CHAPT ER THREE

othe 4th ION WITH SPEC IAL

O8ists, BÁ ORAL TRADIT:
THE EA RLY HISTO RY OF
ERENCETHE
YOF TO QYỌ KINGDOM
Ife'»
Babatunde A. Agiri
'.
4, ti on is de ned in this paper as a
oral tradi
and e oral testironies and ethnographic data
n, Dodyor
ed be analysed to achieve an oral history
that need
oral testimonies include not only
of a people,
57. the oral accounts of historically important events
t gls0theoralliteratureandfolkloreof the t
but
In addition, ethnographic data comprise Leo
people,
evidence from the political and social organi sations,
tradi tional festivals and the visible material cul-
Again, for thepurpose of 93
ture of the people.
clarity it is also necessary to de ne oral history.
By oral history is meant a recons tructed history
of a people from non-written sources, that is,
Fromit
Oral traditi on, linguistics and archaeology. From
these de ni ti ons, it is evident that onecannot u
yet speak of an oral history of the Yoribá simply C
because no existing work on Yorbá history has

made full use of the available non-written sources.

oral accounts of
Rath er they are based largely on oral
fi
fi
fi
 events and, to some ext ent,
on oral 1ite
in the form of orfki (praise songs) of
important political gures ast
while very 11ttle
or no consideration is paid to +
ethnographic
linguis tic data. Moreover, the absence
of any
consistent archaeol ogical excavatiov of hist
ly important sites has continuoussly robbed lcal.
suct.
studies of a valuable source of reli ehle
data, A historical

The Origins of the Yorûbá Reconsidered

The Yormbá distinguish betwe en the origine
of their kingdoms and that peri od Wincn effecti ve
ive
history began,oThe stories of the origins are
called Itàn Işdál¢ wh.ile effective history is
igosg
referred to as Itần, a The sto ries of the originshho
come within the realm of legends and myths butttbast
they are closely linke with the co snology of 20
the people.
In turn, the cosmology coften re ects
thetemporalexperi enceof thepeople.Thus, Iexo
mythsandlegendgđocument hist ory in a wayot
their ownby explaining the existing soci0-politiea
aystemin tems of the superna tural,ac
2 Myths and
legends then, are useful asova
bles for histo-0

158
fi
fl
 ruction provided it isrecognised
cal reconsi
ften synthesize acti ons and events
that the
accurred over many centuries into one
that have occurred
3Generally, it is dif cult, if
simple story,
not impossi bl e,
to unravel all the stages of
that have been fused togethe r into
the events
ne single simple story. Yet a critical analysis

a this body of oral testimonies and some of the

*moditional festivals associated with the cOsmology

nev
may
nally yield clues as to probable courses of
events concerning the early history of a non- s

literat e people.
The early history of the old Qy Kingåom is
inextricably mixed up in legends and myths that
purport to tell the origins of the Yortbá people.
Thus, in analysing Yorûbá oral tradition for clues
into probable pat terns of events in early )yộ
history, one is compelled tođis cuss the origins
The Borgawa, Mossi and Yorûbá share
of the Yorûbá.
acommontopic in their traditions of origins that
they migrated to their present location from a
place in the east, 4 The Borgawa and the Mossi
are more de nite about the location of that 'east',
fi
fi
fi
 theya8sociate it with rnu or the
ke Oha
5 hi s simple story of migration
area. has
been
wOveninto the famous Kisra legend the migration
of the all -conquering Bagdad hero whotray
West Afri cs at the beginning of historical
times,
founding a state every whe re be stopped, 6
This
source has also been USed by Bioba by
iobaku to postulate
ate
Ba8termSudan ori gin for the Yorbá' andby
Lucas, an Egyptian origin, °

These sto ries of migrations from the

Miđale
Bast are mere political statement s by the m)
đynastiesto givethemselves a respectable s
ancestry. The rst recorded account of such a
story as it relatęs to the Yorbá came fromx
MuihamnadBello to Hugh Clappert on about 1824.
It is signi cant that the versi on has come from
amuslimscholar,a It tends to support Goody'sa
pointaboutthe spread along wi th Islam, of pre-
IslamicArab ideas into
into West
West Afric
Africa. So
a..Some of
hese ideas have been imco1
đàvebeen rporated into aspect
of imagico-religious concep
these Goodyargues, epts of Islam itse. and

ues, generally appeal

non-Tterate culturee to theg
West Africa.10 The
fi
fi
 theori es about the origin of the
HddleEast the and even the MOssi should there-
Borgawa an
Yordbd, arded as variante that developed with
ore be regarded
Islam in West Africa, a phenomenon
thespread of
đated for the Nigerian scene to the
thet can be
after l000 A,D. l1
period a1
urthe rmore, the chaeological data so far
Pu
lable show that man has lived in some parts
at least since the later Stone Age
of Yorubaland
Shaw's discovery of a human skeletál oe
period,
associated artefacts at Iwo Eleru in
remains and
*he forest area has been dated by Carbon ll toKota
the tenth millenium B.C. The cul tural sequence
0f the artefacts shoWs that the site was conti
nously inhabit ed đown to the end of the Stone Age
periodbut before the introduction of agriculture,2
Willett's work in 0ld pyó in theSavannaharea ns
alsoshows evidence of contimuous habitation sd
đuring the later Stone Age period, from about te l
8000 B.C., to 500 B.C.
13 But it is fromthe forest
zone that we have yet an evidence of an agricul-d
Ozanne reports that one of the sites
tural site.
of the Ifệ settlements has been dated to 350 B.CG a
 and its inhabitants were iculturist
culti
vating yamsalongside other crops, 4
Although we may argue that we do not
knox
whatlanguages these pre-histori ic communitties
spoke, linguistic evidence suggests that the

Yorbá (and their neighbours, the Borgawa, Mupe,

Båo, Igala Idoma and Igbo wnos e languages elong

to the same stock group, the Niger Congo) must have

lived in their present locati on for manycenturieg

before the beginning of the rst millenium A,D.
The evolution of these languages must have

takenmanythousands of years and in the case

of the Yorlbá, the dialectal differentiation withir.
the lariguage could not have taken place as recently
as the seventh century A.D. , the date suggested

obakuwhen the rst wave of Yortbé imaigrants

enteredtheirpresent habitat, 5 If there had
If therehad1
beenanymass migrati on of pe oples into Yoruba-
peoples
land, this musthave occurred in into Yoruba-
in prehistoric tines.
For example, the dessication of. the Lake Chad
basin thatbeganduring the fourth millenium D
and which caused a population shift fromenium
the B.C,1os
area to the more habita
the ara
tableareas to the nort
fi
fi
 probably have had consequences
16 may
antsouth26 Yorubaland, Ano ther example
as
88farsOuthati on into Yorubaland in prehistoric
a8 the separation of
of the y Yorûbá
the Oyo Yorb4 rst
of
me
times Was (dated by glotto
tochronology to about
Idoma (dated by
and later from Igala (dated also
6000year ago) and 2000 years ago).*17
c1ottochronology to about
by linguistic evidence, there-
rchaeological and
that the Yortbá have lived
strongly suggest
fore,
in their present habitat since pre-historic times,
here were occasi onalmovemernts of peopl es and
1deas from the Savannah into the forest zone even
For example, the movement of
đuring this period.
peoples away from the Sahara following the dessi-

cation of that area probably reached Yorubaland

while the yó Yoribá were separated rst from
During tne
the Idoma and then from the Igala.
course of the rst mill enium A. D., not only had
the various Yoribá đialects ful ly evolved, the
process of urbanisati on seemed to have been more
developed, leading to the creation of states and
kingãoms.18
° It seemsthat it was at this stage,
the his torical stage, that interactions occurred

163
fi
fi
fi
 betweenthe incipient Yorbá kingdOme-
and
neighbours, such as Borgu, Nupe and Be their
woulà appear that the stories of
Benin.
such
It
It
ch events,
now đimly remembered and in some cases
intent
atio-
nally ai storted , have become ay ths and 1
anâ legends,
The Oddduwà Story

Recently, RobinLaw has tried to show th

hat
theođiduwà story as it relates to state formo+a
amongthe Yorbá is rather ctitious,
Although
muchmoremayhave been claimed for the achieven k
ents of the mythical gure, Odduwà, than real1ly

happened, it seemsclear from evidences that will D2

beaûâuced here, that the event actually took2h Gb

placeand that it represented the conguest of the

existing Yorbá civilisation by some invaders.t
invaders.oiss
Although there aremany variants of the
od tâuwàmyth, 20
these can be grouped into two e
main versions, the cosmological arâ the political.
The coemologic al describes how Ođùduwà achieved

his superior place ard status among the gods. It

is related that he descended from heaven and created
the earth at Ifệ, 8 town regardea by the majority
of the Yormbá as the centre of the world and of
fi
fi
 21 The politicɛl versi on on
eivilisation. 21
neir civ hand stresses that Odûduwà came from
the other be settled at Ifa.e2
where in the east and
somewiherey
rsions, however, recognise the existence
Both ver ilisation before the arrival
en earlier civi:
of uwà. The cosnolog versior states that
ol6dtmarè (now translated and interpreted as God)
eă earlier sent Qbàtålá, a rival orlşà (deity)
perforn the đuty ofcreating man. But Qbàtálá
to
oot drnk on palm wine and became careless in
performing his đuties, He created albinoes, at
bunchbacks and other phy sicallJ đeformed creatures.
Ror. this, 0lódùmarè sent 0dtduwà who superseded
2
obåtálá and created the earth. The political
It states that Odūduwà
version is more forthright.
fought and conguered the earlier inhabit ant s of
2l4
Ife who wererepresented by the Igbò group. vac
The existece of a pre-0duduwà group and sno
ci vilisation in Ifè erid its environs is now oet
becoming a well -establi shed and widely accepted
fact.2The
fact, 25 full details of the developmentand
or ganisation of that civilisati on are yet imper-
ectly known but there areglimpses of it which
 Suggest that 1t had rench ed a high level of
Sophistienti on be fore the 0adduwAconque st,
A centre of this earl ier civilisation waa
ba, town whose locati on is yet to be precisely
determined. m1i Beier has found remnant s of the

people of bA near Akíre in Bki ti area 6 while

another site has recently been located near
Belệ in the Kwara State, Parts of the orfki
(praise song) of the bà near Akúré suggest that
their ancestors were the earliest agriculturists
in the area (and perhaps in the whole of Yoruba-
land). They worshipped a skygod who was regarded

as the creator of the day and the maker of rain.

The people were forbidden to đrink palm wine or

28
to eat the esh of the chimpanzee.

Proto-types of bà civilisation seemed to

have beenwidespread over parts of Yortb áland,
One existed at Ifệ, which was perhaps its most
import ant centre, At the annual Itåpá festivalv
(for the worship of Qbatálá) in that town, it is
re-enacted through a play how Ođthduwà defeated

Obàtálá in bat tle and exiled him. Later, the

vanquished was re-admitted into the pantheon amidst
a general rejoicing, 50 The drama has thus teles-

166
fl
coped into one scene, a long process of conquest
and reconciliation bet ween the invaders and the
the indigenes of the area. The conquest story
ha8 been embellish ed and an excuse is given in
the oral testimonies why pbàtálá lost his primacy
to Oduduwà. The devotees of Qbàtálá regard such
explanations that the deity was superseded by
Oddduwàbecause it got drunk on palm wine as mere
fabri cations invented by the wo rshippers of the
other gods. 31 afDsot teicOL hg st2
In Ifệ, there aretoday relics of the pre-
odtduwà dynasties who though they possessedtOD 03
beadedcrowns, must not be seen to wear them. g
They are the dynas ties of Qba Aláayè, obà Lọràn
and the Ohpetu,2 It is yet impossible to map
out the evolutionary stages of this civilisation.
It was based in towns which probably develop ed
as cent res of religious worship of the indigenous
đei ties;33 amongwhich were the god of creation,
batálá, an earth goddese (perhaps associated with
theOgbóni) for succes sful harvests and the god of
iron, Ogún, Later, aociet al đifferenti at ion
further occurred in which đivisions of labour og
 becamemore distinc t wi th the priest becomi

the rulers.
Whatever may have been the forces that

compelledthe evolution of this civilis ation,

it hadbecome so well-established by the time
of the ođuduwà conquest that ühe invaders had ta

Seeklegitimacy in some of its existing politie

.co-
religious practices such as the wearing of rowns
and theadoption of its prominent đeities,
The 0đùduwà conque st was a đi stinct event in
the political đevelopment of the Yoribá kingåoms.
The conquerors constituted the class with the
purple blood who were ordained to rule while the

displaceddynasties either faded into insigni -

Gance orbecame priests of the various nati onal
đeities of their people.
Thus began, it appears,
complexprocess of the dichotomy of funcut ns
betweenthe priestly
and the ruling clasS.
Inadāition,
* it would
wOuld ap
appear that the congu
est
hadsome revolutionary implicati ons
for the socia.
organisationof the exist
civilisati on. A
Variant of the 0dħâuwà sto:
Ne story makes that deity o
goddessand wife of obàtálá.
It changed its sex
fi
ond
ax became a male after its defeat of its forner
husband, U1li Beier has suggested that this
Yarient shows that the existing civilisation
WRS formerly matriarchal but changed to a patri-

archal sys tem as a result of some internal

factors, 35 But there is yet no known case where
a change of such nagnitude in a social organi sation
E53T08
could have derived spont aneously from internal
Loese9
forces. It must have been caused or helped by an
I0.19htsoesh
external factor. Possibly, the invaders had the
e eti
support of an intemal faction within the civili-
sation,
The congue st seemed to have produc ed a
gal
revi talised Ifệ state committed to a gradual con-
quest of the remaining pre-0duduwà to wns. Thus
erit brte
after a period or cons ol idati on that took many
generat ions or even cent uries, secondary expedi-
BeXOtte
tions left to conguer neighbouring towns or ota
kingâoms.
The right to wear a beaded crown became a
dt asbue otbatgae
distinguishing factor associated with the founding
EspA
of an independent kingdom. Oral testimonies have
described these latter expeditions as 'sons or

169
 'grandsons of 0dtduwà altl:cugh some of them
them may
not even have had any đirect link with the0dtûduwá
migrati
on, 0ie
The Qràẩnyån Dynasty

Amongnon-literate soci eties, dyna stic

changes are legitimised in either of twO ways:
thesucceedingdynasty discredits its predecessor
completely and establishes its own legends and
myths or it claims to be a direct descendar.t of
itspredecessorand incorporates its
oWn myths
into the existing ones.
In the case of the
migratiors of the conguering bands into Yorub
bá-
land in historical times,
the method of legitimi-
sationhasbeen for the latter mi8
grant s to claim
đirectancestryfrom the rst ana
and the earliest.
This is very evident in the case of
story. The ràány àn migration wa the Qràái
Vas the last so,
the traâition hasdescribed its epoyu
as the youngest son of 0aûduwà). mous leader
It was also the
mostpOWer ful and it attempted to euo
earlier established kingdoms. subdue the
monieshave tried to explain tr Again, Oral testi-
this phenomenon PN
fi
 stating that Qràányàn inherited the land because
his fathe r, odûâuwå,had đistribut ed all his
property to his elder brothers and there was
nothing left but that inherit ance. He ut ilis ed
his position as the owner of land' to become
the overlord of his, much older (i. e. longer
established) brothers who ruled the other kingdoms. 37

Although the extent of its impact is now

38
being questioned , 2° the Qråányàn conque st appears

to have had far-reaching cons equ ences on the

political developments in Qy¢, Ifệ and Benin,

39
It established the royal dynasty in Qyo. It
deposedthe ruler in Ife whose title was Ql6 n
40
and appoint ed the rst Qộni to rule in his place. "*
In Benin, its in uence is attested in the corona-
41
tionrituals of thekings.oo cs
vTRE
c t
The extens ive impact of the ràány àn conquest
đoes not mean that a well integrated imperial

system incorporating all these distant lands ever

aros e. Rather, it seems to represent periodic
attempts at expansi on at vari ous times in the

history of the 'ràány àn state and migrati on'.

That the conquests did not devel op int o a perma-

nent political uni on emphasizes the fact that

171
fi
fl
fi
 they were in the nature of expeditions or raids,

It will be also wrong to assume that the conguests

occurred within the life time of Qràányần,
Where did the se two important external

conquests (the 0åtduwà and the ràányån) of early

Yoribá kingdoms come fron? At pres ent we lack

any de nite knowledge of the existence of anyo

strong neighbouring kingdoms or empires that A
coula have been the source of these conquest8.

In the ràányàn story, however, there is a clue

that the conguerors were very probably from Borgu.
Theoràáyàn story incorporates many aspects of 1
Borgu traditions of origins that it seems to begsb
42
just a variant of it, This would illustrate ins
Borgawa impact on early Yorûbá kingdoms. Further-
more, the ràányàn conquest seems to haveint ro-
đuced to the exísting Yordbá kingd oms the idea
of an original homeland l0cated somewhereoin the
east. It de nitely introduced the idea of anaa
easternorigin to Benin after it had raided thata
kingdomand forced a change of dyna sty there.oE
Since it reachedBenin from the west after itoaA
hadconsolidated its hold on Qyộ and Irệ, it a

172
fi
fi
 moeted the
creat confusi on that has baf ed historians

about the actual position of Ifệ, The Benin

rings turned east in the morning to worhip the

0ltfe while If is located to the west,4
It is not yet known exactly why Ifệ was
subjected to these inva sions. The most plausible

reason woula be that it had achieved a high level

of civilisation that attracted the cupidi ty of
its neighbours in the Savanna belt. The time

of the invasions is a matter for speculati oi,

Ifệ was a well-establis hed thriving town by the
ninth century A,D, and terracot ta were being
45
made there as early as the tenth cent ury. 9petao
These đevel.opment s possibly ant edated the invasions.

Formative In uenc eS in the Foundation of 0ld Oyó

Oral tradition concerning the foundation of
old oyó documents a series of interacti ons between

the early Yorbá states l0cated in the Savannah

e
area on the one hand and variously with the Borgawa
8mwoO D9Asd o
and Nupe on the other. These interactions, however,

have been presented as a single story of conguest,

EWOPLe
theodûduwà-pràányån-Şangó complex.4 In addition,
the tradition has fo rged a lineal successi on among
ateya 5eLsg s beviovevElaudreve bs asEuT

173
fl
fl
 theseeponymousnames for purpos es of legitimi-
sation, But as mentioned earlier, the Odûduwà

group of invaders was quite đistinct from the

þràányàn migration, Dy tradition emphasises

more the achievement s of ràány àn at the expense

of0adduwà,
47 It is conceivable that if 0dtduwà
was the direct ancestor of ràány àn and the ulti-
mate founder of the Qyo kingåom, that deity would

have been accorded a greater importance emong the

gods worshipped in the town. As it is, he is just

one of the minor palace deities. 40

It woulâappeer that before the ràányẩn

conguest, the early Yorùbá states in the Savannah
area had experienc ed the 0duduwà impact. The new

conguerors nding the Odhduwà myth to be very

strong grafted it on to their own. Thus, )ràáyàn
became the 'son' of Oduduwà. But the tradition
of the new conquerors depicts them as a group
from Borgu, 49 They
They were uncouth invaders whose

leaders at rst wore no beaded crowns. They

pOssibly had no conc ept of a monarchical syst em
in which the ruler wOre crowns.But they later
seized thecrOWns of some ot the defeated Yorba
ulers and eventually evolved a palace syst em
fi
fi
 thatbecame the envy of many rulers in their
neighbourhood.. This process whi ch must have

taken a long time to devel op is re ected in a

recert tradition that says that the ancestors

of the Aláà n wore no beaded crowns but seized
those bel onging to Aláa1 fkún and 01órblú, two
50
đeposed and extinct Yorûbá dynasties in the area.
This pattern of development in which early Yorûbá
dynasties lost their over-all political power to
invading Borgawa groups is also found in Şábệệ
area. Here the invasion to ok place sometime ingo0

the
seventeenth
centuryorearlier. t dt
With the Borgawa conquest, former Yorbá og
ruling dynasties were relegated to secondary
political positions in the new set up. A very al
important example is that of the Başorun in þyo.ot
The line age of the rst holders of this ofrice
must have represented the line of an extinct d
Yortbá dynasty although as successive Aláà noas
becamę more ent rer.ched in power and completelyo
indigenis ed, they appoint ed from among friendly
lineagesnewmento the post ofBaşþrun.52 s o
Politically, the Başþrun is next in rank to

175
fi
fl
fi
fi
 the Alád n, He wears a beaded coronet whi le

the Aláa n has a be ad ed crown, He has his own

small throne and his Wives are cal l ed ayinba

(those who sing the praise of the Iba?), On the

other hand, the Aláa n possesses a bigger throne

and his wives are call ed aya'ba (wives of the

Ling).In every respect, the Başrun isaccorded

royal r princelytreatment. He is al so the head
of the Oyó Mèsi the seven most important SI1VD

tradi tional chiefs who constitute the king's

Council, 53

The religious functions of the Basorunoe

portrays him as having strong links with an
earlier dynasty and community in the area He
is the chief pri est of Orun, a deity whoe
a deity whose ch rac-
teristi cs are still imperfectly known. This deity
representsthe
the
colle ctive spirits 0I
of the gods and
ancestors and thus pe rha
Pe rhaps has some close ac
association with the egíngín, At 1
its annual
WOrship,the Baş)run ãivines whether the
ruling Aláa n is acc whether or not
ceptable to the go
to the nineteenth century Prior
tury, the Başrun po
and exercisea the power demanding
the death of
fi
fi
fi
fi
 Aláå n wh
ods, 55
who was reject ed by the god In
&ny
addition, it :is the Başorun who during the
n bnceremonies
JE1épå cerer of the Bęęrę festival propi-
**otes the god8 of harvest and invokes the
1essings of the fertility gods for a good
agricultural year,56
The fact that the Başorun perfo ms these
crucial rites in the life of the community that
no Aláa n can đo, makes his position analogous
90 a38LestOTS VOte T
to other well-known cases where represent atives
of deposed dyna sties are charged with the propi-
57
tiation of the deities of the earlier civilisation.
Although Qyó tradition credits Qràányàn wi th
thefoundati on of the kingdom, it also ascribes
its establishment to şångó, a deity that has
since then becone recognised as the patron god
58
of all Aláa n, He is regarded as the ance stor
of all rulers of Oyó although the re exists no
direct lineal link between it and any Aláa n
since Şångő left no children, His inclusion in
the kinglist, there fore, is an intrusi on.
The tradition makes him the second son of
9ràányån by a Nupe mother. He is depicted as

177
fi
fi
fi
fi
 6

elder sibling, Ajāká, whom

more warlike than h đescribed as
He successfully de ed all his
Themost
he deposed,
1f at loggerheads
adversaries but fond
but found himself
made from Nade
nally depose him, He set
with his people who ina sAngówas intz
The re are two
off for Nupe but died on the way,
as a god of t
versions of how he met his đeath: one says that
butes were lat
he entered into the ground wi th the help of en
that the power
inon chain while the other des cribes how he hangeA
59
by the followe
Borgu.61
himself,
The Şångó story emphasises Nupe in uence

on 0ld Oyo. It suggests that the wOrship of the

Linguisti
suggesti on tha
deity was introduced from Nupe. This would
came from Nupe
appear to con ict with one of Nadel's
'Kuso! 62 Ell
conclusions that the god of lightning, Sogba,
was introduced to the Nupe either by the Gwari peared is 'Kus
(aHausagroup north of the Nupe) or the Yagba thereafter, ha
(a Yoruba group south of the Nupe). But Nadel
King of Kuso. 6
89
also records the existence of a Nupe king rendered as K
CalledShago in the myth describing the origin title, Qba Ku
of the anti-witchcraft cult, nâako-gboya ana preted as 'the
concludesthat 'Shago is probably identi cal with interpretation
the mythical hero ard deity of the Yoruba of deifying Şå
religion,Shango,who in Yoruba mythology nents 64
is It i
Kuso or 'oba

178
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fl
 60
Ajaká, whom or king of Nupe'.
ibed a8 8 man or kt deduction that can be
all his
Themos reasonable
cerheads amNadel's statement is the fact that
im. He set madefrom Nadroduced to yo from Nupe but not
nere are two Şångówas 1intro These attri-
e godofthunderand lightning.Johnson records
ne says that
Duteswere later ascribed to him.
nelp of an
thet the power to attract 1ightning were obtained
how he hanged
bythe followers of the deity after a sojourn in
61
Borgu.
in uence Linguistic evidence also supports the
-rship of the
O
suggestion that the worship of Şångó original1ly
-s woulà TheNupeword for a shrine is
came from Nupe,
1's 'Kuso'.02 E1lis records that where Şàngó đisap-
g, Sogba, peared is 'Kuso which became a town and sângó,
y the Gwari
thereafter, has had the title 'oba Kuso, that is,
the Yagba King of Kuso.
63 The worà 'Kuso has since been
But Nadel renderedas 'Koso in Yorûbá language ; and Şàngő's
king title, oba Kuso! has become Oba Koso and int er-
the origin preted as 'the king did not hang hìmself'. This
-gbOya and interpretation was deemed necessary in the proce88
Ldentical with or deifyingŞångóagainst the jeers of his oppo-
nents.4 It is obvious that the meaning of Qba
Yoruba
Ku
nology is or 'obaKòso shouid be the king in/ or

179
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 the shrine'.
The introđucti on of sångó to the early Oyó
Yortbá kingåoms from Nupe occurred before the

Borguconquest, It wasdevoted to anti-wit ch-

craft or similar actiyities end co-existed with
65
an indigenous deity, Jakúta, god of thunder.
Its acceptance by the Qyo-Yortbá communities
probably meant that the kingdo ms were under Nupe

domination at that time. With the Borgu conquest,

a transformation took place by which Şångó was
nowendowed with the power of light ning. The new

conquerors probably found that Jàkúta đid not have

enough powers to act as sanctions against their
opponents. Fur thermore, the older deity held an
important place in the cosmology of the vanguished;
it was their god of creation Eventually, şàngó
as a god of ligh tning replaced Jàkúta anã issse baen
worshiPped on the day of the week named after and
devoted to its predecessor. nm
sas 9NỐ tradi tion credits the rise of the Egúngứn
cult as a political
weapon in the government of the
y6-Yoribá to in uenc es from Nupe, 68 but Nadel
argues that the cult is a very recent introduction

180
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 to Mupe and actually, is practised among Yorbá
elements in Nupeland,9 Again, Nadel is right
enâ the tradition has got its facts wrong.
Bgứngứnwo rship is indigenous to the Qyó-

Yorùbá and is practised also by the Igala who 02

70
share a comnon ancestry wi th them. Essentially,
the cult was devoted to ancestor worship, Its
ritual head in Qyo derives from a lineage thatse B
71
traces its ancestry back to bà. This shows o
that the cult must have been one of the oldest on

amongthe yó-Yoribá, aa9 a n os 25 ct

A modi cation of its functi ons and a charnge

in its control1ing personnel 0ccurred possibly

after the Borgu conquest. With the investment

of Şångówi th the,new.powerg of lightning, its sd

former functions as an anti-witchoraft cult was rR
transferred to the Egúngứn,tAnew,head of theu
cult was appointed from among the Nupe devotees
dy
of the ndako gboya and he controlled the activities
of the ritual head of the Egúngún cult,So great
Sut hio0ocluelo
an importance was attached to his func tions thato
th Lod n the hi 72
he eventually became one of the 0yo-Mèsi chiefs.
Lolb The Borgu conquest must have taken place well
hiator iosk tecopa

181
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 before the fteenth century. For during that
century, Bussa was already established as a

powerful Borgawa kingdom. It ablydefended its

sovereignty and integrity against attacks from
Sorni Ali in *he ll480' s and Askia Muhammad Ture

in l505, two strong rule rs of the Songhai empire, )

Bussa before that time had possibly established
satellite dynasty over Yorbá kingåoms south
of its boundaries, replacing a former Nupe in u-
ence that existed there. Bussa's conquest extended
to If which at that time was a cent re of a highly
complex
civilisation.T r o n0ttsotLhomA
Askia Dawud bf Songhai nally defeated Bussa
in1556,4 but before that event, it would appear
that the Nupe had begun to re-assert their power to
andharrassed the Borgu dynasty in old yo. Theo
weakness of Bussa at thig time is shown in itstwT
failure to save its old yo protege from Nupe
defeat, 75
đefeat. The defeated dynasty had nowhere to to
look for refuge but in the Borgu count ry, its 0
originalhomelard, o besta
Le
The relati onship between the Aláa n dynasty
and its Borgu ancestral hosts was at rst cordial
dotio

182
fi
fi
fi
fl
fi
 đegenerated rapidly into one of hosti-
but this
However, the Aláà n dynasty owed its
1ity.
sucCe s8 in re-estal sh ing its seat at old Oyó
the Nupe invaders to the
nally conquer
and
large mber of Borgawa warriors who accompanied
76 Some of these
from the Borgu country,
it back
werriors thereafter replaced rulers of Yorbá
settlements such as Kişỉ, Igbðho and Igbéti or
foundednew set tl ements such as bgbổmộso to guard
77
strategic areas agai nst further Nupe attacks,
Thus, the post-Igbòho peri od, from the sixteenth
century onward witnessed a re-in ux of Borgu
menand blood into old oyộ but as wi th the earlier
migrations, these men have been completely absorbed

intoQy¢-Yorûbá culture. 8

Conclusions
Bor Robin Law has rightly questioned the histo-
adca
ricity of the early Oy6 kings from Ođûduwà to
Aganju by pointing out that these rùlers were gods
78 But his conclusi on from this
rather than men.
Tact that that period in the histOry of the
Aangdomwhen these men suppos edly ruled is beyond

nistorical recons tructi on is rather hasty. It

183
fi
fl
fi
is generally recognised that historical informa-
tion about this peri od is hazy and uncertain
(that is why even the traditi on describes the
history of the period as Itàn Iş¢dálę, but a
careful analy sis of the oral testimoni es and
ethnographic đata does suggest very clearly that
the period is an amalgam of many epochs rep re sen-
ted by the names of these gods. Each epoch 1S 92

associat ed with important forma tive developments

in the growth of the yć state. and of state-
fomation among the Yoruba.3a oigo eo stktt
The least known of the epochs is that concer-
ning the evolution of the indigenous culture and
civilisation, Linguistic evid ence woulà
3
suggest
that the Yortbá have always lived in their present
habitat. It has been suggested further upon a
sITO8ufonO
preliminary linguistic analysis that the area around
etri oio bertodgeyp Loda irt
Kabba in the Kwara state may eventually prove to be
t wubboorTagnty
the centre of the dispersal of the Yorbá groups. 80
Bbos9LOW E9LI 9091 tadt tuo
The indigenous civilisation was at least complex
enough to have attracted invaders from the outside.
o LOte 9dt bot
Moreover, the early civilisation that was essentia-
9891
1ly Yortbá provided the political, so cial and
no ktòrkd saooes Eantod akd

184
 etonomicbase for the development of the later

kingdoms.

The external invasi ons have also cont ributed

creatly to the state-formation process among the

Yortbá. A case in point in the development of

politico-religi ous organisations such as that

ofŞångówi thin the y kingdom. This case is

particularly signi cant because it shous the
adaptability of the indigenous ing tituti ons to
change. This signi cant point about şångó seems
to have continuously escaped scholars of Yorbd
7
even though Frobenius had des cribed the phenouenon
in 1911. While in Qy in
SL1909, he điscoveredtwo
types of şängó emblems, one wi th the ram gure
whicn he said came from Nupe and another wi th

the gure of a man on horseback that came from

81
Borgu. Just as it has been argued independently
in this paper,
luge
Frobenius associated the sångổ
emblems with changes in the ruling dynasty, the
82
Borgawa succeeding a line of Nupe kings.
In spite of our knowledge of these broad his-
torical developments in the early history of )yó,
We still have to contend with the indeterminate
P20-1

185
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fi
fi
fi
 The fact would render
length of the epochs.
meaningless efforts by historian s to employ 1.

existing king lists obtained from Johnson

or other more recent sources to determ ine the

founding date of the kingdom, The time-đepth

involved in the process of state-forma tion is

2.
so Vast that such king lists can hardly be correct.
Johnson recorded 39 rulers up to the end of the
3.
nineteenth century while Smith has come ut
out s
86
with h names. On the other hand, Frobenius
was told in 1909 that over 310 kings had ruled
in Qy° and this đe nitely would seem to be
the more acceptable gure. oTto

5.

7.
fi
fi