The Sociology of the Yoruba 9781212403, 9789781212406

Citation preview

NUNC

COGNOSCO

EX PARTE

THOMAS J. BATA LI BRARY TRENT UNIVERSITY

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF THE

YORUBA

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/sociologyofyorubOOOOfadi

The Late N. A . Fadipe

THE

SOCIOLOG Y b y

OF THE YORUBA

N. A. FADIPE

Edited and with an Introduction by Francis

Olu. Okediji, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Sociology University of Ibadan

and Qladejo

O. Okediji, Ph.D.

Lecturer in Sociology University of Lagos

IBADAN

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

'T? T5 '3 , V" 33 ©

PRINTED

Ibadan University Press 1970

IN 10 PT. TIMES AT

THE

IBADAN

NIGERIA

ROMAN

ON

UNIVERSITY

SEPTEMBER

IO70

12 PT. BODY PRESS

CONTENTS List of Illustrations Map

....

vii vi

.......

Introduction by the Editors

1

.

CHAPTER 1

Physical Environment

2

Ethnic History

3

Language

4

Marital Process, Family and Kinship

5

Economic

6

Political Organisation

7

Associations in Yorubaland

.

.

.

.

243

8

Religion and Morals

.

.

.

.

261

9

Social Psychology of the Yoruba

21 29

....

..... 55

......

65

Organisation 147 198

....

.

10

Social Control

11

Social and Cultural Change

301

.

......

Glossary of Yoruba

Words

.

.

.

309 . 315 331

and Phrases

Selected Bibliography and References compiled by the Editors . .

.

.

335 349

Index

........ v

215926

ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF

Frontispiece

The Late N. A. Fadipe Group 1

Between

1

A Muslim

2

A Christian Wedding

3

Cocoa Harvesting

4

Calabash Carving

5

A Goldsmith, Okitipupa

6

Provisions Market, Ibadan

7

Adire Cloth

8

Weaving

Wedding

Group

9

Pages 88 & 89

Crowning

2

Between

Pages 264 & 265

an Oba

10

An Oba in Full Regalia

11

Mapo

12

The House of Assembly

13

An Association of Flunters from Ondo

14

Yoruba

15

The Olumo

Rock, Abeokuta

16

A Mosque

at Erin, near Ede

17

A Well-Preserved Old Compound

18

The Ewi’s Palace, Ado-Ekiti

Hall, Ibadan

Drums (Bata)

vi

INTRODUCTION This volume

by

the late Dr

Nathaniel

Akinremi

Fadipe

is a

macro-sociological analysis of the social life of the Yoruba people. The original one thousand-page manuscript, which was his doctoral dissertation written for the University of London in 1939, examined critically the principles underlying Yoruba kinship system, economic organisation, political organisation, associations, religion and morals. Fadipe also discussed Yoruba social psychology and the processes of social control and social change. In what follows, we will discuss the biography of the author and the methodology of his study, and make an appraisal of some of his significant ideas and his general contribution to the understanding of the ways of life of the Yoruba. LIFE

HISTORY

OF

THE

AUTHOR1

Nathaniel Akinremi Fadipe was the oldest son of the late Reverend L. O. Fadipe, who was an illustrious member of the Baptist Mission (now the Nigerian Baptist Convention) in Nigeria. He was born on 2 October 1893 at Oke-Saje in Abeokuta. His father knew the value of education as a means of social mobility and, thus, sent young Fadipe to school in his early years. Young Fadipe had the benefit of primary, secondary and university education. The precise age and year when he started primary school are not known. However, his primary education was received in two schools namely, a Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) School in Ilugun near Abeokuta, and Christ Church School, Iporo-Ake in Abeokuta. At the completion of his primary school education, he enrolled at the C.M.S. Grammar School in Lagos for his secondary school education. He attended this school from 1906 to 1908 under the principalship of the late Reverend J. S. Fanimokun. At the comple¬ tion of his secondary school education, he was appointed a clerk in

1 The

editors

express

their deepest

appreciation

to Chief

L. O. Fadipe,

the

youngest and one of the surviving offspring of the late Reverend L. O. Fadip$, for giving us this biographical account of his older brother.

2

THE

the Government

Secretariat, Lagos. He resigned from this clerical

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

job and was later appointed as a personal secretary to the then Manager of Barclays Bank in Lagos. This latter job was more finan¬ cially rewarding than the former, and he stayed on it for a fairly long period. While he worked at the Barclays Bank, he was able to save some money which he later invested in his university education. In 1920, he proceeded to the United Kingdom for further studies. He received every encouragement from his parents in the pursuance of his academic venture. His mother, who was a successful trader, promised to send him money while in the United Kingdom to defray some of his expenses. Because of the slump in trade around this period, his mother’s trading activities were adversely affected thereby making it impossible to send money to him. Notwithstanding, Fadipe took everything in his stride and enrolled to read economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (L.S.E.) where he received a two-year scholarship to study and travel in the United States of America. He spent the first year as a graduate student at Columbia University where he obtained an M.A. degree in Sociology. However, he could not travel round some parts of America as stipulated in his two-year programme because he was requested to report for teaching duty at Achimota College, Gold Coast (now Ghana) by the Reverend G. W. Fraser who was the founder of the college. Fadipe taught in Achimota

College from

1932-35 and, during his brief sojourn there, he travelled to Nigeria every Christmas vacation to collect data for his doctoral thesis on The Sociology of the Yoruba’. In 1935, he went back to the United Kingdom and enrolled as an external student for the Ph.D. degree in Sociology at the Univer¬ sity of London. He successfully completed his Ph.D. thesis in 1939. While still in the United Kingdom, he served as one of the examiners in Yoruba for the Cambridge School Certificate Exami¬ nation and also worked for Unilever.

The phrase ‘coming home with the golden fleece’ was frequently used by Nigerians who travelled to Europe or the United States of America for further studies and returned home after the successful completion of their university education. Dr N. A. Fadipe looked for¬ ward to ‘coming home with the golden fleece’ when he became ill. He did not recover from this illness, and he died in London in June 1944.

INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGY

OF

HIS

3 STUDY

Fadipe criticised the methods of earlier writers, thus paving the way for a lucid discussion of his own systematic and comparative approach. In his criticism of earlier writers he identified two types of exposition of Yoruba social life: indigenous and European. The foremost of the indigenous writers was Reverend S. Johnson who wrote a comprehensive historical account of the Yoruba people, although some brief descriptive sociological data were included in his book.1 Fadipe was of the opinion that Johnson’s study was un¬ systematic, and he attributed this weakness to Johnson’s lack of sociological training. Fadipe also indicated that another unsystema¬ tic, although very informative, account of the laws and customs of the Yoruba people was by A. K. Ajisafe.2 The second type of earlier works on the Yoruba people was by European writers, who were classified by Fadipe into four categories; namely, explorers, missionaries, officials of the colonial administra¬ tion and experts. According to Fadipe, the earliest sociological account of the Yoruba was recorded in the journal3 kept by Captain Clapperton who was one of the earliest explorers. Although Captain Clapperton attempted to record facts about Yoruba life as he observed them, he often drew ethnocentric inferences which severely limited the value of his contribution to a systematic analysis of the social and cultural life of the people. As Fadipe rightly observed, the missionaries were a category of early European writers who were most qualified to describe the social life of the Yoruba people. Not only were these missionaries closer to the local people whom they zealously converted to Christ¬ ianity, they also often had a good working knowledge of the Yoruba language to facilitate their evangelising campaign. Fadipe, how¬ ever, criticised the works of these early missionaries as very unsystem¬ atic. In addition, their religious dogmatism prevented them from

1 Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate, edited by Dr O. Johnson, London, Routledge, 1921. 2 A. K. Ajisafe, The Laws and Customs of the Yoruba People, London, Routledge, 1924. 3 Hugh Clapperton, Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa, London, John Murray, 1829.

4

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

interpreting dispassionately the data which they collected on the way of life of the Yoruba people.1 Some of the titles of such works often betray their emotional and idealistic content. Government officials constituted the third category of early European writers. Fadipe thought that they were even better placed than the missionaries to collect more reliable and valid informa¬ tion because of their administrative, political and judicial tasks. Disappointingly, the difficulty which they had with the Yoruba language and their identity as direct colonial representatives of the forces of law and coercion created psychological barriers between them and the local people. Fadipe further commented that these colonial government officials often checked the reliability of their facts, especially when compiling Intelligence Reports, by soliciting information from chiefs, or kings. But, most of these reports at the disposal of the Nigerian government, according to Fadipe, were unpublished. Although the account by Talbot2 was somewhat accurate, Fadipe was of the opinion that it was such a generalised account of the customs of the peoples of Southern Nigeria that the author could not have given a satisfactory and full account of the Yoruba people. The most scientific and systematic account of the rituals and myths surrounding various religious observances among

the Yoruba

was given, according to Fadipe, by Colonel Ellis.3 A relatively prolific writer, Ellis not only dominated the field of Yoruba ethno¬ graphy as a pioneer for about half a century, he also wrote about the Ewe and Twi people4 of present-day Ghana whom he classified in the same family as the Yoruba. One severe limitation of Ellis’ work, according to Fadipe, was his persistent attempt to base most of his arguments on linguistic evidence. For example, in trying to i

Examples of such accounts by early missionaries were Anna Hinderer, Seventeen Years in the Yoruba Country, London, Religious Tract Society,

J.

^nc‘ S. G. Pinnock, The Romance of Missions in Nigeria , Richmond,

2 Vuginia,

Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1918. Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria , 4 vols., London, Humphrey Milford, 1926.

3 4

A. B Ellis The Yoruha-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa , London, Chapman and Hall, 1894.

See A. B. Ellis, The Twi-Speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa , London, Chapman and Hall, 1887; and, The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, London, Chapman and Hall, 1890.

INTRODUCTION

5

explain the evolution of particular religious observances among the Yoruba, he relied primarily on the semantic analysis of a selected core vocabulary without cross-checking with local informants about their behavioural referents in the religious field. In view of Ellis inadequate knowledge of the Yoruba language and its characte¬ ristic tonal feature dor modifying sounds and multiplying meanings'1 the generalisations by Ellis could not have been anything but distorted. Accounts by experts were the fourth category of works produced by European writers. By experts Fadipe means those who have received systematic and formal training in their fields of academic interest. One such person was Professor Frobenius, an ethnologist, whose work on the Yoruba Fadipe ranked as the most important because it discussed more comprehensively and more objectively than the previous writers, the religious and political life of the people.2 Among Frobenius’s significant contributions to the understanding of Yoruba social and cultural life were his spotlighting the now world-famous archaeological (terra cotta and bronze) works of Ile-Ife (which Yoruba mythology claims to be the origin of life and of pan-human dispersal), and the role of the Ogboni society in the socio-political organisation of some Yoruba sub-ethnic groups. Although much of what Frobenius wrote was substantially correct, Fadipe thought that he overstated the role of the Ogboni secret society by his assertion that the head of Ibadan State was the ‘creature and tool’ of the society.3 After a critical assessment of the methods of earlier writers, Fadipe discussed his own methodology and analytical framework. His approach was holistic in the sense that he collected and analysed in depth, data on all major Yoruba traditional institutions. He also approached his investigation from a comparative perspective. One

1 C. G. Seligman, Races of Africa, London, O.U.P., 1966, p. 7. 2 Leo Frobenius, The Voice of Africa, 2 vols., London, Cassell, 1931. 3 Apart from Fadip^’s discussion on this society in Chapter 7, the following have also made further clarification on its role in Yoruba Society: W. R. Bascom, ‘The Sociological Role of the Yoruba Cult Group’, Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, No. 63, 1944; S. O. Biobaku, ‘Ogboni ; The Egba Senate’, 3rd International West African Conference, 1949, pp. 25-63"; P. Morton-Williams, ‘The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in Oyo’, Africa, v ol. 30, 1960, pp. 362-74.

6

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

form of comparative analysis was designed to highlight the differences and similarities in the socio-cultural features of the main Yoruba sub-ethnic groups. The other disregarded the factor of minor internal differences and contrasted certain socio-cultural practices among the Yoruba, as a single ethnic group, with those of some EuroAmerican countries. The latter approach was used by Fadipe primarily to expose the value-laden generalisations by some previous writers who failed to utilise the concept of cultural relativity when their subject of analysis was not readily measurable. Because of the minor differences in dialect among the various Yoruba groups, Fadipe collected his data in such a way that they cut across dialects and, hence, sub-ethnic boundaries. His methodo¬ logy also included the analysis of documents; the use of participant observation, oral evidence and questionnaire-interview; and a judicious use of sociological imagination. In order to further make his analysis more objective, he classified the information which he obtained from informants on various topics according to the infor¬ mants’ socio-economic attributes. Needless to say, that from this vantage point, he was able to draw his own independent conclusion where information from different sources on the same subject con¬ flicted.

ASSESSMENT

OF

HIS

MAIN

IDEAS

A few general remarks are in order before we proceed to evaluate the main ideas in specific chapters in the book. There were thirtyfour chapters in the original one thousand and twelve-page manuscript; and the ideas, developed in several sections of the chapters, overlapped considerably. The sections which overlapped were carefully rearranged or excised. Fadipe’s literary style also revealed that he tended to write, in several cases, with spurts of enthusiasm and mastery of the subject matter. Where this style was in evidence, it often coincided with the discussion of a subject which he was personally familiar with and which his academic training had fully prepared him to grasp. Examples are aspects of Yoruba life which relate to kinship, political, economic and religious organisations as well as associations. On the other hand, the author’s presentation in some sections were mediocre in content. For this

INTRODUCTION

7

reason such sections were also deleted. An example of the latter was the chapter on ‘Physical Anthropology and Demography’ where F adipe’s discussion of the Yoruba ‘race’ was rather amateurish by contemporary standards. The inclusion of this chapter might have been justified by his holistic approach, but Fadipe’s lack of training in physical anthropology made his task in this area rather difficult. Granted that a body of systematically collected anthropo¬ metric and serological data were then sparse, he could have, given such training, used extant anthropometric techniques to further his own knowledge of the main physical features of the Yoruba. The data which he presented on demography were fragmentary. They were haphazardly collected records which were spatially limited to very small areas of Lagos. On these grounds, his attempt to use trends among the Yoruba appeared not to be valid and, hence, does not merit inclusion in this publication.1 Several terms and phrases like ‘tribe’, ‘the natives’, ‘paganism’, ‘heathen practices’, ‘the savage’, etc. used by Fadipe in many passages were either replaced with neutral terms or deleted because of their value-laden import. By freely using these concepts, Fadipe, the sociologist, unconsciously displayed an uncritical acceptance of the typical characterisation of Africans and African ways of life by zealous missionaries script is excessively clarity and economy or reworked in such were not violated.

and pseudo-anthropologists. Since long and Fadipe did not display of words, several passages had to a way that his ideas and his sense of

the manu¬ consistent be excised continuity

On the whole, Fadipe’s thirty-four chapter manuscript was reduced and/or merged into eleven chapters. We expanded his original bibliography of forty-four major works to include other significant publications which have been made 1 Some

systematic studies which

on the Yoruba

have been made

since Fadipe’s

on demographic

patterns

in urban and suburban Yoruba communities are: F. O. Okediji, ‘Some Social Psychological Aspects of Fertility among Married Women in an African City’, Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies, vol. 9, no. 1 (March 1967), pp. 67-79; F. O. Okediji, ‘Attitude, Use and Knowledge of Family Planning Techniques among Married Women in the City of Ibadan’, West African Medical Journal, vol. 17, no. 6 (December 1968), pp. 211-8; and P. O. Olusanya, ‘The Education Factor in Human Fertility: A Case Study of the Residents of a Suburban Area in Ibadan’, Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies, v ol. 9, no. 3 (November 1967), pp. 351-74.

8

THE

SOCIOLOGY

death. An index of names

OF THE

YORUBA

and significant words and phrases have

also been provided. The translation of Yoruba words and phrases given by Fadipe has either been refined or expanded. Finally, since Yoruba language is tonal, conventional accents have been added to the words in the glossary to facilitate their pronunciation and to make appropriate distinctions between words with the same alpha¬ bets but with different meanings. Chapter One of Fadipe’s thesis discussed the ‘Physical Environment’ of Yorubaland. We decided not to delete or update certain sections of this chapter so as to retain their utility particularly for future diachronic analyses. It must be pointed out, however, that by using Yoruba place names to delineate the geographical boundaries of Yorubaland, Fadipe tended to assume that, at many points, the geographical and political boundaries of the ethnic group were coterminous. This was probably true of certain periods before the nineteenth century, particularly the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the Yoruba empire reached its apogee.1 The subse¬ quent decline of the Yoruba empire toward the end of the nineteenth century has, however, changed this picture. More

recent constitu¬

tional and political developments have also superceded Fadipe’s conception of the physical boundaries of Yorubaland. Specific reference is made

here to the creation of the Mid-West

Region

(now Mid-West State) out of the former Western Region (now Western State) on 8 August 1963. Federal Military Decree No. 14 which was promulgated on 27 May 1967, to establish the present twelve-state structure of the Federation of Nigeria further contracted the geographical boundaries of Yorubaland to the north and the south respectively.

Fadipe’s list of the flora and fauna of Yorubaland was deleted in the same chapter because his major source of information2 is still available in a printed and more comprehensive form. Chapter Two discussed the ‘History’ of the Yoruba. To be more specific, we took the liberty to add a qualifier and, hence, retitled the chapter, Ethnic History’. In it, Fadipe restated some 1 See Robert Ltd., 1969.

S. Smith, Kingdoms

2 mi?' Unwin’

of the Yoruba, London,

Methuen

West African Forests and Forestry, London,

of the &

Co

Fisher Unwin,

INTRODUCTION

9

following well-known generalisations about the traditions of origins of various Yoruba groups: that all Yoruba are unanimous in claiming Ile-Ife as their place of origin; that they collectively regard the culture hero, Oduduwa, as their common ancestor; that the probability is strong that the Ogni of Ife was the head of the people whom the Oyo-Yoruba on their arrival from the East found in Ile-Ife; that the Alaafin was the descendant of the leader of the late immigrants from the East; and that the traditions of the migrations of several other Yoruba groups revealed that the places to which they migrated after leaving Ile-Ife were not altogether uninhabited upon their arrival.1 Since these various traditions of origin have not been fully explored or authenticated, further research is still needed which will combine a more serious utilisation of oral evidence with studies in comparative linguistics. Other supportive evidences which could shed light on early Yoruba history are the scientifically compiled data from archaeological sources.2 The remaining sections of the chapter discussed the rise and decline of the Oyo Empire, the supremacy of the ‘military state’ of Ibadan, and the penetration of Europeans into Egbaland. Chapter Three discussed the Yoruba language with respect to its structure, vocabulary, numeration and syntax. More systematic works on Yoruba language have appeared since Fadipe completed

his study.3

For a recent account of the Yoruba Kingdoms, especially the section which gives an assessment of the traditions of origin of the various Yoruba groups, reference is made to Roberts. Smith, op. cit. general A summary of the problems and achievements in this area with Dating bon Radiocar Shaw, Thurstan in available is Nigeria reference to (Decem¬ 3 no. 4, vol. Nigeria, of Society Historical the in Nigeria’, Journal of bon Chrono¬ ber 1968) pp. 453-65. See also Thurstan Shaw, ‘On Radiocar ogy, vol. 10 Anthropol Current Africa’, ran logy of the Iron Age in Sub-Saha . no. 2-3, (April-June 1969), pp. 226-31. Orthographies. Some of these works are: H. Wolff, ‘Problems in Vernacular pp. Word Division’, Journal of African Languages, vol. 1, Part 3 (1963), Prob¬ A Yoruba: in ions 2T-31 ’ Ayo Bamgbose, ‘Verb-Nominal Collocat s, vol. 1, lem of’ Syntactic Analysis’, Journal of West African Language ation and Contraction in no 2 0 964) pp. 27-32; Ayp Bamgbose, ‘Assimil Bamgbose, Yoruba Yoruba’, op. cit.: vol. 2, no. 2 (1965), pp. 21-8 ; Ayp G. Armstrong, Robert 1965; Press ty Universi Orthography, Ibadan, Ibadan with Igala op. cit. ‘Comparative Word Lists of Two Dialects of Yoruba A Grammar of Yoruba, vol 2 no. 2 (1965), pp. 51-78; Ayp Bamgbo?e, M. Babajamu, Yoruba 1966; Press, Cambridge, Cambridge University

10

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF THE

YORUBA

In Chapter Four, Fadipe dealt comprehensively with ‘Marital Process, Family and Kinship’. In his discussion of marital process, he analysed the effects of Christianity and Islam on marriage customs, marital relations and marital stability. At one point he gave a rather grim picture of an unfair pattern of exploitation of a prospective son-in-law by a too-demanding father-in-law thereby defining the concept of marital obligations among the Yoruba in strict commer¬ cial terms. This aspect of commercialisation is, however, exceptional since, as Fadipe noted elsewhere, the pattern of traditional marital obligations among the Yoruba people is a series of symbolic acts performed before and after a marital union and directed primarily to bind together the families of new spouses. The author analyzed Yoruba attitude toward virginity with a new freshness. A bride who was chaste brought prestige and honour to her kinsmen. However, significant changes in attitude towards virginity among the Yoruba are now noticeable. There appears to be, at present, generational and urban-rural differences with respect to attitudes toward the virginity of a bride. The younger (educated) generation who live in urban areas where they are exposed to Western European sex values and the techniques of conception control tend to be less strict on matters pertaining to virginity. There are several interesting points which Fadipe developed in his discussion of the family. He analyzed lucidly the effects of Christianity (through the doctrine of individualism and universal brotherhood of man) in changing the structural composition of the extended-family and the compound by modifying the traditional concept of blood and affinal relationship. The extended-family unit is also conceptualised as a primary instrument for the maintenance of socio-economic security and social order. This is evident in the way the families entering into marriage contract on behalf of two members of the opposite sex share financial and economic mutuali¬ ties and accept reciprocal obligations for the misconduct, indebtedLiterature , Lagos, Nigerian Publications Service, 1966; A. O. Awobuluyi, Yoruba’, Journal of African Languages, vol. 6, Part IiS?Q^7xiant (1967), pp.^^monyin 1-8; A. O. Awobuluyi, ‘Studies in the Syntax of the Standard Yoruba Verbs Doctoral Dissertation, Columbia University, 1967; Abiodun Adetugbp The Yoruba Language in Western Nigeria: Its Major Dialect Areas .Doctoral Dissertation, Columbia University, 1967- A Dic¬ tionary of Yoruba Language, London and Ibadan, O.U.P.. 1968.

INTRODUCTION

11

ness, etc. of their respective members. Thus, marriage and marital process are transformed into effective mechanisms for maintaining community solidarity. The section on kinship extensively described the customary rules governing dyadic relationships between different categories of consanguineal and affinal relatives as well as the modes of behaviour which accompany the use of kinship terminologies. It also discussed the principles of succession of kin (heads of family, compound, extended family etc.) and royal (kingship, chieftaincy) positions; of property inheritance (by siblings, kings, chiefs, women, Muslim and Christians) and of descent. Apart from the typical patrilineal descent grouping among the Yoruba, Fadipe seemed to have been aware, on intuitive and impressionistic grounds, of the occurrence of bilateral descent grouping among the people. In order to support this point of view, he ignored the strict principle of filiation and seized upon the occasional cases where male ego secures property and other privileges from certain members of his mother’s extended family as evidence of bilateral descent. But since such privileges are not automatic and usually terminate in ego’s generation, they could not have constituted genuine illustrations of bilateral descent. Fadipe’s impressionistic assertion has since been picked up by another writer who has identified bilateral descent among the Ijebu and Ondo and who has also systematically described the structure of the dominant patrilineal descent among

the Yoruba.1

Also of importance in this chapter is the author’s emphasis on the conservative nature of the Yoruba seniority rule — as manifested in the dyadic relation between people separated by at least six years — and his recognition of the fact that the rule is against progress, especially in the modern context, since it stifles initiative in the young and demands total submissiveness from them.

In Chapter Five, the author discussed the ‘Economic Organisa¬ tion’ of the Yoruba people. Since it is one of the longest chapters, it was necessary to rework it considerably. Such changes which were

edited i P.C. Lloyd, ‘The Yoruba People of Nigeria’, in The Peoples of Africa, by J. L. Gibbs, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965, p. 559; P. C. Lloyd ‘The Yoruba Lineage’, Africa, vol. 25 (1955), pp. 352-72; and P. C. Lloyd, ‘Agnatic and Cognatic Descent among the Yoruba’, Man, New Series, vol. 1, no. 4 (1966), pp. 484-99.

12

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF THE

YORUBA

made, however, occurred in cases where re-arrangement of Fadipe’s ideas with respect to a smooth flow of sequence was desirable; where there were major violations of semantic arrangement or grammatical structure; or where the author engaged in obvious contradictions in his statements. Several stimulating topics were well handled by the author; namely, land use, sexual division of labour, the relative complexity of occupational specialisation, pawning, credit system and the unique method of using lepers as distrainers. His discussion of slavery is interesting, particularly on the liberal attitude of the Yoruba toward slaves and the relative ease with which the latter could purchase their emancipation. This liberal attitude was explained in terms of the inability of the master to make himself more qualitatively different from his slaves particularly with regard to his style of life; or to store up economic surplus (in the absence of techniques of food preservation) on which personal influence could be derived and sustained. The absence of techniques of food preser¬ vation also limited the extent to which slaves could be used in agricultural tasks by their masters. This gave the former sufficient leisure hours to work on their private farms and the opportunity to secure some degree of economic independence. It was little wonder, then, that slaves could not only buy their freedom but could also secure important public offices (such as Ogboni chieftaincy) or become their masters’ confidants. In the latter capacity, they often wielded more influence than the wives and children of the household.

Fadipe devoted Chapter Six to a discussion of ‘Political Organi¬ sation’. He identified four monarchical models among the Yoruba; namely, the Oyo-Yoruba model which derived from the form of government at Old Oyo; the lfe, Ijesa, Ekiti and Ondo monarchical type modelled after that of Ile-Ife; the Ijebu-Ode royal court and government which diffused to various Ijebu sub-groups; and the monarchical system of Egbaland. While Fadipe discussed at some length the similarities between

these monarchical models, he did not, unfortunately, single out their main dissimilarities. A gap in knowledge is, thereby, created needing further research.

Despite this limitation, there are several important ideas deve¬ loped in sections of this chapter. In Oyo, some militar y chiefs did not have the constitutional rights to participate in state councils,

INTRODUCTION

and this might have accounted for their constant alienation from the 13 Aldafin. It is also significant that the confrontations which many field marshals (Are-Ona-Kakanfo ) had with the incumbent Alaafins in the history of the Oyo Empire both helped to expand and, subsequent¬ ly, to weaken the authority of the empire throughout Yorubaland. It was probably the exclusion of military chiefs from the State Council in Ijebu which made them support openly rebellious youths when¬ ever they protested against monarchical tyranny or oppression. Also of interest in this chapter is the institutionalised roles of slaves in the constitutional government of various Yoruba groups. Such institutionalised roles which Fadipe defined as ‘corporation’ was known as Odi (slaves or people without kin) in Ijebu; Emese (slaves or freemen from the most distinguished houses in the kingdom) in Ife, Ijebu and Ekiti; and Ilari (castrated slaves or freeborn people who had lost their freedom by committing incest) in Oyo-Yoruba. In Ijebu, the corporation was very powerful and from its ranks were drawn intelligence groups, foreign ambassadors and those who participated in the selection of a new king. Of special significance is the political role of the Ogboni secret society. From the comparative point of view, the author showed that the Ogboni society was more powerful politically among the Egba and Ijebu than among the Oyo-Yoruba. Among the former the members of the Ogboni constituted the council and, thus, performed all state functions. However, the king always intervened whenever there was a deadlock in the resolution of issues, and he could also ignore the advice of members of the Ogboni. As a keen sociologist, Fadipe was always cognizant of the changes taking place in the social life of the Yoruba. He documented legis¬ lation which had led to important changes; namely that the Alaafin no longer led battles after one was killed in battle, and that princes could live to succeed their fathers instead of the usual practice of committing suicide at the latter’s death. (The author revolt of the people of Ijaiye to their dissatisfaction with Another point worthy of note is how Fadipe interpreted of death registration differently from Margery Perham. to Perham, the practice of keeping the register of dead

traced the the latter.) the system According persons by

‘Native Authorities’ after the introduction of the colonial system of ‘Indirect Rule’ was said to have been due to the fact that the Yoruba

THE

14

SOCIOLOGY

OF THE

YORUBA

community conceived of itself as consisting of the living and the dead. Fadipe emphasized the economic aspect of this system in terms of taxation and the desire by chiefs, whose salary depended on the size of the revenue collected, to keep an up-to-date and meticu¬ lous tax register.1 Consequently, when people reported genuine deaths of kin so as to eliminate their names from the tax rolls, these chiefs often disregarded the information so as to force the nearest kin of the dead to pay the levy. This basic underlying motivation even led to situations where citizens were forced to pay tax twice when they were mistakenly registered in their host residence and their home towns. This is why Fadipe observed that the greatest divergence shows itself under the system of Indirect Rule between the interests of the chiefs and the interests of the people (p. 217) by paying the chiefs a fixed salary instead of according them the privilege of receiving tributes from several traditional sources. One of the traditional attributes of the political organisation of the various Yoruba communities, as shown by Fadipe, was their democratic nature. For instance, in Ondo monarchy, every com¬ pound and, hence, every extended family was directly represented in the government of the community. In fact, we could say, in terms of the evidence provided by Fadipe, that something which approa¬ ched town meeting was practised in Ondo. The section on the dispensation of justice is also interesting in this chapter. It describes, among other things, the relative sophisti¬ cation of traditional court proceedings; the division of judicial authority among the various tribunals and the rather peculiar relationship between the members of judicial tribunals and litigants.

With regard to the latter, Fadipe said that ‘the acceptance of gifts [by judges] . . . from parties in trouble with a view to obtaining leniency was not considered reprehensible. . . It was all considered part of the fine [and it] very rarely led to the guilty being adjudged the winner . . .’ (pp. 234-5). The author, in Chapter Seven, examined ‘Associations in Yorubaland . He identified and elaborated on four types of associations, 1 This meticulous

registration of persons for the purpose

of taxation

is not unique to the Yoruba. Their neighbours, the Dahomeans, also kept similar registers. See Karl Polanyi, Dahomey and the Slave Trade: An Analysis of An Archaic Economy,

Seattle, University of Washington

Press, 1966.

INTRODUCTION 15

namely, political, religious, occupational, mutual help and convival associations.1 Unlike Talbot, the author claimed that age groups were not restricted to the Ekiti people before European contact, but were also found among the Ijebu. Unfortunately, one could not learn enough about the organisation and functions of such age groups because of Fadipe’s sparse information. In Chapter Eight, the author discussed ‘Religion and Morals’. This chapter contains several controversial issues which must be briefly examined particularly since Fadipe was, at times, self-contra¬ dictory on some of them. For example, he maintained that the Yoruba do not possess scientific knowledge because ‘of lack of any technique for discriminating between the essential and unessential qualities of things; between what constitutes a thing as such and what are merely accidental properties . . . [and because of] the lack of ability to induce general principles from particular experience’ (p. 293). On the other hand, Fadipe credited the Yoruba with having a stock of curative medicine. The latter, according to him, derives from practical knowledge, not science. We think that, on this ground, the line of distinction drawn by Fadipe between practical knowledge and science is thin indeed. Anyone who is familiar with the process of making medicine among the Yoruba will know that not only are the properties of the herbs used closely known as Fadipe admits (pp. 297-8), but also different species of these herbs may have to be differentiated before proceeding to prepare some classes of drugs. Such preparation has to follow complex procedures which require some rudimentary scientific knowledge. Fadipe’s polariza¬ tion of practical knowledge and science, therefore, appears loose. If he implied that traditional medicine-makers do not possess a scientific mind because they often blunder into the realisation of the potential curative association between certain properties of herbs only through the process of trial and error, one can say that this is a rudimentary scientific procedure. Even in the most sophisticated process, the phenomenon known as serendipity pattern is a possibi¬ lity and, sometimes, occurs. Where scientific procedure is different i In this regard, he anticipated contemporary writers in identifying the different forms of voluntary associations. See, for example, Kenneth Little, West African Urbanization, Cambridge

University Press, 1965, which includes

references to other important contributions on the subject.

THE

16

SOCIOLOGY

OF THE

YORUBA

among the Yoruba is, among other things, the reluctance to make discoveries public. Knowledge cannot, therefore, be cumulative or advanced. In so far as the Yoruba did not, traditionally, have an accepted procedure for patenting such discoveries, this action can be understood if not appreciated. One reason for Fadipe’s failure to associate Yoruba medicine with science is his deliberate use of the word odgun (medicine) to refer to magic (p. 294), although he himself admitted that the pri¬ mary meaning of odgun is medicine. This confusion in nomenclature did not help him to pursue objective reasoning when, for example he insisted that ‘there is no difference of form, still less of kind, between a wide range of preparations intended for curative purposes and a similar range of preparations intended to produce magical results’ (p. 294). Surely, the Yoruba traditional medicine maker makes such distinctions between the preparation to cure fever or dysentery and that made to stop or induce rain. The former does not, in most cases, need the incantation of magical spells which the latter requires. As Fadipe himself conceded, ‘in many curative medicines there is frankly nothing ‘magical’ in intention . . .’, that ‘[Yoruba] medicine is based mainly on observation and little deduction’ (p. 294), and that epe (a form of curse) ‘borders very closely upon science in that a very considerable element of experiment, speciali¬ sation, and verification of hypothesis is involved' (p. 300). Although Fadipe mentioned that magic among the Yoruba does not deal only with uncontrollable events, he failed to elaborate convincingly on the example of the magic (ka'nako ) which he gave to illustrate his assertion (p. 293).

Fadipe’s discussion of Ifa is comprehensive although his contri¬ bution in this area has been superceded by other major works.1 He also made a good case for the connection between morality and indigenous religion which had been denied or overlooked by many 1 The most recent of these is, William Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication between

Gods and Men , Bloomington,

Indiana, Indiana

University Press,

1969. This volume has carefully brought together in a systematic manner the strands of knowledge about Ifa Divination among the Yoruba. The bibliography is comprehensive, although we looked in vain for any reference to Fadip$ s pioneering discussion of Ifa among the Yoruba in spite of the fact that the author had access to Fadipe’s work during his field work among the Yoruba.

INTRODUCTION 17

early European writers; and he convincingly challenged the view of Ellis who had suggested that Olorun (God), totheYoruba, is otiose. Chapter Nine entitled the ‘Social Psychology of the Yoruba’ reveals an attempt by the author to give a psychological characteri¬ sation of the Yoruba as evident in contemporary culture and per¬ sonality studies. The average Yoruba was described as gregarious, sociable, hospitable, co-operative, diplomatic, acquisitive, inventive and competitive. While some of these psychological characterisa¬ tions appear to be complementary with the basic principles underlying child-rearing practices, others do not necessarily have such correla¬ tion. Since, on methodological grounds, Fadipe failed to demonstrate clearly how he arrived at this characterisation, the latter will remain at best an impressionistic exercise. It appears to us that there are more important reasons why the Yoruba use proverbs other than for sociability or to avoid blunt answers as Fadipe tended to emphasize. It is in proverbs that the profound expressions of wisdom by many Yoruba sages have been stored over a long period of time. Such expressions usually summarise cosmic events in the purest Yoruba idiom and they are, at once, precise and didactic. In modern times when the language is becoming more and more adulterated by indiscriminate borrowing from foreign languages, particularly English, proverbs have remained for many Yoruba people a core linguistic area for resisting such invasion and for maintaining the purity of their language. This is why the use of proverbs has become a vehicle for celebrating the richness of Yoruba language, for maintaining a sense of continuity and deep rootedness in the Yoruba cultural tradition, and for defining one’s position in the cosmos.

The subject of Chapter Ten is, ‘Social Control’. In it, Fadipe discussed the roles which public opinion, the extended family, the state and Yoruba seniority rule play in the maintenance of social order.

In Chapter Eleven, Fadipe has attempted to integrate all the ideas which he had raised in various chapters on the subject of ‘Social and Cultural Change’. The reader might, therefore, find him to be repetitious to some extent. However, the chapter merits inclusion in this book because of its concentrated analysis and the author’s attempt to introduce new points which are closely related to the

18

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

ideas which have been discussed superficially elsewhere. One important claim which Fadipe made in this chapter is that changes in property inheritance which favoured the children of a deceased over the traditional claims of the latter’s siblings led to the important constitutional change in Oyo where a prince no longer committed suicide at his father’s death but lived to succeed him at a later date. He also observed that the existence of three systems of religious values (traditional, Islamic and Christianity) among

the

Yoruba has been socially divisive. To Fadipe what the co-existence of these values has brought about is not diversification but a form of pluralism with inherent conflicts. He pointed out how education, brought by Christianity, tended to lead relatively affluent Yoruba people away from their extended families (p. 319). There was also the case, particularly in Abeokuta, when some Yorubas who were conver¬ ted to Christianity had to substitute social propinquity for geogra¬ phical isolation in order to avoid persecution on the part of their nonChristian kinsfolk. Therefore, on the basis of Fadipe’s assumption that the Yoruba were a homogeneous group before contact, he concluded that the introduction of Islam and Christianity helped to create many forms of antagonisms within the group. But the Yoruba were not a homogeneous group before the introduction of the new religions. Also in view of the relative harmony which exists between Yorubas of different faiths, old and new, the editors cannot fully agree with Fadipe’s views. This is because adherents of the different religions usually emphasize pragmatism — an attitude which leads to the kind of accommodation where, at various points, the lines of religious distinctions become blurred. Christians participate freely in Muslim festivals and vice-versa and both are not dogmatic in their faith as to completely foresake certain aspects of traditional religious values. The kind of religious intolerance which compartmentalises people into conflicting groups may, therefore, be said to be alien to the Yoruba.

On the question of marital system, Fadipe suggested that ‘the conception and practice of monogamy as an institution is a change which. . . is . . . distinctively traceable to Christianity in the form in which it was handed over to Yoruba converts’ (p. 320). A fruitful analysis of Fadipe’s position cannot be undertaken on this point because, unfortunately, he did not give the reader the benefit of

INTRODUCTION 19

further elaboration. But if the word ‘conception' meant to the author the meaning that is usually attributed to it, his suggestion could then imply that, prior to the introduction of Christianity, polygyny was the only or dominant form of marriage among the Yoruba. If so, the editors cannot agree with this position.1 Although polygyny was valued in traditional Yoruba society for social and economic reasons, it did not appear to be the preferred form of marriage for many except those who were relatively affluent and, hence, were in a strong position to maintain a big household. Other points of interest deal with the gradual change in the principle of inheritance of ego’s property from his siblings to his children, the effects of commerce and industry on the traditional concept of communal land owner¬ ship, the loss of political power by the Ogboni society among the Ijebu and Egba as a result of the introduction of the Indirect Rule System, and the problem of unemployment which the author ela¬ borated in Chapter V. Finally, in this chapter, Fadipe suggested that Western education has brought about the emergence of a ‘middle class’ among the Yoruba. Within the context of contem¬ porary knowledge what the author appears to be concerned about here is the role of western education in the formation of new elite groups. FADIPE

IN RETROSPECT

The monumental work by Fadipe, which we have had the honour to edit, is a most significant contribution to our knowledge of the social life of the Yoruba people. We are of the opinion that, after the pioneering historical account of the Yoruba given by Reverend Samuel Johnson, N. A. Fadipe’s systematic sociological account of the Yoruba qualifies him as the foremost expert on Yoruba studies. There is hardly any scholarly work of note on the Yoruba in the second half of this century which has not used Fadipe’s manuscript as the baseline for self information or selected some aspects of his work as points of departure. 1 Which is also typical of many people who have exaggerated the frequency of occurrence and intensity of polygyny in traditional African societies. See, for example, William R. Bascom and Melville J. Herskovits, eds., Continuity and Change in African Cultures, Chicago and London,

Press, 1959, pp. 98-105.

University of Chicago

20

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We want to express our deepest appreciation to those people who have helped us. Professors E. U. Essien-Udom and R. G. Armstrong, both of the University of Ibadan, encouraged us to edit and up-date the manuscript. Mr S. O. Oderinde, the Africana Librarian in the University of Ibadan Library, collected some of the illustrative photographs in the book. The Western State Ministry of Information also made available to us some of their photographs showing various aspects of Yoruba life. Mr A. A. Dina, Photocopy Technician in the University of Ibadan Library, readily rendered us his services. Mr P. E. E. Ahanor, who is the Secretary of the Department of Sociology in the University of Ibadan, typed the edited manuscript very competently. Finally, the Ibadan University Press is to be congratulated for making available this valuable manuscript in published form. By its action, it has not only made a significant contribution to the cause of scholarship, it has also done a great honour to the memory of a brilliant student who, in the course of his insatiable search for knowledge, met a premature death. Francis

Olu

Okediji

University of Ibadan Oladejo

O. Okediji

University of Lagos

21

CHAPTER

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHICAL Yorubaland

POSITION

ENVIRONMENT

OF THE

lies between

1

COUNTRY

the parallels 5.86° and

9.22° north,

and between 2.65° and 5.72° east. Its southern boundary is the Bight of Benin, and extends from the eastern limit of [former] French Dahomey on the west to the western border of the Kingdom of Benin on the east. To the east it is bounded by the territory of the same Kingdom, and by the Niger up to Etobe, at about 7.3°N. From this point the boundary is in a north-westerly direction, along a straight line drawn rather arbitrarily to meet the 9° of latitude immediately due south of Jebba.1 What may be called its northern boundary conti¬ nues along the same parallel of 9° north latitude until it merges with the political boundary between the Northern Provinces and the Southern Provinces of Nigeria, which ends at the river Okpara on the French frontier.2 PHYSICAL

FEATURES

The extreme south of Yorubaland

is a network of islands divided

from the mainland by a system of creeks and lagoons; and this whole complex of islands, sandbanks, creeks and lagoons is part of

1 The boundary from the 9th degree of latitude (immediately south of J?bba) to Etobe given above must be taken as a rough approximation. There is an overlapping of ethnic groups in this part of Northern Nigeria. Although, in the ethnic map of Northern Nigeria which accompanies Dr Meek’s ‘North¬ ern Nigeria’, some pockets of Yoruba peoples are to be found east of the line, the present writer has been guided in the fixing of that line by the evidence of place-names that are Yoruba. The maps of Nigeria, as a whole, that have been prepared so far are in purpose more political than ethnological. 2 The Yoruba who have been cut off from the main body by Dahomean conquest and who are now part of Dahomey are by no means negligible in number; but their exact geographical distribution as well as their number, however approximate, as well as the extent to which they are to-day mixed with non-Yorubas are not readily ascertainable. Edourd Joa, ‘Porto Novo est peuple d’un cruisement de Fons et de Yorubas’, Le Dahomey, Paris 1895, p. 95.

22

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

a wider system which stretches from Keta on the eastern border of Gold Coast Colony [now Ghana] across the seaboards of Togoland, Dahomey and Yorubaland until, south of Benin City, it merges with the Niger delta. This great stretch of water, which is the distinguish¬ ing feature of the whole system, is over the greater part of its extent extraordinarily shallow. Like those of Ghana most of the rivers of Yorubaland almost dry up during the dry season, and consequently have little or no chance of carrying their load beyond the seashore during that period. But unlike the Volta, which shows a difference of fifty feet between the level at the end of the rains and the commencement, and is therefore able, when in flood, to burst through the sand-banks to reach the seas, the waters of the smaller rivers remain dammed up behind the sand-bank. In one way or another, possibly because the penned-up waters sought to escape through that opening, the western entrance of the canal thus formed became closed up. And the eastern entrance being closed up by the deposits of the Niger delta system, the lagoons or system of lagoons and creeks, was the natural and inevitable outcome. The importance of this system of waterways lies in the fact that it is possible to travel by water throughout the whole breadth of the coastline of Nigeria without once making contact with the sea. Another important fact to be noted is that the island of Lagos, together with the smaller island of Iddo, lies immediately in front of the only navigable opening in the coastline between the Volta and Benin rivers. The current passing round these islands scours away the sand on the seaward side and ensures a deep-water anchorage. The connection between the larger island, the lagoon on which it stands, the Portuguese, and the slave trade can, to some extent, be seen in the name Lagos. The relief features of the Yoruba country may be roughly divided into three belts. The first belt is formed by peninsulas, islands and sand-banks, together with the southern edge of the mainland, including the intervening lagoon and swamps. It is about twelve miles wide, raised only slightly above sea-level (Lagos island is only six feet above sea-level) and consists of sea-sand and river sand, alluvium, and decaying vegetable matter, the whole being more or less covered with aquatic plants or forest vegetation. The breadth attained by the islands for the greater part of their length has led

23 PHYSICAL

ENVIRONMENT

the geologist, Parkinson, to conclude that the final phase in the geological cycle must have been one of uplift, and that the buildingup action of the rivers must have played only a small part in the present dimensions.1 As this coastal belt is left behind, the ground rises gently yet steadily northward to an altitude of about 650 feet. This intermediate

belt, which is roughly about forty miles in breadth, has its terminus at a line drawn immediately to the south of the two towns of Abeokuta and Ondo.

It consists of thick deposits of mainly unstrati¬

fied red clayey-sand, known as Benin sands. Bituminous deposit has been located in the southern part of Ijebu country, and phosphate deposit at about forty miles north-west of Lagos. The whole of this part of the country, reaching as far north as at least 9.3 degrees north latitude, was at one time under the sea. This was followed by an uplift so extensive that an intensive cycle of erosion set in until the whole platform was base-levelled. It was during this period that the red sand which typically developed in the Benin region, was laid down. A frequent occurrence is laterite, a mixture of iron-stone with red sand (a material which has proved of great value for road surfacing) and a peculiar lava-like formation of iron-stone of vesicular structure. Northward

of the belt just described, the country is hilly, being

mainly a dissected northward-rising plain with isolated hills or groups of hills, usually of granite, rising out of the plain to heights varying between 50 and 800 feet. The plateau itself is at a level varying from 500 to 1,200 feet above sea-level. The broken granite hills are believed to have been once a continuous block, but to have been later worn down

and dissected by the action of rivers which, including the Niger, are said to have once had courses different from the present ones. Geologically, the hills are part of a system of crystalline rocks which is the basal rock for the whole of Nigeria, but which are exposed in a belt running across the [former] colony in a north-east to south-west direction. These granite blocks con¬ tribute considerably to diversify the scenery of northern Yorubaland, which is otherwise of a uniformly undulating character. Where

i J. Parkinson, ‘Southern Nigeria— the Lagos Province’, Empire Review, vol. XV (1908), pp. 284—92.

24

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

they are surrounded or bordered by forests, they present a slaty appearance and, generally, they assume all forms of shapes which invite curiosity as to their origin. In some places blocks that could not possibly weigh less than three tons seem to rest, perhaps 300 feet or more above the ground, upon another rock about fifty times as big. Yet between them lies a projection which seems hardly more than eighteen inches in circumference. Such rock formations are, for example, prominent in Abeokuta. The traveller passing through the town of Lanlate on his way to Iseyin cannot fail to be impressed by the appearance of hills which occupy the horizon for miles; and such a view is repeated extensively over the country as a whole. When these rocks occur inside or in the neighbourhood of towns, women use them, if they are of appro¬ priate size and height, for grinding corn. As Captain Clapperton observed, ‘The top of the hill was covered with women grinding corn. They make round holes in the face of the rock in which they crush the grain’.1 It is not grain alone that is crushed on these rocks. Camwood, which in its prepared form is an article of female and even male cosmetic in widespread demand, is also ground on them. So also are the shells of the kernel of the oil-palm which, after being rounded and smoothed, are bored and converted into beads. CLIMATIC

FEATURES

As Yorubaland is situated between 6° and 10° north of the equator, one of its geographical features is the almost equal division of the day into periods of sunlight and darkness, and the consequent almost abrupt nature of the transitional change. At five o’clock the first faint streaks of dawn are only just appearing, but by 6.30 a.m., it is fully light, and the glowing orb of the sun is visible on the horizon. Between this hour and 10.30 a.m., anybody who wishes to avoid the inconvenience of the tropical sunshine must transact any business that takes him out into the open air for any appreciable length of time. Between 10.30 a.m. and 3.30 p.m. people who can afford to do so keep in the shade if possible. Between 3.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. twilight is rapidly succeeded by darkness. The greatest heat of the day is concentrated between 10.30 a.m. and 3.30 p.m. 1 Clapperton, p. 21. op.cit., p.2.

PHYSICAL

ENVIRONMENT

25

Thereafter, it gradually begins to cool down until during the night and the early hours of the morning the thermometer drops to its lowest point. By contrast, there is no wide difference between the mean temperature of the coldest month and that of the hottest. For though, during the harmattan, the night temperature reaches its lowest point, this is more than compensated for by the intense heat of the period of sunshine. The mean

annual range of temperature is lowest at the coast.

At Lagos it averages out at 6.10°F over a period of ten years ending December 1935. The annual mean temperature is remarkably constant, ranging between 80 and 81.6 degrees during the period in question. Only once during the same period did the absolute temperature reach 96°, while the minimum

touched was, on two

occasions, 66°. 1 In short, to judge from thermometric readings alone, the climate of Lagos is rather more tolerable than its latitude would lead one to expect. Its humidity, however, makes the heat very trying to Europeans, who find the higher temperature of the hinter¬ land less exacting than the comparatively low one of Lagos. Yet, curiously enough, an examination of the records of up-country meteorological stations would hardly seem to bear out this claim, as the humidity figures show no substantial difference from those of Lagos. The explanation would appear to be the time at which the readings are made. Owing to the comparatively wide difference between diurnal and nocturnal temperature, the fall of dew, parti¬ cularly in the hinterland, is considerable, and the effect of the morning sun upon the ground must be to charge the atmosphere heavily with moisture in the course of evaporation at about the time the reading is taken. RAINFALL

With regard to rainfall, Yorubaland, except immediately near the coast, may be said to have barely enough rainfall. While, often, the coastal area has more rain than it needs, it is not always so in the hinterland. The pattern of rainfall is therefore such that there is a gradual drop as one goes from the south to the north. 1 This of course refers only to the time at which daily thermometric readings are taken, viz., 9.00 a.m.

26

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

Both the dry and the rainy seasons are ushered in by thunder¬ storms and tornadoes, those preceding the rainy season being often extremely violent. Huge trees are uprooted, and it is not an unusual occurrence for entire corrugated iron roofs of houses, covering an area of over 200 square yards, to be lifted bodily, complete with joints and roof struts, and deposited at great distances away. The rainy season itself can be sub-divided into ‘heavy' and ‘light’ rains, the heavy rains occurring during the months of April, May, June and July, and the light rains during August, September and October. But this division is true only if the basis of comparison is that of total rainfall during the month. DRAINAGE

Yorubaland is fairly well watered by numerous streams. Although they become swollen and turbulent during the rains, most of these rivers become dry in the dry season, leaving exposed their granitelittered beds. Only in some of the larger ones are there to be found chains of pools. Some of these larger rivers are the Ogun, Osun, Ona, and Sasa, all of which flow in a north-south direction. The railway from Lagos to Kano has followed the flood plain of the Ogun up to Oloke-Meji, a distance of over eighty miles. Before the introduction of railway the Ogun river afforded, for the greater part of the year, a means of communication by dug-out canoes from Lagos to within a few miles of Abeokuta, although travelling was often very laborious two or three months after the rains. When in flood these larger rivers, especially those in the Ondo country, afford a useful means of evacuating timber worked in the area. All the rivers with courses that are not directly north-to-south, are tributaries to the Niger. The water-parting of the country is the line running through the Ondo hills. NATURAL

VEGETATION:

GENERAL

CHARACTERISTICS

There are four principal vegetation belts corresponding — if the last two be treated as sub-divisions of one — to the three belts of relief features. The first is confined to the coast on both sides of the lagoon. The eastern half of the coast is characterised by white sandy beach covered in parts, at some distance beyond the reach of the surf, with coarse spiny grass, and with stunted coconut palms in the background. The western half for the most part consists of a

PHYSICAL

ENVIRONMENT

27

low-lying island or peninsula which in its unreclaimed state is a succession of sandy beach on which are scattered coconut palms, coarse grass and mangrove marshes bordering on creeks which run parallel to the coast. The rest of the island divided by the creek is dotted here and there with marshes around and on which is rank vegetation. The whole land surface starting from the sea may be in part as narrow as a quarter of a mile (in which case it is comple¬ mented to a depth of about ten miles by the lagoon); or, it may be very near ten miles (in which case the lagoon complement narrows down to about a quarter of a mile). The low forest vegetation which succeeds the waterside vegetation on the mainland gives way, at a total distance of about twelve miles from the sea, to the second zone of natural vegetation, namely, the tropical or rain-forest belt. The evergreen rain-forest belt starts from about twelve miles from the sea, and extends northwards to a depth of about forty miles, the area being generally south of the seventh parallel of north latitude, which is a few miles south of the town of Abeokuta. The presence of some high hills in Ondo Province, however, results in a heavy rainfall and a consequent pushing further north of the rain-forest belt in that area. Here and there in the forest is open parkland, as well as the sites of towns and villages. The towns are often placed in the vicinity of a stream or at points on a river where it can be crossed and, thus, forms a highway. (The forests are of course now intersected by railways and motor roads). Well close to the road or path, yet more often than not effectively hidden from it by a screen of bush some three to four yards thick, are farms extending, in some places, acres deep on which various crops are planted. The third vegetation belt is that of the mixed deciduous forest, which consists both of deciduous and evergreen trees. The transition from the evergreen forest is very gradual and almost imperceptible, and in some parts ‘it is only after half-a-day’s march that one realises that one has left the evergreen type behind and reached the forests where half the trees lose their leaves every year. A very large development

of these forests is found in the Abeokuta, Oyo,

Ijebu-Ode and Ondo

Provinces’.1 It is worth pointing out that the

1 A. H. Unwin, op. cit., p. 152.

28

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

deciduous trees shed their leaves towards the end of October. The forest in this belt gets more open ; some of the trees found here are iroko, obeche or arere , and the African green-heart, the last of which may grow to as much as twelve feet in diameter, and is hard enough to break the blade of an axe.1 The belt is about forty miles in depth. It is succeeded by the open deciduous forest, which is a dry-zone formation, and which shows itself over a very wide extent in Oyo and northern Ijebu-Ode. ‘In some places this formation, owing to the trees being close together, more nearly approaches the deciduous forest. In others, owing to the poor and stunted nature of the arboreal growth, it more nearly approaches the open grass savannah formation.2 This last formation is not met with until northern Yorubaland is reached. Some of the typical trees of this belt, which are also shared by the mixed deciduous forest, are the shea-butter tree, locust tree, and the tamarind. Mahogany is also found, but does not attain a greater girth than ten feet, and is often gnarled and crooked owing to the annual grass fires. (The fields are fired every year before being planted about January.)

1 ibid., p. 153. 2 ibid., p. 153.

29

CHAPTER

ETHNIC

^ orubaland

is peopled

by

2

HISTORY

the

Egbado

and

Awori

of

the

Haro division of Abeokuta Province of Nigeria; the Egba of Abeokuta Province; the various groups of Ijebu in Ijebu Province; the Oyo and Ilorin Provinces; the Ife and Ijesa of Oyo Province; the Ondo, the Idoko, Ikale and llaje of Ondo Province; the various small groups of related people collectively known as the Ekiti, the most important of which are the people of Otun, Ado, Ikole and Efon; the Yagba and the Igbomina of Ilorin and Kabba Provinces. All these people speak a language known as Yoruba, which be¬ longs to the Sudanic family; and as they had split, before the esta¬ blishment of British rule into at least as many groups as there are today, the question has been raised whether the word Yoruba does not, in fact, refer to a linguistic, rather than an ethnic or cul¬ tural group. The present day people, particularly elderly persons in certain parts of the country, tend to distinguish their own local groups from the one they collectively refer to as Yoruba.1 The following passage throws further light on the question : ...for the last few years the name ‘Yoruba’ has been very erroneously made use of in reference to the whole nation, supposing the Yoruba is the most powerful Aku tribe. But this appelation is liable to far greater objection than that of ‘Aku’ and ought to be forthwith abandoned, for it is in the first place unhistorical, having never been used of the whole Aku nation by anybody except for the last few years conventionally by the Missionaries.2

As the first white missionary entered Yorubaland thirteen years before the above passage was written, and as these various groups of people were known in Sierra Leone only under the name Aku,

1 Writing on the people of Lagos in his Vocabulary of Yoruba, Bowen described them as speaking the Yoruba language, which they frequently call Eko, just as the Iketus (Keu), the Egbas, etc., call it after the name of their own tribes the Iketu, the Egba, etc. 2 Church Missionary Intelligencer, January 1856.

30

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

the label, Yoruba, as that of an ethnic group could not have been long in vogue prior to 1856. It is indeed possible that, before being used to refer to the whole people, this name first gained currency only after the journey of Captain Clapperton from Badagry on the Gulf of Guinea to Katunga (Old Oyo or Eyeo). In the account of the journey published in 1829, he referred to the whole territory through which he passed on that journey as the country of the Yarriba and to the people themselves as the Yarribans.1 This name he adopted from the Hausa, who applied it, apparently, to the people grouped together as Yoruba who were nearest to their owti territory, that is the Oyo-Yoruba Kingdom. Clapperton obtained the information from Sultan Bello of Sokoto,2 on his first visit to Africa (which was entered by way of the north), on an expedition headed by Dr Oudney. On the other hand, Dalzel, in whose book3 we have one of the earliest written references to what has since come to be known

as the Yoruba kingdom, makes no mention of Yoruba.

but of Eyeo and the king or kingdom

of Eyeo. Oyo happens to be

the name applied to the Oyo-Yoruba today by all the non-OyoYoruba peoples who are now described along with them as Yoruba; and the probability is that Dalzel, who apparently got his account of the Yoruba at second hand, must be indebted for the name Eyeo to the same source as the rest of his information. It would appear then that to the people south and south-west of them, the OyoYoruba were Eyeo. To people like the Dahomeans who lived outside the territory of the king of Eyeo, the non-Oyo divisions like the Ijesa, the Egba and the Ijebu might even have been included, just as the inhabitants of the territories north of the dominion of the king of Oyo (which name is really that of the capital) seem to have used the name Yarriba for a much larger territory than that inhabi¬ ted by only the Oyo-Yoruba. The following extract, made by Clapperton from a historical and geographical work of Sultan Bello of Sokoto, will bear out the latter statement, especially in view of the fact that the kingdom of Oyo was an inland kingdom : 1 H. Clapperton, op. cit.

2 Jr’ fj'lapperton and D. Denham,

Narrative

of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa by Major Denham, Captain Clapperton and the late Dr Oudney, London, J. Murray, 1826, Part II, p. 165.

3 A. Dalzel, History of Dahomey, London, T. Spilsbury, 1793.

ETHNIC

HISTORY

31

Yarba is an extensive province containing rivers, forests, sands and mountains, as also a great many wonderful and extra-ordinary things. In it the talking green bird called babaga is found. By the side of this province there is an anchorage or harbour for the ships of the Christians who used to go there and purchase slaves. These slaves were exported from our country and sold to the people of Yarba, who resold them to the Christians.1 The following comes from Clapperton’s own pen : The kingdom of Yourriba extends from Puka on the south, which is within five miles of the sea, to Lagos and Whydah in that line, to the north to about the tenth degree of north latitude. It is bounded by Dahomey to the north-west, which is reckoned a tributary province, Ketto and the Maha countries on the north, Borgoo on the north-east, the Quorra or Niger to the east, Accourra, a province of Benin, on the south-east, five days’ journey distant, Jaboo to the south and west.2

While

the older generation of the rest of the population of Yorubaland, out of ethnic self-consciousness, repudiate the label, Yoruba. the ‘Oyo’ (referred to throughout the rest of this book as the Oyo- Yoruba or Yoruba proper) do not at the present day question the propriety of the name as applied to them. And, if the following narrative, extracted by Captain Clapperton from Sultan Bello's history about the historical origin of the Oyo-Yoruba be reliable at all, it is doubtful whether the propriety has ever been questioned, at least as far back as the time when northern neighbours like the Hausa began to refer to them by that name : The inhabitants of this province (Yarba) it is supposed originated from the remnant of the children of Canaan, who were of the tribe of Nimrod. The cause of their establishment in the west of Africa, was, as it is stated, in consequence of their being driven by Yarrooba, son of Kahtan, out of Arabia to the Western coast between Egypt and Abyssinia. From that spot they advanced into the interior of Africa till they reached Yarba, where they fixed their residence. On their way they left in every place they stopped a tribe of their own people. Thus it is supposed that all the tribes of the Soudan who inhabit the mountains are originated from them, as also are the inhabitants of Yaory. Upon the whole the people of Yarba are nearly of the same description as those of Noofee (Nupe).3

1 Clapperton and Denham, op. cit., p. 165. 2 Clapperton, op. cit., p. 56. 3 Clapperton and Denham, op. cit., p. 165.

32

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

What, then, is the relationship of the Oyo-Yoruba to the rest of the native population of Yorubaland? In answering this question, it should be pointed out that all the peoples are united in claiming > Ile-Ife as their place of origin. They are further united in all claim¬ ing descent from a common ancestor in Ile-Ife, namely, Oduduwa. One group, namely the Ijebu Remo, claim to have emigrated from Ile-Ife to settle in their present abode, and this is vouched for in their name (which has a correspondence in the Iremo quarter of IleIfe) while the fact of the interrelationship of the various groups and sub-groups may be seen in the compound names borne by some of them. Thus the Ijebu-Ijesa form one of the principal divisions of the Ijesa people. On the other hand, one tradition says that Obanta, the founder of the present dynasty of Ijebu-Ode, came to Ijebu-Ode from Ijebu-Ijesa. Ife-Ijebu, now reckoned one of the constituent groups of the Ijebu people, not only claim to have come originally from IleIfe, but demonstrate that fact quite convincingly in the cultural con¬ tacts which they still maintain with Ife on given occasions, such as the installation of a new king. The Oyo-Yoruba claim the Egba as their near kin, and in spite of political jealousy, that claim is not denied by the Egba. The Egbado are a branch of the Egba. The Oyo claim to have come from Ile-Ife, a claim which is confirmed by the import¬ ant part played by Ife during the installation of a new king in Oyo. Thus from a brief examination, the various divisions of the Ijebu people, the Egba and Egbado, and Oyo-Yoruba, Ondo, Ijesa, Ife are seen to be united not only in their common claim of having descended from Oduduwa, but also in the fact of their having orig¬ inally hailed from Ile-Ife being fairly well attested. Among other peoples who claim to have originated from Ile-Ife, and whose culture is attested by observers to be essentially Yoruba in spite of a pro¬ nounced dialectal variation, are the very important and warlike Igbomina. So also are the Yagba, while today the relations of the ruling houses of Ondo and of the Ekiti kingdoms with Ile-Ife are very intimate. It is a fair assumption, therefore, that the various divisions of the Yoruba shared a common ancestor in a not too remote past, yet by no means as recently as the mythical genealogical trees accepted by the various tribes would make them appear.

E I HNIC

THE

OWONI

HISTORY

33

MYTH

It should be mentioned in connection with the above general conclusion that Talbot has an interesting theory, based on Johnson’s accounts, that there were two main waves of Yoruba immigrants into Ile-Ife, the first of which arrived in Southern Nigeria in the second millenium b.c., while the second wave, partly of Hamitic or other Brown race blood, reached the country between a.d. 600 and 1.000. According to him, this second wave ‘introduced another development of culture, and provided the ruling families among the Yoruba’.1 The theory is suggestive for our purpose in the light it throws upon two related problems, namely, the claims of rulers of Ile-Ife known officially as Ooni to royal origin, and the problem of cultural differentiation, in so far as it is observable among the various groups. According to one mythological tradition of Oyo-Yoruba origin,2 the Yoruba came from Mecca to their present abode, having been driven out of Mecca following a civil war between Oduduwa and his followers who were conservative and did their best to enforce a return to idolatry and the Muslim party. Oduduwa died before he could organise an avenging expedition against the party which drove him out of his native land. It was left to his grandson Oranyan to do this, his own son Okanbi having died before him after Oduduwa’s death. The expedition did not proceed very far, however, before it broke up owing to dissension between Oranyan and his brothers. Out of shame Oranyan would not return to Ile-Ife from which he had set out, but settled down on or near the site of Old Oyo (called Katanga in Hausa) which subsequently became his capital. He had left his treasures and fetishes in Ile-Ife in charge of a trusted servant, Adimu, who was also charged with carrying out the worship of the national drisa (godlings). This servant was given an undisputed authority in Ile-Ife after he himself had settled down Thereafter, whenever

he needed anything from among

in Old Oyo. these treas¬

ures, he sent word to the servant. According to Johnson’s interpreted 1 P. A. Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, vol. I, London, Humphrey Milford, 1926, pp.276, 278.These dates must be considered largely conjectural on Talbot’s part, especially since he does not disclose the basis on which they are calculated. 2 Samuel Johnson, op. cit., pp. 3-12.

34

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF THE

YORUBA

version, through thus performing some of the most important duties of a king, namely, the religious functions, Adimu was practically raised to a kingly status. Yet, it is maintained, this Adimu was after all originally the son of a sacrificial victim who was temporarily reprieved to enable her to be delivered of the child of which she was conceived. Upon the child’s growing up, he was set to care for the shrines of the national dr'isa especially that of Obatala (another name for Oduduwa) to which his mother was sacrificed. When, later on, the myth goes on to say, Adimu became supreme in Ile-Ife, the title he assumed was Ooni, a contraction of Owoni. The latter is said to be a shortened form of Omo

oluwoni (it is the child of the

sacrificial victim) an answer which was said to be given to the ques¬ tion, ‘And who is this Adimu’’ laT which was constantly being asked regarding the person who had suddenly become so important in Ile-Ife. Oranyan, according to the myth, grew prosperous in his new settlement at Oyo. His four brothers and two nephews (sons of sisters) became, after the death of their grandfather Oduduwa, that is, at the same time as he himself became king of Yoruba proper, the rulers of Ake,1 Owu, Oyo, Sabe, Ketu, Ila and Bini. It should be emphasised that the above list of kingdoms is far from being exhaustive of the kingdoms of Yorubaland, and it is worthwhile comparing it with another heraldic account, this time from an Ijesa, i.e., a non-Oyo- Yoruba source. This contains the names of sixteen kings, said to be only a few of the sons of Oduduwa. The list has two notable features: it gives great prominence to kings of the Ijesa, Ekiti and Ondo communities while repeating five of the seven names on the Oyo-Yoruba list. But the Ijesa list omits the Ooni of Ife, whom the Oyo-Yoruba themselves regard as not orig¬ inally the political king of Ife. The historians of Ijesa assert that the first king of Ijesa claimed the throne of Ife after the death of Odudu¬ wa his father, but that he did not choose to make Ile-Ife his capital. The Ooni of Ife, it is claimed, was the son of a woman who was to have been sacrificed in observance of the funeral custom of Oduduwa, but who

was spared in order that she might be delivered of her

1 Ake is the chief town of the £gba.

ETHNIC

HISTORY

35

child.1 The child, together with the mother, who was known as Oluwo, was assigned the same duty as in the Oyo myth. Both Oyo and Ijesa myths, therefore, agree in denying royal connection to the Ooni of Ife, although each claims the throne of Ife for its own country. But one significant oversight in these stories arises from their claim¬ ing collateral kinship for both the king of Oyo and the king of Ijesa, with the king of Bini. In other words, the king of Bini was, according to the Oyo account, one of the grandsons of Oduduwa who divided the country among them on their grandfather’s death. And, according to the Ijesa account, he was one of the sixteen sons of the same Oduduwa. The Bini kingdom, from its favourable geographical position, has been longer known to white men than the kingdom of Oyo and, long before Oyo had come to the notice of the white man, Ile-Ife had acquired an exaggerated importance for the Portuguese, who imagined it was the kingdom of Prester John, from the awed accounts of Ile-Ife which reached them from the people of Bini. What is more, the importance of Ife to the Bini people arose partly from the fact that, some centuries before the Bini country became known to the Portuguese, the king of Ife had succeeded in getting a member of his own family established on the throne of Bini, and the line of succession has not since been broken.2 If, then, the Ooni of Ife has no claim to royal lineage, neither would the king of Bini, who does not dispute that he comes of Ife royal line. It is, further, within the knowledge of the present writer that the Ooni of Ife is, up to the present day, in a position to demonstrate pretty convincingly the fact that the kings of Ekiti, Ijebu, Ondo and Bini not only regard him as of the same ancestry as themselves, but even as their father, in view of the superior importance of his throne. It is to be suspected that the attempt Yoruba to deny royal descent to the line of the importance attached by all the various to the question of origin at Ile-Ife. This, great regard which the Oyo- Yoruba has for

on the part of the Oyothe Ooni of Ife is due to divisions of the Yoruba taken together with the continuity with the past,

is a fact which compels every Alaafin of Oyo to depend for his auth¬ ority to execute justice upon the sword of Oranyan being brought 1 J. D. E. Abiola, J. A. Babaf^mi, and S. O. S. Ataiyero, Iwe Itan Ilesa , Ilesa, 1932, pp. 23-5. 2 Talbot, op. cit., p. 30.

36

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF THE

YORUBA

from lle-Ife and placed ritually in his hand.1 Such dependence of the once all-powerful king of Oyo might require explaining away in a sense that flattered the self-esteem of the very sophisticated as well as haughty people of the capital. As far as the Ijesa are concerned, jealousy in one form or another will probably be held to account for this belittlement of a neigh¬ bouring kingdom, the culture of which is more closely akin to that of Ijesa than it is to that of the Oyo-Yoruba. Out of this conflict of mythologies we feel justified in putting forward the theory that the Ooni of Ife is no more a priest-king than is the Alaafin of the Oyo-Yoruba, the supposed descendant of Oranyan. The ruling house of lle-Ife has never admitted the claim that its role in the life of the Yoruba people is to act as caretaker of the sacred shrines of the people, or even as priest. As will be shown later on, the so-called priestly functions of the king are no more than the responsibility of the head of a family to see that none of the supraphysical sources of prosperity, health, wealth, and the like is left uninvoked every year on behalf of his people. Another point that is forced upon the student is that the Ooni of Ife must be of co-ordinate rank with the Alaafin of Oyo, the Owa of Ilesa, the Oba of Bini and so on. In fact, traditions in the ruling house of Bini show definitely that the present dynasty originated from lie -Ife rather than from Oyo, as the Oyo-Yoruba mythology would make it appear. We are further forced to the conclusion that the Oyo and the Ife monarchs represent two groups of royalties, at the head of two slightly differentiated groups of people. In other words, the probability is that the Ooni was the head of an aboriginal people, or rather of a people whom the Oyo-Yoruba found in Ue-Ife on their arrival from the East, while the Alaafin of Oyo is the descend¬ ant of the leader of the later immigrants from the East. Even if both groups were originally closely related ethnically and culturally, a separation of between one thousand and two thousand years would involve a resultant divergence of experiences and traditions.

' Johnson, op. cit., p. 12.

ETHNIC

THE

IFE-IJESA-EKITI

CULTURE

HISTORY

37

GROUP

The Ife people of today are not the sole representatives of that wave of immigrants from the East into Ile-Ife which is placed by Dr Talbot at between 2,000 and 1,000 b.c.1 It is tolerably certain that the Ekiti people, the greater bulk of the ljesa people, and, to some extent the Ondo, belong to this older culture group. It is possible that the group comprises a much larger number of tribes and sub-tribes than those just specified, which are to be regarded as the minimum denotation of the term ‘the earlier wave of immi¬ grants from the East’ or, alternatively, the Ife-Ijesa-Ekiti culture group. The Igara, situated near the confluence of the Niger and Benue, for instance, would, according to Talbot, appear to belong to the group. The Ijebu people may possibly also be found to belong to the group. If extremes of dialectal differentiation were to be taken in conjunction with the strong traditions which prevail in many of the divisions of the people who are connected with lle-Ife, the Ijebu would certainly not be placed in the latter immigrant group, of which the Oyo-Yoruba are the principal representatives. Apart from being separated from the Oyo-Yoruba by the rather extreme dialectal differentiation which makes the language of an Ondo or Ekiti almost a foreign language to an Oyo-Yoruba, the lfe, ljesa, Ekiti and Ondo people have certain cultural peculiarities in common which mark them off from the Oyo-Yoruba. The differ¬ ences are not so much differences of kind as of detail. Until the process of assimilation with Oyo-Yoruba custom began, marriages were much more elaborate in these communities than among the Oyo-Yoruba

and had as their chief feature heavy feasts of a potlatch character given by the young man who was getting married. Other peculiarities are to be found in the mode of burial, the attitude towards incest, and the organisation of the monarchical establish¬ ment.

Nevertheless, while these features mark out the Ife-Ijesa-Ekiti group from the Oyo-Yoruba group (in which should certainly be placed the various divisions of the Egba) the points of agreement in the cultures of these two groups are far more numerous and important than the points of difference.

1 Talbot, op. cit., p. 276.

38

THE

SOCIOLOGY

OF

THE

YORUBA

It is still an open question whether, after an exhaustive survey, every Yoruba group or sub-group will be found to fall under the Oyo-Yoruba culture group or the Ife-Ijesa-Ekiti culture group, or whether an additional grouping will be disclosed. And here, it is relevant to mention that the traditions of the migrations of several groups reveal the fact that the various places ted after leaving Ile-Ife were not altogether arrival. There are, at present, no means of earlier inhabitants were related to one or the

into which they migra¬ uninhabited upon their knowing whether these other of the two culture

sub-groups but (like the Igara at the confluence of the Benue and the Niger) had not been content to stay at Ile-Ife with the rest of their group. Neither is it certain if they had struck out in other directions on their own initiative before general movement outward from Ile-Ife began, or whether we are dealing with local people who were not related to either of the two waves of immigrants into Ile-Ife. THE

EXPANSION

OUTWARDS

FROM

ILE-IFE

The second wave of immigrants into Ile-Ife, namely, the QyoYoruba, who were, according to Talbot, of brown race, reached Ile-Ife between a.d. 600 and 1,000 bringing with them, among other useful arts, a knowledge of the art of working in bronze.1 Later on, whether finding themselves cramped for space, or preferring the more open plains of the north, or perhaps as part of a more general movement outwards in all directions, the Oyo-Yoruba moved north and established their capital in Old Oyo.

At whatever time the event occurred, the groups and sub-groups of the Ife-Ijesa-Ekiti-Ondo culture group (with the exception of what is now the Ife kingdom) moved out from Ile-Ife in the same way as the Oyo-Yoruba moved out to establish their capital at Old Oyo. By stages, this pattern of migration led to the distribution of the various groups throughout what is known as Yorubaland until the Fulani invasion at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Although the Yoruba did not seem to have found the country of their new settlement previously untenanted, yet it was not found necessary to displace or exterminate the existing inhabitants. There

1 Talbot, op. cit., p. 279.

ETHNIC

HISTORY 39

was plenty of land, and all that was needed was for the leader of the newcomers to ask the permission for himself and his followers to settle in his territory — a permission which was usually granted. For one reason or another, however, the leader of the newcomers generally eclipsed in importance the leader of the earlier inhab¬ itants.1 THE

RISE

AND

DECLINE

OF

THE

OYO-YORUBA

EMPIRE

Of all the separate political groupings which resulted from the general outward movement from Ile-Ife, the Oyo-Yoruba was by far the largest and most important. At various times prior to the rise of the Fulani power in Ilorin at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it must have established a dominion over practically every ethnic or sub-ethnic Yoruba group. Johnson writes that ‘the vassal or provincial kings and ruling princes were 1,060 at the time of the greatest prosperity of the empire, which then included the Popos, Dahomey and parts of Ashanti, with portions of the Tapas and Baribas’.2 Apart from his own observation that the remoter portions of that empire had ‘always lived in a state of semi-independence while acknowledging an overlord’, if we confine ourselves to a period not farther back than 1,500, it would not appear to be true that the Ondo people were at any time under the political influence of any state but that of Bini. But the observation would hold for the inhabitants of Lagos island, and of a part at least of the Ijebu country, as well as those divisions of the Ekiti who are included under the Southern Provinces of Nigeria.3 So, then the limits of the kingdom of Oyo-Yoruba, as defined by Captain Clapperton in 1825, would appear to accord with what facts can be gleaned from various sources about the political situation in Yorubaland before

1 In communities as far removed from each other as Saki and Ij?bu-Odc part of the ceremonies for the installation of a king is a dramatisation of the historical fact of the one-time right of the chief in previous occupation to call the country his own. This ceremony is the one and only occasion where the latter but now politically dominant chief shows deference to the successor of the man who gave his predecessor and his people permission to settle in his country. The Ij