CHAPT ER THREE

YORÙBÁ ORAL TRADIT ION WITH SPECIAL

RERERENCE TO THE EARLY HISTO RY OF
THE QYọ KINGDOM

Babatunde A. Agiri

Oral tradi ti on is de ned in this paper as a

body of oral testimonies and ethnographic đata
that need be analy sed to achieve an oral history
of a people. Oral testimonies include not only
the oral accounts of historically important event s
but also the oral literature and folklore of the
people. In addition, ethnographic đata compriseias
evidence from the political and social organi sations,
traditional festivals anå the visible aterial cul-
ture of the people. Again, for the purpose of
clarity it is also necessary to de ne oral history.
Ey oral history is meant a recons tructed history
of a people from non-Writ ten s ources, that is,
oral traditi on, linguistics and archaeology. From

thesede ni ti ons, it is evident that onecannot

yet epeak of an oral history of the Yorbá simply
because no existing work on Yorlbá histo ry has
made full use of the available non-written sources.
Rather they are based largely on oral accounts of
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