The Western and Trans-Border Yoruba: Kétu, Sábẹ́, Ìdáìṣà and the Anàgó

Something between a fifth and a quarter of the Yoruba-speaking world lives outside Nigeria, in the Republic of Benin and in Togo, and it is there because of a line drawn in Europe in 1889. The Anglo-French Agreement of that year partitioned the western Yoruba between British and French spheres, and the kingdoms of Kétu, Sábẹ́, Ìdáìṣà and the Ọ̀họ̀rí, together with the Ifè of Togo, ended up in French territory and then in independent Francophone states 1.

Their history before the partition is not a marginal appendix to Nigerian Yoruba history. Kétu is counted among the oldest of the Odùduwà foundations, the Gbe-speaking peoples trace their own origins to it, and the destruction of these kingdoms by Dahomey in the nineteenth century supplied a large part of the Yoruba population of Brazil and Cuba. What is marginal is their treatment in the literature, which concentrates on communities inside Nigeria and neglects the western pedigree 2.

Kétu

Names. Kétu in Yoruba, Kétou in French orthography and officially in Benin, Queto in the Portuguese orthography used in Brazil 2.

Ruler. The Aláké̩tu, styled Ọba 2.

Founding. The tradition is Odùduwà descent, and the sources give two versions of the line. In one, the state traces to a settlement founded by a descendant of Odùduwà called Sopasan or Soipasan, with Kétu proper founded by Edé, son of Sopasan and grandson of Odùduwà 2. In the other, more compressed version, Kétou was founded by Edé, a descendant of Odùduwà, without the intervening generation 3. The capital is placed at Ketu itself from about 1500 2. A separate French heritage account dates the city's foundation to the fourteenth century and its fortification to the eighteenth 4.

Kétu is counted as one of the sixteen original kingdoms established by the children of Odùduwà in the Ọ̀yọ́ mythic scheme 2. Beyond the Yoruba, the Gbe-speaking peoples, the Ewe, Adja and Fon, trace their own origins to Kétou, which makes the town a shared origin point across a language boundary rather than an exclusively Yoruba one 3.

The Akaba Idena. Kétou was enclosed by a defensive mud-brick wall pierced by a single entrance, the Akaba Idena, with trenches reported at fifteen to twenty feet deep 5. The name is glossed from Yoruba akaba, door or gate, and idena, one who bars the way 4. The gate is the principal surviving monument of the western Yoruba kingdoms, it now houses the Musée Akaba Idéna 6, and it forms part of Benin's UNESCO tentative-list nomination Sites marquants de la Route de l'Esclave au Bénin, cited for the king's redemption square, the gate as a symbol of resistance, the trenches and the Kouhoudou square 7.

The destruction of 1886. Kétu was one of Dahomey's principal enemies, and its destruction came in two phases under King Glele: raids in 1882 and 1883 that weakened it, then the final sacking in 1886 5. Temples and altars were destroyed and houses burned under Glele's direct command; the leadership was executed and the survivors were enslaved and taken to Abomey 5. One account has the Kétu leaders killed at a peace negotiation 8. Many of those taken were sold into the Atlantic trade, and the reference literature connects this directly to Kétu's importance in Brazilian Candomblé 2.

The identity of the Aláké̩tu killed in 1886 is not settled. One account names him Ojeku, which conflicts with the dynastic list showing Osun Ojeku's reign ending in 1883 with a regent from 1883 to 1886 29. The Dahomey conquest account does not name the ruler killed 5. Leave it unresolved.

Restoration. The gate and ramparts were rebuilt in 1894 under King Oyingin, that is Oyengen, whose reign begins in 1894 in the dynastic list, so the two sources corroborate one another 49. Kétu was restored under French protectorate; the sources differ by a year on the date, one giving 1893 and the other 1894, which should be reported as a minor discrepancy rather than reconciled 25.

Dynastic list, modern portion. Ajibolu 1795–1816; Adebiya 1816–1853; Adegbede 1853–1858; Adiro 1858–1867; Osun Ojeku 1867–1883; Agidigbo Hungbo, regent, 1883–1886; Alaba Ida, regent, 1893–1894; Oyengen 1894–1918; Ademufekun Dudu 1918–1936; Alamu Adewori Adegibite 1937–1963; Pascal Adeoti Adetutu 1964–2004; Alaro Alade-Ife 2005–2018; Anicet Adesina Akanni Adedunloye Aderomola from 2019 9. The list counts fifty sovereigns before the fifty-first, presented in 2018 9.

Current status. Kétou is a town, arrondissement and commune in the Plateau Department of Benin, with 156,497 people over 2,183 square kilometres at the 2013 census, the thirteenth largest settlement in the country 3. The Ketu North and Ketu South districts of Ghana's Volta Region carry the name 3.

Kétu and the Brazilian Ketu nation: a contested claim

The received account is that the Kétu captives taken in the Dahomean raids founded the Candomblé nation that carries their name in Bahia, where nação ketu designates the Yoruba-derived houses and the liturgical language is called Yorubá or Nagô 10.

Lisa Earl Castillo's archival study of 2021 challenges this directly. Working on the temple Ilê Axé Iyá Nassô Oká, she argues that the first generations of leadership were dominated by people from Ọ̀yọ́, not Kétu, and that the term ketu emerged not as an allusion to ethnic origin but perhaps as a metaphor for a heterogeneous cultural setting in which Yoruba speakers from disparate regions lived in close coexistence 11.

Both should be recorded, and they should be attributed to different kinds of authority: the first to received tradition within the terreiros and its long repetition in the literature, the second to a specific archival argument published in History in Africa in 2021. Candomblé Ketu emerged in Bahia in the early nineteenth century, when Nagô speakers were about seventy-five percent of the relevant population in the 1830s 10, which is consistent with either reading.

Sábẹ́ (Savè)

Names. Sábẹ́ or Ṣábẹ̀ẹ́ in Yoruba, Savè in French, Shabe or Cabe as the dialect-cluster name 1213.

Ruler. The Ọnísàbẹ̀, styled Ọba 1214. The Ọnísàbẹ̀ is commonly grouped with the Aláké̩tu of Kétu and the Onípòpó of Popo as the Odùduwà-descended crowns resident in Benin Republic, though this is a traditionalist framing rather than a documented constitutional relationship 15.

Founding, and a conflict the sources do not resolve. The kingdom's official tradition traces ancestry to Baba Gidai, a chief from Borgou, and dates the formal emergence of the kingdom to around 1750, when Yai, leader of the Babagidai group, centralised power over several existing city-states 12. A separate and widely held strand ties the Sábẹ́ crown to Odùduwà as one of the ancient crowned lines 15. These two accounts are not reconciled anywhere in the accessible sources and should be presented as competing, because one makes Sábẹ́ an eighteenth-century Borgou-derived polity and the other an ancient Ifẹ̀ foundation.

Structure. Succession alternated between two houses descended from the sons of Ola Obe, named Ola Mone and Ola Akikenju, an arrangement that explicitly excluded the earlier-settled Yoruba group known as the Amusu from the succession 12. The ruler was consecrated at Djabata while ruling from Savè 12. A succession list of Ọnísàbẹ̀ runs back to at least 1738 14.

Dahomey. Relations deteriorated sharply in 1828, when King Ghézo beheaded about thirty Savé prisoners after a raid, and Dahomean attacks destroyed the capital in 1848, 1855 and 1885 12.

Current status. The monarchy was abolished in the post-independence period, associated in the sources with state action in 1974, though a traditional chief continues to be enthroned symbolically 12. Savè is in the Collines Department of Benin.

Ìdáìṣà (Dassa-Zoumé)

Names. Idaasha, Idaaca, Idaaṣa or Idaaitsa; Dassa or Dassa-Zoumé in French. The people call the town Igbo Idaasha, glossed as belonging to all Idaasha people 16.

Ruler. Ọba of Igbo Idaasha; the current holder, Egba Kotan II, was enthroned on 3 March 2002 16. The sources give the plain title Ọba and no distinctive dialectal royal form, and no such form should be supplied.

Founding, with a two-century discrepancy. One account has the polity coalescing into a centralised kingdom around 1600 under a founder named Jagun Olofin, who migrated from Ẹ̀gbá country in an expedition led by Ṣàgbóná 16. A dynastic account has the kingdom founded by prince Oladégbo, reigning as Djagou Olofin from 1385 to 1425 17. The names correspond, Jagun Olofin and Djagou Olofin being the same figure in different orthographies, but the dates differ by roughly two centuries. Report both.

Geography and people. Central Collines Department, west of the Ouémé river, centred on Dassa-Zoumé (Igbo Idaasha) and Glazoué (Igbo Omina or Gbomina), with Dassa-Zoumé holding more than sixty-six villages and the Glazoué arrondissement over forty-six, and a population of about two hundred thousand in 2016 16. The Beninese government describes Dassa-Zoumé as the city of forty-one hills 18.

Language and religion. Ede Idaasha, a Yoruba dialect carrying Fon loanwords, with Standard Yoruba used formally in churches, schools and mosques; Catholic and Protestant Christianity, Yoruba religion and Islam 16. The annual Festival des Arts et Cultures Idaasha, FACI, is the principal cultural event 16.

Pobè and the Ọ̀họ̀rí

Pobè is a city and arrondissement in the Plateau Department of Benin, with 123,740 people over four hundred square kilometres in 2013, and has been the seat of the Plateau Department since 2016 19. No ruler title for Pobè could be verified in the accessible sources and none is supplied here.

The Ọ̀họ̀rí-Ìjè, also called Ohori, Holli or Ije, hold territory in southeastern Benin north of Pobè, extending west to and beyond the Ouémé river 20. Their country is the swampy Kumi depression, which functioned historically as a refuge for people fleeing Kétu, Ọ̀yọ́ and other larger polities 20. French colonial policy provoked an Ọ̀họ̀rí rising that escalated into full rebellion by 1914 20.

The Ọ̀họ̀rí are a case worth attention because the refuge function shaped the group. A population formed from people who left larger states rather than one that grew from a dynastic centre has a different political structure, and Ọ̀họ̀rí resistance to French administration is consistent with a society organised to avoid incorporation.

Ifọ̀nyìn

Ifọ̀nyìn straddles the border, falling across the Ipokia Local Government Area of Ògùn State on the Nigerian side and the sous-préfecture of Ifonyin, French Ifangni, in southern Plateau on the Beninese 2122. It is the clearest illustration of what the partition did, because it split a single polity between two colonial administrations and then two countries.

A history of the Ẹ̀gbádò region describes Ifọ̀nyìn as a former Anàgó kingdom ruled by the Elehin or Elewi Odo, glossed as the king behind the river, and dates its founding to about 1700, at the point when Ọ̀yọ́ became aware of threats to its route to the coast from Benin's westward expansion and the rise of the Fon of Dahomey 22. That account reaches the open web only through a reproduction of secondary text rather than through a peer-reviewed source, so treat the title and the date as unverified pending better sourcing.

Anàgó and Nagó: the name and where it comes from

The name matters because it is the term under which the western Yoruba appear in the Atlantic record, and getting its derivation right corrects a common confusion.

Nago derives from Ewe Anagó, a Yoruba person, which in turn derives from Yoruba Ànàgó 23. In Spanish and Portuguese documents the Yoruba appear as Nago, Anago and Ana, names taken from a coastal Yoruba subgroup in what is now the Republic of Benin 24. Narrowly, Anago denotes a Yoruba subgroup around Kétu in Benin and in southwestern Yorubaland; Nago denotes the southwestern Yoruba subgroups astride the Nigeria-Benin border 2325. Collectively, the Ifọ̀nyìn, Àwórì, Ọ̀họ̀rí and Kétu groups are referred to as Nagos 23.

In French Dahomey and Togo the Yoruba were known as Nagot or Anago, and the term became a general synonym for Yoruba in Benin and in the Brazilian and Jamaican diasporas 26. That is why Bahian Candomblé calls its liturgical Yoruba Nagô: the Brazilian term preserves the Gbe-speakers' name for the people, not the people's name for themselves.

One divergent gloss should be noted. One reference glosses Ànàgó as Yoruba from Abeokuta Province in Nigeria, which is narrower than and in tension with the coastal-Benin derivation 23. The Beninois Yoruba reference treats Anago simply as a dialect of the Kétu and Shabe regions straddling the border and offers no etymology at all 13.

The Ifè of Togo

The Ifè, also called Ana, Atakpame or Baate, are described in the ethnographic literature as the most western of the Yoruba subgroups, and trace their origin to Ilé-Ifẹ̀ 27. Their population is around 452,000 in total, about 240,000 in Togo and 111,130 in Benin as of 2013 27.

In Togo they occupy the Plateaux Region, particularly around Atakpamé, in the Gnagna and Djama quarters, along a strip between Glei and Sokode westward to the Togo-Benin border, with communities at Atakpamé, Elavagnon, Kamina and Datcha; in Benin they hold the Savalou commune in Collines Department 27. Their language, Ede Ife, has over four hundred thousand speakers and three tone levels, with many speakers bilingual in Ewe or Standard Yoruba, and is sustained by Radio FM Ore Ọ̀fẹ́ on 102.1 MHz in Benin 27. They are predominantly Christian with minority Yoruba religion and Islam 27.

Current national situation

Numbers. The Yoruba of Benin numbered 829,509, or 12.30 percent of the population, at the 2002 census 28, with a 2013 figure also cited at over ten percent 29. They are concentrated in the Ouémé, Plateau and Collines departments with smaller numbers in Borgou and Donga 13. The dialect clusters in Benin are Ohori (Holli), Isha or Ica, Kura, Shabe or Cabe, and Ife or Ana, alongside Anago 13.

Language status, precisely. French is the sole official language of Benin. Yoruba is one of Benin's national languages, a status Benin has granted to some fifty indigenous languages 30. A national conference in February 1990 selected Fon, Yoruba, Baatonum, Dendi, Aja and Ditammari for use in formal education and adult literacy, but implementation has been limited and the six are still not truly national in practice 30.

This distinction is routinely lost in Nigerian press coverage, which reports that Yoruba is an official language of Benin. It is not. Say national language, and note that the designation has had limited effect.

Politics. There is documented contemporary concern about cultural and political marginalisation, including statements from traditional leadership that Yoruba people in Benin Republic face political persecution 13. Cross-border political entanglement is real and recent: Yoruba kings in Benin Republic met in 2021 over the Sunday Ìgbóhò affair, when a Nigerian Yoruba-nationalist figure was detained in Cotonou 31.