OONI OF ILE IFE
Ile-Ife, also called Ife, or Ife-Lodun, town, Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. The town lies at the intersection of roads from Ibadan (40 miles [64 km] west), Ilesha, and Ondo. It is one of the larger centres and probably the oldest town of the Yoruba people. Considered by the Yoruba to be a holy city
and the legendary birthplace of mankind, it was held to have been
founded by a son of the deity Oduduwa and was certainly the capital of a
well-established kingdom (probably named for Ifa, the god of
divination) by the early 11th century. By the late 12th or early 13th
century, its artisans were producing the naturalistic terra-cotta heads
and bronze pieces made by the cire perdue (“lost-wax”) process for which the Ife kingdom is now well known. Ife had great political and cultural influence over the Edo kingdom of Benin to the southeast.A
Although Benin and Old Oyo
(Katunga) became the seats of more important political kingdoms than
Ife, the town remained the chief religious centre for the Yoruba. In
return for the ida oranyan (“sword of state,” symbolizing spiritual
authority) given to an alafin (“king”) of Oyo upon his coronation, the
alafin had to promise not to attack Ife. When Alafin Awole
tried to raid Ife territory for slaves in 1793, it brought severe
internal resistance and the series of wars that destroyed the Oyo empire.
Although Ife managed to avoid the attacks by the Muslim Fulani that
struck other parts of Yorubaland, it was weakened in the 1820s through
struggles for control of the internal slave trade
with Owu, to the southwest. After an oni (“king”) of Ife allowed
Yoruban Oyo refugees from the Ilorin Fulani conquest to build the walled
town of Modakeke
just outside Ife, he was poisoned. After Ife declared war (1882)
against Ibadan, its forces were repulsed when they attacked Modakeke.
Shortly afterward, a combined army from Ibadan and Modakeke nearly
destroyed Ife.
In the centre of modern Ile-Ife is the Afin
(“palace”) of the present oni, the spiritual head of the Yoruba people,
who has custody of the sacred staff of Oranmiyan (a king of Benin), an
18-foot (5.5-metre) granite monolith in the shape of an elephant’s tusk.
The palace compound is also the site of the Ife Museum (1954), which
contains a collection of cire perdue bronze castings and terra-cotta
sculptures that was partly acquired by the German archaeologist Leo Frobenius in 1910 and subsequently expanded through excavations at the Wunmonije compound (1938–39) and at nearby Ita Yemoo (1957).
Obafemi
Awolowo University (formerly the University of Ife) was founded in
1961. One of Nigeria’s major universities, it is located north of the
town; it operates a teaching hospital and has a major library. The
affiliated Institute of Agricultural Research and Training operates the
Moor Plantation for agricultural research and has the country’s largest
specialized agricultural library. Institutes of education (operating a
mobile library service) and physical education
are also centred in the town and affiliated with the university.
Ile-Ife is the seat of the Historical Society of Nigeria (1955) and has
several teacher-training colleges. In 1948 Ife was the site of the
inaugural Conference of the Society of the Descendants of Oduduwa, a
group of Yoruba na major collecting point for cocoa and cotton grown in the surrounding area. Palm oil and kernels, yams, cassava (manioc), corn (maize), pumpkins, and kola nuts
are cultivated for local markets. Ile-Ife’s inhabitants are primarily
town-dwelling farmers. Pop. (2006) local government area, 644,373.
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| THE PALACE FRONT GARDEN |
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| OONI OF IFE |
