Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́ and the Òkè Ògùn Towns

The towns in this file occupy the old Ọ̀yọ́ heartland and its northwestern frontier, the country the empire actually governed rather than the country it exacted tribute from. Their institutions are Ọ̀yọ́ institutions, their traditions run to Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé rather than to Ilé-Ifẹ̀ in most cases, and two of them, Ìgbòho and Kíṣí, sheltered the dynasty when the capital fell.

Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́

Ruler. The Sòun of Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́.

Founding. Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́ was founded in the mid-seventeenth century by Ògúnlọlá, a hunter of Ìbàrìbà descent, who migrated to the site around 1650 in pursuit of his hunting 1. He arrived with his wife Esuu, camped beneath an Àjàgbọn tree, then built a hut near it and settled permanently. Discovering other hunters in the area, he took the initiative to bring them into the Àlóńgo society, whose stated purposes were defence against slave raiders, group hunting and mutual assistance 1.

The Àlóńgo is the interesting institution here. A mutual-defence and hunting association assembled from unrelated hunters, converted into the town's founding body, is a structure closer to Ìbàdàn's later war-camp origin than to a dynastic foundation, and it is the reason Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́'s tradition emphasises capability rather than descent.

The name and the title. As Ògúnlọlá's authority grew he was made head of the settlement under the title Sòun, from his request to the Aláàfin, ṣe òhún, let me stay yonder 1. The settlement was called èyí tí ó gbórí Elémọ̀ṣọ́, the place of he who carried Elemoso's head, which softened over time to Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́ 1. Elémọ̀ṣọ́ was an Ọ̀yọ́ war leader or an emissary of the Aláàfin, depending on the version, and the founding act attributed to Ògúnlọlá is his killing.

The founding origin has itself been reexamined in the scholarly literature, and the account above should be read as the received tradition rather than a settled finding 2.

Historical role. Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́ was one of the towns at which Ìlọrin's southward expansion was checked in the 1830s, with defeats at Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́ and Òṣogbo ending the emirate's advance by 1838 3. It absorbed a large refugee population from the collapse of Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé and grew into one of the larger towns of the region.

The Baptist mission established itself at Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́ in the mid-nineteenth century, and the town became the principal Baptist centre in Nigeria, with the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary and the Baptist Medical Centre there. Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́'s religious profile is accordingly distinct from the Ọ̀yọ́ towns around it, and the American Baptist connection produced an unusually early and unusually deep educational infrastructure.

It is now a large city in Ọ̀yọ́ State spanning Ogbomoso North and Ogbomoso South local government areas, and hosts the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology.

Òǹkò and Òkè Ògùn

The northwestern towns of Ọ̀yọ́ State form a recognised group with its own name and identity.

The Òǹkò, also written Òkè Ògùn, are a Yoruba people inhabiting the areas drained by the upper Ògùn river in northwestern Ọ̀yọ́ State, historically part of the Ọ̀yọ́ empire while maintaining a distinct identity 4. They number around 1.6 million across ten local government areas, in tropical savanna between three hundred and four hundred metres elevation 4. They trace their ancestry to Odùduwà, maintain distinct cultural practices including specialised textile weaving, and speak a Northwestern Yoruba dialect with pronunciation patterns and phonetic elements absent from Standard Yoruba 4.

That last point is worth flagging. Northwestern Yoruba is one of the three principal dialect areas and the Òǹkò varieties are among its more distinctive, so a reader who assumes that Ọ̀yọ́ State speaks Standard Yoruba because Standard Yoruba is built on Ọ̀yọ́ has the relationship backwards for this area.

The Òǹkò towns and their ruler titles include Ìsẹ́yìn under the Aṣẹ́yìn, Ṣakí under the Òkèrè, Kíṣí under the Ìbà, Òkèhò under the Ọnjọ̀, and Ìgbòho under the Alẹ́pàtà and the Ọ̀nà Oníbodè, together with Ado Awaye, Iganna, Sepeteri and Ìgbẹ̀tì, each with its own ọba title 4.

Note that Ìgbòho has two senior titles, the Alẹ́pàtà and the Ọ̀nà Oníbodè, and the relationship between them has been a matter of dispute; the Alẹ́pàtà is described as the paramount ruler 5.

Ìsẹ́yìn

Ruler. The Aṣẹ́yìn of Ìsẹ́yìn.

Ìsẹ́yìn is the principal centre of aṣọ òkè weaving in Yorubaland, and the craft is practised there on a scale found nowhere else 6. The claim that it has been woven there since the twelfth century circulates widely and should be handled as tradition rather than as an established date; what is documented is a long-established and continuous industry that supplies the Yoruba ceremonial cloth market across Nigeria and its diaspora.

Aṣọ òkè is treated properly in the textiles section. What belongs here is that Ìsẹ́yìn's identity is a craft identity: the town is known for what its looms produce rather than for a dynastic claim, which is unusual among Yoruba towns of its size.

Ìsẹ́yìn is also the site of the 1916 rising against colonial taxation and the imposition of native courts, one of the early armed resistances to British administration in the Western Provinces, suppressed with executions.

Ìgbòho

Ìgbòho was the capital of the Ọ̀yọ́ empire in the sixteenth century, established as such by Aláàfin Ẹgúgúọjọ after the Ọ̀yọ́ had been driven from Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé by the Nupe 5. The site offered strong natural defences and was surrounded by triple walls, which allowed the Ọ̀yọ́ to resist the Nupe 5. It remained the capital through Ẹgúgúọjọ's successors until Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé was reoccupied by Aláàfin Àbìpa 5.

That interregnum is the interval usually given as about eighty years, during which the dynasty ruled in exile from Ìgbòho and Kíṣí before returning. It is the one documented occasion on which the Ọ̀yọ́ state lost its capital and recovered it, and it is why Àbìpa carries the epithet of the ọba who returned.

Four Aláàfin ruled from Ìgbòho and are buried there, in Igbo Ọba beside the First Baptist Church at Obaago, and the graves are monitored and supervised by the Aàrẹ of Ìgbòho 5. This makes Ìgbòho the only site outside Ọ̀yọ́ itself holding Aláàfin burials, and the royal tombs there are a heritage site of the first importance that receives very little attention.

Ìgbòho is now the headquarters of Orelope local government area in Ọ̀yọ́ State, with the Alẹ́pàtà as paramount ruler 5.

Ṣakí

Ruler. The Òkèrè of Ṣakí 4.

Ṣakí is the largest town in the Òkè Ògùn area and one of the northernmost significant Yoruba towns, sitting close to the Benin Republic border in savanna country. Its position made it a frontier post of the empire and a station on the routes north, and it retains an agricultural and livestock economy tied to that geography. It hosts a campus of the Ọ̀yọ́ State College of Agriculture.

Kíṣí

Ruler. The Ìbà of Kíṣí 4.

Kíṣí was one of the destinations of the dispersal when Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé was finally abandoned in the 1830s, alongside Ìgbòho and Ìlọrin 7, and it had earlier been part of the interregnum refuge. It sits at the far northwestern edge of Yoruba settlement against the Borgu country.

Òkèhò

Ruler. The Ọnjọ̀ of Òkèhò 4. Òkèhò is a federation town, formed from a group of settlements that came together for defence during the nineteenth-century disturbances, and it retains the quarter structure that records the constituent communities.

Ìgbẹ̀tì and the others

Ìgbẹ̀tì, Ado Awaye, Iganna and Sepeteri complete the principal Òǹkò towns 4. Ado Awaye holds Ìyáké lake, one of a very small number of suspended or hanging lakes documented anywhere, sitting on the plateau above the town, and the Ado Awaye hills with their rock formations are the area's best-known natural site 4. Ìgbẹ̀tì has the Agbele rock and the Ìwo Ẹlẹ́rú-adjacent cave systems, and the Ọ̀yọ́ dynasty's tradition places one of its interregnum stopping points there.