1. For investigations of the dialectic of “the past in the present” in Yorùbà culture see LaPin, D.A., “Story, Medium and Masque: The Idea and Art of Yoruba Storytelling,” (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1977)Google Scholar, passim; Peel, J.D.Y., “Making History: The Past in the Ijesha Present,” Man n.s. 19 (1984): 111–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Law, R.C.C., “How Many Times Can History Repeat Itself? Some Problems in the Traditional History of Oyo,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 18 (1985): 33–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barber, K., I Could Speak Until Tomorrow. Oríkí, Women, and the Past in a Yoruba town (Edinburgh, 1991), 14-16, 25–34.Google Scholar

2. Rosaldo, R.I., “Grief and a Headhunter's Rage: on the Cultural Force of Emotions” in Bruner, E.M., ed., Text, Play, and Story: The Construction and Reconstruction of Self and Society (Washington, 1984), 178–95.Google Scholar

3. See Law, R.C.C., The Ọyọ Empire, c. 1600–c. 1836 (Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar; Smith, A., “A Little New Light on the Collapse of the Alafinate of Yoruba,” in Olúsànyà, G.O., ed., Studies in Yoruba History and Culture (Ibadan, 1983), 42–71Google Scholar; Babàyẹmí, S.O., “Oyo Ruins,” African Notes, 10/1 (1968): 8–11Google Scholar; Agbàjé-Williams, B., “New Dates from Old Oyo, a Report,” African Notes 10/1 (1986): 1–3.Google Scholar

4. The Arókin have no monopoly on music or historical information at the Òyó court. There are other professional court-musician groups, including the female Akùnyùngbà; see Agírí, B.A., “Early Oyo History Reconsidered,” HA 2 (1975):3.Google Scholar Historical traditions may be also gathered from non-musicians such as certain knowledgeable officeholders: see Smith, R., “The Alafin in Exile: A Study of the Igboho Period in Oyo History,” JAH 6/1 (1965), 57–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar: esp. 60n10. But, as will be seen in the present paper, the Arókin deploy historical information in a mode which is specific to them.

5. Johnson, Samuel, The History of the Yorubas (Lagos, 1921).Google Scholar On the persistence of Johnson's influence see Law, R.C.C., “How Truly Traditional is Our Traditional History? The Case of Samuel Johnson and the Recording of Yoruba Oral Tradition,” HA 11 (1984):esp. 195, 197Google Scholar; Peel, J.D.Y., “The Cultural Work of Yoruba Ethnogenesis” in Tonkin, E.et al., eds., History and Ethnicity (London, 1989), 198.Google Scholar

6. No early writer except Johnson explicitly refers to the Arókin as a source. However, it is conceivable that A. L. Hethersett (d. 1896) also gathered information from them; see Law, “How Truly Traditional,” 209-10. Òyó royal traditions collected by Hethersett were included in the Ìwé Kíkà Èkẹrin lí Èdè Yorùbà (Fourth Reading Book in the Yorùbà Language). As an early-published school reader, this book probably was a greater source of feedback into tradition than Johnson's History. There is uncertainty about when the Ìwé Kíkà Èkerin was first printed. Its earliest traceable edition was in 1911; see Law, , “Early Yoruba Historiography,” HA 3 (1976): 73, 88.Google Scholar But the Ìwé Kíkà Èkerin was referred to by Nina Rodrigues, an author who died in 1906, and who saw it in Bahia, possibly at the turn of the century. It was probably brought to Bahia by one of the Black Brazilians who studied and traded in Lagos in the late nineteenth century; see Rodrigues, R. Nina, Os Africanos no Brasil, (2nd ed.: São Paulo, 1935), 203, 333Google Scholar; Oliveira, W. Freitas and Lima, V. da Costa, Cartas de Édison Carneiro a Artur Ramos (São Paulo, 1987), 52Google Scholar; Verger, P., Notes sur le culte des Oriṣa et Vodun (Dakar, 1957), 314, 333.Google Scholar

M. C. Adéyemí—a member of Òyó's royalty—may also have included Arókin materials in his Ìwé Ìtàn Òyó Ilé àti Òyó Ìsisìyí àbí Àgó d'Òyó (Book on the History of Old Òyó and Present Òyó or gó d'Òyó), completed in 1914—see Fàlọlà, T. and Doortmont, M.R., “Iwe Itan Òyó: A Traditional Yoruba History and Its Author,” JAH 30 (1989): 301–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. R. Smith, “The Alafin in Exile”; and idem., “List of the Alafin of Oyo,” African Historian 1/3 (1965): 52-55; Law, “How Truly Traditional,” 219n81; and idem., “How Many Times,” 44, 50-51; Babàyẹmí, “The Fall and Rise of Ọyọ c. 1760-1905” (Ph.D., University of Birmingham, 1980), 78n4, 179n3; and idem., “Upper Ogun: An Historical Sketch,” African Notes 6/2 (1971):77n35; Agiri, “Early Oyo History.,” 11n7, 12n26; Àjàyí, J.F.A., “The Aftermath of the Fall of Old Ọyọ,” in Àjàyí, J.F.A. and Crowder, M., eds., History of West Africa, 2, (2d ed.: London, 1987), 191n48.Google Scholar

8. On the Arókin as an institution and their relationship with other court institutions, the only published information that advances beyond Samuel Johnson's is to be found in a short passage in Agírí, “Early Oyo History,” 3.

9. See Law, , “How Truly Traditional,” 221n117.Google Scholar There is evidence of oríkí of òriṣà having survived better than the ìtàn about òrìṣà elsewhere in Yorùbàland; see Barber, , “Oríkí, Women and the Proliferation and Merging of Òriṣà,” Africa 60 (1990): 314–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the complex relationship between history and oríkí, and between oríkí and the ìtàn explaining them, see Barber, , I Could Speak, 25–34.Google Scholar

10. Johnson, , History, 4, 7.Google Scholar

11. See Farias, P.F. de Moraes, “‘Yoruba Origins’ Revisited by Muslims: An Interview with the Arókin of Òyó and a Reading of the Aṣl Qabā'il Yūrubā of Al-Ḥājj Ādam al-Ilūrī” in Farias, P.F. de Moraes and Barber, K., eds., Self-Assertion and Brokerage: Early Cultural Nationalism in West Africa (Birmingham, 1990), 109–47.Google Scholar

12. See Agírí, , “Early Oyo History,” 1–2, 4Google Scholar, who extends his methodological skepticism to kinglists compiled from oríkí chanted by the contemporary Arókin; cf. Law, , “The Heritage of Oduduwa: Traditional History and Political Propaganda among the Yoruba,” JAH 14 (1973): 208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On feedback from literacy see Henige, D., The Chronology of Oral Tradition: Quest for a Chimera (Oxford, 1974), 97-103, 118–20.Google Scholar

13. The evidence was independently recorded on three sets of tapes by (a) Dr. S.O. Babâyẹmí (now Alàyélúwà Ọba Akínrìnólà I, the Olúfi of Gbòngàn) and Dr. Ọ. Làyíwọlà, for the Institute of African Studies, University of Ìbàdàn; (b) M.R. Doortmont, then of Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam; and (c) **K. Barber and myself (Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham). In the present paper, I am using the transcription and translation of the Barber/Moraes Farias tapes prepared by A. Ògúndíjọ of Obàfémi Awólówò University, Ilé Ifè. I wish to thank the present Alààfin, His Royal Highness Ọba Àlàájì Lamidi Ọlàyíwọlà Adéyẹmí III, the Arôkin, and all the above-mentioned university colleagues for their help. My greatest debt is to Karin Barber for her most valuable comments during the preparation of this paper. For other details of the interview with the Arókin, see Moraes Farias, “‘Yoruba Origins,’” 116-17, 145n1.

14. Ibid., 117, 122, 125; cf. Hethersett, , “Ìtàn Ọba Ṣàhngó” in Ìwé Kíkà Èkerin, 50–53.Google Scholar I thank my friend Robin Law for access to his copy of Hethersett's published texts.

15. Johnson, , History, 164, 168.Google Scholar

16. The aro is not really “cymbals,” but a pair of large, approximately C-shaped iron rings which are struck together. Welded to the middle part of their curve there is a hollow chamber, slit open on the external side. There are two smaller, similarly slit chambers closer to the extremities. The distance between the ends of the curve varies, but usually they nearly touch or slightly overlap. Theṣèkèrè falls under the ilù (usually translated as “drum”) category of musical instruments. See Euba, A., “The Interrelationship of Music and Poetry in Yoruba Tradition,” in Abímbólólà, W., ed., Yoruba Oral Tradition: Poetry in Music, Dance, and Drama (Ilé Ifè, 1975), 473.Google Scholar But the ṣèkèrè is not really a drum in the English sense of the word. Rather, it is a rattle consisting of a large empty bottle-gourd covered by a net strung with cowries. Contrary to what Johnson appears to suggest the cowries are not simply ornaments, but are what produces the instrument's characteristic sound as it is shaken. The open “neck” of the bottle-gourd may be covered by the musician's hand in order to vary resonance. The ṣèkèrè is also known as ajé. See Euba, , Yoruba Drumming: The Dùndún Tradition (Bayreuth, 1990), 163.Google Scholar The name “ṣèkèrè” is perhaps onomatopoeic, and is homologous to the name of the sεkεlε of the (Mande) Kpelle of Liberia: see Hause, Helen, “Terms for Musical Instruments in the Sudanic Languages: A Lexicographical Inquiry,” Supplement 7, Journal of the American Oriental Society 68: (1948), 21.Google Scholar

17. Johnson, , History, vii, 3, 58, 121, 126, 165-66, 176, 214, 281.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., 125.

19. See Fàlọlà, /Doortmont, , “Iwe Itan Ọyọ,” 323–24.Google Scholar

20. Agírí, , “Early Oyo History,” 3.Google Scholar

21. See Euba, , Yoruba Drumming, 105–06.Google Scholar

22. See Smith, , “Alafin in Exile,” 60n10Google Scholar; Agírí, , “Early Oyo History,” 3.Google Scholar

23. See Dennett, R.E., Nigerian Studies or The Religious and Political System of the Yoruba (London, 1910), 226Google Scholar; Fâlọlâ, /Doortmont, , “Iwe Itan Ọyọ,” 325.Google Scholar

24. The Alafinate's difficulties in mobilizing sufficient resources for the maintenance of the palace and its administration, and for ensuring the continuation of rituals that the community is no longer able to fund, began in the first half of the 1940s. See Babàyẹmí Akìnrinólà, I, Topics on Oyo History (Lagos, 1991), 120, 123–24.Google Scholar

25. The Christian roots of the concept of òlàjú have been examined by Peel, J.D.Y., “Ọlaju: A Yoruba Concept of Development,” Journal of Development Studies 14 (1978), 135–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Here we see this concept well established in the usage of Muslims. The Arókin referred elsewhere to the same concept using the expressions nígbà tí ojú ti là (“when our eyes have opened,” i.e., “in these enlightened times”), and òmójúà.

26. Abraham, R.C., Dictionary of Modern Yoruba (London, 1958), 705.Google Scholar

27. Ibid., 327, 573, 662.

28. See the discussions about the informant Mushona in Turner, V., The Forest of Symboh (Ithaca, 1967), 138Google Scholar, and Sperber, D., Rethinking Symbolism (Cambridge, 1979), 18–20Google Scholar; about Tayiru Banbera in Conrad, D.C., ed., A State of Intrigue: The Epic of Bamana Segu (Oxford, 1990), 10, 20Google Scholar; and about Kamisòkò, Waa in Farias, Moraes, “The Oral Traditionist as Critic and Intellectual Producer: An Example from Contemporary Mali” in Fàlọlà, T., ed., African Historiography: Essays in Honour of Jacob Adé Àjàyí (London, forthcoming), 20–44.Google Scholar

29. Béélò was quite different from our other interviewees, and appeared to be somewhat younger than the other Arókin who took the floor on that occasion. He had a flamboyant but engaging personality, and made a point of arriving slightly late to hear the speech made by the Alààfin before the interview, and of then saluting the ruler with a Kààbíyèsí! louder than all others. He distributed visiting cards of a kind—typed strips of paper with his name, profession, and al-ḥĀjj title, plus telephone number, home address in the Arà Òyó quarter, and post box. He died in a road accident while traveling to Lagos in the Alààfin's entourage. The epitaph on his tombstone is worth quoting for its reference to Ìkòyí origins, and for its combination of Muslim and traditional references in a quasi-Christian format: “In memory of our lovely father Alhaji Abdu Azeez Akanoo Beelo Lafiaji / alias Ayo n kolo, Aluṣẹkẹrẹ Alaafin Ọyọ, died 17th Dec. 1988, buried 20th Dec. 1988, (followed by oríkí): Ọmọ Alàjé Ọba, ọmọ Èṣó, ọmọ arówórà, aróòkòko, ọmọ ajèrè ṣèkèrè bi ẹni ń yọ ôwú tà, Àkànóò baba onínúre (Child of riches of the Ọba, child of the war captains [of Ìkòyí], child of one who has money to buy [things], purest indigo, child of one who makes profit out of the ṣèkèrè like someone spinning cotton and selling it, Àkànóò [his “oríkì name”], father with the good disposition), followed by: sùn un re o (sleep well!).”

30. Cf. Bàdà, Rev. S.O., History of Saki (Ṣakí, 1977), 7.Google Scholar

31. See Abímbólà, W., Ifà: An Exposition of Ifà Literary Corpus (Ìbàdàn, 1976), 110–11Google Scholar; Abraham, , Dictionary, 573–74.Google Scholar

32. See Barber, , I Could Speak, 44.Google Scholar

33. By contrast, in Yorùbâ metaphor, an Ifâ priest can be said to “reforge” the words in the mouth of his apprentices bí agogo (like bells). K. Barber, personal communication.

34. See LaPin, , “Story, Medium and Masque,” 1:136–41Google Scholar; Barber, , “Discursive Strategies in the Texts of Ifà and in the ‘Holy Book of Odù’ of the African Church of Òrúnmìlà,” in Farias, Moraes/Barber, , Self-Assertion, 216–17Google Scholar; Peel, , “The Pastor and the Babalawo: The Interaction of Religions in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland,” Africa 60 (1990): 341, 358, 360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35. Abraham, , Dictionary, 574.Google Scholar

36. Peel, , “Making History,” 118, 122.Google Scholar

37. Bascom, W., Ifa Divination (Bloomington, 1969), 116.Google Scholar

38. Verger, P., “La société ẹgbé òrun des àbíkù, les enfants qui naissent pour mourir maintes fois,” BIFAN, 30B (1968), 1448–87Google Scholar; Ìdòwú, E.B., Olódùmarè (London, 1962), 123, 196.Google Scholar

39. See Morton-Williams, P., “Yoruba Responses to the Fear of Death,” Africa 30 (1960): 34–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. fig. 1; Abraham, , Dictionary, 7.Google Scholar

40. The Oníkòyí was the most senior among the Old Alafinate's provincial rulers, and his town—Old Ìkòyí—was the most senior town after the capital: see Law, , Ọyọ Empire, 44, 107–08.Google Scholar

41. We were told by other Òyó informants that the egbé is a magic charm enabling people to be instantly and invisibly lifted away from dangerous situations. See also Babàyẹmí, , Content Analysis of Oríkí Orílè ([Ìbàdàn], [1988]), 79–80Google Scholar; and Abraham, Dictionary, 148.

42. We were told that “Akúlúwé” is simply a nickname often given to slender girls.

43. In the song, the word ṣègèrè has high tone in the last ẹ because it is the subject of the verb ṣè. Otherwise, its tones are the same as in the word ṣèkèrè.

44. By definition the expressions translated as “dreadful bereavement” here, and as “shocking bereavement” in the next paragraph, refer to the death of people in their prime. The death of aged persons is not an occasion for mourning, but for joyful celebration of the defunct's achievements; see Morton-Williams, “Yoruba Responses,” 34.

45. Johnson, , History, 47.Google Scholar

46. See Babàyẹmi, , Content Analysis, 8, 16, 76-77, 217–62Google Scholar; Law, , Ọyọ Empire, 44, 191–92Google Scholar; Barber, , I Could Speak, 120, 173–74.Google Scholar

47. Events of this kind are described in the traditions of neighboring Borgu: the kings of Nikki are said to have demanded that gesers praisesingers be transferred to their court, from the court of the chief of Bwe (Bouay) (interview with the Baa Bwe, the Head of the local gesere, Bouay, Republic of Bénin, 15 January 1990).

48. These are rhymes in which the phonemic similarity calls attention to the contrast in meaning—see Ducrot, O. and Todorov, T., Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences du langage (Paris, 1972), 246, 328.Google Scholar

49. Bascom, , Ifa Divination, 130.Google Scholar

50. Sahlins, Compare M., Islands of History (London, 1987), 47.Google ScholarLaPin, , “Story, Medium and Masque,” 1:236Google Scholar; and Peel, , “Making History,” 113, 118.Google Scholar On positional succession see Vansina, J., Kingdoms of the Savanna (Madison, 1966), 27, 82.Google Scholar

51. For helpful textual analyses of such incorporations see Bulman, S., “The Buffalo-Woman Tale: Political Imperatives and Narrative Constraints in the Sunjata Epic,” in Barber, /Farias, Moraes, Discourse and Its Disguises (Birmingham, 1989), 171–88Google Scholar; and Barber, , “Discursive Strategies,” 214–16.Google Scholar

52. Closer to home, in Yorùbàland itself, trickster stories show Ìjàpà (tortoise) using song to intoxicate his victims while he steals their possessions: see Babalọlà, A., Àkójọpó Àló Ìjàpà, apà; kìíní (Ìbàdàn, 1973), 1–7.Google Scholar In another cultural context, a 1950 film by the French explorer Alain Gheerbrant displays images reminiscent of the Platonic myth. It shows Amazonian Native Americans listening in near ecstasy to recordings of Mozart's symphonies, played for them for the first time (stills from the film were published in UNESCO Courier, June 1973).

53. Euba, , “Interrelationship,” 481.Google Scholar

54. LaPin, , “Story, Medium and Masque,” 1:88.Google Scholar

55. Abraham, , Dictionary, 517, 655.Google Scholar

56. See Farias, Moraes, “‘Yoruba Origins’ Revisited,” 116–17.Google Scholar

57. See Bascom, , Ifa Divination, 115-16, 320–21.Google Scholar

58. Johnson, , History, 82, 84, 275, 278Google Scholar; Abraham, , Dictionary, 7, 312.Google Scholar

59. Johnson, , History, 168.Google Scholar In our 1988 interview the Arôkin referred to the Ìjèṣà Àràrà as the enemy against whom Timì “Ìlúsìnmí” (“The-town-serves-me”) was sent by Ṣàngó, and as aràrâ (dwarfs). In an aside, Babàyẹmi commented that the source of this pun is an oríkì of Ọwà Ajíbógun or Óbokún (the putative ancestor of the Ìjèṣà): Onídà aràrà (Owner of the short sword). In addition to this it is clear that some Òyó traditions strive to depict the “Ìjèṣà Àràrà as “barbarians,” whose very physique signaled otherness, “Ilúsìnmí” is one of the names given to Ilàrí (envoys or messengers of the Alààfin): see Johnson, , History, 61Google Scholar; Oroge, E.A., “The Institution of Slavery in Yorubaland with Particular Reference to the Nineteenth Century” (Ph.D., University of Birmingham, 1971), 64.Google Scholar

60. Johnson, , History, 164Google Scholar; cf. Law, , Oyo Empire, 75–76.Google Scholar

61. Gbàdàmósí, T.G.O., “The Imamate Question among Yoruba Muslims,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 6/2 (1972): 232Google Scholar, and idem., The Growth of Islam Among the Yoruba, 1841-1908 (London, 1978), 5; Ryan, P.J., Imale: Yoruba Participation in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), 106.Google Scholar Our 1988 informants associated the introduction of Islam with the royal names Sàndà Àjàgbó and Agbólúajé.

62. See Rosaldo, , “Grief,” 180–81.Google Scholar

63. Peel, , “Making History,” 113-14, 118Google Scholar; Law, , “How Many Times,” 41, 45–46.Google Scholar

64. I thank my medievalist friend Chris Wickham for drawing my attention to this, and for other help. In modern Shī^cī rauzeh (narrations) of the killing Imām Ḥusayn at Karbalā' (680 AD), the dead martyr falls from his horse but his body is held off the ground by the very arrows which killed him: see Thaiss, G., “Religious Symbolism and Social Change: The Drama of Husain” in Keddie, N.R., ed., Scholars, Saints, and Sufis: Muslim Religious Institutions in the Middle East Since 1500 (Berkeley, 1972), 356.Google Scholar

65. Johnson, , History, 162-63, 199, 349, 435.Google Scholar

66. Cf. Trompf, G.W., The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought. From Antiquity to the Reformation (Berkeley, 1979), 2-3, 67, 128, 137.Google Scholar

67. See Peel, , “Making History,” 113-14, 118, 122, 126.Google Scholar

68. Ibid., 124.

69. Cf. what happens as regards òrìṣà: the oríkì and itàn of each deity center names and properties on the single subject they celebrate and enhance. But each of these subjects, without being deprived of a cluster of names and properties of his/her own, may be annexed and subordinated to the glorification of another. Furthermore, oríkì encapsulating the powers and qualities of one òrìṣà subject may be transferred to another: see Barber, , “Oríkì, Women and the Proliferation,” 320, 331–33.Google Scholar In the case of the various Alâàfin a similar process seems to take place, ultimately centered on living Alâàfin.

70. Cf. Barber, , “Yoruba Oríkì and Deconstructive Criticism,” Research in African Literatures 15 (1984), 503, 513Google Scholar; and 7 Could Speak, 26, 75, 183-86, 192-93.

71. See Law, , “How Truly Traditional,” 207.Google Scholar

72. At the present stage of our research, it is not yet possible to gloss “the corpse of Bàríkí” and “Géèbó of Òyó.”

73. Johnson, , History, 163-64, 179-80, 669.Google Scholar

74. Barber, , I Could Speak, 74.Google Scholar

75. For one explanation of the ideological pertinence of the order of succession of Àjàkà, Ṣàngó, and Aganjú or Agọnjú as recorded by Johnson, see Farias, Moraes, “‘Yoruba Origins’,” 119–21Google Scholar with note 7, which also refer to Cuban and Brazilian traditions that present Ṣàngó, Dàda (Àjàkà), and Aganjú not as successive Alààfin, but as diverse manifestations of the same entity; cf. Barber, “Oríkì, Women and the Proliferation,” 322. In the case of Àjàkà, Ṣàngó, and Aganjú, “succession” and “variant manifestations” may well be alternative idioms for explaining the combination of opposite qualities perceived as essential to kingship.

76. See Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition as History (London, 1985), 23–24.Google Scholar

77. Compare the information on Agbólúajéin Johnson, History, 178-80, 669, with Hethersett, “Ọba Agbolú-ajé tabi Arôgangan” (“King Agbólúajé or Arógangan”), in Ìwé Kíkà Èkerin, 64-65, who recorded oríkì of that Alààfin but says he knew no ìtàn linked to his or any of six other royal names. For the difficulties in reconciling some of these names with the names and stories recorded by Johnson, see Law, “How Truly Traditional,” 210. In History of the Yorubas, Arôgangan is an alternative name for Alààfin Awólè, not Agbólúajé. In Adéyemi's kinglist, Arógangan is the críki name of an Alààfin called ÀỌyọàmú, whereas for Johnson Aṣàmú was not an Alààfin, but the Baṣòrun (“prime minister”) of Alààfin Awólè. See Fàlọlà/Doortmont, , “Iwe Itan Ọyọ” 315Google Scholar; Johnson, , History, 192, 669.Google Scholar

78. Barber, , I Could Speak, 28, 79.Google Scholar

79. Peel, , “Making History,” 113-14, 120–21.Google Scholar

80. Law, , “How Many Times,” 41, 45–46 (emphasis mine).Google Scholar

81. Law, , “The Heritage of Oduduwa,” 207, 221Google Scholar; see also Peel, , “Making History,” 112–13.Google Scholar