The Physical Form of a Yoruba Town
What a Yoruba town is made of, the palace at the centre, the market before it, the wards and compounds around it, and the wall and ditch that closed it in.
intermediatemedium·
Loading…
What a Yoruba town is made of, the palace at the centre, the market before it, the wards and compounds around it, and the wall and ditch that closed it in.
The Yorùbá wey dem quote, the proverbs, oríkì, ẹsẹ Ifá, word list headwords, Odù names and citations dey exactly as the corpus record dem, for every language.
Yoruba town get standard form, and once person understand am, person fit understand any of dem. For the centre na the palace dey. Immediately for front of the palace na the market. Roads dey commot from the palace go outside like spokes of wheel, and the wards of the town arrange along dem. Each ward na set of compounds, each compound na group of buildings around courtyard behind single gate. Ditch and raised ground surround everything, and beyond that place na the farmland of the descent groups, and beyond that one na the forest belt wey shrines dey inside.
That form don dey ground long before the nineteenth century and e produce one of the most urbanised societies for pre-colonial Africa. For the nineteenth century, six Yoruba cities pass forty thousand people wey dey live there, another six get between ten and twenty thousand, five get between five and ten thousand, and five more get between one and five thousand . The six wey big pass na Ìbàdàn, Ìlọrin, Ìwó, Abẹ́òkúta, Òṣogbo and Èdè .
The ààfin no be ordinary house. Na walled quarter, big complex of buildings, courtyards, public rooms, shrines and private apartments, wey dey house the ruler wives, workers, eunuchs, messengers, priests, clients and slaves . Na at the same time residence, court, shrine, treasury and administrative office.
The size fit big well well. Dem fence the Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé palace inside perimeter wall of about 7.5 kilometres, and the estimate of how e spread reach about one square mile; the New Ọ̀yọ́ palace as dem record am for the 1930s get thirty courtyards over seventeen acres . The palace for Ọ̀wọ̀, Aghọfẹn, dem describe am say e get up to one hundred courtyards, each one with function and dedicated to deity, and about one thousand rooms over one hundred and eighty acres .
The unit wey dey inside na the courtyard, ugha as dem dey use am for Ọ̀wọ̀, and as e dey multiply na so the palace dey grow. Each courtyard get function and many times dedication, wey mean say the palace also be map of the town ritual obligations.
Dem build with solid earth, straight-line shape, with rooms in parallel lines around courtyards . These structures no leave many things standing, but the melted mud remain as low banks wey preserve the ground plans, and na why person fit still read the ruined palace for Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé through archaeological survey . Dem pave palace floors and courtyards: with potsherds wey dem set on edge for the Ifẹ̀ tradition, with quartz pebbles or broken pottery for Ọ̀wọ̀ . Dem carve verandah pillars, for Ọ̀wọ̀ with the king mounted on horse or with his senior wife , and the combination of carved post, door and lintel na the standard Yoruba palace art form, wey Olówè of Ìsẹ̀'s work for the Ògògà of Ìkẹ́rẹ́ be the best-known example.
The ọjà ọba, wey be the king market, dey directly for front of the palace, and this position no be by mistake. To put the market for palace gate place trade under the eye of the ruler and the ruler under the eye of the market, and e make the two central institutions of the town dey side-by-side physically.
Yoruba markets dey follow cycle instead of everyday, conventionally every four or five days according to the Yoruba week, with the periodic market wey dey attract people from wide area and smaller daily market wey dey operate alongside am. Na women dey organise and secure the market through the Ìyálóde and the trade-head system, na why the Ìyálóde be real office with real authority and no be just courtesy title, and na why the Abẹ́òkúta and Lagos market women organisations fit carry out serious political action for the twentieth century.
For Ondó the connection clear well well inside the institution itself: the Lóbùn, wey be the female king, dey in charge of the community market and na priestess of Ajé, the deity of wealth, and dem translate lóbùn as owner of the market .
The town divide into wards under title-holders, and the word dey different by region: adúgbò for Ọ̀yọ́ and Ifẹ̀, ìtun for Ìjẹ̀bú, ìdìmí for Ondó . Dem divide wards into compounds, and compounds into separate houses .
The compound, agbo ilé, na the basic residential and social unit: cluster of buildings behind single gated entrance around large courtyard . E dey house patrilineage, their wives and dependants, and e dey function as body wey dey hold property, organise labour and resolve dispute. The primary social address of Yoruba person na the compound, no be the town.
True regional difference dey on how compounds sit together. For the northern cities compounds share perimeter walls, so that the buildings join continuously; for the southern cities, with Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde as typical example, houses follow more regular grid patterns with separated alleyways . Dr Irving, wey write about Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde between 1854 and 1855, record neat well-built houses and clear open spaces with regular alleys, along with walls wey high pass other places and get buttress for outside, and two-storey square vermilion-coloured tower, thatched and loopholed for musketry .
The house form na the impluvial courtyard house, with rooms wey open inward onto open court wey dey catch rain into sunken basin. Na the standard Yoruba domestic form and e dey documented archaeologically for Ifẹ̀ inside open impluvial-courtyard compounds with stone and potsherd mosaic areas and semi-circular cutaway sections for earthen altars .
The palace na the focal point wey roads dey commot from go outside like the spokes of wheel, dey continue through the town gates and become routes to the frontiers of the kingdom . Wards cluster along those roads, and the farms wey belong to descent groups extend beyond the wards .
Ilésà na clean example: the classical layout with the palace for the centre, roads wey dey spread go outside, wards clustered along the main roads and descent-group farms beyond, inside mud-built walls and ditch wey reach three kilometres across .
Ìbàdàn na di exception and e dey prove di rule. Ìbàdàn grow as clusters of compounds wey followers and clients of individual war chiefs settle, with districts wey dem name after di chiefs or early residents wey start dem, and e no get any systematic administrative quarter structure like wetin Ifẹ̀, Ọ̀yọ́ or Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde get . Town wey coalition of warlords found instead of dynasty dey produce map of patronage instead of map of office, and na Ìbàdàn be di only major Yoruba town wey im plan record dat kind thing.
Di special Ifẹ̀ urban feature na di potsherd pavement: floor and street wey dem arrange with broken pottery wey stand on edge, many times for herringbone pattern, sometimes with stone. E dey date di built city to roughly di twelfth to fourteenth centuries and dem dey find pavement fragments within six-kilometre radius from di town centre .
Dem estimate Ifẹ̀ for im fourteenth or fifteenth-century peak to seventy thousand reach one hundred and five thousand people, wey mean say e be medieval city wey big reach nineteenth-century walled town .
Di figures wey dey ground na estimates and na so dem suppose report dem. Di ones wey dem document include Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé at sixty thousand reach one hundred and forty thousand for im eighteenth-century peak over more than five thousand hectares ; Ìbàdàn wey reach one hundred thousand for di nineteenth century and later pass two hundred thousand ; Abẹ́òkúta at about sixty thousand by di 1850s ; Ilésà at thirty to forty thousand for im height with territory wey extend twenty to thirty kilometres and more than one hundred and sixty subordinate settlements ; and Ifẹ̀ at seventy to one hundred and five thousand for di classical period .
Wetin dose numbers dey support na di general point: say dis one na urban society, with big proportion of di population wey dey live for towns and dey go farm from there, wey be di opposite of di pattern wey people usually assume for pre-colonial West Africa.
Past di wards na di farms of di descent groups dey , and past di farms na di forest belt. Di forest belt hold di groves, and di groves hold di shrines.
Dat outer ring almost don disappear finish, as dem clear am for farming and settlement over di last century, and di way e disappear na di single biggest change to di Yoruba town form for modern period. Dem describe di Ọ̀ṣun grove for Òṣogbo, wey be seventy-five hectares with forty-seven-hectare buffer, as one of di last remnants of di primary high forest wey once surround every Yoruba city . Di grove dey on top World Heritage List; di form wey e represent don almost extinct otherwise.
Guide to the gazetteer, what each file covers, the argument that runs through the section, and how to read it in order or by interest.
Sungbo's Eredo, the Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé circuits, the Ifẹ̀ ditches and the Ìbàdàn wall, what they were for and what they prove about the labour a Yoruba polity could command.
The imperial capital in both its forms, the archaeology of the ruined city at Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé, the palace and wall systems, the Aláàfin institution and the constitutional check the Ọ̀yọ́ Mèsì exercised over it.
The city the Yoruba world treats as its origin point, its Ọ̀ọ̀ni institution and ruling houses, its quarters, its groves and sacred sites, the Ọ̀rànmíyàn staff, and the Modáké̩ké̩ question.
How a nineteenth-century military camp grew into the largest indigenous city in tropical Africa, and how the Olúbàdàn rotational ladder works, which is the most unusual succession system in Yorubaland.
The courtyard compound and its rain-catching impluvium, the palace as the same building at maximum scale, the town laid out around palace and market, the Afro-Brazilian houses of Lagos, and how little of it is still standing.