Towns and Kingdoms: Section Index

This section is a gazetteer of Yoruba towns and kingdoms. It covers the ritual capital at Ilé-Ifẹ̀, the imperial capital at Ọ̀yọ́, the nineteenth-century cities of Ìbàdàn and Abẹ́òkúta, the coastal and lagoon states, the Èkìtì and eastern kingdoms, the towns that fell outside Nigeria's borders, and the smaller groupings that standard accounts leave out. For each town it gives the Yoruba name with diacritics and variants, the title of its ruler, the founding traditions with their variants, the dynastic history where one is documented, the institutions and festivals, the notable sites and the current status.

What the section argues

Three things run through every file.

There is no single Yoruba political form. Ọ̀yọ́ had an emperor whose council could compel his death. Ìjẹ̀bú had a king whose courts belonged to somebody else. Ìbàdàn had no hereditary ruler at all and ran a queue. Abẹ́òkúta kept four crowns in one town. Èkìtì had sixteen crowns and no paramount until the British convened one in 1900. Reading these as variations on a single template, with Ọ̀yọ́ as the model, is the specific distortion that Ọ̀yọ́-centred historiography introduced, and it produces a false picture.

Founding traditions are frequently contested and the contest is usually about something present. When Ugbo says it owned Ilé-Ifẹ̀ before Odùduwà, when the Olúkèrè says his stool is older than the Ògògà's, when Ọ̀tùn says the Oore buried Odùduwà, when Rẹ́mọ says it was never under the Awùjalẹ̀, the argument is about precedence, land, chieftaincy grading and access to office now. This section names both claims and their sources rather than choosing between them, and it says which disputes have been to court and which have not.

A great deal of what looks ancient was fixed in the colonial period or later. The Ifẹ̀ four ruling houses date from 1957. The Ìjẹ̀bú four date from 1959. The Èkìtì pẹ̀lúpẹ̀lú was convened in 1900 by a British officer. The Ìkọ̀lé Egbeoba confederation was assembled between 1900 and 1920 under a retired schoolteacher. Ọ̀kà Day was established in the early 1990s and first carried that name on a programme in 1999. None of this makes the institutions false, and all of it makes the phrase "from time immemorial" unusable.

The files

[01] Ilé-Ifẹ̀: The Ritual Capital (towns-ile-ife) The three families of founding tradition and where they conflict, the Ọ̀ọ̀ni institution and its king list with the four ruling houses of 1957, the six quarters as claimed origin points for other towns, Ọ̀pá Ọ̀rànmíyàn and its role in both the Ifẹ̀ and Ọ̀yọ́ installations, Igbó Olókun and the glass industry, Olójó and the Àrẹ crown, Ẹdì and Mọ̀remí, and the Modáké̩ké̩ question.

[02] Ọ̀yọ́: Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé, Ọ̀yọ́ Àtìbà and the Aláàfin (towns-oyo) The ruined capital and its wall circuits and archaeology, the palace as an administrative apparatus, the Ọ̀yọ́ Mèsì and the calabash of parrot's eggs as a constitutional mechanism with a hard sanction, the abandonment and dispersal, and Àtìbà's 1837 refoundation.

[03] Ìbàdàn: The War Camp That Became a Republic (towns-ibadan) The 1829 founding by a four-way war coalition, the Ìbàdàn Republic and the ajẹ̀lẹ̀ system that provoked the Kiriji war, and the Olúbàdàn ladder set out in full: the two lines with their titles, entry through the Mọ̀gàjí, movement by death alone, the consequences for how old Olúbàdàn are and how predictable the succession is, and the 2017 to date litigation over restructuring it.

[04] Abẹ́òkúta and the Ẹ̀gbá (towns-abeokuta-egba) Lisabi and the revolt against Ọ̀yọ́, the 1830 founding under Olúmọ, the four co-resident crowns, the Ẹ̀gbá United Government that Britain recognised as sovereign from 1893 until it abrogated it in 1914, the Adubi war of 1918, and the Abẹ́òkúta Women's Union campaign that removed an Aláké in 1949.

[05] Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde and the Ìjẹ̀bú (towns-ijebu-ode) The Ọ̀ṣùgbó as courts sitting outside the palace, the rẹ́gbẹ̀rẹ́gbẹ̀ age grades, Sungbo's Eredo and what it implies about the dynastic date, the trade monopoly and the 1892 British expedition that ended Yoruba military independence in a week, and Ojúde Ọba with its Islamic origin and its age-grade and equestrian processions.

[06] Lagos, Èkó: Àwórì Town, Benin Camp, British Colony (towns-lagos) Three overlapping origins and what each supplies, the ìdejò land-owning chiefs whose claims are still litigated, Àṣípa and the Benin-derived kingship, Kòṣọ́kọ́ and Akítóyè and the 1851 bombardment, the 1861 cession, and the Sàró and Agùdà returnees with the Brazilian Quarter they built.

[07] The Èkìtì Towns and the Pẹ̀lúpẹ̀lú (towns-ekiti) Adó-Èkìtì and the Ulesun conquest, Ìkẹ́rẹ́'s genuinely unresolved two-stool dispute and the ritual fact at the centre of it, Ìkọ̀lé, Ọ̀tùn and its seniority claim against Ifẹ̀ with the 1903 gazette, Efọ̀n-Aláàyè, the pẹ̀lúpẹ̀lú as a 1900 colonial convocation with three variant rosters of the sixteen, and the Kiriji war with the Lagos rifle supply that made it possible.

[08] The Ìjẹ̀ṣà: Ilésà and the Ọ̀wá Obòkun (towns-ijesa) The seawater story behind the title, the conflicting founding dates, the classical city plan, Ìbàdàn's tributary system and Ògèdèngbé, who learned his soldiering as an Ìbàdàn prisoner, commanded the Èkìtìparapọ̀ for sixteen years and then refused the throne.

[09] The Eastern Yoruba (towns-eastern-yoruba) The longest file in the section. Ondó and the Lóbùn who installs the king and never sees him again; Ọ̀wọ̀, the Benin dispute, and Ekpo Eyo's Igbo'Laja excavation with the three-way stylistic division that makes Ọ̀wọ̀ a third centre rather than a link; Àkúrẹ́ and the 1818 Benin war; Ìdànrè and its vacant stool; the Ìkálẹ̀ and the Ìlàjẹ; the Ugbo claim to have owned Ilé-Ifẹ̀ set out in full with the Ifẹ̀ rebuttals and the one sub-question two named historians have adjudicated; and the Àkókó with the Nupe hegemony of 1845 to 1897 and the correction that Akokoid is a distinct language cluster.

[10] Òṣogbo and the Ọ̀ṣun State Towns (towns-osun-state-towns) The founding covenant with the river, the seventy-five-hectare grove inscribed by UNESCO in 2005, Susanne Wenger and the New Sacred Art movement with the question that raises, the festival sequence and the Arugbá, and the Ìbọ̀lọ̀ and Epo provincial towns of Ìwó, Èdè, Ìkirun and Ejigbo with Ìlá-Ọ̀ràngún and the Ìgbómìnà.

[11] Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́ and the Òkè Ògùn Towns (towns-oyo-state-towns) Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́'s founding by a hunter and the Àlóńgo society, and the Òǹkò country: Ìsẹ́yìn and aṣọ òkè, Ṣakí, Ìgbòho with the four Aláàfin buried there, Kíṣí and Òkèhò.

[12] The Western and Trans-Border Yoruba (towns-trans-border) Kétu and its destruction by Dahomey in 1886, the Akaba Idena gate, Sábẹ́ and Ìdáìṣà with their unreconciled founding accounts, Pobè and the Ọ̀họ̀rí, Ifọ̀nyìn split by the 1889 border, where the name Anàgó comes from, the Ifè of Togo, and the current national situation including the precise language status.

[13] Ìlọrin: The Yoruba Town That Became an Emirate (towns-ilorin) The four Yoruba baálẹ̀ before Àfọ̀njá, the quarrel with Aláàfin Àwólé and the calabash, Àwólé's curse with a full statement of its sourcing problems, the Jàmá'a and Alimi with Ade Ajayi's chronological objection, the conflicting dates for Àfọ̀njá's death, the emirate and the 1897 defeat, and the four positions on Ìlọrin's identity today with the organisations that hold them.

[14] Rẹ́mọ, Ṣàgámù, Ìkọ̀rọdú, Èpé and Badagry (towns-remo-coastal) The 1872 assembly of thirteen towns that made Ṣàgámù, the unresolved Rẹ́mọ-Ìjẹ̀bú status question, Ìjẹ̀bú-Ìgbó, Ìkọ̀rọdú and Èpé, and Badagry with its Àwórì and Ogu plural origins, the Vlekete market and its unverified figures, the Point of No Return and the 1842 mission.

[15] The Àwórì, the Yewa and the Ìbàràpá (towns-awori-yewa-ibarapa) The floating calabash and why the Àwórì own the ground under Lagos, Òtà's two opposed founding claims, the Ẹ̀gbádò renaming themselves Yewa in 1995 and the corridor role that shaped them, and the Ìbàràpá seven towns with Igbó-Òrà's measured twinning rate and unexplained cause.

[16] The Physical Form of a Yoruba Town (towns-physical-form) Palace, market, wards, compounds and walls; the radial plan and Ìbàdàn as its exception; the impluvial courtyard house and the potsherd pavement; the population figures and how to handle them; and the forest belt that has almost entirely gone.

[17] Town Walls and Earthworks (towns-walls-and-earthworks) The bank-and-ditch technique, Sungbo's Eredo with its genuinely unresolved dating spread and the 2024 LiDAR work, the five Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé circuits, the Ifẹ̀ ditches and why the largest of them is nineteenth-century, the Ìbàdàn wall, and what earthworks establish and do not.

[18] Oríkì Orílẹ̀: Town Identity and How It Travels (towns-oriki-orile) What oríkì is and its kinds, oríkì orílẹ̀ as an inherited attachment to a place that survives the place, its three uses including as evidence in the disputes this section covers, one text with a full statement of its attribution problems, and how town identity crossed the Atlantic and what the nation names do and do not prove.

[19] Reference: Yoruba Towns, Rulers and Subgroups (towns-reference-table) A single table of the towns in this section with ruler title, state or country, subgroup, a one-line note and the file that covers each in detail, followed by a glossary of the title elements that recur.

How to read the section

In order works, because 01 to 06 establish the major institutional types before the regional files use them.

By region, take 01, 02 and 11 for the Ọ̀yọ́ world; 03, 04, 05, 06, 14 and 15 for the southwest; 07, 08 and 09 for the east; 10 for Ọ̀ṣun; 12 and 13 for the edges.

By theme, 16, 17 and 18 stand alone and can be read first by a reader more interested in how Yoruba towns work than in which town is which.

For a specific town, start at 19 and follow the file reference.

The section assumes the history section for the wars and the empire, and it cross-refers to the arts section for the Ifẹ̀ and Ọ̀wọ̀ material, to the òrìṣà section for the festivals, and to the diaspora section for what the town names did in the Atlantic.