. This means that the buoyancy or depression of the economy could depend on the peace or warfare in the land. The wealth or poverty of the nation was equated to the “head” (ori) of the ruler of a particular locality. The fortunes or misfortunes — political or economic — of the state were that of the ruler or caused by his stars — his “head”. So, economic prosperity or decline could not be easily analysed even when the reasons seem obvious to an outsider. However, the economic buoyancy could also depend on the strength of a ruler who could protect his people from aggressions or even expand his domain thus expanding trade frontiers for his people. His weakness, conversely, could lead to the decline of the economy if he was tyrannical and his tyranny created unrest or his domain was invaded and contracted or even taken away totally from him. Whenever there was a war more hands would be directed to war-efforts and less 113

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Cultwe and Society in Yombaland

to production of crops, leading to a decline in the growth rate, though npt necessarily in the absolute growth of the economy. Besides, natural phenomena such as rainfall could also determine the economic situation. Lack of rainfall would normally create famine and other problems. Too much rainfall could lead to flopd and terrible soil erosion, creating low yield of crops. Similarly, pests such as locusts could decimate crops and also cause famine. The foiegoing are some of the problems that must be taken into consideration while writing the economic history of the Yofpba. But it must also be said that in writing the economic history one has an advantage. It is the availability of primary1 and secondary sources. Using these sources, efforts will now bemade to analyse the economic history of the Yoruha in the pre-colonial era. This will be a synthesis of various works done on Oyo, Ibadan, Ife, among others, and on themes such as agriculture, slavery, transportation, land, market places and currency. There is no way by which all these can be adequately done in detail but examples picked here and there will suffice. The , advantage that this study has over the study of kingdoms is the coverage of a large area within which both short-distance and long-distance trades occurred. Besides the Yoruba traded with and borrowed ideas from their neighbours; and this had a multiplying effect on the economy. All these, however, make it difficult for one to be specifjc on a number of issues. Each locality has its specific^ problems and characteristics. So, all that can be done in this situation is to generalise for the whole of Yorubaland. Generalizations have, of coufse, been made for the whole of Africa and somenmes fot the entire world, but one has to realize fhat while generalizations are unavoidable they should be taken in with caution.

Agriculture mOSt,.imp°rtant of Yoru^ agriculture is an ancient institution It has been mentioned in various literatures that man started his life bv isTo8t ceSrtlerwhatUnter t baUL ^ °rigi? °f in West Africa " ‘ rtam- What seemsJ “,tain' however, is that it has an independent origin — the idea was not borrowed from somewhere else. This has been attested tn hv wv, Murdock and Wngley3 Murdock has argued that peo^to^S deve'lopeS agriculture as early as about 4500 B.C. He believes this toxbe “a genuine invention no a borrowing from another people”.* In his argument, Wrigley feels *at the antiquity of agriculture in Africa is much greater than the archaeologists tend to suggest. Like Murdock, he also believes that the basic idea of cultivation!n AMca wls a genuine and unique invention. This must also be true of Yorubaland This has to be so because of the importance of farming in food production All the

as ifaisrrsassr r v? arsrus

migrations. Therefore farming must be the first fob thaT

amm®s 1fnd subsequent

time of early settlers. Unlike gathering, agriculture ensureTr8egultXproffoo“d

by the community6 "Phe head^fthe co^nunityaUocatedltto'f^ilies^^^^^^

Foundations of the Yoruba Economy in the Pre-Colonial Era

115

wanted to use it for production. Thus everyone had usufructry right to it. With time a particular land belonged to a family which in turn re-allocated to those interested in using it. If a non-indigene of a locality wanted land for cultivation or for a dwelling place all he needed do was to approach the head of the family. However, he had to pay annual tributes to the head as a token of gratitude and to confirm that he was not using it as a right.7 As the trustee of the land the head of the community played a significant role in its allocation. But since he did not own it he could not appropriate the whole of it or even an unreasonable proportion of it to himself. The land tenure system' in Yorubaland called for two important observations. Firstly, there was no landless class or group of people looking for paid jobs.-Although the slaves had no land, they too were allotted some for cultivation. If a slave became a free person he requested for land like any other person. But while he remained a slave he could not look for a paid job even if it existed. Secondly land had no market value in the sense that it could neither be sold nor bought. Indeed, it was plenteous in relation to the population. So, it was not scarte. It was demarcated but not enclosed. For these reasons, the Yoruba failed to undergo the type of Agrarian Revolution that pervaded Europe and prepared grounds for the Industrial Revolution. The second main factor of production employed not only for agricultural production but also for all other types of production Was labour. The labour force comprised the household, slave and a socially organised one. The household labour consisted of a man, his wife or wives, his child or children, members of the extended family living with him and for whom he took responsibility and one or two slaves or pawns whom he treated like his relations. This labour force was the most important and the most reliable form of labour. None of the dependents could deny the man of his services. Anyone who did automatically had to leave the man’s house. This labour force could be expanded if the man married more wives and had more children. Just as the wealth of a Zuluman was measured in the amount of cattle he had, the status of a Yorubaman was noted in terms of the number of wives and especially children he possessed. But it must be noted that neither the wives nor the children were a wasting asset as often remarked by some European writers. In the absence of a labour market, reliance had to be put on what was readily available. This was the situation also in England in the 18th century when the Industrial Revolution began. As noted by Adam Smith in his The Wealth of Nations, “a numerous family of children, instead of being a burden, was a source of opulence and prosperity to the parents”.8 The use of child labour in 19th century-England has also been epitomised by Charles Dickens in his Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and many others. However, the household labour could also contract if the children grew older, got married and began their own lives even when they still lived in the same house. The older wives could also spend more time tending their grand-children or spending more time on their personal jobs. Slaves also constituted an important labour force. Slavery was an institution in Africa. It was not an unusual thing for a weak man to subordinate himself under a strong or an influential man, working for him for protection and assistance when needed. This resembled but was not exactly like the feudal system in Europe in the Medieval era. Neither were the Yoruba slaves exactly like the serfs in Russia and some other places. Even people who became slaves because they were captured in wars or deliberately raided and captured or bought from their owners or in the market places were not often ill-treated.9 Rulers, warriors, chiefs, potentates and all large-scale

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Culture and Society in Yorubaland

producers relied heavily on slaves. They were employed not only for production but also for distribution, and not only by men such as Basorun Oluyole of Ibadan but also women such as Madam Tinubu of Abeokuta and Efunseitan Aniwura, a one-time lyalode of Ibadan who had the reputation of having about 2,000 slaves working on her farms in the 1870s.10 In contradistinction to the plantation slaves, the slaves in Yorubaland were usually tenderly treated like children. Tyrannical and harsh use of slaves were exceptions rather than the rule. Although the Yoruba took active part in the slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, they also employed well-behaved slaves on their farms. As well known, the legal abolition of the slave trade by the British and the introduction of legitimate’ commerce paradoxically ushered in the use of slaves extensively and unprecedentally. Household labour was inadequate to produce on a large scale, the voluminous amount of palm oil, cotton and others for export. Therefore, while household labour was employed by small and medium producers, large scale producers relied heavily on slave labour. The other types of labour force which were particularly crucial to farming during the peak periods of preparing grounds for sowing, weeding and of harvesting were the client — patron effort and the age-grade or friendly organised labour. In the former, a young man chose an influential elderly man as his patron. He helped him on his farm on his own volition. In return the patron protected his client and supported him on important events such as marriage. The arrangement could be terminated by either of the party or on mutual agreement. The second, the age-grade or friendly association was organised either by those in a group working on reciprocal basis in turns on one another’s farm or by simply calling on friends to work on a man’s farm for a Say. In this case, food and drinks were made available to all the participants. In all the cases of labour employment no direct wages were paid. Remunerations were in form of feeding, clothing, housing and protection. These were important if we appreciate the fact that in the modern times wages are spent on the remunerations provided in kind in the pre-colonial era. Yet, productivity can be said to be satisfactory in the context of the economy. Those who accused the African worker of high absenteeism, laziness and general low productivity have been proved wrong by recent researches.* The important thing to note is that the farmer took his job seriously during peak period and relaxed during lax period. He woke up very early in the morning to do a substantial job before the sun got overhead. He relaxed in the afternoon and went back for another serious job in the evening. This he did everyday except during the traditional festivals. The other two factors of production in economics are capital and entrepreneurship Both existed in their own right in the pre-colonial economy in Yorubaland. In an exchange working arrangement, capital was accumulated to acquire implements such as hoes, knives, cutlasses and axes used for cultivation. In the same context, the entrepreneur was the farmer who took the initiative and risk of acquiring land, labour and implements. Through an optimum use of the factors, wealth was produced to the satisfaction of the consumers, although profitability and the demand-supply-price mechanism were marginalised. Social values sometimes took precedence over economic values especially before the 19th century. Until towards the end of the 19th century when productions of exports such as cocoa and coffee gamed prominence, farming in Yorubaland meant food production.

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As in the Igbo society,11 the yam. was the king of crops in most part's of Yorubaland. The EJkiti, the Ijesa and even the Oyo relished, and still relish, iyan, or pounded yam. _ Thus the common saying: IyanJii ounje, — pounded yam is the real food, Oka ni oogun —- yam flour meal is as important as a drug. Airi rara ni a nje eko — we eat meal made out of

maize for lack of nothing else tq eat.) Unlike some other food crops, yam is known to be an indigenous crop in West Africa. Murdock has in fact used its cultivation as an argument for the high antiquity and independent origin of agriculture in West Africa. Ofher prominent food crops are cassava, maize, cocoyam and legumes of various species. Unlike yams, these crops, apart from some species of legumes, are known to be exotic, they were probably important in this place in feeding slaves because of their ease and cheapness in production. Cassava and maize are particularly easy to produce. Unlike yams which take about ten months to mature, cassava takes about six months and maize about three months. They also require less attention in tendering. Their importance, however, lie in the addition and variety they brought to the African diet. The Yoruba’s resourcefulness in adapting cassava, maize and beans into various food items is marvellous. They have, by and large, replaced yam as the Yoruba staples. Besides food crops, the Yoruba also cultivate tree crops such as the oil palm and kola nuts. Both the oil palm (elaeis cuineendis) and. the kola (cola accuminate or c. nitida) are indigenous to West Africa and are consumed locally. Once they grew high to about four feet, they were left to mature and yield fruits which were needed. Palm oil that was extracted from the oil palm fruits attained greater importance when it was discovered that the oil could be used as a crucial ingredient in manufacturing soap and lubricants in Europe during the 18th century. Indeed, after the legal abolition of the slave trade by the British government in 1807, the most eminent commodity that was promoted for the “legitimate” commerce was palm oil. Therefore, its production in Yorubaland in the. 19th century was a major occupation by both men and women, using both household and slave labour. For example, an important tribute demanded by the Ibadan chiefs from their subject states was palm oil. This they carried to the ports in exchange for war weapons.12 Like the oil palm, kola trees thrive in the forest kingdoms of Yorubaland, in Ijebu Remo, Egbaland and forest areas of Ibadanland, farmers cultivated kola trees which yielded abundant kola nuts which were chewed in many parts of modern Nigeria. For example, in Ibadan, the greatest producer of kola nuts in the first half of the 19th century was Basorun Oluyole who, according to Samuel Johnson, “owned nearly all the kola trees in the town as well as the kola groves”,13 Even before Oluyole, kola groves abound in Ibadan area, kolanut planfation being a major agricultural pre-occupation of the Egba original inhabitants of the region. One other essential Commodity that farmers produced was cotton, it is a non-edible product cultivated in many parts of West Africa. Wrigley had used its cultivation as an argument for the high antiquity of agriculture in Africa, noting that it had been cultivated since 3000 B.C. Egbaland was certainly an important area where cotton was cultivated. The Iwe Irohin/a local Abeokuta newspaper in Yoruba, pointed out in

1860:

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Culture and Society in Yorubaland

It is well known that cotton has been grown in this part of Africa from times immemorial, and worked tip into cloth for home use. There is no need to introduce^seed, to point out the time when it can be best planted, the best soil, or the like, for the natives know by lengthened experience all this. The other parts of Yorubaland especially the Savanna areas must also have grown cotton for weaving. Stock farming was also engaged in. Many people kept one or two goats; sheep; rams, dogs, and poultry. It is likely that cows were also raised in good numbers. For example in Ibadan, in the 19th century Fulani slaves were responsible for tending and milking cows. Horses were also found in the courtyards of rulers and influential people who rode on them for prestige and as a sign of high status. Subsidiary to farming but closely related to it were gathering, hunting and fishing. Initially all these were associated with the earliest economy of the land. All of them developed from being a subsistence economy to a market one. In various parts of Yorubaland, people went about gathering plant and animal products for immediate consumption and later on for sale. Among things gathered were snails, mushroom, vegetables fruits, insects and honey provided by bees. They could also go about picking kolanuts, oil palm fruits and coconut fruit which having become ripe fell off from their trees. Firewood and medicinal herbs were also fetched regularly. The early setders often depended on .such gatherings. The Ibadan early settlers, for instance, were known to have depended on oro fruits for their supper. After farming had become a regular job, gathering became 3 job for children and women not as a main occupation but as a lax period. Hunting also grew from being a main job to a subsidiary one. It was done in both forest and Savanna regions of Yorubaland. It was meant to provide games to supplement animal protein or to get rid of them if they posed a danger to human beings and food crops. Traps of different types were often set to kill both small and large animals. Wooden and metal clubs, bows and arrows, iron-pointed spears and later on flint-lock guns were also used. Games caught were ate or sold raw or preserved by smoking. But hunters were also important as foot path-makers which resulted into roads. They were securitymen, warding off dangerous animals and aggressors They also policed the state, making it possible for people to go about their economic activities peaceably. Hunters sometimes founded villages —Aba Ode or Olode which developed into towns. •Fishing was not as closely related to farming as hunting. It is, indeed, less developed in many parts of Yorubaland. Since it could only be done where there were streams brooks, rivers lakes, creeks or lagoons, it was limited to the areas where such features were available. Fishing was prominent among the Awori of Lagos. In fact, Lagos developed from a fishing village to a town. In this respect it must have contributed to founding small settlements which developed into towns along waterside. Like hunters, the fishermen also devised multifarious methods of capturing or killing fish c°uld set ^Ps poison water to stupify fish. In the large rivers of Osun, Ogmy pfY ’ °??T a?d ln ±e Lagoons’ canoes were used t0 collect fish from the traps set must be nn.WHbe

Th" ” S°ld.fres!!or Preserved bY drying in the sun or smoldng. It

they reUed on fhel1 h°'T?ver’that *he Yo™ba were essentially mainland dwellers Ind Urey relied on their neighbours such as the Nupe (Tapa) for their smoked fish

Foundations of the Yoruba Economy in the Pre-Colonial Era

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All the activities so far discussed from economic view point were crucial to the livelihood and well-being of the Yoruba. Only farming can be said to be a specialised job; all others were engaged in without much disturbance to farming. However the techniques and intensity of each occupation changed and developed to meet the demands and aspirations of the people. This much can also be said of manufacturing pr&cesses.

Manufacturing The Yoruba are reputed to be among the most highly urbanised in Africa. By the end of the 19 century Yorubaland could boast of large towns, in terms of population and extent of the towns, such as Ibadan, Abeokuta, Ogbomoso, Oyo (present site), Ado-Ekiti, Ijebu-Ode, Sagamu, Owo, Akure, Lagos, Iseyin, Ilaro, Ilesa to mention a few. The import of all these is that such ap urbanised society could not all be farmers, hunters or fishermen. Although farming was the mainstay of the economy, a society whose purchasing power was highly limited must produce for themselves their implements, cloths, shelters, transportation means, wood works, pots baskets and a host of others. It will be unnecessary to go into details of each of the items mentioned above for two reasons. Firstly, literature abounds on them; and secondly many of them are still in-existence today with modifications. Among the most ancient were the Ife brass -smithing which has been dated to a period before the 13th century, the Ife bead industry which antedated the 14th century14 bringing Ife to the height of its economic prosperity by the middle of the 15th century A.D.15 Each Yoruba community developed its manufactures depending on its needs, availability of raw materials and implements and technical know-how. Iron smelting was carried on in as many localities as there was iron-ore. So also was pot-making where there was clay soil and wood-work where trees were abundant. There were, however, some manufactures such as woven cloths which were ubiquitous all over Yorubaland. This is because cotton or spun threads was light and could be easily carried from one place to another. Conversely, clay was too heavy for such transportation. Although techniques of weaving or pot-making differed from locality to locality, the Yoruba intermingled in market places or as a result of warfare in which some people were captured and carried to localities other than theirs. New ideas were then carried to other places and adapted to meet local necessities and demand. For example, yvider looms for weaving were introduced to Ibadan by women who moved there from Ekiti, Akoko, Ijesa and Igbomina districts. While men continued to use the narrow looms in Ibadan, women began to use the wider looms. The massive importation of European manufactured goods such as textiles, metal and ceramic utensils, soap, cutlasses, axes, spirit, and many other items especially in the 19th century had a debilitating effect on the technological development of the Yoruba among other Nigerians. The European merchants and later on the colonial administrators deliberately intended the Africans to be producers of raw materials and buyers of their finished goods. No effort was made to, at least, process the raw materials to any stage before export. The Europeans dictated the prices for both products —- the raw materials and the manufactured goods. In consequence, the Yoruba abandoned their textiles, pots, beads, baskets and the techniques for smelting

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Culture and Society in Yorubaland

iron, making salt and making pots. The argument is that had there been no alternatives, the Yoruba, among others, would have been forced to improve on their technology in order to reduce the production costs and produce on a large scale to meet people’s demand. That productions of the products continued at all must be due to the confidence the people had in their home-made products, poverty to purchase the European — made ones or even non-availability of the manufactured ones and the durability of the locally-made utensils. Those made were distributed to consumers by the short and long-distance traders, using various currencies and available means of transportation.

Trading The agricultural and craft industries discussed above were not just produced for immediate consumption by the producers. Surpluses were targeted for sale. This distribution was done in two mutually related ways: locally, within the community and on long distances. Most products were distributed locally in market places. This is not to say that market, meaning demand as used in the European economy, did not exist. Physical purchase of a commodity could be preceded by transacting the businesses first by discussing it. However, the market place served as the focal point of meeting. This place could be under a tree, by the bank of a river, by the road-side, or on the farm. But certain places were designated as the meeting points for transacting all sorts of businesses. The attendants, the size and the periodicity depended on the locality, the population and the ruler’s control. In virtually all parts of Yorubaland, women dominated the market. This is partly due to the fact that while men concentrated on farming and the herculean jobs such as hunting and fighting wars, women were left to trade their husbands’ outputs. The siting was also important. Many market places were located near the rulers’ residence, known as Oba’s market. The one in Ibadan wa's located near Basorun Oluyole’s house and is known as Oja’ba, i.e. Oja Basorun, not Oba’s market since Ibadan did not have an Oba but a Baale, The major reason for this was to ensure the security of the market, since the Oba enjoyed unparallel guarded by powerful men, reputable hunters and magical personalities. Those who attended the market were sure of adequate protection for which they paid in form of tributes and tolls to the ruler. There were other market places located in the town, in villages and at road junctions. The markets that were isolated and in small towns and villages were bound to be small. Likewise, those that were attended daily or only in the evenings were not 0 en ,as !arge as th°se attended periodically. Some markets were even seasonal. People attended it ordy when certain local products were being harvested. Of course, some markets which European explorers saw on their journeys in the early 19th Century had been abandoned probably due to. evacuation of people as a consequence 7r warfare or famine, flood or drought. consequence or From European explorers observations and researches done on markets most markets were attended every fourth day. There were some which were16 attended every eight day while a few were on sixteenth-day intervals. By design rather than by mei e coincidence many market days did not usually fall on thfe same day. This enabled prospective attendant to go to as many as possible. The arrangement also allowed

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time for producers to get their products ready in anticipation of the subsequent market day The market cycle therefore encouraged active and continuous production and distribution. All the markets were open spaces which could be attended by as many people as possible and which could contract or expand depending on circumstances. They were also arranged in such a way that sellers of the same commodity assembled at the same place. This made it possible for buyers to know exact spots to buy things. It also made for effective control of the market as well as its orderliness. Freedom of talking and walking was uninterrupted. It must be mentioned that markets were more than places where businesses were transacted. They had social and other economic functions. In a typical Yoruba market could be found hair-dressers, carvers,, calabash or pot menders, leather dressers saddlers and many other services which contributed in no small measure to the overall economic growth of the people. It was also a place for entertainers, a hideout for criminals, debtors and mentally deranged people. A market day was an important day for beggars, and for love makers, friends and relations to meet to settle quarrels, make deals and exchange views. Medicinal herbalists, religious proselytizers, diviners, palm wine sellers also attended markets to win new converts and sell their services and products. In addition, political matters, discovery of new ailments, of new techniques and of new crops were spread in markets. This partly explains why foreigners marvelled at the great number of market attendants at any given time. Yet, trading was not confined to market places or localities. Long-distance trades also existed elaborately. The long-distance traders were interested' only in non-perishable and expensive goods such as soap, woven cloths and animate products such as goats, sheep and birds. For example, the Ijebu, Ekiti, Iseyin and Owo cloths were raqked highly and sought by the other Ydruba. Like the local traders, long-distance ones also met in large markets in various towns such as Ibadan, Akure, Owo, Egosi, Ondo, Ilesa, Apomu, Ilorin, Rabba, Badagry and many others. In a market could be found representatives of other Yoruba. When Clarke, the Baptist Missionary Visited Ilesa in the 1850s he was astonished to find the Egba, Ilorin, Ijesa, Ogbomoso and Ife — all mingling together in harmony and peace, with their various wares of merchandise.19 All the market towns mentioned above were adequately linked by routes. These routes were used by 19th century explorers and missionaries. Hugh Clapperton, for instance, in the 1820s travelled right from Badagry to Sokoto via Oyo-Ile without creating his own route but traversing the existing ones. David Hinderer, in 1858 on 'his missionary journey travelled on the Ibadan-Iwo-Ede-Osogbo-Ilesa-Ife-Apomu road; and Rev. Mann, another Missionary travelled from Ijaye to Ilorin via Ogbomoso in the mid-1850s. This network of routes which crisscrossed the whole of Yorubaland was not a 19th century creation. Slave traders, migrants and traders had used them for ages.20 Their maintenance was the responsibility of the rulers. Many routes were well maintained as evidenced by travellers’ journals. Some were deliberately neglected during stampedes and turmoils created by slave raiding or warfare. Neglected routes discouraged marauders from perpetrating their destruction. On the well-kept routes there ware toll gates where guards were stationed to collect tributes from traders. A popular one was the Alaafin of Oyo’s trusted slave who was placed at Ijanna in Egbado

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land on the Oyo-Port Novo route. To foreigners like Clapperton he was more powerful than, the Olu of Ilaro. But the extent to which such tolls were spent on route maintenance remains an important question. However, it was certain that the routes were adequately protected within the territorial jurisdiction of a ruler. What might remain as ‘no man’s land’ would, of course, be left unprotected. Because of some unguided routes and during times of unrest, traders organised themselves into caravans. This explains why Hinderer, Bowen and many Missionaries and explorers found thousands of people who thronged the routes in the 19th century. It was difficult for marauders to attempt a molestation of a large caravan. The organisation of the caravans was not quite easy because traders were scattered in various villages. They had to find means of meeting at an agreed place and join others who might be waiting at their respective stations. However, the organisation was made possible and easy by guilds of traders. In each town there were guilds (egbe) organised according to the commodity being dealt in. Thus ther^ were the, Egbe Alajapa the guild that traded in inanimate objects such as food and medicinal items; the Egbe alarobo which traded in animate objects such as goats, sheep and poultry. They were particularly involved in long distance trades. There were other V#ious guilds also named after their commodities. They were the guild of pepper sellers j(£gbe alata the guild of cloth sellers (Egbe alaso), the fluid of soap makers (Egbe olose), Und a good number of others. All the guild heads (Olori) often organised their meinbers in readiness for the journey to a market town. Among the other economic institutions that stimulated economic growth was the Parakoyi trade chiefs. Like the Olorogun (war chiefs) the Parakoyi were installed in traditional way. Although they were also important in the politics of their towns, they were more important in the economic organisation of their towns, working closely with the guilds, the rulers and the war-chiefs. Like the Ogboni, the Parakoyi was known to be common among the Egba. But there can be no doubt that they existed, may be m other names, in other parts of Yorubaland.20 There was also the OnidaTuke, a women’s organisation. It was a predominantly women’s organisation responsible for collecting food crops such as beans, yams and maize directly from the farmers and distributing them to the various markets or to long-distance traders. This was found to be so in Oyo, but, again, it must have existed in some other parts of Yorubaland.21 With the assistance of the type of institutions mentioned above, distributions of both agncuituial and industrial products were effectively carried out, using land and water routes to reach short, medium and long-distance consumers, depending on the existing means of transportation and available currency. The modes of transportation used in Yorubaland were the human porters and to some extent canoes. Not only in Yorubaland, human porterage was, and still is an essential aspect of transportation. It was the most readily available because whereas pack animals cannot be used in tse-tse fly infested areas and canoes are useless where there is no water route, the producers household labour or slaves - can be relied upon as carriers. This is not to say that it did not have its problems. Porters could become a nuisance on ong-distance journeys far away from their homes, their carrying capacity was highly limited to about 50-70 lbs pack and their speed was Tow especially while in a caravan and on narrow or unkempt routes. All these made them the most costly of traditional forms of transport. But comparative cost analysis can only be meaningful where alternatives existed. In many parts of Yorubaland there

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were no alternatives to human porterage. It served the economy in both the productive and distributive sectors. With it commodities were carried to local market places and long-distances ones. The high transport cost was pardy responsible for the high costs of goods sold by long-distance traders* Water transport which has .been calculated to be the cheapest form of traditional transport was not widely used in Yorubaland. Among the few navigable water routes that existed were the Weme, Opara, Ogun, Osun, Oluwa, Yewa Owena and their tributaries, and the lagoons running from Makun Omi (Ijebu Waterside) to Badagry. Thus the Ijebu, Egba, Awori and Ikale were perhaps the few Yoruba who effectively employed canoes of various sizes to carry their trade wares from one place to another. The main problem about the rivers is that their volume got highly reduced in the dry season, October to March; and they had to be constantly cleared of all sort of snags and other obstructions. These impediments, however, should not be over-stressed because despite them canoes which were usually flat-bottomed and which could move on fordable rivers were effectively used. For example, in the 16th century, the Ogun was found to be navigable between Ado and Lagos, a distance of about 145 kilometers.22 Local canoemen also used the Oni which runs through the Ife territory to the Lagoon near Makun Omi before the use was interrupted during the 19 century Yoruba wars.23 Canoes, built mainly by the Ijo of the Niger Delta, were used to transport food crops, cotton, cloths, indigo leaves, livestock and so on. In carrying out trading activities, various types of monies were used. Although exchange by barter must have prevailed at the earliest stage of the economy, it js likely that monies in form of stripes of cloths and slaves were used as mediums of exchange for small and large transactions respectively. But as from the 16th century the most widely used currency in circulation was the cowrie (cypraea moneta). Some writers have argued that the traditional monies were commodity monies which did not perform the functions of modern monies. The cowrie which predominated in the 19th century has been particularly severely castigated. According to an observer: The cowries are indeed but a caricature of what a currency should be, lacking as they do the three characteristics which, according to political economists, a medium of exchange should possess, namely intrinsic value, scarcity and portability.24 It, cannot be denied that the greatest problem connected with the cpwrie was its portability. Long-distance traders had problems in transporting a large amount of it to market places. There is a well-known stqjy about Hugh Clappertoris horse which became seriously sick on his journey to Old Oyo. He wanted to sell the horse but on realizing that the cowries that would be paid him would have to be carried by porters whom he had to pay the whole amount of cowries within a shqrt distance he abandoned the horse. Although Africans did not pay wages to their porters they had to feed them. However, it is not true that cowries lacked intrinsic value and scarcity. If it lacked both it would not be accepted as money. The extensive work done by Marion Johnson on cowries had proved this and has also shown that rather than being a general-purpose currency, it was a special-purpose money.25 it was the same all over West Africa. The same cowrie that was acceptable in Badagry was also acceptable in

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Kano, Arochukwu, or Gonja. Its story was that of success in the econofny of Yorubaland. According to Hopkins: The success of the cowrie is readily explicable. Its size and shape made it easy to handle, convenient to count and impossible to counterfeit, while its durability meant that it could be stored safely for many years. For about three hundred years the cowrie was the money spent in Yorubaland and it was only displaced in the early 20th century by the metal coins introduced by the British Colonial Government.

Conclusion This chapter, has covered the areas of agriculture, manufacturing, and trading. Because of the vastness and complexities of Yorubaland and the Yoruba people, it is not possible to do a thorough job on all the sectors. While it can cannot be denied that the Yoruba had been lucky in the hands of scholars, there is much that has to be done in the economic history area. For instance, not much has been done in the area of capital formation apart from the Esusu system in, which money was contributed and collected in turns. How most of the long-distance traders accumulated wealth for their businesses in the pre-colonial era is still mysterious. Likewise, the role of the entrepreneurs in managing their farms and trades is awaiting proper investigation. It is, however, clear from available evidence that the pre-colonial economy of the Yoruba was smooth, progressive and buoyant. The Yoruba wars of the 19th century reduced its normal growth but never brought it to a stand still. Food was being produced by the warriors and there was a remarkable export of cash crops for exchanges of war weapons and manufactured goods. Perhaps the greatest factor that disrupted the economy was the slave trade which also stunted the technological development of the Yoruba and stultified their production of crafts and local industries.^ Finally, it must be appreciated that the economy of Yorubaland in the pre-colonial era was totally indigenous before the advent of the European merchants in the 15th century and colonialism in the 19th century. The economy had been supported and geared up by the traditional religions. For example, the Orisa oko festival ensured the continuous production of yams. The'introduction of Islam and Christianity brought nfGh Ct °?the e“nomykThe Lfws of inheritance, the preaching of equality, before d, of the ruler and his subjects, brought changes not only on the polity but also on the economy of the people. With the freedom of slaves, more land *ms exploited and purchasing power became more widespread. Also with the abolition of the slave trade more people benefited from the economy. Those who were being sold before could easily enter the export market, producing one or two bottles of palm oil-ar some cotton The economic power of the potentates got reduced. When the coldnial government took over towards the end of the 19th century they found that the Yoruba were more than poised to take an advantage of the new colonial economic order.

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Motes 1.

J. Adams, Remarks on the country extending from Cape Palmas to the River Congo, London, 1823; Ann Hinderer, Seventeen years in Yoruba Country, London, 1872; Hugh Clapperton

2. 3.

Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa, from the Bight of Benin to Soccatto, London, 1929, T.J. Bowen, Adventures and Missionary Labour in Several Countries in the Interior of Africa from 1799 to 1856, 2nd edition with a new Introduction by E.A. Ayandele, Frank Cass, 1968; S. Crowther and J.C. Taylor, Journals andNotes of the Native Missionaries accompanying the Niger Expedition of of 1857-1859, W.H. Clarke, Travels and Exploration of W.H. Clarke, Missionary to Central Africa, 1854-1S58. Biobaku, S.O. (ed). Sources of Yoruba History, Oxford Clarendon, 1973. G.P Murdock, Africa, its peoples and their Culture History, London, 1959; C.C. Wrigley,

“Speculations on the economic prehistory of Africa,” in J.D. Fage and R.A. Oliver (eds), 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 'I

11. 12• 13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

Papers in African Prehistory. Murdock, Culture History, p. 64;

Wrigley, “Speculations,” p. 62. For a more elaborate discussion on land in Yorubaland see EC. Lloyd, Yorubaland Law, OUE London, 1964; T.O. Elias Nigerian Land Law and Custom, London, 1951. I have deliberately avoided giving the Yoruba words or equivalents because the names differ from locality to locality. In the Oyo-speaking area such q tribute was called Isakole. The head of the family, i.e. extended family, was known as the Baale while head of the village coiiimunity was called Oloti oko. Adam Smith, An Inauiry mto the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, (with an introductory essay and notes by J. Shiefl Nicholson) London, 1901, p. 29. E.A. Oroge, “The Institution of Slavery in Yorubaland with particular reference to the nineteenth century,” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1971. Akinwumi Isola, a professor in Yoruba studies wrote a book on Efunsetan, depicting her use of slaves harshly. For the use of slaves by Basorun Oluyole see Toyi Falola, The Political Economy of a Pre-Colonial African State: Ibadan 1830-1900, University of Ife Press, Ile-Ife, 1984, pp. 27-28. In his “Economic Foundations of pre-colonial Igbo Society,” in Akinjogbin and Osoba (eds.) Topics pp. 1-8, E.A. Afigbo treats the importance of yams to the Igbo. S.A. Akintoye, “The Economic Foundations of Ibadan’s Power in the Nineteenth century,” in Akinjogbin and Osoba, Topics, p. 60. , ? Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yoruba, CMS, Lagos, first published 1921, p.^06; Also see B.A. Agiri “The Yoruba and the pre-colonial Kola Trade," Odu, A Journal of the West African Studies, New Series, No. 12, July, 1975, p. 57. See Ajetunmobi, R.O. “The Origin Development and Decline of the Glass Bead Industry in Ile-ife, M.A. (History), O.A.U., Ile-Ife. Horton, R. “Ancient Ife: A Reassessment,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 9:14, 1979,^pp-. 79-150. For detail on markets sde, e.g. B.W. Hodder and U.I. Ukwu Markets in West Africa, Ibadan, 1964. Hodder is particularly interested in markets in Yorubaland; C. Meillassoux, The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (ed.) Oxford, 1971. See Polly Hill’s contribution on “Market Periodicity.” WH. Clarke, Traveb and Explorations in Yorubaland, 1854-1858 (ed.) by J.A. Atanda, Ibadan, 1972, p. 127. For details of the routes see Akinjogbin, “Economic Foundations,” in Topics, pp. 42-49. Ibid., pp. 49-50. For more details about Parakoyi, see, S.O. Biobaku, The Egba and their Neighbours, 1842-1872, .Oxford, 1957 and A.L. Mabogunje and J. Omer-Cooper, Owu in Yoruba

126

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Culture and Society in Yorubaland HistoryIbadan Univ. press, Ibadan, 1971, pp. 96 and 98. Akinjogbin in Topics, p. 50, also mentions that the Parakayi existed in Ife and that all guilds were affiliated to them. Oral information collected by the author at Oyo palace in 1971. D.E Pereira, Esmeraldo de situ orbis, 1505-1508 translated arid edited by G.H.J. Kimble, for the Hakbyt Society, London, 1937, p. 124. CMS Archives, Charles Phillips’ Journal, CA2/078, July 1, 1879. C.H. Robinson, Hausaland or Fifteen Hundred miles through the Central Sudan, London, 1896, pp. 155-6. Marion Johnson, “The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa,” in Journal of African History, Vol. II, No. 1,1970, pp. 17-51. A.G. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa, Columbia University Press, New York, 1973, p. 70. This argument has been developed by the author in his Inaugural Lecture, Nigeria’s Technological Stagnation: An Economic History Perspective, delivered on Tuesday 9th january, 1989, at the Lagos State University. He has also drawn general ideas from his Counting the Camels: The Economics of Transportation in Pre-Industrial Nigeria, NOK Publishers International, New Ybrk, 1982.

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]LC

| The Economy of Western Nigeria, W 1900-1980 O.C. ADESINA and A. OLORUNFEMI

Introduction Western Nigeria, a polyglot composition of Yoruba, Edo, Ika-Igbo, Ijaw, Itsekiri and Urhobo peoples, possessed, from time immemorial, a widely diversified economy. Throughout the whole of the region, with the exception of the riverine areas of the Niger delta, and some parts of Okitipupa and Ijebuland which are chiefly composed of swamps and creaks and where fishing and salt-making formed the major occupation of the indigenes, the chief occupation and therefore the most important source of wealth to the people had always been agriculture. Long before the arrival of the Europeans with their massive demand for tropical raw materials, the people engaged in food farming combined with palm oil processing mainly for home consumption with the unit of production being the farmer and dependent members of his own family, comprising his wives and children.1 Basically, the men were the actual farmers while the women engaged in trading and, when occasion demanded, acted as weeders, harvesters and processors of farm products. Children on the other hand helped both on the farm as well as in trading activities that usually involved the transfer of goods to market places which were the meeting points for all goods produced by different families. In spite of the almost unlimited facilities for agriculture, particularly that offered by the system of land tenure, there were other ‘minor’ occupations which had survived various onslaughts on them by European industrial goods and continue till today, to form part of the indigenous economic system of the region. These include cotton spinning and weaving almost everywhere in the region, dyeing in Abeokuta and Oyo particularly in Iseyin, Saki, Osogbo and Ogbomoso; carving in Benin, leather and calabash decorations in Oyo, mat weaving in Ekiti and Ipetu-Ijesa, pottery in Oyo, Ondo and Akoko districts etc.2 The region possessed a dynamic and well diversified economy. Majority of these craft industries were naturally connected with the raw materials found in these areas. Almost everyone that engaged in these industries were also farmers. The time factor in production was of no significance since, for example, a weaver, was primarily a farmer or a petty trader who spent his “free time” in weaving as long as it was convenient for him in making a piece of cloth.3 However, each household in the region had its own line in food and craft production which could be made available to others at an agreeable price. This was the nature of the indigenous economy before European infiltration. With the industrial revolution in Europe, European demands for tropical African 127

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Culture and Society in Yombaland

products such as palm oil and palm kernel, rubber, timber etc.,4 imposed no.vel requirements on the economy of the region. The tonnage of such exports soon dwarfed traditional levels and thus placed extra-ordinary demands on production, trade, storage and harbour facility.5 The problem of inadequate supplies was supposedly further exacerbated by what the Europeans regarded as the monopolistic control of trade by some African traders and middlemen like Chief Nana of Itsekiri, and Ijebu and Egba traders. This was considered an anathema to the free trade policy of the British. £ The continued civil strife in the interior of Yorubaland was regarded £S the last negative actor against the smooth flow of raw materials to the European merchants. It was under this pretext that the British annexed Southern Nigeria in 1900.7 This step was taken to render Southern Nigeria amenable to British economic exploitation.8 After the “pacification” of the interior and the total smashing of local impediments to British commercial expansion, colonial rule was firmly established and it proceeded to stimulate ap export trade oriented economy based on agricultural cash crop products. The major direction of economic development adopted for and foisted on the region was towards capitalist development. This peculiar economic system proceeded to create large-scale capitalist farmers out of city-dwellers, transform small-holders into modernised commercial farmers, stimulate a new class of export goods oriented traders and also saw to the monetisation of the economy and thereby assuring the effective incorporation of the economy into the sterling sphere of influence. This movement of the region into a “world economy"’ closely tied a significant share of the farmers income to the changing world demand, with its complex marketing systems, for their products. The effects of such a dependent economy has since remained the piost important feature of the region. The resultant effects have been, an unwholesome foreign trade orientation which has led to unfavourable terms of trade, unstable export markets and a persistent adverse balance of payment problems which have exacerbated the very problems of development and social integration confronting the society.

The Colonial Economy As pointed out earlier, effective colonisation of the region dated back to 1900 when the Southern Nigerian Protectorate was proclaimed by the British.9 Following the actual imposition of colonial rule thereafter, the colonial masters’ desire was to transform the farmers, who had hitherto engaged in a free enterprise, into effective machines that would produce mainly for the needs of the metropolis. To achieve this, several strategies were put into operation and incorporated into the official policies of the colonial government. The colonial economic period could be conveniently divided into two periods. The first period between 1900 and 1945 could be described as a period of colonial Laissez Faire oriented development policy, while the second P ase last4n§ fr°m 1946 to 1960 was a period of active government participation in socioe-conamic ventures. .

Phase 1, 1900-1945 This period was characterised by the provision of infrastructural facilities for the easy

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exploitation of the resources of the region. It was during the first two decades of the 20th century, however, that regional specialization in crop production emerged with cocoa and rubber replacing palm products and cotton in Western Nigeria and the region soon became a major world producer of cocoa.10 The adoption and production of these crops were deliberately encouraged by Christian missionaries, European Merchants and the colonial government. The ideas was “... to encourage in every way the development of other products which nature may have already bestowed upon the country and also the cultivation of new ones suitable to its soil and climate.”11 Two salient factors were, however, responsible for this idea; these are firstly, the urge by Britain to secure and control important raw materials, principally agricultural and forest products native to Nigeria and needed by British industries and secondly, to establish new markets, for their finished products.12 These ultimately led to the “manipulation and management of an indigenous agricultural sector”13 by the colonialists. The government then wept ahead to broaden as well as strengthen its infra¬ structures of exploitation. Perhaps more important than other was the provision of easy means of transportation to, facilitate the flow of export products from the hinterland to the coast. The colonial administration therefore embarked upon the construction of railways, roads and harbour facilities. The railway system was begun in Lagos in 1896 and reached Kano in 191 l.14The first motorable road in Nigeria was constructed from Ibadan to Oyo in 1906. This was followed by similar services from Osogbo (the centre) to Ife, Itesa, Ogbomoso and from Ede to Iwo.15 Lagos, Port Harcourt, Sapele, Calabar and other minor ports provided the harbour and wharf facilities which facilitated the expeditious shipment of goods to Europe. These and other facilities for export crops were so well developed in contrast to crops produced for local consumption. For example the prices paid for cash crop products were higher than that paid for food crops. The result has been that wherever suitable land was available, the Yoruba farmer for example, had concentrated on cocoa cultivation, and in some districts growing little food crops barely enough for his family, the general belief bfeing that no food farmer could prosper like the cocoa farmer.16 Farmers became so optimistic about the continued prosperity of cocoa relative to other crops and forest products that they continued to plant cocoa even during years of declining prices particularly between 1914 and 1918 when the First World War disrupted all trade between West Africa and Europe. The cocoa farmers were in a more vulnerable position: the prices which they were able to obtain had become so small that they could hardly pay the labour for preparing the crop for export.17 Thus while the farmers could have benefitted from the advantages of increased production in a situation of a world-wide shortage and high prices in European countries, the price of their products had dropped to a level unknown before the war. While cocoa was sold for £39. 13s. 4d. per ton in Lagos in 1913, the price offered in the 1917-18 season was about £14 per ton.13 Naturally the farmers in the hinterland received a lot less than £14 per ton when allowances were m&de for transport differentials between Lagos and the producing centres, especially when the war had added difficulties to transport facilities.19 There was however a post-war boom in respect of the produce trade but by July 1920, the post war boom was over and before the end of 1921, it turned out to be not just a temporary slump, but a continued depression in which trade did not reach the

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briskness which marked the early post-war period.20 The gradual recovery from the post-war slump was seriously interrupted as from the end of 1929 when a world-wide economic storm led to a rapid decline in the effective demand for tropical raw materials.'21 The cocoa farmer was specially vulnerable since he depended on world demand for his crop. Similarly, the increased production in the palm kernel trade was also met with a steady fall in prices as from 1929, with a price of £13 per ton as against £30 in 1919. In 1932, the price had gone down to £6.15s per ton a decline of about 50% in four years.22 The Second World War also brought its own headache to the export trade of the region. At the outbreak of the war in September 1939, eriiergency measures of a completely different kind were imposed as the demand of the war for tropical raw materials, coupled with interruptions of shipping facilities necessitated the intervention of the colonial government on a grand scale.23 This war period witnessed the active involvement of the colonial government in the appropriation of the farmers’ export production. The most urgent task facing the British Government at the outbreak of the war, was the need to deprive the “enemy” of all supplies of raw materials and generally to strangle German trade as a war measure.24 Therefore, the British Government immediately imposed a strict control on the marketing of Nigeria’s major export crops, cocoa, palm oil, palm kernels, rubber etc. in order to regulate their despatch to neutral countries in such a way as to ensure that the products did not eventually find their way to Germany, one of Nigeria’s greatest export markets. In essence, war-time conditions left the British Government free to monopolise the export trade of the country and as a corollary, dictate her own prices for export products. Price control regulations provided among other things, that colonial products were produced and purchased at “prices which protect the standard of living of the colonial, producer: and at the same time, prevent war-profiteering and exorbitant demands on British financial resources.25 Even with this dual aim of War-time controls, it is pertinent to note that the ability of Great Britain to purchase all export products “at prices which protect the standard of living of the producers" was dictated in the first place, by the relative value and importance of each product to the allied war effort and later by shipping facilities and the re-export trade of Britain, The effect of controls specifically on the export trade may be judged from the fact that while her palm oil and palm kernels, which had become of secondary importance to cocoa were on the list of high war-priority products,26 cocoa, her most important export crop was excluded. Consequently, and as will be shown later in this discussion, it was the control imposed on the cocoa trade which, more than any other item, drastically shook, to its very foundation, the economy of the region.

Phase 11.1945-60 After the war, the government, instead of relinquishing its control of the export produce went to set up Marketing Boards as a device for price stabilisation so that the funds accumulated by the board would ostensibly “serve as a cushion against short and intermediate price fluctuations in the world market for cocoa”.27 The Cocoa Marketing Board was therefore established in 1947 and it was the model upon which later statutory Marketing Boards for palm oil, groundnuts and cotton were established.

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gut as it became manifest-later; the Boards were used in accumulating surpluses which were never returned to the farmers. The Board offered its produce at market rates \yhich were designed to safeguard the interests of consumers in Britain rather than the producers in Nigeria.28 Moreover, a substantial part of the profit accumulated was not ploughed back into the cocoa industry but accumulated as surpluses (see Table 10.1) and invested abroad (see Table 10.2). Even when it was claimed that the profits would ultimately be returned t! ti ,

3I

fv

These appositive NPs, however, can be subdivided into the following: attributive and explicatory appositives.

(a)

Attributives Appositives

These are NPs in which there is a reference to the unmentioned Tenor. In other words, the NP is appositive tq attribute or characteristic of the Tenor.

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Culture and Society in Yorubaland

Examples are: (i)

Ikii ijo ‘Dancer’s death’ for a good dancer.

(ii)

Jgi ‘The slender tree’ for a slim person.

where in each case, the NP is equated with the implied Tenor in the context.

(b)

Explicatory Appositives

In this type of metaphor, the second noun which is always a nominalised item, defines or explicates further the first noun. Examples are: (i) (ii)

Orisa kekere akunlebo ‘The insignificant deity he-before-whom-we-kneel-down-worship’ Awe obi lean aje d’^)yp 6 ^ A lobe of kolanut that-which-is-eaten-till-one reaches-Oyo’

Here, the case of (i) the explicatory N2 (akunlebo) is appositive to the Head Noun: Qrisa kekere. Also in (ii) the NPX is appositive to djedoyoo which in turn makes further

definition of the NP2.

(c)

Reduced Appositive Vocative Metaphors

There are metaphors which are one-word and whose Tenors are implied. Usually, they are in form of Vocatives. Also, they call for a sort of mutual understanding between the speaker and the Hearer concerning the previous knowledge of the situation and the motivation for predicating such implied Tenor of the Vocative. There are two aspects of these Vocatives. One it# the reference, i.e. the Tenor which is normally mentioned, the other is the understood part of the metaphor itself. Examples are: (i) (ii)

Eegunl|gi!12 ‘What a great man’ Jato!13 ‘Appellation for any light skinned person’

The above items are called Reduced Appositive Vocative Metaphors, because whenever each is applied, it stands for a particular type of person and they are descriptive (either of the character or physical attributes) of the Tenor which is implied in any instance of their uses.

(d)

Full Attributive Appositive Metaphors

However, in many cases, the Vocatives are reduced forms of a longer phrase. For instance, the examples above can have the following enlarged phrases: (i) (ii)

Eegunlegi, okunrin ogun! ‘What a great man, a man of war!’ Jato, aw^lewa okunrin! ‘A light skinned person, what a handsome man!’

Forms of Metaphors: Syntactic Considerations

183

Metaphors in this category are usually appelative in functions, because they are attributive as each stands for the attribute which is culturally attached to such names. The syntactic fact which is basic to all of them is that they are Nominals and it is the Nominal which constitutes the locus of the metaphor.

2.

Possessive NP

Another category in the NP section which is not appositive is the ‘possessive’ one. Here, the second noun shows ‘possession of in relation to the first noun. Examples are: \

(i)

(pro obinrin ‘Woman’s speech’

(ii)

Ife eyfle14 ‘Pigeon’s love’

In (i) oro’s speech belongs to obinrin ‘woman’ and in (ii) ife ‘love’ belongs to eyel ‘pigeon’. For instance, the above examples can be paraphrased as:

What is the price value of the yam(s)

(vi)

Isu meloo (ni)? /yam/how many?/foc.)/ How many are the yams? => What is the total number of the yams

As these last two examples show, the noun that is placed before any of the interrogatives cannot provoke any connective morpheme. It is both interrogatives that resist modification in their forms when used with a head word and an optional focus element. But is is only “meloo” that admits the plural marker “awon”; the number unit precedes the question unit in the envisaged construction: (vii) Awpn meloo (ni)? /pl./how many?/ (foe.)/ How many are they? By making such a pronouncement, the mind is directed in most cases towards animate substances with a human trait. It appears that it is the verb “mun” (take) that combines with “elo” to become, synchronically, the quantity interrogative ‘meloo”. The phonemic contraction produced w.hen the two elements meet is in line with the stipulation in our forthcoming work on the elision system in Yoruba.

The interro-demonstratives "wo" and "ewo/iwo" Four points establish a parallel between them. In the first instance, each involves both

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the notions of interrogation and demonstration, which makes for the title we have here. In the second place, they can question on both animate and inanimate nominals. Thirdly, they can combine with a nominal root. They are placed after such a root; in this syntactic position, they function as interrodeterminants: (i)

Olu wo ni? Which Olu?

016 ewo/iwo (ni)? Which of the Olus?

(ii)

Ajawo(ni)? Which dog

Ajo ewo/iwo (ni)? Which (one out of the dogs?)

(iii) Qjawo(ni)? Which market?

Oja ewo/iwo (ni)? Which of the markts?

The fourth comparable points is that they can take the plural marker “awon”: (iv) Awqn wo (ni)? Who (are they)? Which of them?

Awpn ewo/iwo/onwo (ni)? Which (ones) of the things/people?

Four points too establish a difference between them. In the case of “wo” the speaker does not have any knowledge of the person/thing in question: “ewo/iwo” relates to an unknown choice between the possibilities known to the communication partners. The second point is that a noun with a mid-tone on the last vowel, as well as a' plural unit with similar tonal marking, may provoke a change in the initial vowel of “ewo/iwo”, depending on the rapidity of speech. In such a case, the initial vowel of the interro-demonstratives fire patterned after the last vowels of the preceding non-interrogatives: Isu ewo/iwa/uwo /yahi/interro-demon./

)

(vi) Epo ewo/iwo/owo? /palm oil/interro-demon./

) )

(v)

)

Which of the yams?

Which of the (sets of) palm oil?

The third differentiating points is that “wo” has no independent existence, whereas “ewo/iwo” may constitute the only component of a meaningful interrogation: (vii) Ewo/iwo?

-»

Which one?

Lastly, it is only “ewo/iwo” that can combine with the comparative morpheme “bf (i.e, “like”) Combined with the comparative morpheme, “ewo/iwo” is capable of engendering a completely different interrogative: “bawo,” which relates in questioning to the designation of manner or state. It enters into the ritualised usage of information request. It also constitutes a greeting. But this type of greeting in the Yoruba cultural practice can only be addressed to someone younger than (or is of the same age as) the speaker: (viii)

Bawo (ni)

->

How are you/things?

\

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The interro-locative "ibo" It questions only on location and is rendered in English by “where/in which place”. It may be the only component of an interrogative utterance. It may also combine with the focus unit “ni” on with the particle of insistence “se” as the following examples depict: (i)

Ibo (ni)? (It is) where/in which place?

(ii)

Ibo (s£)? (Insistence) where/in which place? —» I say where/in which place?

It may be placed after a noun, in which case the function is interro-determinative: (iii)

Oja abo/ibo? /M&rket/interro-loc./

(iv)

lie ebo/ibo? > The house that is found/located where? /house/interro-loc./ >

(v)

^ The market that is situated where?

Olu ubo/ibo?

}

/Olii/intprrn-lnr /

1

Olu who comes from where?

The interrogative does not provoke any connective. However, the initial vowel (i.e. excluding the tone) of the question item is assimilated by the vowel of the preceding noun. If the /i—/ is retained, it is because there is a shade of emphasis.

The intero-existential "da" It questions-on the existence in a place more or less delimited at the moment of enunciation. What is absent or does not exist may be a person or a thing. It has no independent existence, but the nominal units that may be placed in a position preceding it may vary: (i)

Oun da? /he, she it/ interro-exist/

(ii)

Olu da? Where is Olu?

(iii) Awon da /pl./interro-exist./

^ Where is he/she it?

j Where are they (= people or things)?

It does not admit the use of the focus unit “ni”.

The interro-remirrder "nko" It question and at the same time recalls to the memory of one’s communication partner that which seems to be absent in a given location or forgotten in a discussion. It may be translated thus, depending on the communication situation or on the figurative manipulation (greeting, etc.): (i)

What about...? e.g. Isti noo? ) What about “yam”? /Yam/interro-rem./)

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(ii) How is .,.? e.g. Qmo nkp? Child/interro-rem./

> ) ) And “child”?/How is your child (doing)?

It cannot be the only term of an interrogative utterance. A nominal (noun, pronoun, plural marker, etc.) must necessarily come beforeit, as the preceding and following

examples depict: (iii) Awon nko? / pl./interoo-rem./

) )

What about them?

(iv) Awon isu nko? /pl./yam/interro-rem./

) )

What about yams?

(v)

) )

Awon Olu nko? /pl.Olu/interro-rem./

What about Olu and others (i.e. Olu’s group/family)?

However, ill the pi. + nko structure (of which iii is an example, “nko” can only refer to human beings. If inanimate (or animate but non human) substances are to be envisaged, one is obliged to name them (cf. iv above).

The interro-confirmatives "se, nje, bf ngbg/egbo" They are interrogates whose meaning content requires, confirmation of a fact or dispelling a rumour, etc. There is none of the first three that has an independent existence in terms-of being enough to be the only component of an interrogative utterance. It is only the last two forms that can be identified with such syntactic independence: Ngbo) Is it true? Egb^) It is not wrong to call “ngbp/egbo” interro-imperatives in the sense that each of them involves both the notions of interrogation and implicite order aiming at getting a fact confirmed. The first of these two units, “ngbo” is addressed to only one person that is not up to one’s age/status, or that is of one’s age but definitely not higher in status. The second, “egbp”, is used in circumstances different from what we have just explained: the addressee must be more than one, he/she must be older or of a higher station in life. These confirmative interro- imperatives may be decomposed in the following manner: Interpellate n/e + verb gbo (listen/hear)

Conclusion The occurrence of some of them in a seemingly minimal sentence (i.e. the possibility of addition to a nominal in some cases) is a mere surface event. There is really nothing in the morpho-syntactic behaviour of any of the free and bound means of interrogation in Yoruba that can be said to be in the direction of a predicated utterance. The morphological and syntactic manipulations possible do not have the transformational properties of a verb; they are for diverse and specific shades of interrogative meaning,

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201

which is a limiting factor in their grammatical function. For example, there is none of the simple and complex morphemes that can associate themselves with the paradigm of verbal markers. None can be relativized, etc. Consequently, we reaffirm what is implied in our introduction that they are not verbs.

Notes 1. 2.

By this, we mean a unit of syntactic dependence in Yoruba. It can be equated with the English genetive “s” in words like “Olu’s book”. That is, focalizer (or element of focus construction). It is an identification unit.

References The abbreviations used are: A.L. I. U.E J. R/J.RM.R J.W.A.L. S.A.L. U.l.E U.h.L.G. U.RL.

Afrique et Langage Ibadan University Press Journal de psychologie moraleet pathologique Journal of West African Linguistics Studies in African Linguistics University of Ife Press Universite des Langues et Lettres de Grenoble (France)/ELLUG University Press Limited

Abraham, R.C. (1981): Dictionary of Modern Yoruba, Hodder and Stoughton. Afolayan, A. 91972): “The Predicative Adjective as a Grammatical Category in Yoruba,” in The Yoruba Verb Phrase (ed.) A.'Bamgbose, I.UR, pp. 73-102. ‘ Ajeigbe, O. (Jan. 1979): “A semantic argument for passive structures in Yoruba,” Seminar, University of Lagos. Awobuluyi, (1971): “The Verb in Yoruba,” Deutsches Institute fur, Afrika-Forschung, Hampurg, pp. 59-66. _(1972) “On the Nature of Relativization.” Paper presented at City University, New York. (1973): “The Modifying Serial Construction: A Critique/’ S.A.L., Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 87-111. Bamgbose, A. (1972): “What is a verb in Yoruba? in Yoruba Verb Phrase, (ed. A. Bamgbose), I.U.R, pp. 7-59. __(1975): “Relativization or Nominalization? A Case of structure versus Meaning,” Seminar at the University of Ibadan. Banjo, L.A. (1974): “Sentence Negation in Yoruba,” S.AL. Suplement Ed. No./ 5, pp. 39-17. Creissels, D. 91980): Plans.de description grammatical pour les languages negro-africaines, Handouts I-VI, U.L.L.G. Francois, D. (1973): “Quelques problemes d’analyse syntaxique,” J.P.M.P. pp. 93-113. Galichet, R (1948): “Valeurs semantiques et valeurs grammaticales,” J.P. No. 41, pp. 206-215. Guillet, A. et Leclere, Ch. (1981): “Formes syntaxiques et predicats semantiques,” in Langages, no. de septembre). Houis, M. (1977): “Plan de description systematique des langues negro-africaines,” AL. No. 7, pp. 5-65. Kujore, O. (1972): “A Toughstone for the Verb in Yoruba,” in The Yoruba Verb Phrase, (ed. A. Bamgbose), I.U.R, pp. 61-71. Mikus, G. (1984): ‘Realite physique et expression linguistique,” Journal de Psychologie 41, pp. 194-205.

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Oke, D.O. (1969): The composite verb in Yoruba,” Actes du de Congres International de Linguistique AFricaine, 1, Universite D’Abidjan, pp. 235-250. Owolabi, D.K.O. (1976): “Noun-noun Constructions in Yoruba: A syntactic and semantic Analysis,” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Ibadan. BuUeyblanc, D. (1980): Clitics and Extraction in Yoruba, Mass. M.I.J. Cambridge, Mass. Schachter, E (1972): “Focus and relativization,” Indiana University Linguistics Club.

Aspects of Yoruba Culture in the -I- O Diaspora CHARLES ADENRELE ALADE

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss aspects of Yoruba Culture which have survived in the New World and to examine the factors which favoured the survival.

Nature of Yoruba Culture The Yoruba customs, traditions, and religions are complex and multifarious. They differ from one part of Yorubaland to the other. But there is a common unity amongst them all due to the myth and b'elief that they are all descendants of Oduduwa and that Ile-Ife was their spiritual or ancestral home.2 The major aspects of Yorutfa religion are Ela, Obatala, Yemoja, Egungun, Oro, Agemo, Sango, Sonponno, Ogun, Esu, etc. Yoruba customs include the initiation rites; birth, marriage and funeral ceremonies; divination, dancing, singing, drumming, folklores, story-telling, etc.3 These, the Africans, freemen and slaves, took along with them to the New World. The Africans who came to the New World came with their gods, beliefs, and traditional folklore. The Yoruba that eventually ended up in Cuba and Brazil brought along many of the gods. The Yoruba of Oyo came with Sango, their god of thunder, who was their fourth King. The Egba of Abeokuta brought Yemoja, the goddess of river Ogun. She became the deity of the sea in Bahia. The Ijesa came bringing Osun, who became the deity of fresh waters in Brazil and Cuba. The Ekiti brought Ogun, god of iron, of blacksmiths and warriors. The people of Ife came with Obatala, deity of creation; those of Ifon came with Obalufon and those of Ejigbo with Osagiyan, Osalufon and Osagiyan are two names under which the cult of Orisanla is practised in Brazil and Cuba. Oya, deity o'f storms and of the river Niger became Yansan in Brazil. A large part of the vodum and orisa of present-day Nigeria crossed the Atlantic and established themselves in the Americas and the West Indies. The earliest experiences of the first generation Africans — both slaves and freemen — in Cuba, Brazil and generally on the soil of the Americas were most disconcerting. First, there was the language barrier. They arrived on the American soil ignorant of English, speaking their African languages, an$ unable to communicate with anyone in any other language except their own. The great majority who knew no other religions than those of their African ancestors found their belief system equated with fetishism, paganism, or witchcraft, and vigorously suppressed. It is clear then that for African slaves ther£ was an overpowering necessity to acquire the means of communicating with their fellow men in their new environment. Consequently, the new slaves clandestinely transported into the New World, especially the Yoruba of Bahia, came to join those who had earlier been brought along 203

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Culture and Society in Yorubaland

in forming genuine portions of ‘nations’. These were distinct societies with their own ‘kings’, and ‘governors’. Here, they kept their customs, discreetly practised their traditional cults and spoke their particular languages, which were not understood by others. Thus they kept their prejudices, their passions, their sympathies, and their reciprocal hatreds, preserving in this way their identity and the faith of their ancestors. Nina Rodrigue perhaps captured this mood of the Yoruba in Bahia when he said: the Africans separated themselves from the whole of the population in the midst of which they lived and worked, to close themselves in or to limit themselves to small groups or colonies fervently preserving their language, their traditions, and their beliefs.4 However, Rodriguez mistook the new spirit of defence, and the need to maintain their cultural patterns for the spirit of segregation and reserve by the Yoruba slaves. Bastide has given two possible explanations for such a phenomenon.5 It may have been a deliberate policy on the part of the governing classes, designed to prevent the slaves from acquiring the notion that they were an exploited group, and operating through the policy of ‘divide and rule’. Alternatively, we may have here a genuinely spontaneous process of association, the partially among those Africans who followed a trade or craft. Fellow countrymen wanted an opportunity to meet one another, celebrate their customary feasts together, and to keep up their own religious traditions. It was also in these ‘nations’, fraternities, cabildos, cult-groups and mutual-aid-societies that genuine African religious ceremonies took place, and armed rebellions were planned. Even after inter-marriages had dissolved the old ethnic .groupings, the ‘nations’ continued to flourish as centres of traditional culture. In Brazil, for example, there emerged a whole variety of Candombles: Nago (Yoruba), Oyo (a town in Nigeria), Ijesa (a district/town in Nigeria) and many others. Thus, these civilizations became detached from the ethnic group which imported them, and took on a distinct life of their own. In these conditions, it is easy to speak of African cultural traits which transcend ethnic groupings in the New World. For in any given area there is a dominant African culture; but that preponderance may have no direct relationship to the preponderance of such-and-such an ethnic group in the slave-shipments to the area concerned. ''Vhat actually happened was that due to inter-marriages, a bitter struggle ensued between the nations , and that this struggle culminated in the triumph of one culture over the other. For an example, in Bahia, Alagoa and Racife (all in Brazil) though one can identify Nago (Yoruba), Dahomean, Angola and Congo candombles, nevertheless it is the Yoruba candomble alone which has inspired all the rest with their theology, their system of correspondences between the gods of the various ethnic groups,' their ceremonial rituals, and their basic festivals. In Haiti, despite the presence of Congo Mayonbe, Igbo, Badagri, Maki and Bambara ‘mysteries’ and divinities, they have all come under the sway of the dominant Dahomean religion. It'is, therefore, possible to chart the geographical distribution of the various dominant cultures from Africa, each of which has set the tone for one region, or the other in the Americas. We would'then, not be too far off the mark if we talk of the preponderance of Yoruba culture in Brazil — Bahia, Alagoa, Racife, Porto Alegre and Pelotds — as well as in Cuba and Trinidad.

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Yoruba Culture in Diaspora Culture will be treated in its broadest term to include not only customs, traditions, folklore, music etc. but also to include the day-to-day life of the Africans, their productive endeavours, and taking a cue from Africa, to look for the continuity in features which appear most exotic and picturesque. However, we should take heed to draw a clear and careful distinction between the form, function and the evolutionary process. While in actual form these cultural traits arq African {Yoruba) yet in order to survive, they had been forced to adapt themselves functionally to conditions that differ substantially from those of its original home in Yorubaland. Since conditions are likely to change, over the years, not only in the Americas, but also in Africa itself, we should endeavour to look for, not only continuity, but also a certain amount of convergence in our search for Yoruba survivals in the New World.

"Aaro" or Collective Labour We shall start by examining the economy prevalent in rural black communities in South America; especially cooperative labour as it exists in Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad, and anywhere where the Black population is in the majority in Central and South America. It is also found in Brazil under the name mutirao. This is reminiscent of the Aaro system of the Yoruba. The best known and generally connected with the Yoruba is the example of Haiti. Here it is known as Combite and it takes different forms. There is the ron, a series of small Combites, whose members take turns to work for each other, generally putting in half a day's work two or three times a week. Then there is the association; this involves a larger number of people, and substitutes payment in cash or foodstuffs for a mutual exchange of labour. With the ron, we have a straightforward bartering process, one job against another, for the general benefit of all those involved. The association or ‘society produces a group of semi-professional peasants, wit their own special organization, who hire themselves out to any landowner in need of a large labour force to get some specific job done quickly. Talking of collective or cooperative labour also brings us to property. The religious fraternity houses in Habia may, legally speaking, belong to some individual person, but in fact, as Bastide has shown, they are the joint property of some Yoruba sect whose religious leaders imply hold them in trust. Just as in Yorubaland the elders (alagba, heads of families) share out the profits of any collective work among the younger members of the kinship group and their womenfolk, so here the religious leaders share out the benefits of any joint enterprise among all their followers.

The Family Group Another African cultural survival in the New World is the family group. Marriage in Africa, especially among the Yoruba, takes the form of an agreement between the parents, with polygamy as the common rule. In Haiti, the West Indies and Cuba, it is not uncommon for a formal letter of application for betrothal to be written by the parents or relatives of the groom. After all the necessary agreements and customs have been concluded, the marriage is contracted in a manner reminiscent of a typical Yoruba marriage.6

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Culture and Society in Yorubaland

The Yoruba Religion Each ethnic group in the diaspora has its own special cultural focal point, around which people’s interests crystallise. As in the case of the Yoruba, it is religion. Of all the African religions that have survived in the Americas, it is undoubtedly that of the Yoruba which has remained most faithful to its ancestral traditions. Furthermore, the nature of Yoruba belief is unlike that of other African people brought into the New World. It is not restricted to the single cult of ancestor worship as with the Bantu. The cult of the Orisa, which is that of the forces of nature, extends beyond regional boundaries to all the Yoruba countries and those influenced by the Yoruba. As a result, individual people from regions often quite widely separated from each other were more likely, once in slavery across the Atlantic, to meet other individuals dedicated to the same Orisa than if they had only practised the cult of their own ancestors: a cult which would have been bound to be more personal, fragmented and restricted to people in their own family. This Orisa religion with its wider horizons and less dependence on narrow local social structures is found above all in Brazil, where it goes under the name of candombles nagos (Bahia) or chango (states of Fernambuco and Alagoas), or batuque, a term imitating a drum-beat (state of Porto Alagre). In Cuba, the term used to describe Orisa is santeria; it is also found in Trinidad, in the West Indies, where it is also known as Chango. The Yoruba of Brazil are called Nagos, whereas those of Cuba go under the name of Lucumis. HoweVeP, all these-terms are the ones employed to designate the various cults by the inhabitants of the areas concerned, but they are not the names by which the members of the sects refer to their religion. There are two great differences between Yoruba religion in Africa and in the Americas. In Yorubaland, t-he cult of the gods (Orisa) is linked both with the lineages, or family groups. The Orisa is regarded as the ancestor of the lineage, and his cult is always kept up by the oldest chief in the group, generation after generation, though without recourse to a state of trance. On the other hand, certain members of the lineage form fraternities, the members of which dance for the Orisa, and are possessed by him. Another difficulty arises here. In Nigeria, each Orisa has a separate fraternity. In the Americas, this was no longer feasible, since the reconstituted ‘nations’ far from embracing an entire ethnic group, was restricted to the slaves of one particular town, as was the case with Ketu, or Oyo. The priests were, therefore, obliged to lump all the devotees of all the various Orisa in one single organization. This, of course, in turn affected the ritual, for it was no longer enough to invoke the same deity on all occasions. All the deities now had to be mentioned, one after the other, in a predetermined hierarchical order of importance. Consequently, in Yorubaland, generally speaking, once a person has been possessed, that is the end of the matter; in America, it was different, one had to be possessed by a whole series of divine possessions. It is now left for us to look into the organization, myths, types of ceremonies and ritual, to compare them with what obtains in Yorubaland, and to see the extent to which the Yoruba religion has been preserved in the Americas. The main divinities worshipped in Brazil are Obatala or Orisanla, the skygod, who has long maintained his archaic character — it is expressed symbolically by means of the double calabash

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— Sungo, god of thunder, with his three wives, Oya, otherwise known as Yansa, who presides over storms; Oba, and Osun goddess of freshwater streams and sensual love. Ogun, Sango’s brother, god of smiths and war; Osossi, god of hunters, Sonponno, the god of smallpox and medicine, but who was usually more worshipped as Omolu, or Obaluaye Yemoja, a freshwater divinity in Yorubaland, who has become the goddess of salt waters and chaste love in Brazil. Osumare, the rainbow and, finally, Esu or Bora, who acts as the obligatory intermediary between the Orisa and mortals, and as a result, is always the first deity to be worshipped. It should be noted that this is not an exhaustive list of the deities known in Brazil but the others have fewer worshippers. Olorun, the supreme deity, is known, but, just as in Yorubaland, he has no special cult. The list of Orisa known in Cuba is more or less the same, though some of them have different names. Cuba also Preserves certain other deities who have disappeared in Brazil, such as Olokun, the goddess of the sea. The fundamental public ritual observances associated with each of these divinities are fundamentally the same in Cuba, Brazil and Nigeria, There is a noticeable connection of the gods with some special day of the week; each one, moreover, had his or her special colour and favourite animal for sacrifices. Each received a type of offering, and was hedged about by special taboos. While Bastide has noted the survival of Yoruba mythology in Brazil and recorded certain stories connected with the gods,7 there can be no doubt that Yoruba mythology is much better preserved in Cuba, where it assumed a far richer and more complex form. In any case, mythology in Brazil is closely tied to ritual, as though the ideas which it enshrined could only live in so far as they are formalised in such a pattern of action; whereas in Cuba, mythology still flourishes as an organized way of looking at the world in its own right, complete with the account of the creation of the universe, the stories about the quarrels amongst the gods etc. Yoruba priestly organization, though with minor variations,is also found in the Americas., In Yorubaland the priests are a markedly centralised group, with their own clear hierarchy. The Babalawo comes first. Then the leaders of the fraternity Babalorisa (men), Iyalorisa (female) whose authority extends only, over their groups. Furthermore, there are a number of secret societies, political and religious in nature, the Ogboni, Oro, Egungu or Egun. In Brazil, using Bastide’s categorization, four groups are discernible. First, there are the Babalawo; followed by the leaf-doctors’, the clossain, linked with the leaf-deity Osaim. Thirdly, comes thp Babalosha or Iyalosha, who run the fraternities with the assistance of Iya-Kekere, (little mother). Finally come the Oges, the members of the Egun secret societies. We find precisely the same names in Cuba; though the Egun secret society does not exist there. The ritual varies from one ceremony to another, but most often takes the form of dances which mime the major adventure of the gods. Nonetheless, we can isolate a number of fixed points in Brazilian ritual. Early in the morning, animal sacrifices take place; two-footed beasts for Esu, four-footed ones for the principal deity whose day it is. Next comes the preparation of the feast, especially the cooking of those dishes that will be offered to the' gods who are being invoked. Towards evening comes the dancing and the invocation to the gods who intermediates between human beings and the Orisa. This is immediately followed by the ‘summons’ to all the known orisa, which is beaten out on three drums, with its rhythms varying according to the god which is being summoned. Each one is also honoured by the performance of three ‘hymns’ rendered in the Yoruba tongue.

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During the course of the dances which accompany these musical offerings, the Orisa descend on their children, who pass into a transcend state and are carried into the sanctuary. After a short break the singing and dancing are resumed, exclusively by those initiates who have undergone possession, and who have now reassumed their liturgical vestments. Finally, the gods are expelled by a series of hymns, performed in the reverse order to that which accompanied their summoning. In Cuba, the drums which set the rhythm for the lucuni dances, and which ‘talk’ like their Nigerian counterparts, the bata drums, are unknown in Brazil. Also, like in Yorubaland, Cuban rituals lay much more emphasis on singing unaccompanied by drums. ON the whole, talking of formal structure, we find exactly the same sequence of events: animal sacrifices, the preparation of the feast, an initial summons to Esu, followed by the invocation of all the Orisa, ecstatic possession, dances, miming tales from Yoruba mythology and so on. In Trinidad, the Yoruba high God, Olorun is unknown, but the principal deities of the Yoruba are generally in evidence. In Trinidad, a minor Yoruba spirit called aja (i.e. dog used as sacrifice to Sango in Yorubaland) is worshipped under the name of Ajaja, and Mama Loate, the ‘mother of all nations. The priestly hierarchy here is a simple one, being restricted to the fraternity leaders and their attendants. The Babalawo are for the most part ignored, or in most cases practise only the most simple type of divination, that involving the two halves of kolanut, which can give only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. There is little sign of any secret societies such as the Egun or Ogboni cults. So much attention has been paid to religion because it is the best preserved evidence of Yoruba cultural heritage in the diaspora and because of the fact that it is a focal point around whicfi the lives of many Blacks crystallised. There are other cultural heritages which are quasi-religion and quasi-social. One of these is the Initiation rites. The girl, still in a state of trance, feels no pain. All these take place during the hours of darkness. During these seventeen days, the candidate emerges three times, but her final appearance, which takes place immediately after the blood-bath is the most remarkable, since its object is to present the new initiate, publicly, to the other members of the candomble. The ‘daughter of the gods’ now reveals her new name, and afterwards remains in seclusion for another week, still in a semi-trance. The following Sunday, another ceremony takes place, appropriate to secular life, which she has forgotten in the course of her seventeen day metamorphosis. She then returns to her home, but she still remains to some extent under the control of the priest who initiated her, by wearing a necklace, the kele. It is only aftqr a three month period before she recovers her liberty completely. She then dedicates the necklace at the stone of her special god. With very minor details, all these duplicate what obtains in Yorubaland. One important thing to note, in the sociological sense is the extreme vitality of the cults. When a child is born, the babalawo is consulted in order to discover the infant’s orisa. Before any marriage, a sacrifice is made to Esu, the opener-of-ways, and those concerned go to the cemetery and consult the ancestral shades, to make sure that the union has their approval. No person who has been initiated will have sexual relations on the day of the week that is sacred to his orisa, or before going to the candomble. Immediately after a person’s death, there is celebrated a rite known as the axexe, which lasts seven days, the purpose of which is to drive the soul away from the earth.

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Folklore Although religious survivals are the most spectacular and widely studied phenomena in the New World, African folklore can also be found throughout the Americas, from the United States in the north, to Rio de la Plata in the far south. Yoruba dancers, drums tales were able to survive, just as religion and other customs in the new environment. Yoruba stories and animals tales told by the old-time slaves still survive today. The African tortoise — Ijapa and the rabbit Ehor — remain the principal heroes of these mischievous stories. Yoruba power and riddles are also predominant particularly in Cuba, where proverbs have been preserved in the Yoruba tongue.8 The African population of the island enjoy telling stories at wakes, either animal tales or fairy tales, in which the orisa come down and mingle with mankind. Numerous musical instruments have successfully crossed the Atlantic, in consequence, singing is still marked by genuine Yoruba rhythms. These accompanying instruments include the aja, a iron bell struck with an iron bar, the Yoruba agogo, the Yoruba talking drum, bata or Iya-Ilu.

How Yoruba Culture Survived Despite the humiliation, depravity and degradation of the trans-Atlantic crossings and eventual forced slavery in strange lands and a strange environment, the African managed to preserve his cultural traits and pride. How was thjs possible? In one sense, it was possible for the African to preserve memories of his past. Slavery automatically separated a child from his parents, and left him to be brought up by the old women, who were no longer fit to toil in the fields. It was precisely this group which, by reason of old age, would be most likely to dwell on the past. Thus such memories could well have been transmitted from one generation to another, especially since the slave-ships continued to arrive with fresh consignments of human cargo. Nevertheless, in the long run, such memories were bound to lose their original clarity, and at last was bound to fade into oblivion. This, at least, is what happened in the great majority of cases. If these memories were to survive, they had to attach themselves to some existing custom, establish a foothold in the here-and-now, and some sort of niche or hiding place. This is exactly what the Yorubas did in Cuba, Trinidad and Brazil. Since they could no longer find in the New World anything like the old African context of their joint traditional beliefs, they stuck to the old ones —- tenaciously for survival. As discussed earlier, in the beginning, urban slaves and free-blacks formed themselves into ‘nations’, with their own ‘kings’ dhd ‘governors.’ The survival of African cuisine, both in Brazil and in Cuba, can be explained by the fact that the white mistress of the house would employ female slaves to do her cooking. The latter were thus in a position to introduce their own spices, recipes and, often tiipes, cooking methods of patriarchal big house society. If Yoruba folklore has survived, that is because the appalling mortality rate among black slaves forced their masters to let field workers have Sundays and Church feast days off. These holidays, during which they were free to amuse themselves as they pleased, formed the institutional context within which chants, dances and various other manifestations of Yoruba art, music in particular, could be preserved. Another peculiar secular institution which also helped to press Yoruba ethnic traditions, and seems to have existed throughout Americas is what the Brazilians call

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negi'os de ganbo. City slaves were responsible for certain hard and unpleasant annual jobs, such as unloading ships and carrying large loads, heavy sacks, pianos etc. To carry out such tasks they formed themselves into little squads of four to six men, all of the same ethnic group, since it was essential that they be able to communicate with one another in their own mother tongue, and under the command of a Captain, or foreman. Since they always worked together as a gang, sue!} people were in a better position to preserve their ancestral traditions. Furthermore, although the Africans were baptised, their religious education was left in the hands of the clergy. Their masters were indifferent. Under such circumstances, the Africans formed special religious fraternities of their own, under the patronage of coloured saints such as St. Benedict the Moor, or our Lady of the Rossary. As a general rule mulattos and dark-skinned Africans set up quite separate fraternities; while in cities with large coloured populations there were special Yoruba fraternities. The cropping of ethnic divisions into ‘nations’ even in ecclesiastical organization facilitated the perpetuation of African languages, and religious beliefs. All those institutions tended to bring people from the same country together, in one single group, thus producing a close degree of solidarity between them. These factors made it possible for Yoruba and other African patterns of culture to survive in a strange land and environment. Another important factor, that has facilitated the preservation of African religious belief in the Americas, is syncretism. Herskovits and Bastide are the best known authorities on this theme.^ It can be explained in historical terms by the slaves’ need to conceal their ancestral ceremonies from their white overlords. They therefore danced before a Catholic altar with their prominently displayed lithographs and statuettes of the saints, which were in fact addressed to African divinities. Syncretism is simply a mask put over the black gods for the white man’s benefit. Theologically, the Africans have justified this behaviour arguing that there is only one universal religion, which acknowledges the existence of one unique God and Creator. However, since this God is too remove from mankind to enter into direct contact with, consequently, ‘intermediaries’ are necessary: for Catholics (Europeans) saints, and or angels; for the Yoruba (Africans), orisa. They further argue that one can always ‘translate’ one religion into another, by assimilating each African divinity to a special saint. In fact certain details of religious imagery encouraged this apparent syncretism. Hence, the faithful identified Sango with St. Jereome, because both of them occupy intermediary positions in a whole network of relations, and perform exactly the same functions, i.e. controlling the forces of fire, directing lightning or thunderbolt exclusively against the evil doer. Often times the Yoruba look for possible parallels between certain episodes in the lives of the saints and certain myths concerning their own deities.10 Thus, Omolu, the god of smallpox is identified with St. Lazarus or St. Sebastian, whose body is covered with sores and ulcers; Yansan, the storm goddess is identified with St. Barbara, the patron of gunners and artillery men. Yctyioja, presented in some legends as the mother of the otherprisa, has bee compared with the Virgin of the Immaculate conceptions. Ogun, god of war equals St. Anthony, who held the rank of Captain in the Brazilian army at Bahia. This syncretism between the Yoruba orisa and the Catholic saints in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti and Trinidad permitted the Yoruba in the past to continue the cult of their gods in secret, under the cover of Christianity. In this way, the survival of African gods was

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perpetuated in the diaspora. Curiously enough, Portuguese and Spanish slave masters also became Africanised by the contact with the slaves. Acculturation became a two-way traffic. Donald Pierson’s argument that ‘assimilation and acculturation are not phenomena resulting in changes for only one of the races in contact, leaving the other unchanged’ confirms that position. In Brazil, for instance, circumstances were such as to favour the acquisition by whites of certain elements of African culture. It was rare to find, especially during the slave trade era, a white child who had not been brought up by a $luck nurse, who sucked him rocked him to sleep and taught him his words in her pidgin Portuguese. This prompted Luiz Vianna Filha’s comments that “Bahia became Africanised, the Black with his culture, his customs and his subconscious was to be found everywhere. Quite involuntarily, he transmitted them to the new society in which he had been forcibly integrated”. In the finally analysis, the African slave not only preserved his cultural heritage in the diaspora, but was able also to assimilate and acculturate bis white oveflords.

Notes 1.

A special edition of Tarikh Vol. 5, No. 4 published during the 2nd World Festival of Black and African Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977 was specially dedicated to the African diaspora. 2. See ’Biodun Adediran, ‘Yoruba Ethnic Groups or A Yoruba Ethnic Group?’: A Review of the problem of ethnic identification, Africa, Sao Paulo, No. 7, 1984. 3. These haye been well documented, see for instance; Olu Daramola and A. Jeje Awon Asa ati Orisalle Yoruba, Ibadan: Onibon-Oje Press, 1975, Wande Abimbola (ed.), Yoruba Oral Tradition: Poetry in Music, Dance and Drama, Ile-Ife, 1975; N.A. Fadipe, The Sociology of the Yoruba, Ibadan University Press, 1990. 4. Nana Rodrigues, OS Africanos No. Brasil, Sao Paulo, 1933. 5. Roger Bastide, African Civilization in the New World, London,'Hurst, 1971. 6. This writer had the opportunity of witnessing some marriages, rituals and other elements of Yoruba cultural survival during his visits to Cuba in 1968 and 1978. 7. Roger Bastide, African Civilizations, pp. 115-122. 8. Ibid, p. 178. 9. M.J. Herskovits, The Myths of the Negro Past, New York, 1941, pp. 144-174; Roger Bestide, African Civilizations, pp. 152-169. 10. Verger, “African Survivals in the New World,” Tarikh Vol. 5, No. 4, 1977, pp. 79-91.

19

Adeagbo Akinjogbin: A Modern Yoruba Poet and a Literary Critic OYEWOLE AROHUNMOLASE

Introduction Professor Adeagbo Akinjogbin contributed immensely to the development of Yoruba Studies. As the Acting Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife), he championed the formation of the “Yoruba Teacher’s Association” Egbe Akomolede Yoruba at the University in 19671. He was one of those who formed the “Yoruba Poetry Group” at Ibadan in 1958. This Poetry Group later metamorphosed into “Egbe Ijinle Yoruba” (Yoruba Studies Association) which launched a Yoruba Journal named “OlokunThe Journal is still in circulation and had contributed greatly to the development of Yoruba Studies.2 Akinjogbin contributed some articles published in “Olokun’.3 In his biographical Sketch in “Ewi Iwoyi’ 4 we are (old that, Akinjogbin worked as a research fellow with the “Yoruba Historical Research Scheme” from 1957 to 1960. It was at this period that he researched extensively into many aspects of Yoruba Studies. He became a Lecturer in the Departmnent of History, University of Ife in 1963. In 1965, he became the Acting Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ife. Before 1957, he studied European History at the Univerity of Durham, Sierra L$one and at the University of London where he wrote his Doctoral Thesis on the “History of Dahomey”.5 His interest in Yoruba Studies as shown by this background information kindled his interest in writing modem Yoruba Poetry. He might have collected Yoruba Oral poetry from his informants for historical reconstruction. The usefulness of oral literary data for some historical reconstruction is enumerated by Alagoa when he says that: Social and cultural historians in literate societies draw on the literature of the peoples and the periods they study for knowledge of trends and changes of attitudes, ideas, opinion and customs. It is generally accepted that literaiy data may be validly used for some kinds of historical reconstruction.6 Akinjogbin’s study of Yoruba oral data among the Yoruba speaking people of Dahomey (Benin Republic) and Nigeria, gave him the impetus and inspiration in writing modern Yoruba poetry. As a member of the Yoruba Poetry Group, he exchanged views with other colleagues in the group on the art of writing Modern Yoruba Poetry. His interest in Yoruba Studies is shown in a paper he presented at the Annual Conference of “Egbe Akomolede Yoruba” at Ikenne in 1987.7 This paper, written in Yoruba language, stresses the importance of Yoruba in the society. In a poser to the participants at the Conference, he told them that their Secretary’s invitation letter to

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him was written in Queen’s English. This is to tell the Yoruba Teacher’s Association that if they wanted other people to recognise the importance of Yoruba language in the society, they should be the first to recongise it as an important language. Akinjogbin recognises the importance of Yoruba language as is shown in his modern Yoruba poetry. He is also a Yoruba literary critic. Akinjogbin is the editor of an anthology of modern Yoruba poetry titled Ewi Iwoyi. He contributed five poems in this anthology. Our critical examination Qf these poems show that one could determine the philosophy of Akinjogbin with a thorough unbiased or sentimental study of these poems. This study critically examines the view expressed in Akinjogbin’s introduction to Ewi Iwoyi and his five poems in the book for our assessment and evaluation of his position as a modern Yoruba poet and a Literary critic.

A Poet In Akinjogbin’s poems, he reveals his vast knowledge of the Yoruba traditional society and the contemporary Nigerian society. His philosophy about the Yoruba society is well expatiated in his poems. He reworked elements taken from his experiences of life, the Yoruba society in particular, Nigerian and African societies in general in such a way that interconnections between them and the whole from which they are abstracted are revealed,8 as shown in the analysis of his poems. Olatunji, in his analysis of his interviews with Faleti, says: a poet must possess the historical sense, an awareness of the totality of the works of the poets that have sung or written before him, not as discrete individual poems but in their totality, as well as the principles and patterns inherent in those works. It is within this pattern, not in slavish imitation but in a creative augmentation manner, that the poet must work°so that while he strikes his readers or listeners with his innovative departures, he can still be regarded as authoritatively traditional.9 Akinjogbin is aware of all these views in the composition of Tiis poems and in his own definition of poetry. He says: Ewi ni ero ijinle ohukohn ti o ba ti inu eni wa, ti o je eni lokan ti o mu ni lara, ti a so tabi ti a ko Iona ti o mu ni lokan ti ede re si dara ju bi a ti se i so oro lasan lo10... (Poetry is reasoned thought on any subject matter expressed in speech or in writing in such a way that it impresses cme, is memorable and its use of language excels that of ordinary speech). Akinjogbin knows much about Yoruba oral poets and many contemporary poets. He edited the works of twelve poets in Ewi Iwoyi. His first poem “Adura Ataiyebaiye” (pp.63 - 63) is based on the Yoruba belief that one must pray before embarking on any project or any important project. Akinjogbin is of the view that we should start from known things before we introduce new ones. Olatunji of the view that: The practice of “mere assemblage” occurs in many Yoruba poets of today, like Lawuyi Ogunniran... and Adeagbo Akinjogbon. Akinjogbin in ,“Adura Ataiyebaiye”... Some contemporary poets even string traditional sayings together and call them poetry.11 In his note number thirteen in this paper, he compares some lines of Akinjogbin’s poem with the Ijala piece of Babalola.12 in our view, the name of Akinjogbin’s poem shows that it is a traditional poem, a “Traditional Prayer” Yoruba also refer to this traditional prayer as “Iwure” (blessing).

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There are assertions which are self evident truths to express the wishes of the poet that are specified in the negative assertions. A critical examination and assessment of Akinjogbin’s poem with that of Babalola shows that, Akinjogbin modifies and embellishes his own poem which makes it different form that of Babalola.Akinjogbin says: Nkan merindinlogun ni gbowo bode lowo enia Ogun ko ni je o gha eeji lodo wa. Tuntunyunyun o ngb’owo bode lowo omose Ogun ko ni je o gba eejr lodo wa. (Sisten things demand for toll fees from human beings. Ogun shall prevent them from collecting two things from us. Tuntunyunyun (toe itching) demands for toll fees from toes Ogun shall prevent it from collecting two things from us). While Babalola writes: ■

Koko iji i gba ’bode lowo ori Ogun o ni i je ko gba bode n’le re Sobolo ni i gba bode lowo ipako ogun o ni i je ko gba bode n’le re (Boils collect strage toll from the head Ogun shall prevent them from collecting any toll in your house. Sobolo collects strage toll from the occiput, Ogun shall hinder it from collecting any toll in your hosue). (Lines 88-91) From the above examples we see that Akinjogbin modifies the Ijala text of Babalola by substituting his own words and modifying the sentence structures. The only common feature is Ogun, the name of the divinity repeated in both texts. Akinjogbin did not use any name of the ailments and divinities mentioned in Babalola’s Ijala text Lines 88-132) . The Ijala text is longer (forty five lines). The matter of mere assemblage of traditional materials takes us to the views of Isola, a contemporary modern Yoruba poet. Isola is of the view that: E o ti se tiwoyi ti o ni mulo ni tadayeba? Batani to wa ni tadayeba Ni o farahan mo lode oni13 (How can you write modem poetry Without making use of traditional oral poetry? The structural patterns in traditonal oral poetry Is no more prominent in modem poetry. A modern Yoruba poet has the liberty of making use of traditional oral materials. The way he uses these traditional oral materials should be of interest to us. Akinjogbin uses and modifies traditional oral poetry in his poem, Adura Ataiyebaiye. Another reason why Akinjogbin could not be accused of assembling traditional oral materials is that only one of his five written poems is considered. An assessment of all his poems can help us to evaluate his work meaningfully. In his second poem, lSunmo ‘Ni’ he says we should not take appearance for reality. The Yoruba belief in the Supreme Being, the,divini£ies and the creation myth is alluded to in this poem. The use of malefic charms in the society is of interest to the poet. These charms instil fear in the minds

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of people. God gave malefic charms users wisdom and knowledge but instead of using these in helping human beings, they perpetrate evil. He uses Olugbon and Aresa lineages to represent virtuous people in the society, while a known but unnamed town is noted for malefic charms. He says: Omo Olugbon, bi nwon ba lo ewe tiwon mo ewe Nwon a fi se ara won l’oore Omo Aresa, bi nwon ba lo egbo tiwon po Nwon a fi se ara won loore... Ni ilu a mo fa ko gbodo daruko Ti o je omo araiye ni ngbe inu re Bi nwon mu ewe tiwon po m’egbo Ti nwon fi ata yenpe olueri sii Ori ara won ni won fi nwa kiri (pp. 67-68, Lines 67-76). The offspring of Olugbon, if they ground their medicinal leaves into paste. They use the medicinal paste to help themselves Offspring of Aresa, if they ground their medicinal roots to paste They use the medicinal paste to help themselves. In a known town that we know but whose name we cannot mention. That is inhabited by human beings If they ground their medicinal roots with their medicinal leaves into paste If they add small Olueri’s alligator pepper They would use the malefic medicinal preparation to afflict their neighbours.

This poem is establishing the Yoruba belief that there are good and malefic medicine men in the society. The Yoruba society is a point of reference in this poem, but this could mean a universal phenomenon. “Ikunsinu”, his third poem enumerates the various needs of human beings in life. There are people in the society who have these things in abundance while others who* are suffering could not get these necessities for a happy existence. These basic things are: “Iyah, (Pounded Yam), Amola” (Yam Flour Paste), ‘Aya’ (Wife), ‘Owo’ (Money) ‘Iwe’, (Education), ‘Ola’, (Wealth, ‘Ominira’ (Independence), to mention a few (line 1-24), p. 69). It is when we can feed ourselves that we will think of marriage. Money is important for a happy married life and it is when we have education that we have wealth. It is wealth and education that give us independence. A person who had no food, money, wealth, wife and education would depend on other people for his needs. When we depend on others we are not free in any form, we are in chains. He tells us to be honest, faithful and work diligently and efficiently for our own upliftment in life. We should love our neighbours. Anikanje ko ye’mo enia Bi o ri je ko o f’enikeji (It is not good to be stingy When we have things we should give to others.)

In these two lines, he tells us that cooperation is essential in our society. We should help those who need our help or needed to be helped. This, poem is titled “grumbling’ We can argue that, this is the poet’s subtle way of telling us the plight of the poor toiling and suffering masses in the society. The poor masses are suffering while some

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affluent few in the society who got their wealth through dubious means are enjoying. Ayokele wu mi, ngo le je wo Odede wu mi, ng ko le gbabode K-a-mu-ti wu mi, ise ko lo ni I love having a car, but I cannot owe/embezzle money I love building a house, but I cannot be a saboteur I love alcohol, but my income is low). The voice of the grumbling poor toiling masses is reflected in this poem. This is a metaphor, showing the uneven distribution of wealth or amenities imthe society. The forth poem, ‘Awo Iwoyi’, is on what people do in our society. People in the society are deceitful. The Yoruba belief in Egungun [Masquerade) is used to illustrate Akinjogbin’s notion of the deceitful people in our society. “Hehe, laiye hehe lorun Eni o ku ni nje egungun” Iro ni, asipa owe ni (p. 70, lines 1-3) “Hehe , on earth, hehe in heaven One who dies is a masquerade” It is a lie, it is a wrong proverb. These opening lines are the bed-rock of the views the poet expresses in this poem. Africans who travel overseas came home to tell lies. They would not tell the true position of life in Europe. The problem they encounter in the white-man’s land and the filling of Europeans to Africans are suppressed in their tales. The poet is of the view that Africans should tell their stories of woes in overseas countries so that other Africans would know that Europeans are deceitful. Europeans pose as lovers and friends of Africans, but it is all deceit. In European countries, African are employed only to do menial jobs. They segregate against Africans because of their black colour. Europeans who colonize African countries did not reveal to Africans their wisdom and they did not teach them what would benefit them. Africans were trained as Christian priests, teachers, clerks etc. and not as technologists. Europeans feel that they are the best teachers of African cultures, African languages and literatures etc. Africans are to learn Latin, French, Greek, English, German, etc. which are regarded as superior to African Languages. European history arid other related disciplines are superior to African history. Many Africans accepted European ways of life, European cultures and language to the neglect of their own. In this poem the views of Akinjogbin the historian are manifested. He sayswhitemen came to Africa to deceive Africans to start the inhuman slave trade. They deceived Africans that their divinities are dead woods. Africans did not know anything about the true God. It was with the introduction of Christianity that the Europeans were able to colonize Africa and they started their colonial rule. All African artefacts that were condemned by Europeans were carted away to Europe. Akinjogbin’s advice is that we in the present generation should think seriously so that our offsprings would not suffer the same fate suffered by our elders under colonial administration. In order to make life comfortable and peaceful for our children we should develop our own African ideology, develop our own culture and value our own culture more than foreign

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cultures. This ppem is a poser for ‘Eurocentric’ Africans and ‘Afrocentric Africans’.14 In this poem Akinjogbin condemns eurocentric Africans. These Africans believe that black is bad while white is good and beautiful. African cultures are barbaric while European cultures are excellent and refined. Afrocentric Africans such as Akinjogbin, believe that, all European activities in Africa are deceitful and would not allow-us to develop because they want to be our lords so as to be able to cheat us. We should recognise our own African existence before the whiteman came to brainwash us. Akinjogbin is not against the idea of Africans going abroad to study, his advice to such Africans is that they should examine themselves to know why it is important for them to go overseas. Is Akinjogbin not warning many Africans who flood overseas countries in search of employment? Is he not warning some Africans who globetrot wasting our hard earned currency and those who traffic in dangerous drugs? He is of the view that Nigerians in particular and Africans in general should remain in their countries to salvage the economy of their different countries. The last poem titled “Rogbodiyan”, means ‘crises’. One may expect conflicts in the body of this poem, but Akinjogbin, the craftsman, in a subtle manner tells us how crises could be averted in a society. We should endure and cooperate with one another. Endurance and cooperation are two operative words used to advise politicians on what the society expects from them (lines 9-72). There should be unity among political leaders. He tells us of the story of Olisa who. did not cooperate with his town’s people at Ibadan. Olisa invited Idanre who were enemies of Ibadan to help him wage war against his his town. Idanre defeated Ibadan but Olisa was not spared in the ravage, he was killed because Idanre people believed that someone who could call enemies to wage war against his own town could perpetrate more vices. Akinjogbin advises African elders, rulers and politicians not to behave like Olisa. They should reason together to know those things that are expected of them and those that are abominable. Akinjogbin believes that uneven distribution of amenities in the socio-political and economic system in the society causes conflict. This is not new in the society. It has happened in Yoruba history, which led to the devastation of old ‘Oyo’, Owu Ipole and many Egba towns. Nigerian politicians should work hard to tie the loose ends and make amends where necessary. It is only through co-operation, dint of hard work and endurance that Nigerians or Africans would be able to salvage their battered economy. The educated elites should take, this as a challenge to them and should not fail their nations. One may argue that Akinjogbin in this poem warned and advised the warring politicians in the defunct old Western Nigeria between 1963 and 1966. This was the period when there was a division and power tussle in the Action Group Party. There was a clash in the defunct Western House of Assembly and power tussle between two warring factions. We assume that the noticeable crises in Nigeria between 1963 and 1966 influenced Akinjogbin in his choice of the title for this.poem. In the poem, he enumerates the things that would enhance a happy co-existence among future politicians. The warnings given in this poem were not heeded by the politicians between 1979 and 1983. What Olatunji says about his interviews with Faleti as regards the duty of a poet in the society is well illustrated in Akinjogbin’s poems. ...Faleti uses the traditional Yoruba oral poet as the backcloth for his answer. The poet should be an atore (outpost/lookout) for his society ... In their words, he is in a kind of tower, above the people, isolated from society and his thoughts

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One may argue that the idea of asking people to endure as shown in Akinjogbin s poems is a capitalist oriented philosophy that, the poor suffering masses should persevere and endure. . . Akinjogbin recognises the importance of language and stylistic devices in the composition of his poem.^ He holds the same views with Isola, another contemporary modern Yoruba poet, on the languagelof poetry. Isola says that: Ede akewi bi aworan alarabara ni Ede to wuyi nii satokun fero The poet’s language is like images in different colours It is the adequate use of language that directs one’s thoughts. A thorough examination and assessment of Akinjogbin s poems reveals that he is knowledgeable in the use of Yoruba language. He is a master craftsman as regards his poetic use of language. He uses Yoruba idioms, euphemism, irony, similes, metaphors personification and the use of poetic historical and institutional materials. Stylistic devices such as word play, parallelism, repetition and lexical matching are also copiously used. We will give a few illustrative examples from his poems. In Adura Ataiyebaiye, he says: Degoke Aremu, koni je ki a^ba ona oko ile lo (Line 27, p. 64) Degoke Aremu will not allow us to go in a road vehicle Ona oko ile lo, is euphemism, used for death. The use of personification is used in the same poem in: telese a be ona wo (Line 63, p. 65) Th&

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PROFESSOR I .A. AKINJOGBIN

Index [A] Aafin (palace) as an institution, 7 Aare, 7 Aaro, 205 Aba, 48, 62 women riots in, 48 Action, Group branch, 62 Abeokuta; 20, 28, 31-35, 76 rise of, 28 cotton exports, 33 kolanut production, 34 Abeokuta Council, 46 Abobaku, 22 Abomey, 71 Action Group Party (AG), 51-64 origins, 54 differentiated from Egbe, 55 Yoruba name for, 56 “14-point programme”, 63 Government, 132 Adamu Orisa Festival, 91 Ade (crown), 8-9 exportation of, 9 beaded with fringes, 21 Adeagbo Akinjogbin, 212-222 as poet, 213-219 as litei'ary critic, 219-222 the man and his work, 224-240 Ade lleke (Crown beads) as a symbol of political authority, 7 Ado, 17, 21, 34, 45 most central Ekiti state, 17 cocoa in, 34 Ado (Odo), 80 son of Asipa, 80 Ado-Akure, 17 Ado-Ekiti, 45 Adura Ataiyebaiye, 213 The African Church, 32-34 African Independent Churches (Aladura Church),'143 Agaja, 71 son of, 71, 73 Aganju, 15

Agbeyin group, 20 Agbo lie, 21 Agboyi, 80 Agege, 34-36 Agemo deity, 19 Ago, 28, 30 Ago-Are, 30 The Agricultural Department, 33 Agura of Iddo, 20 Aja communities, 71, 82 Ajaka, 15-16, 19 founder of Ijesa, 16 Ajalake first Alake of Egba country, 20 Ajani Olujare founding member of the Egbe, 56 Ajase (Porto Novo), 15, 18 Ajegunle, 83 Ajele (Oyo Ambassadors), 102 Akarigbere Class, 85-86 Akanrigbo, 20 “Akinjogbin School of History”, 240 Akinsemoyin, 80-86 Akintola, S.L. President of Egbe Irepodun, 58 Akogun Olofin, 84f Akoko, 14, 17-20, 74 Akoro (coronet), 21 Aku, 1 Akure, 4, 17-25, 46 Yoruba kingdom of, 4 under Ijesa influence, 17 Deji of, 17 ministates of, 17 •under Benin influence, 17 Alaafin (ofOyo), 6f, 15-25, 71-74,203f, 243f political paramouncy, 6 foundation of dynasty, 8 occupation of Igboho, 10 in Gbere, 15 initiation, 15 visitation, 16 treaty with, 30 strengthened powers, 47

258

Culture and. Society in Yorubaland relation with Ooni, 99 special ‘messengerial’ names, 102 Alaafin Abipa, 15 Alaafin Abiodun (ca. 1771-1789), 104 Alake, 20 of Abeokuta, 47-48, 59 The Alaketu dynasty, 6 Alakoro, 83 Alale (ruler-of ldasin), 18 Alaringo, 173 Allada slave port, 86 American Civil War, 33 Anago, 1,20, 21, 72-74 Anglo-Egba Treaty of 1892, 41, 45-46 The Apomu Market Conflict, 103 Appositives, 181-182 Aran, 18 Are Ona Kakanfo, 237 Arisu,19 Aro, 21 Aromire, 8 Of Aroko (as medium of communication), 106-108 Asante kingdom, 16 Ashanti, 72-73 Aseru (Iseru) Befiip war chief, 80 Asipyi, 80f Asedeboyede founder of Akure kingdom, 17 Asunkungbade founder of Owu, 9 oldest child of Oduduwa, 14 Asunlola,il8 Atakumaso, 17 Owa, 17 Attah, 71 Aun, 18 Avissu son of Agaja, 71, 73 Awolowo, Obafemi, 51-64 leader of Egbe and Action Group, 51 Awori, 19-22, 80-92 dialect, 80-92 speaking Yoruba, 80 Awori-Benin, 80 Awori of Lagos, 118 Awujale, 32., 42, 47^18, 101 Awujale dynasty, 19-20 Awusa, 83 Ayetoro, 21

259

Azikiwe Nnamdi (Zik), 51-64

[B] Baale (compound head), 21 Babalawo, 207f Badagry, 31, 34-35, 39-40, 45, 75, 105,121, 123 under British missionaries, 39 creek, 82 main south-north route, 189 Bahia, 31, 189, 203T black revolt in, 31 University of, 189 Bariba, 15 Bank of West Africa, 32 Basic tenets of Islam and Christianity, 143-146 Basorun Gaa (1754-1774), 22 Bebe festival, 16 Benin, 15, 17, 21, 72-74 •trade with eastern Yorubaland, 17 chieftancy titles, 74 pergonal names, 74 settlement in Lagos, 79-92 (See also Edo) Bere festival, 16 Bida, 74 Biobaku, Saburi, 4 Borgawa, 15 Borgu, 28, 70, 73 Borgu country, 10, 15-25 Bomu Youth Movement (BYM), 62-63 Brazil, 31, 82, 90, 188f, 203f, 248 Brazilians, 32-35, 40 British Crown Colony, 45 British naval Squadron, 31 British pax, 40 British Protectorate, 45 Bruce Island, 82 V Burkina Faso Yoruba in,. 8 18 Okun-Yoruba, 18 Burma,' 57 Bussa, 70 ' f

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[C] Calabar, 52,. 62, 64 Calabar Province, 62

f

260

Index

Cassava m West Africa, 34 Centenary of the Kiriji-Ekitiparapo Peace 11986), 109 Central District, 45 Central Sudan, 16 China, 57 Christ Cathedral Church (CCC), 91 Christ Church School, Ipetumodu, 224 Church Missionary Society (CMS), 32, 35, 143.171 Cocoa Marketing Board, 130-131 Cola iMiuda, 34, 73 in Western Nigeria, 34 Colonial Administration, 247-248 Colonial Development and Welfare Act, 132 Colonial Police, 45 Complex Sentence Type, 185-186 Conciliar System, 46 Constitutional Conference (of 1950), 62 Cotton Supply Association, 33 Council of Chiefs, 46 Cowrie shells currency, 71, 105, 123 (Cypraea moneta), 123 Cowry shells imports, 72 Crowther, Samuel Ajayi, 32, 80, 143, 171 Cuba, 82, 90, 188f, 203f, 248 Curamo Island, 84

[D] Dahomey/ 16, 21-25, 45, 71-74, 86, 212, 23If, 244f as vassal state of Old Oyo, 71 wars, 86 “Dahomey and Its Neighbours”, 229f Dahomea,n religion, 204 Dahomeans, 35 The Daily Sendee, 52, 58 organ of the Action Group Deji (Prince of Akure), 17 Democratic Party, 53 District Officer, 48 Dracaenia Perennial (Peregun) Tree significance, advantages and taboo, 109

[E] Eastern District, 46 Eastern Yoruba kingdoms, 8, 10 Ebi, 21,97-110 concept, 97-99

The Ebi Commonwealth, 8, 97-110, 230f Ebute Ero Market, 89 Ebute Metta, 34, 80f Ede, 21 Edo-Benin, 71-75 brass-casting at, 73 Edo country, 5, 19, 79-92 principal titles, 19 settlement in Lagos, 79-92 Edo/language, 3 The Edo Union, 55 Efa, 71 F.fene, 5, 18 Elefene of, 18 Egba, 4, 15, 19, 32, 68, 74 central Yorubaland, 4 imposition of Oyo rule, 15 kingdom, 19 Egba/Egbado region, 105 Egba-Dahomey incursions, 45, 74 Egba-Ijaye, 32 Egbaland, 39, 45, 74-75 under British missionaries, 39 Egbado, 15,19-21,27,34-35,45,68,72-74, •80 colonisation of, 21" kolanuts production in, 34 the British at, 45 Egbaluwe, 20 F.gbe Afemfere (Yoruba name for the Action Group), 56 Egbe Akomolede Yoruba, 212 Egbe Ijinle Yoruba (Yoruba Studies Association), 212 Egbe Irepodun, 58 Egbe-Iyalode, 150 Egbe Omo Oduduwa (Egbe), 51-55 origins, 53 central executive committee, 55-57 and AG differential,ed, 55 Egun, 20 Egun Ibeji, 81 Egun speakers,, 188 Egungun cults, 15, 73, 140, 152, 157f, 207f Egypt, 57 Ejirin, 35 Eken-egbo. 73 Ekiti, 10, 16-25 68. 73' eastertr'Yoruba kingdoms of, 10, topography of, 16 Ekiti Parapo, 32

Culture and Society in Yorubaland Eku Apa, 18 Elefene ofEfene. 18 expulsion of, 18 suppression of title, 18 Eleko (of Eko), 79-89 Elese, 20 Eletu Ijebu, 85 Emeda (sword-bearer), 19 Enahoro, Anthony leading member of AG, 63 Enu-Owa, 81 f Epe, 34-35, 45 Epo, 21 Erihkhita, 19 Erinja, 21 Ero mini Akure state, 17 Erule, 1509 Eruwa, 3l Eskipa, 79 Eso (military), 15 Etsu, 71 Ewekoko War, 87 Ewi (the speaker) Awamaro, 17 Ewi Iwoyt, 212, 240

[F] Federal Elections (of 1959), 63 Freetown, 82, 226 Fon, 16, 72-74, 105 kingdom.of Dahomey, 16 Fourah Bay College, Freetown, 226 Fulani, 28, 74 jihadists, 28 Fulani of Ilorin, 44

[G] Gabaro (Guobaro), 80f Gbagura, 20 Gbanja, 73 Gbere, 15 General Elections (of 1951), 51 Gezo (king of Dahomey), 71, 74 Gold Coast, 34 Gonja, 73 Governor-in-Council, 45 Governor of Nigeria, 45 Governor of Lagos, 46

261

[H] Hausa livestock, 72 Hausaland, 73 Historical Society of Nigeria, 51 The House of Assembly, 57 House of Representatives, 51, 57, 60-61, 63 election into, 60.

[I] Ibadan, 20, 27, 34, 39, 45, 75-76 emergence of, 27 cocoa in, 34 under British missionaries, 39 British administration in, 45 military tradition, 75 Ibadan-Ekitiparapo War, 108-109 Ibadan Council, 46 Ibadindin, 9 Ibeji, 158, 163 Ibolo north eastern Yoruba group, 17 Ibule mini Akure state, 17 Idaisa, 21 Idanre, 31, 34, 36 cocoa in, 34 Idasin the Alale of, 18 Iddo Island, 80, 86 . Idejo (Aladejo), 82, 86 Idofian, 17 Idumota, 81 Idun-Iganran, 81 f Ifa mystery, 15 system, 20 priests, 103 oracle, 162f Ife, 32, 34, 45 cocoa in, 34 art and culture, 69, 160f Ife Conference in Yoruba Civilization (1976), 4 Ife North Local Government Area, 224 I fore, 5 Igala kingdom, 71 Igan, 21 Igbadaye, 16 Igbaja, 18

262

Index

lgbara-Oke mini Akure state, 17 Igbimo/lliu (Council of Chiefs), 22 Igbo, 5 Igboba mini Akure state, 17 lgboha, 15, 30 lgbomina, 16-18, 76, 163 northeastern Yoruba group, 17 subunits/states of, 17-18 decline of, 18 Igbon, 15 lgbo-ldaisa (Dassa-Zoume), 5 Igede, 17 Igodo’ in the Edo country, 5 Ijan, 34 Ijana, 21 Ijare mini Akure state, 17 Ijaye, 20, 28, 32, 39, 76 rise of, 28 war, 32 under ‘British missionaries, 39 Ijaye-Egba Alliance, 108 Ijebu-British confrontation, 42 Ijebu, 4, 19-20, 32, 41-46, 80f central Yorubaland, 4 kingdom, 19 rise and decline, 20 culture and dialect, 20 imperial assaults, 20 The Ijebu Expedition, 41-43 Ijebuland, 32 Ijebu Waterside, 1 Ijebu Ode Council, 46 Ijebu Ode Grammar School (JOGS), 225 Ijebu Ode-Province, 48 Ijebu Remo Council, 46 Ijesa, 19, 16“ kingdom of, 10 founder of, 10 Ijesaland, 76 Ijo people, 89, 123 Ijoye, 22 Iju mini Akure state, 17 Ijumu Okun-Yoruba, 18 Ikale, 73 Ikare, 31 Ikeja,'81

Ikorita, 83 Ikorodu, 45 Ikosin, 18 Ikota mini Akure state, 17 Ikoyi, 15, 821 Ila kingdom most notable lgbomina state, 18 Ilaje, 73, 81f dialect, 81 llatnure, 22 Hare kingdom, 16 Ilaro, 21, 45 Ilaro-Egbado, 70 Ilayinyon, 19 Ile-Ife cradle of Yoruba civilization, 5, 24 decent of man in, 4 dispersal from, 7-11 monarchical institutions, 8-11 place in Yoruba history and cosmology, 14f pre-eminence, 80f, 99f Ilemure, 16 Ile-Olofin, 8f Ilepesi, 85 Ilesa, 34, 45 cocoa in, 34 Ilesun Elesun of, 17 Ilobi, 21 Ilorin Talaka Parapo (ITP), 62 llorin Town Council, 62 [Iowa, 16 llu, 21 Ilupeji, 85 lmeko, 45, 72 blacksmithing at, 72 The Imole cult, 7 Indirect Rule, 47-79 Lugardian concept of, 48 Indonesia, 57 India, 57 Industrial Revolution, 33 Institute of African Studies, 226 Ipogun mini Akure state, 17 Ipokia, 21, 45 Ira wo, 31 Irenpa, 80 Iresa, 1^

Culture and Society in Yorubaland lro, 80 Iru 82-83 Oniru of, 83 Isale Agbede, 90 Isanlu-Isin, 18 lsarun mini A*kure state, 17 Iseri, 20 iseyin, 30, 76 I sheri, 80 Isikan , mini Akure state, 17 Islam introduction and growth, 75 Islamic worship system, 144-146 Iso, 18 Isola mini Akure state, 17 lsolo, 811 Istiada, 18 Ita, 16 Itafaji, 83 Ita ljamo, 8, 10 lta ljero (the place of deliberation), 9 conference. 9 p re -kingdoms, 9, 10 lta iVlarun. 8 Ita-Ogboiu mini Akure state, 17 Ito-Tje, 83 Iwafin, 31 iwarefa, 22 The lwe Irolun, 117 lwo, 18 Iwo Eleru, 3 Iwuye ceremonies, 87 Iyagba, 74 Iya-kekere, 149, 207 ^yalode, 150-15.1, 162 lyare, 18

[J] Jaginrin, 20 Johnson,,Samuel (Rev.), 3, 6 Jomu Nla (the great Jomu), 19 Josephine Adebisi Oleloye, 226

[K] Kabba, 18

263

Kabba Province, 62, 64 Kabiyesi, 22 Kano, 57 Ketu, 9-10, 15, 21, 72-74, 105f Alaketu of, 9-10, 21 migrations, 10, 15, 21 invitation of, 21 Ketu Idaisa, 74 Kolanuts, 20, 34, 73 trade in, 20 production in Abeokuta, 34 Kori, 15 Kosegbe (Ora), 17 Krio (Creoles), 90 (see also Saro) Kusu Alaafin at, 15 Kwa language, 69, 188

[L] Lafiaji, 83 Lagos, 28-39, 46, 79-93 British occupation of, 28, 39-^16 ‘African Brazil’, 31 Oba of, 39-46 fall of, 41 Island, 80 as an Edo settlement, 79-88, political system before 1990, 83-88 British intervention in political system and administration, 87f political disputes, 87-88 commercial activities, 88-89 socio-religious development, 90-92 growth of Christianity, 91-92 creation of state (1967), 93 Lagos Botanical Garden, 34 Lagos Club, 83 Lagos Constanbulary, 44, 46 Lagos Hunters Union, 88 Lagos oligarchy, 84-88 Lancaster cotton mills, 33 Legislative Council, 53 Lekki, 83, 89 Lieutenant-Governor of Southern Nigeria, 45 Lisabi of ltoku, 20 Lisa Lobun (leading female chief in Ondo kingdom.), 19

264

Index

Locus of metaphor, 180-183 Logbosere, 19 Loja, \7 Lugard, Frederick Lord, 44, 47-48

[M] Macaulay, Herbert, 53 Macpherson Constitution, 52f Mahin, 20, 81 Makun, 89 Mali Yoruba in, 8 Meko, 21 Metaphors forms of, 177-186 NP, 183 Middle Belt of Northern Nigeria Benue, Niger, Plateau and Bauchi Provinces and Southern Zaria, 62 Minorities Commissioners, 63 Missionaries in Yorubaland, 31^16 Moba, 83 Modakeke, 30 Moloney Street, 83 Mono River, 1 Mushin, 81

[N] National Development Plan (1962-68), 133 National Development Plan (1970-74), 135 National Youth Movement (NYM), 53 Native Authority Ordinance, 47 Native Council Ordinance, 47 Native Court Ordinance, 47 Native Courts, 48 Native Treasury, 48 NCNC, 51-64 NCNC-NEPU alliance, 63 Nok (in Central Nigeria) archaeological relics, 69 Northeastern District, 45 Northern People’s Congress (NPC), 62 Niger-Benue Language, 3 Niger River, 1,15 Nogosu, 20 Nupe, 15-18, 28, 70, 73, 83 sack of Oyo lie, 15 Nupeland, 70-75 Nupe-Fulani Dynasty, 74-75 rulers of, 74

[O] Oba mini Akure state, 17 crowned king, 21 attributes and titles of, 101 Oba Orhogbua (of Lagos), 79f Oba alase ekeji orisa, 21 Oba of Benin, 80f Obafemi Awolowo University, 224f Oba-Igbomina, 4 Oba-Ile, 4 Obala deputy to Owa, 16 (see also Onila Obalande, 83 Obalufon Alayemore (the fourth Ooni), 7 Obanta, 19 Obatala, 159f, 206 Oboku, 16 Oba Ozolua of Benin, 19 Obun Eko Market, 89 Octopus Chamber of Commerce, 42 Ode-Ondo, 19, 46 Odofin, 19 Odo-Otin, 44 Oduduwa (Oodua) ruler of Ile-ife, 1, 14 descent from heaven, 4 ‘revolution’, 5-9 leadership tradition, 5 career, 6-8, 14-25, 70, 159f house of, 73 spirit of, 84 and Ile-Ife, 98 Ogbomoso, 39, 73, 75-76 Ogboni, 22, 164 Ogboni Iduntafa, 84 Ogborogun, 19 Ogidi Alliance, 75 Ogodo, 71 Ogoja Province, 62 Ogudu, 80 Ogulata, 79 Ogunfunminire, 80, 88 Ogun River, 80 Ojo, 80-81 Ojodu, 80 Ojoko of Ijoko, 20 Ojhowu Atogu, 71

Culture and Society in Yorubaland Ojugbelu, 18 Ojumu, 4 Oka, 19, 31 Okaka, 30 ; r Oke Igbo, 30 Okeluse, 18. Oke-Odan, 45, 75 Oke-Olowogbowo, 82 Oke Ona, 20 Oke Ora, 6 OkeOyan, 21 Okitipupd, 46 Oko, 15 Oloko of, 20 ~ Osile of, 20 Okpoto, 71 Okun Aja, 81 Okun-Yoruba - northeastern Yoruba group, 17-25 Old Oyo, 14-25, 234ff 244 kingdom, 14-25 Olibini (founder of Benin), 8 (^)lodumare, 4, 139f the Lord of Heaven, 4 Olofin era in Lagos, 83 Oloko, 20. Olokun, 207 Olomiro, 87 Olopon, 81 Olori ebi, 21 Olorogun,, 122 Oloto, 83 Olotu Eiran, 17 Olowo Opa, 18 of Owo, 21 Oloyo (founder of Oyo), 8 Oloyokoro (ruler of Oye lie), 15 Oluaso, 15 Olufadeji Deji of Akure, 17 Olu-Igbo, 20 Otudwa, 1 Olumegbon, 83 Olunwen, 81 Oluwa ofUpta, 18 Omo-ori-ite, 87 Ompetu, 7 Omu, 18 Omuse, 8Q ■

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265

Ondo, 10, 16, .19-25/34, 46, 68-76, 98f eastern Yoruba kingdom, 10 rple of women, 19 defeat of hostile states, 19 cocoa in, 34 Ondo Council, 46 Onigbogi, 5 Onila builder of Ilesatown, 16 deputy to the Owa, 16 Ooni title of the ruler of Ile-ife, 6, 21, 30, 48, 231 f < political authority, 6-7 Luwo, 151-152 The Ooni’s Crown, 7 Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), 135 Ora, 18 Orangun Igbonnibi, 18 links with Oduduwa dynasty of Ife, 18 of Ilia, 22 Oranmiyan (Oranyan), 15, 70-71, 160 son or grandson of Oduduwa, 15 Origbo Central School, 224 Orimedu, 83 Orirun, 98 Orisa (deities), 8, 206f Orisanla, 206 Orisa Oko, 152 Orirun (fountain head of the Yoruba people), 14 Oro independent state structure, 18 undecorated headwears, 9 rituals, 152 Oro Ago, 18 the Orun market culture (4-day week •market), 71 Orunmila, 139 Ose Iga, 87 Osemawe dynasty, 19 Osemawe of Ondo, 47-48 Oso^bo, 17, 28 Osugbo, 22 Osun, 17 Osun rituals, 152 Ota, 34, 80 kolanut production," 34 Owa (of ljesa), 10,16-2S, 48,1&> Ajaka Ajibogun, 10

266

Index

Oke Okile, 16 conquet of Ilemure, 16 Owari, 16 Oge, 16 Atakunmosa, 17 crown of, 165 Owa Oke Okil6, 16 Owe, 74 Owo, 10, 17-25', 73-74, 98f eastern Yoruba kingdom, 10 founder of, 10 Okun-Yoruba, 18 kingdom of, 18 Benin influence, 18-19 rise and decline, 18-19 art and culture, 19 Trince Osogboye, 73 Oworo, 18, 74 Okun-Yoruba, 18 Owu kingdom Olowu of, 9 earliest kingdom, 14 decline of, 14-15 Ondo hostility, 19 Owu War, 32, 103 Oyo, 4, 15f, 27-32, 45, 68-76 central Yorubaland, 4 army, 15f rise and decline, 15f, 27-28 New Oyo, 27 Fulani invation of, 28 Old Oyo, 32, 71 Oyo Ajele, 20 Oyo Council, 46 Oyo empire, 14-25, 27-28 New, 27 Old, 32, 68-76, 234f, 244 collapse of, 27-28 Oyo-Ile, 10, 15, 70, 104 reoccupaton of, 15 Oyo-Yoruba, 69-70, 160 Oyo Mesi (nobility), 15, 22, 101 composition, 101 Oyo-Yoruba, 4f, 71-75, 106 refugees, 10 traders, 106 characteristics, 106

[P] Parakoyi, 22,122

Paramount chiefs, 48 Pax Britannica, 44, 46 Papa Aguda (Portuguese Colony), 82 Porto Novo, 35, 72, 75 Portugal, 82, Portuguese, 40, 82 Pre-colonial economy, 113-124 agriculture, 114-119 manufacturing, 119-120 trading, 120-124 Pre-Oduduwa communities/settlements, 5-11 Prince Esugbayi, 88 Pupupu, 19

[Q] Queen Aminat of Zazzau (Zaria), 73

[R] Raba, 74 Railway Commissioner, 46 Ramadan, 75 Regional House, 52 Republic of Benin (Coast of Benin), 5 Yoruba in, 8 Repulic of Togo Yoruba in, 8 Resident Commissioner, 44-47 Residents of Provinces, 45 Richards Constitution, 54 River Ogun, 20 River Oni, 20 River Weme, 21 Royal Niger Company, 44

[S] Sa, 21 Sabe, 9-10, 21, 74, 105 founder (onisabe)^9-10 migrations, 10, 21 ‘ Sagamu kolanut production in, 34 Saki, 15, 31 ■ Sango (god of thunder), 15, 70, 152m 162f, 207f worship of, 70 Saros, 31-35

Culture and Society in Yorubaland ^avanna products, 113 regions, 118 School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 226f Sese efun (white beads of the Ooni), 7 Sierra Leone, 1, 8, 31-36, 226 Yoruba recaptives in, 1 Yoruba kingdom in, 8 Sieera Leonean . returnees, 82, 90-93 Slave trade, 31-36 abf^tion of, 31, 33-35 So of the Kanuri, 5 Sobiya, 224 Sokoto Caliphate, 63 Sopasan, 21 South America, 92-93 St. Cuthbert’s Society, 226 Syncreticism, 144-147*

[T] Tarka, J.S., 62-63 leader of UMBC, 62 election as National Vice-President of the Action Group, 9 Tarkwa Bay, 82 Tenor in praesentia, 177-178, 183 in absentia, 178-181 Togo, 244f Togoland, 35 Transatlantic trade, 16 Travelling Commissioner, 44-47

CU] United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) objectives, 62 alliance with the AG, 62 United States, 33, 188f Upata, 18 Upenmen, 18 Uze Ade, 71

[W] Warri anti-tax riot, 48 Waterway?, T 23-

267

Weme, 15 West Africa archaelogy, 2-3 Oyo army in, 16 •urbanisation of Yoruba,21 nationalism in, 32' major exports, 33 cotton cultivation in, 33 caravan routes, 104 Western District, 45 Western Government Law (of 1952), 49 Wastem House of Assembly, 60 Western Nigeria, 33-35, 127-136 cocoa and maize in, 33-34 spread of cocoa in, 34 economy of, 127-136 composition, 127 colonial economy, 128-132 under first military era, 134 Western Region, 51-64 Old, 93f Western Yoruba kingdoms, 8 Whydah slave port, 86 Women in Traditional Yoruba Society, '149-155 religion, 152 economy, 152-154 culture, 155

[V] Yagba Okun-Yoruba, 18 Yewa River, 20 Yoruba-Aja, 45 Yoruba country, 2-4, 28 archaeological and linguistic data, 2-3 ancestral migrations, 4 periphery of, 4 British occupation of, 28 Yoruba dialects, 188-194 classification of, 191-194 Yoruba in Diaspora, 188-189, 248f culture of, 203-211 Yoruba Groups, 247 Yoruba Historical Literature, 243-248 Yoruba Historical Research Scheme, 226,229 Yoruba homeland geographical features, 2 peopling of, 2-5 (see also Yoruba country)

268

Index

Yorubaland, 27-39, 47f Christianity in, 31-35 economic changes in, 33-36 introduction of cocoa in, 34 introduction of direct taxation, 47 cassava in, 34 British conquest and administration of, 39 trade routes in, 42, 72 major states, 98 boundaries, 98 kingdoms and satellite states, lOlf strategic position in West Africa, 104 rivers and waterways, 104f markets, 105f peacetime and wartime contacts, 103-110 major towns, 119 evolution of religious culture, 139-147 indigenous beliefs and culture, 139-142

Islam and Christianity in, 142-147 divinities (Orisa), 139-140 art and art history, 157-165 Yoruba language, 188-194 Yoruba literature, 168-175 Oral, 168-170 . prose, 168-169 poetry, 169-170Written, 171-175 poetry, 171-172 prose, 172-173 play, 173-175 Yoruba ‘international’ system and diplomacy, 97-110 Yoruba interrogative morphemes, 195-201 Yoruba of Lagos, 79-93 Yoruba Wars, 32

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