SOLUTION: YORUBA EMPIRE Yorubaland is the cultural region of the Yoruba people in

YORUBA EMPIRE

By the 8th century, Ile-Ife was already a powerful Yoruba kingdom, one of the earliest in Africa south of the Sahara-Sahel. Almost every Yoruba settlement traces its origin to princes of Ile-Ife. As such, Ife can be regarded as the cultural and spiritual homeland of the Yoruba nation.

Ile-Ife was a settlement of substantial size between the 12th and 14th centuries, with houses featuring potsherd pavements. It is known worldwide for its ancient and naturalistic bronze as well as stone and terracotta sculptures, which reached their peak of artistic expression between 1200 and 1400.

The mythical origins of the Oyo Empire lie with Oranyan, who made Oyo his new kingdom and became the first oba with the title of Alaafin of Oyo. The oral tradition holds that he left all his treasures in Ife and allowed another king named Adimu to rule there.

Oyo had grown into a formidable inland power by the end of the 14th century, but it suffered military defeats at the hands of the Nupe led by Tsoede. During the 17th century, Oyo began a long stretch of growth, becoming a major empire. It never encompassed all Yoruba-speaking people, but it was the most populous kingdom in Yoruba history. The key to Yoruba rebuilding Oyo was a stronger military and a more centralized government.

In the second half of the 18th century, dynastic intrigues, palace coups, and failed military campaigns began to weaken the Oyo Empire. It became a protectorate of Great Britain in 1888 before further fragmenting into warring factions. The Oyo state ceased to exist as any sort of power in 1896.

Terms

Yorubaland

The cultural region of the Yoruba people in West Africa. It spans the modern-day countries of Nigeria, Togo, and Benin, and covers a total land area of 142,114 square kilometers. The geocultural space contains an estimated 55 million people, the overwhelming majority of whom are ethnic Yorubas.

Oranyan

A Yoruba king from the kingdom of Ile-Ife; although last born, he was heir to Oduduwa. According to Yoruba history, he founded Oyo as its first Alaafin at around the year 1300 and one of his children, Eweka I, went on to become the first Oba of the Benin Empire.

Oduduwa

The King of Ile-Ife, whose name is generally ascribed to the ancestral dynasties of Yorubaland because he is held by the Yoruba to have been the ancestor of their numerous crowned kings. Following his posthumous deification, he was admitted to the Yoruba pantheon as an aspect of a primordial divinity of the same name.

Ile-Ife

An ancient Yoruba city in southwestern Nigeria (located in the present-day Osun State) that turned into the first powerful Yoruba kingdom, one of the earliest in Africa south of the Sahara-Sahel. It is regarded as the cultural and spiritual homeland of the Yoruba nation.

The Yoruba have been the dominant group on the west bank of the Niger. Of mixed origin, they were the product of the assimilation of periodic waves of migrants who evolved a common language and culture. The Yoruba were organized in patrilineal descent groups that occupied village communities and subsisted on agriculture, but from about the eleventh century A.D., adjacent village compounds, called He, began to coalesce into a number of territorial city-states in which loyalties to the clan became subordinate to allegiance to a dynastic chieftain. This transition produced an urbanized political and social environment that was accompanied by a high level of artistic achievement, particularly in terra-cotta and ivory sculpture and in the sophisticated metal casting produced at Ife. The brass and bronze used by Yoruba artisans was a significant item of trade, made from copper, tin, and zinc imported either from North Africa or from mines in the Sahara and northern Nigeria.

The Yoruba placated a pantheon headed by an impersonal deity, Olorun, and included lesser deities, some of them formerly mortal, who performed a variety of cosmic and practical tasks. One of them, Oduduwa, was regarded as the creator of the earth and the ancestor of the Yoruba kings. According to a creation myth, Oduduwa founded the city of Ife and dispatched his sons to establish other cities, where they reigned as priest-kings and presided over cult rituals. Formal traditions of this sort have been interpreted as poetic illustrations of the historical process by which Ife’s ruling dynasty extended its authority over Yorubaland. The stories were attempts to legitimize the Yoruba monarchies—after they had supplanted clan loyalties—by claiming divine origin.

Ife was the center of as many as 400 religious cults whose traditions were manipulated to political advantage by the oni (king) in the days of the kingdom’s greatness. Ife also lay at the center of a trading network with the north. The oni supported his court with tolls levied on trade, tribute exacted from dependencies, and tithes due him as a religious leader. One of Ife’s greatest legacies to modern Nigeria is its beautiful sculpture associated with this tradition.

The oni was chosen on a rotating basis from one of several branches of the ruling dynasty, which was composed of a clan with several thousand members. Once elected, he went into seclusion in the palace compound and was not seen again by his people. Below the oni in the state hierarchy were palace officials, town chiefs, and the rulers of outlying dependencies. The palace officials were spokesmen for the oni and the rulers of dependencies who had their own subordinate officials. All offices, even that of the oni, were elective and depended on broad support within the community. Each official was chosen from among the eligible clan members who had hereditary right to the office. Members of the royal dynasty often were assigned to govern dependencies, while the sons of palace officials assumed lesser roles as functionaries, bodyguards to the oni, and judges.

During the fifteenth century, Oyo and Benin surpassed Ife as political and economic powers, although Ife preserved its status as a religious center even after its decline. Respect for the priestly functions of the oni of Ife and recognition of the common tradition of origin were crucial factors in the evolution of Yoruba ethnicity. The oni of Ife was recognized as the senior political official not only among the Yoruba but also at Benin, and he invested Benin’s rulers with the symbols of temporal power.

The Ife model of government was adapted at Oyo, where a member of its ruling dynasty consolidated several smaller city-states under his control. A council of state, the Oyo Mesi, eventually assumed responsibility for naming the alafin (king) from candidates proposed from the ruling dynasty and acted as a check on his authority. Oyo developed as a constitutional monarchy; actual government was in the hands of the basorun (prime minister), who presided over the Oyo Mesi. The city was situated 170 kilometers north of Ife and about 100 kilometers north of present-day Oyo.

Unlike the forest-bound Yoruba kingdoms, Oyo was in the savanna and drew its military strength from its cavalry forces, which established hegemony over the adjacent Nupe and the Borgu kingdoms and thereby developed trade routes farther to the north.

Benin was already a well-established agricultural community in the Edo-speaking area, east of Ife, when it became a dependency of Ife at the beginning of the fourteenth century. By the fifteenth century, it took an independent course and became a major trading power in its own right, blocking Ife’s access to the coastal ports as Oyo had cut off the mother city from the savanna. Political power and religious authority resided in the oba (king), who according to tradition was descended from the Ife dynasty. The oba was advised by a council of six hereditary chiefs, who also nominated his successor.

The city of Benin, which may have housed 100,000 inhabitants at its height, spread over twenty-five square kilometers that were enclosed by three concentric rings of earthworks. Responsibility for administering the urban complex lay with sixty trade guilds, each with its own quarter, whose membership cut across clan affiliations and owed its loyalty directly to the oba. At his wooden, steepled palace, the oba presided over a large court richly adorned with brass, bronze, and ivory objects. Like Ife and the other Yoruba states, Benin, too, is famous for its sculpture.

Unlike the Yoruba kingdoms, however, Benin developed a centralized regime to oversee the administration of its expanding territories. By the late fifteenth century, Benin was in contact with Portugal. At its apogee in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Benin even encompassed parts of southeastern Yorubaland and the small Igbo area on the western bank of the Niger. Dependencies were governed by members of the royal family, who were assigned several towns or villages scattered throughout the realm rather than a block of territory that could be used as a base for revolt against the oba.

Yorubaland about the year 1700 was under one King, or Alafin, who resided at Old Oyo1 or Katunga. That this kingdom when united was a very powerful one is shown from the fact that until the year 1818 the Dahomi paid tribute to the Alafin of Oyo. It is only from this date (1700), when the decadence of the Yoruba Kingdom had set in, that the native chroniclers can give any definite knowledge of the Yoruba history.

Lagos became a great slaving port about the year 1815 when the King of Benin and a few other chiefs refused to allow slaves to be exported from their territories. The original inhabitants of Lagos were a mixture of Bini and Yoruba people. When it became a port of export for slaves, such slaves as became residents as labourers and servants of the slave dealers and merchants added their quota to the population; and when after 1861 it became a British colony many freed slaves from Sierra Leone and other parts, more especially Brazil, made their homes there.

Between 1833 and 1835 the Mohammedans captured and destroyed the old town of Old Oyo, and the Yoruba were obliged to found a new capital where Oyo now stands. It was about this time also that the Egba declared their independence. They were finally driven out of the country that they, as a section of the Yoruba people, occupied, and in 1838 they founded their capital, Abeokuta. By the year 1840 the seeds of dissension sown by Afonja had spread so rapidly that the proud Kingdom of the Yoruba people split up into a number of so-called independent states. Illorin had been lost to the Alafin, and was inhabited by a mixture of Hausa, Fulah, and Yoruba .

Ibadan, a semi-independent state, still recognises the Alafin and paid tribute yearly. The Egba, agriculturists, declared that they were quite independent, as also do the Ijebu, Ilesha, Ife, and Iketu (then in French territory). From 1840 to 1886, when the British Government intervened as peace-maker, wars between these parts of the Yoruba people were constant. From that date until 1892 the peace-maker had to punish the Ijebu and Egba for closing their trade roads. In August 1861 Docemo ceded Lagos to the British. In 1863 Kosoko ceded Palma and Lekki, much to the disgust of the chief of Epe, who refused to cede his rights and was punished for it. And in the same year the chiefs of Badagry ceded their territory to the British.

Benin City moat / Benin Iya

Unlike stone-based constructions, mud-based features soon become obliterated. Benin is known world-wide for its massive City Moat or Iya. There are at least two major ruined earthworks in southern Nigeria, and sometimes it is difficult to discern which one is being discussed. The walls of Benin City is a cluster of community earthworks, with city walls, moats, and ditches that surrounded the city. Further west from the Benin City complex, around Ijebu-Ode, is the 15 meters deep, 150 kilometres Sungbo’s Eredo earthwork, apparently an extension of the same technique depicting a later stage of socio-political development in an adjacent culture.

A six thousand five hundred kilometers square cluster of community earthworks run for about sixteen thousand kilometers in the Benin rainforest zone. The core of this cluster consists of tightly packed small settlement enclosures with narrow cordons sanitaires (no-man’s-lands), and date back to about the 8th Century AD. On the periphery, the earthworks have larger, wider-spaced primary enclosures (including that of Benin itself), much broader cordons sanitaires and date up to about the 15th Century AD.

Benin City was the first inland settlement to be visited by the Europeans, despite not being near the sea or having a river port, but the reputation of the Benin civilisation motivated the Portuguese in the 15th century to seek it out. By the early 16th century, Benin Kingdom had sent an ambassador to Lisbon and in return, the King of Portugal had sent missionaries to Benin. Portuguese was to remain the foreign language for the Benin aristocracy for centuries and elements of the language have continued to survive in palace circles even today. Early trade items included cowries, ivory, pepper, and palm products. Although some slaves were exchanged for goods, Benin was not a slave-dealing nation, preferring to use its manpower and prisoners of war as construction workers, to build and maintain the royal palace, the expansive residencies of the aristocracy, and the city walls, moats, and ditches that surrounded the city.

At the height of the Benin Kingdom, great walls were built between 1450 and 1550, and the city was split up into the Oba’s Palace and 40 wards, and the network of walls, stretched from the city and enclosed the surrounding villages in a radius of over 100km. There could have perhaps been over 5,000km of wall. These walls enclosed over 500 compounds and were 9m tall at their highest. The palace is said to have been flanked by an enormous gate of two towers, each surmounted by a bronze python some 15m long. The walls were made of red mud but the inside was thought to be very ornate and full of ivory, brass, and iron figures and bronze busts. In each of the city’s wards were communities of artisans who made items to decorate the palace. Benin is known predominantly for its 15th – century wax bronzes, which are considered to be some of the finest African ancient art.

Part of the world’s largest and most ancient earthwork, a complex system of moats and ramparts spread over some 6,500 square kilometers–the Benin City Walls consist of a set of inner and outer interlocking rings originally built to delineate the royal precinct of the Oba, or king, from the surrounding area. Built to an original height of more than 18 meters, and a length of 1,200 kilometers, the Iya was constructed in three stages. It was finalised around 1460, at that time being the world’s largest earthwork. The earthworks attest the development of urbanization and rise of state societies in subsaharan Africa, a process that began in the seventh century AD and culminated in the founding of the Benin Kingdom of Bronze and Ivosry in the fourteenth century.

Edo, the people of Igodomigodo famously known for almost a millennium as Benin, had built a moat complex to protect themselves in the wars they fought. Oral history still credits the military strategy to Oba Oguola (about 1280 AD). Some two hundred years later, his descendant Oba Ewuare the Great, a warrior king, revived the moat idea and extended what Oguola built to cover more grounds around the City.

The Benin City Walls were ravaged by the British in 1897. Since then, portions of the walls have gradually vanished in the wake of modernization–large segments cannibalized. However, significant stretches of the walls remain, enclosing innumerable red earth shrines and vernacular elite architecture with red-fluted walls.

It has been claimed that the wall was as broad as it was high. When a chief of Benin died his wives and family and slaves and the wives and family and slaves of his successor congregated upon the top of the wall where the ghastly funeral rites were performed, after which the wives and slaves of the deceased who had been sacrificed as a tribute to the dead were hurled with their late master into the reeking trench that encircled the city upon the outside of the wall. And that was all the burial they received.

The Walls of Benin, built as a city fortification against neighboring rivals such as the Oyo Kingdom to the south and the Sokoto Caliphate in the north, is estimated by some to be 2,000 square miles in area. Excavations by British archaeologist Graham Connah in 1960 uncovered a rural network of earthen walls that, he estimated, if spread out over five dry seasons, would have required a workforce of 1,000 laborers working ten hours a day, for seven days a week to construct – a rough total of 150 million man hours.

Sungbo’s Eredo / Benin Moat / Walls of Benin / Edoid embankments

Further west from the Benin Moat, around Ijebu-Ode, is a 15 meters deep, 150 kilometers earthwork, is apparently an extension of the same technique depicting an earlier stage of socio-political development in an adjacent culture.

The polity that made Sungbo’s Eredo may be the predecessor of the Ijebu kingdom. The King of Ijebu became rich as a result of the coastal trade. The British eventually conquered the Kingdom as they resented the taxes the Ijebu levied on trade passing through their kingdom. In the early 1500’s the region directly north of Lagos was dominated by the Ijebu kingdom which participated in the Atlantic trade with Portuguese traders. Slaves, cloth, ivory and brass items were the main trade goods. In 1558 the European traders realized the extent of the lagoon system and its connection between Ijebu and Benin. Benin began to dominate the trade which consequently faltered with Ijebu though the trade there did not completely die out.

In the 1700’s European accounts claim the power and influence of Benin along the coast began to crumble. The Ijebu kingdom moved in to claim the territory between Lagos and Benin, the Warri seized the lower Benin River. Benin’s most westerly settlements were destroyed by the rising Dahomey.

Sungbo’s Eredo is a rampart or system of walls and ditches that surrounds the Yoruba town of Ijebu-Ode in Ogun state southwest Nigeria (6°49’N, 3°56’E). It is reputed to be the largest single pre-colonial monument in Africa. The Benin Moat, also known as the Walls of Benin, lays fallow, crumbling away in Nigeria, a pale reflection of its former resplendent self. Construction started on the Walls of Benin in 800 AD, now situated in modern day Benin City, capital of Edo State, and continued into the mid-1400s. Stretching seemingly endlessly across the land, the Benin Moat is said to be the world’s second longest man-made construction, falling short of only the Great Wall of China.

The Guinness Book of Records (1974 edition) described the walls of Benin City and its surrounding kingdom as the world’s largest earthworks carried out prior to the mechanical era. According to estimates by the New Scientist’s Fred Pearce, Benin City’s walls were at one point “four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops”.

Traditional lore links the construction of this impressive boundary to the legendary Sungbo, a wealthy childless widow, giantess, priestess / goddess, devil woman or even erstwhile Queen of Sheba, to whose grove and magically bare grave flock many long-distance pilgrims. This and the links with the present Awujale dynasty and its Odo settlements require more study.

This massive, 20 meters high [from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the rampart], thousand year old kingdom boundary rampart snakes through 160 kilometers of thick rainforest undergrowth and freshwater swamp forest around Ijebu-Ode in southwest Nigeria. A 20 m thick section near the Epe roads has near vertical ditch sides with a slight overhang. Since later deepening would have been an impossibility on this section, this overhang must have survived since the eredo’s original construction. The growth and local protection of forest along the eredo must have been an important factor in preserving the earthwork more or less as originally dug.

It lies close to Lagos, Ibadan and Ife, centers of learning, where many of Nigeria’s leading professional archaeologists have worked. Yet, apart from two cross-profiles measured near Itele, an inordinate delay of nearly forty years elapsed between the first sketch of this enormous feature and its main survey.

Along the gently sloping interfluves, the Eredo was deliberately engineered with ditch baulks to retain seasonal ralnwater as shallow moats. This feature arose from perceptions which significantly qualify previous interpretations of swampland salients on the Eredo and Benin earthworks and very forcibly, of the main Benin City moat.

Dr. Patrick J. Darling (1945-2016), archaeologist, educator, and heritage manager, was a staunch advocate for the preservation of Africa’s cultural heritage. The network of earthworks in the Edoid region of southwest Nigeria is the subject of his dissertation. His voluminous dissertation was published in 1984 as Archaeology and History in Southern Nigeria: The Ancient Linear Earthworks of Benin and Ishan (Parts 1 and 2) in the Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology and the BAR International Series. He recognized that the much celebrated Benin earthworks which Graham Connah (1975) and others had documented are only part of a larger and regional networks of embankments that stretched hundreds of kilometers across the rainforest of southwest Nigeria. Darling’s path-breaking archaeological survey in the Edo-Esan area of southwestern Nigeria has uncovered over 16,000 km of concentric earthworks forming boundaries around more than 500 interconnected settlements, enclosing a total area of 6,500 km².

The New Scientist heavily relied on Patrick Darling’s assessment when it describes the Edoid embankments as “four times longer than the Great Wall of China”, consuming “a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops”, and forming “perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet” (Pearce 1999). Dr. Patrick J. Darling (1945-2016) implied that the construction of some of these earthworks began about 300-500 AD. His verdict was that Sungbo’s Eredo was “set to push back our understanding of state formation in the African rainforest by half a millennium or more”.

He used his publicist skills so well in order to push the Sungbo Eredo rampart-ditch complex story to both the new and old media including the New York Times and the BBC News. The later quoted him thus: “In terms of sheer size it’s (Sungbo Eredo) the largest single monument in Africa – larger than any of the Egyptian pyramids…” It’s a comparison with shock factor but it’s not inaccurate.

Darling wrote “The earthworks enclosed settlements and their farmlands ab initio – possibly as defence against the African Forest Elephant ( Loxodonta cyclotis), but also serving as de facto territorial boundaries; and their active use ensured that many of them were actively maintained by later deepening. In the mid-C15th AD, Oba Ewuare’s deepening of the massive City moat and burying of aban (charm pots) at the gates may be coincident with the rural earthwork features also becoming perceived as demarcating the real world (agbon) from the spirit world (ehimwin)…

“Egharevba’s city-centred perception of three concentric city walls (Egharevba 1934:80) was radically re-interpreted in the light of Conn ah’s survey of the Benin City Walls (Connah 1975:102) and Darling’s later surveys over a much wider area (Darling 1984) – both of which produced data at odds with current local interpretations of these features as resulting from a powerful centralized polity. By itself, the sheer size of these features would be challenging enough…”

Yorubaland: Introduction

Yorubaland is the cultural region of the Yoruba people in West Africa. It spans the modern-day countries of Nigeria, Togo, and Benin. Its pre-modern history is based largely on oral traditions and legends. According to Yoruba religion, Olodumare, the Supreme God, ordered Obatala to create the earth, but on Obatala’s way he found palm wine, which he drank and became intoxicated. Therefore, his younger brother, Oduduwa, took the three items of creation from him, climbed down from the heavens on a chain, and threw a handful of earth on the primordial ocean, then put a cockerel on it so that it would scatter the earth, thus creating the land on which Ile-Ife would be built. On account of his creation of the world, Oduduwa became the ancestor of the first divine king of the Yoruba, while Obatala is believed to have created the first Yoruba people out of clay. The meaning of the word “ife” in Yoruba is “expansion.” “Ile-Ife” is therefore in reference to the myth of origin, “The Land of Expansion.”

Ile-Ife

Evidence suggests that as of the 7th century BCE, the African peoples who lived in Yorubaland were not initially known as the Yoruba, though they shared a common ethnicity and language group. By the 8th century CE, Ile-Ife was already a powerful Yoruba kingdom, one of the earliest in Africa south of the Sahara-Sahel. Almost every Yoruba settlement traces its origin to princes of Ile-Ife. As such, Ife can be regarded as the cultural and spiritual homeland of the Yoruba nation. Archaeologically, the settlement at Ife can be dated to the 4th century BC, with urban structures appearing in the 12th century CE. Until today, the Oòni (or king) of Ife claims direct descent from Oduduwa.

The city was a settlement of substantial size between the 12th and 14th centuries, with houses featuring potsherd pavements. Ile-Ife is known worldwide for its ancient and naturalistic bronze as well as stone and terracotta sculptures, which reached their peak of artistic expression between 1200 and 1400. In the period around 1300 the artists at Ife developed a refined and naturalistic sculptural tradition in terracotta, stone, and copper alloy—copper, brass, and bronze—many of which appear to have been created under the patronage of King Obalufon II, the man who today is identified as the Yoruba patron deity of brass casting, weaving, and regalia. After this period, production declined as political and economic power shifted to the nearby kingdom of Benin, which, like the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo, developed into a major empire.

Bronze head from Ife, probably a king, dated around 1300. Ile-Ife is known worldwide for its ancient and naturalistic bronze, stone, and terracotta sculptures, which reached their peak of artistic expression between 1200 and 1400.

The Rise of the Oyo Empire

The mythical origins of the Oyo Empire lie with Oranyan (also known as Oranmiyan), the second prince of Ile-Ife, who made Oyo his new kingdom and became the first oba with the title of Alaafin of Oyo (Alaafin means “owner of the palace” in Yoruba). The oral tradition holds that he left all his treasures in Ife and allowed another king, named Adimu, to rule there.

Oranyan was succeeded by Oba Ajaka, but he was deposed because he allowed his sub-chiefs too much independence. Leadership was then conferred upon Ajaka’s brother, Shango, who was later deified as the deity of thunder and lightning. Ajaka was restored after Shango’s death. His successor, Kori, managed to conquer the rest of what later historians would refer to as metropolitan Oyo. The heart of metropolitan Oyo was its capital at Oyo-Ile.

Oyo had grown into a formidable inland power by the end of the 14th century, but it suffered military defeats at the hands of the Nupe led by Tsoede. Sometime around 1535, the Nupe occupied Oyo and forced its ruling dynasty to take refuge in the kingdom of Borgu.
The Yoruba of Oyo went through an interregnum of eighty years as an exiled dynasty. However, they re-established Oyo to be more centralized and expansive than ever. During the 17th century, Oyo began a long stretch of growth, becoming a major empire. It never encompassed all Yoruba-speaking people, but it was the most populous kingdom in Yoruba history.

Oyo Empire and surrounding states c. 1700. The Oyo Empire rose through the outstanding organizational skills of the Yoruba, gaining wealth from trade and its powerful cavalry. It was the most politically important state in the region from the mid-17th century to the late 18th century, holding sway not only over most of the other kingdoms in Yorubaland, but also over nearby African states, notably the Fon Kingdom of Dahomey in the modern Republic of Benin to the west.

The Power Of Oyo

The key to Yoruba rebuilding Oyo was a stronger military and a more centralized government. Oba Ofinran succeeded in regaining Oyo’s original territory from the Nupe. A new capital, Oyo-Igboho, was constructed, and the original became known as Old Oyo. The next oba, Eguguojo, conquered nearly all of Yorubaland. Despite a failed attempt to conquer the Benin Empire sometime between 1578 and 1608, Oyo continued to expand. The Yoruba allowed autonomy to the southeast of metropolitan Oyo, where the non-Yoruba areas could act as a buffer between Oyo and Imperial Benin. By the end of the 16th century, the Ewe and Aja states of modern Benin were paying tribute to Oyo.

The reinvigorated Oyo Empire began raiding southward as early as 1682. By the end of its military expansion, its borders would reach to the coast some 200 miles southwest of its capital. At the beginning, the people were concentrated in metropolitan Oyo. With imperial expansion, Oyo reorganized to better manage its vast holdings within and outside Yorubaland. It was divided into four layers defined by relation to the core of the empire. These layers were Metropolitan Oyo, southern Yorubaland, the Egbado Corridor, and Ajaland.

The Oyo Empire developed a highly sophisticated political structure to govern its territorial domains. Scholars have not determined how much of this structure existed prior to the Nupe invasion. Some of Oyo’s institutions are clearly derivative of early accomplishments in Ife.
The Oyo Empire was not a hereditary monarchy, nor an absolute one.
While the Alaafin of Oyo was supreme overlord of the people, he was not without checks on his power. The Oyo Mesi (seven councilors of the states) and the Yoruba Earth cult known as Ogboni kept the Oba’s power in check. The Oyo Mesi spoke for the politicians while the Ogboni spoke for the people, backed by the power of religion. The power of the Alaafin of Oyo in relation to the Oyo Mesi and Ogboni depended on his personal character and political shrewdness.

Oyo became the southern emporium of the trans-Saharan trade. Exchanges were made in salt, leather, horses, kola nuts, ivory, cloth, and slaves. The Yoruba of metropolitan Oyo were also highly skilled in craft making and iron work. Aside from taxes on trade products coming in and out of the empire, Oyo also became wealthy off the taxes imposed on its tributaries. Oyo’s imperial success made Yoruba a lingua franca almost to the shores of the Volta. Toward the end of the 18th century, the empire acted as a go-between for both the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic slave trade. By 1680, the Oyo Empire spanned over 150,000 square kilometers.

Decline

In the second half of the 18th century, dynastic intrigues, palace coups, and failed military campaigns began to weaken the Oyo Empire. Recurrent power struggles and resulting periods of interregnum created a vacuum, in which the power of regional commanders rose.
As Oyo tore itself apart via political intrigue, its vassals began taking advantage of the situation to press for independence. Some of them succeeded, and Oyo never regained its prominence in the region. It became a protectorate of Great Britain in 1888 before further fragmenting into warring factions. The Oyo state ceased to exist as any sort of power in 1896.

IFE

Ife (aka Ile-Ife) was an ancient African city which flourished between the 11th and 15th century CE in what is today Nigeria in West Africa. Ife was the capital and principal religious centre of the Yoruba kingdom of Ife, which prospered thanks to trade connections with other West African kingdoms. Ife is particularly famous today for the magnificent metal sculptures its artists produced which include serene-looking human heads so masterfully crafted that Europeans once wrongly considered them the work of another civilization.

Located in today’s Nigeria along the Guinea coast of southern West Africa, Ife controlled the rainforest to the west of the River Niger delta. Ife was founded c. 500 CE by the Yoruba people – a Kwa-speaking people of southwest Nigeria and Benin – but did not flourish until the early part of the 2nd millennium CE. Ife culture may have been influenced or somehow connected to the kingdom of Igbo-Ukwu, which peaked in the 9th century CE on the other side of the River Niger, but details of this period of history in southern West Africa are lacking. The kingdom of Ife had disappeared by the 16th century CE for reasons which are unknown.

Place of Creation

The Yoruba considered the site of Ife the exact place of creation, that is where the gods descended from heaven and created the world as we know it. This was done by the creator god Oduduwa who separated earth from water and made all living creatures. Oduduwa’s children were sent forth to rule over twelve cities and so became their first kings and queens. From these figures all subsequent rulers claimed descendance. Specifically at Ife, the first divine ruler was Oni, whose name means ‘king’.

The brass heads of Ife may represent rulers, gods, revered ancestors or have been used for some religious purpose.

Archaeological excavations have revealed that the occupation of Ife was interrupted several times, and this may explain why little is known of its early cultural practices as traditions were not passed on orally to subsequent generations. The king was likely also the head of Ife’s religion – a blend of animism and fetish and ancestor worship. Sacrifices and offerings were made to both gods and ancestors. There was (and still is amongst the Yoruba today) a belief that a person’s character (iwa) reflected their inner energy (Ase) and that this energy is present in all things natural and divine. The energy was thought to reside primarily within a person’s head, which may explain why the art of ancient Ife typically concentrates on this part of the body. Further, because the energy of powerful people like chiefs can be dangerous, it is necessary that their mouths or even the whole face be covered with a veil – another feature commonly represented in Ife art. Ase is often represented as a cone, yet another symbol frequently seen in the headdresses of human representations in Ife sculpture.

Trade

Very little is known about the state apparatus of Ife and how it controlled its territory. Even information on the economy of Ife is sparse. It is likely that Ife, and the whole area of the West African rainforest in general, prospered thanks to iron-smelting technology which could produce iron tools like the hoe and so, in turn, bring forth plentiful harvests of food such as okra, yams, dates, palm oil, and fish. Goods which could be traded with kingdoms to the north included kola nuts, pepper, gold, and ivory. Slaves were also sent northwards and so Ife was indirectly connected to the camel caravan trade routes that crossed the Sahara and reached such cities as Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast. Goods exchanged for those provided by Ife would have been principally salt from the Sahara and luxury goods for the Ife elite who controlled the trade. The luxury items would have included swords, copper, brass, jewellery, perfumes, and horses.

Ife Architecture

By the beginning of the 11th century CE, Ife had grown to become a large walled city with several large stone buildings and including a palace, workshops, and shrines. Some of the city’s streets were paved with terracotta tiles to make them more resistant to rain. Similarly, many courtyards were paved with small pieces of pottery and quartz pebbles to create geometrical designs. Some courtyards have altars consisting of a low semicircular structure with the neck of a pottery vessel placed within it. The majority of housing, unfortunately, was made using clay, and these have long since perished, but a clue to their original decorative appearance is finds of many small pottery discs which were stuck into them to create a mosaic effect.

Ife Head Sculpture

Ife Head Sculptures

The metal sculptures of naturalistic and life-size human heads for which Ife is today most famous are so masterfully executed that when Europeans discovered them they could not believe that ancient black Africans had made such masterpieces. The heads were made from the 11th to 15th century CE according to chemical analysis and cast using the lost-wax process. Twelve heads were found all together in a royal compound at Ife in 1938 CE and several more have been discovered since including a pure copper mask.

Another impressive artistic output was the manufacture of ceremonial stools from single blocks of quartz.

The head sculptures were cast in brass and sometimes also made from pottery. The human heads are all unique but their precise purpose is not known. They may represent rulers, gods, revered ancestors or have been used for some religious purpose. Many heads have vertical lines down the face and these may represent the ritual scars which marked an individual’s passage from childhood to adulthood. The problem with this theory is scarification was not widely practised amongst the Yoruba people. Alternatively, the scars may have differentiated more local groups within the wider Yoruba population, reflected the practice of wearing temporary facial markings for rituals, perhaps represented the shadows created by the veils rulers commonly wore or, most simply, have been a form of aesthetic decoration. The heads have another curious feature which is a series of punched holes around the lips and jawline, possibly for the attachment of beards or veils of glass beads. These veils are still worn today in the region on special occasions and their ceremonial significance is here summarised by the African specialist P. Garlake:

The life-size brass heads of Ife are powerful expressions of serenity born of divine authority. This was the most important quality of any ruler…The veils are intended to make extraordinary potency of a ruler’s words less likely to cause fear and hurt. Mystery masks majesty. (117)

One exceptional piece of Ife sculpture which is not a head is a bronze figure of a standing chief who wears a kilt-like garment, many necklaces – including one with a double bow insignia, anklets, and a beaded hat with a high frontal decoration. The figure is holding in one hand a forest buffalo horn, likely used as a container of medicine, and in the other hand a short staff. Dating to the 14th century CE, the figure now resides in the archaeological museum of Lagos, Nigeria.

Other Arts

Much older than the striking brass heads of Ife are the several granite stelae discovered at the site. With little decoration, these are sometimes inlaid with iron nails. Pottery vessels made at Ife were often decorated with geometrical relief designs around the neck, and a number of large vessels were discovered near the royal palace of Ife, which had lids with sculpted animal heads (e.g. a ram, elephant, and antelope) on them but placed with the heads inside the vessel. There are also pottery sculptures of human and animal figures. The latter are mostly hollow and made of composite pieces. One group of these pottery sculptures excavated from a shrine at Ife all show humans with physical deformities, signs of disease or with expressions of suffering. Curiously, these and other similar figures seem to have been buried as if they were the remains of living people.

Another object produced in some numbers was sculpted brass torques, perhaps originally placed around the brass heads described above. These intricately carved pieces typically depict scenes of human sacrifice and rituals, perhaps indicating the power of the rulers who wore them if the brass heads are taken as being representations of Yoruba chiefs. Glass beads were produced or at least imported and then reworked in great quantities. Another impressive artistic output was the manufacture of ceremonial stools from single blocks of quartz. This mineral is so hard it cannot be sculpted but only ground in a long and laborious process that indicates Ife craftworkers had almost boundless ambition in the materials they worked with.

Legacy & Later History

The sculptures of Ife very likely influenced those produced in the kingdom of Benin (12th to 15th century CE), also in modern Nigeria and also largely composed of the Yoruba people. Certainly, in Benin oral traditions, it was the king of Ife who sent a master craftsman to Benin to spread his sculptural skills. There are also many points of similarity in the art of the two cultures such as a frequent representation of snakes. Although the kingdom of Ife ceased to exist from the late 15th century CE – exactly why it declined is not known – Ife still exists today as a small out of the way town which continues to hold a position of religious importance as a site of shrines and sacred groves and the home of various societies of believers who still worship traditional gods.

YORUBA RELIGION

The Yorùbá people, who inhabit a significant part of Western Africa, including Nigeria, have been practicing their unique set of religious customs for centuries. Yoruba religion is a blend of indigenous beliefs, myths and legends, proverbs, and songs, all influenced by the cultural and social contexts of the western portion of Africa.

Key Takeaways: Yoruba Religion

The Yoruba religion includes the concept of Ashe, a powerful life force possessed by humans and divine beings alike; Ashe is the energy found in all natural things.

Much like the Catholic saints, the Yoruba orishas work as the intermediaries between man and the supreme creator, and the rest of the divine world.

Yoruba religious celebrations have a social purpose; they promote cultural values and help to preserve the rich heritage of the people who follow them.

Basic Beliefs

Traditional Yoruba beliefs hold that all people experience Ayanmo, which is destiny or fate. As a part of this, there is an expectation that everyone will eventually achieve the state of Olodumare, which is becoming one with the divine creator who is the source of all energy. In the Yoruba religion belief system, live and death is an ongoing cycle of existence in various bodies, in Ayé—the physical realm—as the spirit gradually moves towards transcendence.

In addition to being a spiritual state, Olodumare is the name of the divine, supreme being who is the creator of all things. Olodumare, also known as Olorun, is an all-powerful figure, and isn’t limited by gender constraints. Usually the pronoun “they” is used when describing Olodumare, who doesn’t typically meddle in the everyday affairs of mortals. If someone wishes to communicate with Olodumare, they do so by asking the orishas to intercede on their behalf.

Creation Story

The Yoruba religion has its own unique creation story, in which Olorun lived in the sky with the orishas, and the goddess Olokun was the ruler of all of the water below. Another being, Obatala, asked Olorun for permission to create dry land for other creatures to live upon. Obatala took a bag, and filled it with a sand-filled snail shell, a white hen, a black cat, and a palm nut. He threw the bag over his shoulder, and began to climb down from the heavens on a long gold chain. When he ran out of chain, he poured the sand out beneath him, and released the hen, who began pecking at the sand and began spreading it around to create the hills and valleys.

He then planted the palm nut, which grew into a tree and multiplied, and Obatala even made wine from the nuts. One day, after drinking a bit of palm wine, Obatala got bored and lonely and fashioned creatures out of clay, many of which were flawed and imperfect. In his drunken stupor, he called out to Olorun to breathe life into the figures, and thus mankind was created.

Finally, the Yoruba religion also has Ashe, a powerful life force possessed by humans and divine beings alike. Ashe is the energy found in all natural things—rain, thunder, blood, and so on. It is similar to the concept of the Chi in Asian spirituality, or that of the chakras in the Hindu belief system.

Deities and Orisha

Much like the saints of Catholicism, the Yoruba orishas work as the intermediaries between man and the supreme creator, and the rest of the divine world. While they often act on behalf of mortals, the orishas sometimes work against humans and cause problems for them.

There are a number of different kinds of orishas in the Yoruba religion. Many of them are said to have been present when the world was created, and others were once human, but transcended into a state of semi-divine existence. Some orishas appear in the form of a natural feature—rivers, mountains, trees, or other environmental markers. The orishas exist in a way much like human beings—they party, eat and drink, love and marry, and enjoy music. In a way, the orishas serve as a reflection of mankind itself.

In addition to the orishas, there are also the Ajogun; these represent negative forces in the universe. An Ajogun might cause illness or accidents, as well as other calamities; they are responsible for the sorts of problems typically attributed to demons in the Christian faith. Most people try to avoid the Ajogun; anyone who is afflicted by one might be sent to an Ifa, or priest, to perform a divination and determine how to get rid of the Ajogun.

Typically, in the Yoruba religion, most issues can be explained by either the work of an Ajogun, or the failure to pay proper respects to an orisha who must then be placated.

Practices and Celebrations

It is estimated that some 20% of Yoruba practice the traditional religion of their ancestors. In addition to honoring the creator god, Olorun, and the orishas, followers of Yoruban religion often participate in celebrations during which sacrifices are offered to the different gods that control things like rain, sunshine, and the harvest. During Yoruba religious festivals, participants are intensely involved in the ritualistic-re-enactment of folktales, myths, and other events that help explain mankind’s place in the cosmos.

For a Yoruban to avoid participation in these ceremonies would be to essentially turn his back on his ancestors, spirits, and gods. Festivals are a time in which family life, dress, language, music, and dance are celebrated and expressed side by side with spiritual belief; it’s a time of building community and making sure that everyone has enough of what they need. A religious festival may include ceremonies to mark births, marriages, or deaths, as well as initiations and other rites of passage.

During the annual Ifa celebration, which falls at the time of the yam harvest, there is a sacrifice made to Ifa, as well as a ritualized cutting of the new yam. There is a great feast, with dancing, drumming, and other forms of music all folded into the ritual celebration. Prayers are said to ward off premature deaths, and to offer protection and blessings to the entire village for the coming year.

The festival of Ogun, which also takes place on an annual basis, involves sacrifices as well. Prior to the ritual and celebration, priests take a vow to abstain from cursing, fighting, sex, and eating certain foods, so they can be seen as worthy of Ogun. When it’s time for the festival, they make offerings of snails, kola nuts, palm oil, pigeons, and dogs to soothe Ogun’s destructive wrath.

Yoruba religious celebrations have a social purpose; they promote cultural values and help to preserve the rich heritage of the people who follow them. Although many Yoruba people have become Christian and Muslim since colonization, those who practice the traditional religious beliefs of their ancestors have managed to coexist peacefully with their non-traditional neighbors. The Christian church has compromised by blending their annual programming into the indigenous celebrations of the harvest; while traditional Yoruba are celebrating their gods, for instance, their Christian friends and family members are offering thanks to their own God. People come together for this dual-faith celebration to offer prayer for the mercy, protection, and blessings of two very different types of deities, all for the good of the entire community.

Reincarnation

Unlike many western religious beliefs, Yoruba spirituality emphasizes living a good life; reincarnation is part of the process and is something to be looked forward to. Only those who live a virtuous and good existence earn the privilege of reincarnation; those who are unkind or deceitful don’t get to be reborn. Children are often seen as the reincarnated spirit of ancestors who have crossed over; this concept of familial reincarnation is known as Atunwa. Even Yoruba names like Babatunde, which means “father returns,” and Yetunde, “mother returns,” reflect the idea of reincarnation within one’s own family.

In the Yoruba religion, gender is not an issue when it comes to reincarnation, and it is believe to change with each new rebirth. When a new child is born as a reincarnated being, they carry not only the wisdom of the ancestor soul they possessed before, but also the accumulated knowledge of all of their lifetimes.

Influence on Modern Traditions

Although it’s most commonly found in the western part of Africa, in countries like Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, for the past several decades, Yoruba religion has also been making its way to the United States, where it is resonating with many black Americans. Many people find themselves drawn to Yoruba because it offers them a chance to connect to a spiritual heritage that predates colonization and the Transatlantic slave trade.

In addition, Yoruba has had significant influence on other belief systems that are considered a part of the African diaspora. African traditional religions like Santeria, Candomble, and Trinidad Orisha all can trace many of their roots back to the beliefs and practices of Yorubaland. In Brazil, enslaved Yoruba brought their traditions with them, syncretized them with the Catholicism of their owners, and formed the Umbanda religion, which blends African orishas and beings with Catholic saints and indigenous concepts of ancestral spirits.

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