Faith without understanding – tolerance

titles - priests, deities, spirits, prophets and substance

Faith without understanding – the lesson
Having been born to a family that tolerated Islam only out of prudence, and now discovered how unreliable even Christian church priests can be, Arowona as a young boy was at a loss what to make of the very notion of God and worship. Quite early in life he started to distinguish between what people or institutions make of titles (like priests, deities, spirits, prophets) and the real substance supposed to be behind those titles. He became sharply aware of great differences between ideal roles and the practical implementation of those roles.

Upon asking many elderly Muslim adults including imams the meanings of specific Arabic words and names they used, he was given inconsistent explanations that varied widely not only between those supposed to know but even between the views expressed by the same individual imam at different moments. This convinced his young mind that much of the religious preaching among Muslims chanting words in Arabic was meaningless to those chanting them. Arowona realised that they had only crammed those Arabic chants by force, without understanding what they were chanting. This plus the intimidating use of flogging and force by akomonikewu (Muslim teachers) at Answarudeen school immediately ruled out Islam from any possibility of being accepted in whatever form by him as a young boy.

Arowona’s decisive rejection of Islam at such an early age before teenage, had little to do with any understanding of the thematic contents of Islamic teaching. However, the more he learned about Christian teaching, the more he preferred that to Islam. Later at middle age, when he read about Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism in some detail, it became obvious to him that many of the principles of Islam were adopted in imitation of Christian principles. He also found out that Christian principles were in turn modifications or generalisations of Hebrew or Judaic notions.

All three religions claim the God of the same Abraham, preach the life of Moses, claim Adam and Eve to be the first humans created in God’s six-day project of creating the universe. All three believe in the myth about Noah and his ark. All regard Jerusalem as a holy place.

In contrast to Islamic schools, at his Christian school – All Saints Primary school, Ojowo / Atikori, there was no arbitrary beating of pupils during religious teaching. On the other hand, it was a Christian priest who had been caught and publicly disgraced as a thief. The folly of this specific priest was clarified to him in lessons on the Catechism at Sunday school. With his class teacher Ogunnubi as god-father, and a friendly school mistress Adedeji as god-mother, Arowona was baptised a Christian in the big church of his school, soon followed by his confirmation service, all without his family in attendance.

Decades later, he discovered that his very own father, now Muslim for convenience in his trade, had been named Solomon as a Christian at birth, and had attended the same Christian school at the beginning of the 20th century. Arowona felt himself to be a Christian at heart. He attended Sunday school, read the English Bible which specifically was St James VI version, and prayed using Christian concepts. He rejected Islam but remained tolerant of Muslims as individuals. (See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)

Utmost disgrace – parade of Aladura church-priest as burglar

parade whips burglars stark naked, loss of respect, wearing thorn-bearing nettle leaves, imprisonment

Utmost disgrace -
Early in the afternoon, a teaming but orderly crowd emerged with an unforgetable parade up the main street of that Ijebu town, featuring the judicial council headed by chief Balogun himself in his official regalia surrounded by police security and a team of tough, muscular men with hide-skin whips in their hands. From every house, street and corner along the miles-long main street, children swarmed into the crowd joining in the shouted cry of ‘thief, thief, thief that you are ! ‘ directed at a gang of sweating, miserable, dark, muscular middle-age men in handcuffs.

They were the very three thieves who had burgled Omo Oba’s house; now they were in open exhibition right in the middle of the public procession. These three men at the real heart of the spectacular exhibition in the procession were all married men with wives and children. They were being matched by Kobolese club through the town to a large sports field on a school ground to get their final punishment in complete openness.

That the three thieves were each a very familiar face for everyone, and before that moment quite respectable locally, was in itself a big surprise for everyone in the crowd. Most shocking of all was for little children, boys and girls, men and women, young and old to all see those three adult thieves stark naked down to the full exposure of their pubic hair and penis – a height of humiliation, shame and emotionally most painful dejection in African society. It meant a total loss of respect for them by every onlooker – including children and women. At the slightest attempt by any of the three to cover his penis with his hands, the team of muscular men following behind them with cow-hide whips at hand would flog him so hard that it left lines of bleeding marks on the thief’s skin.

Stark naked as these thieves were being paraded, they were yet adorned around their necks and down their backs in a most befitting, unadmirable and unbearably itching attire of loose hanging, freshly plucked, thorn-bearing, green stinging nettle leaves from the werepe plant that prickles with a burning feeling on the skin. The painful discomfort from those leaves alone was enough to make anyone feel crazy within just a few moments. Those three thieves faced the pain of wearing the burning leaves as garments throughout the hours that the procession lasted, and they got flogged at every attempt to scratch their itching skin.

When the parade finally arrived at its destination on a school sports field, the thieves were queried again, made to promise never again to be found involved in any case of theft, and to promptly report anyone they knew was involved in such. They were then sentenced to further flogging by a team of muscular men. In addition to imprisonment, they were forced to disclose the whereabouts of the stolen goods.

Aladura church-priest was a burglar  -
No doubt, the idea behind the parade and open exhibition of the three thieves was to deter others young and old from ever daring to burgle any home or steal in any form. It worked by bringing an abrupt end to the wave of robberies in that town. For many years thereafter, no case of burglary arose. However, the most surprising point of this specific burglary case is that among those three thieves who were disgracefully flogged and matched naked in a town-wide procession, was the church priest – the Aladura apostle who previously had been blessing and baptising so many new Christian converts in his church service with claims of healing prayer. That shocking discovery turned out to be extremely revealing to young minds like Arowona’s about the preachers of religion and their very pretentious holy messages.

- Continued in Faith without understanding – tolerance

  (See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)

Kobolese – African effective solution to burglary wave

anti-theft club - night quarrel diverts attention - sensational parade eliminated home burglaries

Kobolese – African effective solution to burglary wave
The local customary judiciary council chose to tackle the burglary case in such a way as would have lasting impact on the then rampant wave of robberies in the town. They set up a town-wide neighbourhood security watch movement appropriately called egbe Kobolese (meaning society of those who reject ties with thieves). For this, every adult male was approached for membership. Obviously only thieves would refuse to enlist in such a club. Having booked wide membership, with a liaison in every neighbourhood, Kobolese then pressed every member for any information he knew about suspicious surreptitious activities,  evidence or observations that could be useful in identifying the thieves involved in recent robberies. Under threat of implication in theft if afterwards found to have withheld useful information, many people told with considerable detail all they knew, saw, suspected or found.

Among the findings of the council was the fact that either the husband or wife who had been quarelling in  Omo Oba’s house in the night of the robbery, was party to the very robbery that took place in Omo Oba’s room. Someone had deliberately started the loud quarrel of the night, so as to lure those at home, especially Omo Oba himself as the head of the household, to gather downstairs, thereby leaving the rooms upstairs free for one of the thieves to enter, who was already inside the house. The night quarrel in that house was a trick to divert attention to downstairs so that the thieves could strike upstairs.

One of the thieves did indeed quietly make his way upstairs; for it was him who had collected Omo Oba’s clothes from cupboards, bundled them up as the packet he threw down via the side window to the two other thieves waiting below on the side street. The sound that woke Arowona and Doyin  from their night’s sleep with a heavy thud was from that first bundle.

Arowona and Doyin had witnessed how the two thieves below picked up two more packets thrown down by the first thief from the neighbour’s upstairs window. They also witnessed how the two thieves below carried the packets together running towards the back of the side street and vanished in the direction of the nearby bushy cemetery grounds. In the darkness of that night, Arowona and Doyin could not see identifiable faces of the thieves, but just dark silhouettes that indicated no more than the rough statures of the thieves.

Some fortnight or so later, the whole town witnessed a most spectacular judicial event that for many years afterwards effectively eliminated home burglaries in the whole town. This cleansing event itself was a uniquely original African judicial solution welcomed and implemented with support from all town residents. This event came as the crowning result of the superbly thorough investigatory work of the Kobolese movement. On the eventful day, school children were sent home earlier than usual and encouraged to await a sensational parade that was to pass along the main street of the town. -

Continued in Utmost disgrace – parade of Aladura church-priest as burglar

(See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)

Church credibility at stake – burglary witnessed live !

husband and wife quarelling, alarms of theft, customary judiciary council, town-wide investigation

Church credibility at stake – burglary witnessed live !
What here follows is not a diversion, but a necessary and true account of what transpired in that Ijebu town community, with clear implications for church credibility among the populace.

Arowona’s aunties were gone back to Lagos city, his mother and father were gone back to Ibadan city where they ran one of their chain of shops. Only a small boy in primary school, Arowona was left to live in a big house with just a young, house-girl to help sit in his shop while he was off to school. The house was his father’s half of a big family compound, with the other half of the big compound occupied by relatives from his auntie’s line of Pariola family. The land of the whole  neighbourhood of their Oke Shopin district originally belonged to this Pariola family. Arowona’s father, baba Ilorin got the portion he built this house on from Iya Pariola herself, adjoining another land piece that Pariola gave to her oldest daughter, Iya Egbe so that they could all live close together in one big compound. The majority of Africans each belong to some family compound on family-owned land.

Arowona and his older but illiterate house-girl always both slept upstairs on the floor in his father’s parlour (sitting room) above his shop. Their big, front, glass windows face the town’s main street, and some louvre windows faced a side street from which they could look towards their neighbour’s side wall. The two houses had similar windows facing each other from across their side street.

From his shop’s sales, being whole-sales at that, Arowona always had considerable amounts of cash in a safe at home until his parents returned fortnightly to empty it. To alleviate Arowona’s fears of night burglars, an elderly neighbourhood night-guard nick-named Jantioje had instructions to come by in the shop now and then, during his evening patrols. On such visits, Jantioje often told stories of his heroic adventures and past hunting encounters as a guard and retired hunter. The following is not one of such hunter’s tales but a real first-hand experience of Arowona and his house-girl Doyin, awoken by the loud sound of something heavy falling down with a loud thud outside near them in the depth of the dark night.

Shaken with fear, Arowona and his house girl Doyin, slowly and quietly went on tiptoe to pip through louvre openings in a window to see what made that heavy noise. It was not Jantioje the old guard, for there was no sign of him that night. In those days of the early 1950′s, there was as yet no electricity in the town, nor in the whole region. Hence, no street lighting of any type whatsoever, except slight moonlight in which everything was at best in silhouette. All they both saw at first was very still, and unidentifiable in the dark night, until the sound of quarelling shouts from the house of the side-street neighbour – Omo Oba’s house became ever more audible. The name Omo Oba means prince; the neighbour’s father was once a local king.

Still afraid, the two frightened youth kept watching through the slits of their window louvres, careful not to be noticed by anyone outside. Then suddenly, from that Omo Oba’s house directly facing Arowona, a window upstairs opened, some human figure bent outwards to murmur quietly to two full grown adults below on the street who were carrying away some big whitish package towards a dark corner. The guy from the windows upstairs dropped another big package down to the other two on the ground to catch, but the package hit the ground with the same thud sound that had awoken Arowona and Doyin. That was how Arowona and Doyin knew that they were witnessing a robbery of their neighbour’s house – in  fact Omo Oba’s room upstairs. But the two young secret observers could not understand the sound of quarelling loud voices from downstairs towards the back of that same neighbour’s house.

The next morning, stories went around about a husband and wife in that neighbour’s house who had been quarelling that night so that the head of the household – Omo Oba himself – had to go downstairs in his house to help the couple settle their quarrel. Hours later when Omo Oba finally returned upstairs to sleep in his room, he realised that many of his clothes had been stolen from his cupboards. That is when alarm was raised about theft, and a call was made for security action at the town level. It was not so much the police in the tradition of British practice, but the local customary judiciary council in the tradition of native African practice led by the traditional chief Balogun that immediately mounted a high level investigation into this case of theft in that house.

- Continued  in Kobolese – African effective solution to burglary wave

(See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)

Foreign religious hypocrisy corrupts Africa

Ogun,paganism, FAITH, a chosen people discriminates

Institution of foreign religious hypocrisy corrupts Africa -
Before the intervention of the white man and the Arabs in African attitude to his creator, religion had a natural meaning, purpose and value in African life. Like in other religiously uncorrupted regions around the world, African deities had tangible substance, played demonstrable roles in the practical lives of individuals, and above all helped to enforce a sense of social justice and peace. Respect for the knowledge and experience of elders was a great promoter of social peace within households, between neighbours and between districts. Such respect helped push real outright intra-local war into the rarity as a measure of absolute last resort.

Nobody had the arrogance to go around pretending to be so much morally better than others that he or she had to preach sermons to them, nor convert them to accept this or that religious belief. Religious freedom was so common, nobody thought of it as an issue. True, specific rituals were performed by some at certain moments by individuals who one could call priests, but priesthood was far from being a full-time engagement.

The white man’s Christianity and the Arab’s Islam brought the notion of full-time priesthood to Africa only as an instrument in their own zeal for religious conversion to win human souls by sacrificing present life for an imaginary heavenly paradise of which no tangible evidence has ever been found, even until today.

A very knowledgeable and experienced farmer naturally knew more than others as to which plants and herbs had which medicinal working on what specific disease or ailment. He remained a farmer and was additionally respected and consulted on medicinal issues. Similarly, a thoroughbred hunter had good knowledge of various animals, their feeding habits and habitats, and factors that affected their health, physical strength and reproduction. Accordingly, such a valuable hunter was consulted on matters of the environment and on the abundance of healing animal products. It was only natural that more than others in his society, he could relate closer to deities associated with those animal aspects of nature.

In the same way, a really good goldsmith and or blacksmith knew much about matters concerning the raw material sources and behaviours of metals, ores, fuels and their workings. Such a smith not only worked metals into shapes to make good jewelry, tools and weapons, but also served those deities (such as Ogun, god of metallurgy among the Yoruba) closely associated with the related aspects of nature. Similarly, other social institutions in Africa yielded corresponding bases for religious respect and as many deities too.

In each of their respective social institutions of life, the farmer, hunter or smith was free as to what method he chose, and could ascribe his results to whatever African deity he chose, but he did not preach nor impose his own rules on others against their wish. He was respected for his results, and was accordingly rewarded, as were the deities he invoked in the process. In Africa, faith was an open issue, highly dependent on practical results and not on blind trust in the words of this or that so-called holy book. That openness, that practicality and that respect for demonstrated truth and witnessed facts became endangered with the labelling of African religion as paganism.

All these African practicality, trust based on evidence and experience were endangered by Christian glorification of FAITH in vague parables, myths, tales and words written by unknown authors in so-called scriptures that depict the exclusive claims of a so-called chosen people – descendants of a Middle-Eastern clan. Faith in itself is belief in that of which you have not the evidence. It is hypocrisy that led the white man to label African religion paganism, while glorifying his own blind religious credulity and dogmatic gullibility with the word faith.

It is sad that the Holy Bible explicitly discriminates by calling the descendants of Judah God’s own chosen people for whom  other folks (including Africans) were to be dispossessed (the root of the Palestinian occupation by Israel). It is even more pittiful and unfortunate that the very people thus disclaimed and dispossessed should accept the very Faith that dispossesses them. In this context, African Catholicism if not Christianity in Africa in general is clearly evidence of hypocrisy.

Continued in Church credibility at stake – burglary witnessed live !

See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)

Aladura Apostle – the church Priest

Yoruba bible, Alleluya, miracles, prophecies, baptism in river,

- Aladura Apostle – the church Priest
It was from his Pariola family background of prudent religious attitude in the 1950′s that Arowona – a young African school boy and his brother were taken by their mother, occasionally accompanied by two of his aunties – mama Eko – to some local evening church singing and prayer services. That was in a home-turned-church led by a tall, dark, energetic priest in immaculate white-robes, in Agbole Olowu district in Ijebu. With a Yoruba bible in one hand, a bronze bell in the other hand, this priest – called simply Aladura, (meaning prayer-man or priest) rang, shouted and slapped words of godly prayer unto the heads of his followers. There was intermittent spraying of blessed water into their faces, amidst hitted Christian songs and dancing, punctuated by loud chorus shouts of the words Alleluya!, Amin!, Jeeesuuh! by his sweating dancing audience. It was all very entertaining and quite an overwhelming air of apostolic christian religion.

Symbolically, prior to washing off their sins in prayer in turns, some of the audience would literally hop into an outdoor fence-walled bathroom in the priest’s backyard to wash themselves with sunlight soap and pre-blessed bucket of water, loudly reciting desirous words of prayer, psalms or songs. Then after drying the body and dressing up in clean clothes, they would one at a time, each present himself or herself to the exclusive prayer-room of the priest attended by nobody else but this holy priest for spiritual cleansing sessions. In such exclusive secret setting each one heard private prophecies or asked for special godly favours.

From the predominance of women who attended those exclusive sessions, there were rumours that some women were touched by more than spiritual hands on their erotic, bodily sensitive parts during such intimate prayer moments. Some even made a mockery of it by changing the wording of the songs into erotic rhymes. Even if small, this was a Christian body – giving Arowona a direct touch of Christianity.

Yet, during the services, often enough, some women would suddenly burst into ecstasy and start to tremble, shake, and mutter unintelligible or incoherent words, apparently claiming to be possessed by some spirit – holy spirit – with a specific personal message for someone in the audience. One such spiritual message was directed at one of the women from Arowona’s house – the youngest wife of baba Ilorin. The holy spirit speaking in tongues through someone in ecstasy implored her to abandon her evil tendencies without being specific as to what those were. The priest would then interpret the message to the individual in a confidential room; yet with the heroic, religious acclaim of a miracle by his audience. One hardly needs to add that news of such ‘miracles‘ spread like wild fire, and led to huge increases in the size of this priest’s church audience.

On one afternoon occasion, a special baptismal church session was held in river Oshun, to which his audience walked tens of kilometres, singing and dancing all the way. There was the very sight of this priest standing in the river in his full white ankle-long robe with wrist-reaching sleeves, dompeling fully-clothed new converts one by one into the river, making the sign of the cross on their head to baptise them. The sight of that baptism left a permanent picture in Arowona’s mind; a picture invoked by every reference to John the Baptist. The very attendance by Pariola members is evidence of the local fame and success of this Aladura priest’s Christian group.

Continued in Aladura Apostle – the church Priest

(See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)

Trade and Appellations of Pariola family – an Ijebu case

Iya-Ilorin, baba Ilorin, baba Onitsha, mama Eko, Iya Egbe, religious prudence

Trade and Appellations of Pariola family -
Appellations used for members of Pariola family reflect their wide geographical reach with trade into distant towns outside their native Ijebu land. Some in the family were referred to as Iya-Ilorin (meaning the elderly woman of Ilorin) on account of huge whole-sale personal trade supplying palm-oil, colanuts, and gari from the south to Ilorin and returning with rice, groundnuts and millet from the north. Another, a cousin or brother was called baba Ilorin (meaning the elderly man of Ilorin) on account of the chain of hardware shops he established in Ilorin, Ibadan and Ijebu where he sold nails and fittings. The same baba Ilorin later diversified into the wholesale of baking flower and stock fish, imported through Lagos from Europe.

His brother was called baba Onitsha (meaning the elderly man of Onitsha) on account of his settlement in Onitsha, a major trading town of the Ibo people across the Niger river in eastern Nigeria. In the same way, several of Pariola’s grand daughters were called mama Eko (Eko is the native Ijebu name for Lagos) on account of their textile trade among the elite class in Lagos. Though named with Ilorin, Onitsha, Lagos and other towns, these were all Ijebu men and women with Yoruba roots, but strong social though not direct political influence.

So was one called Iya Egbe, meaning leader of a social club, in reference to her being the chairperson of the most senior (oldest) ladies age-group society in the community. Even the king himself, with all the pomp of his entourage, would stop in her house to pay homage to her every Sunday on his way to church. Such high respect accrued to the Pariola family because their ancestors formed the first dynasty of Erelu kings of that town until their Erelu VII abdicated in favour of full-time devotion to trade rather than to rituals in the 19th century.

From the above, the prudence of showing allegiance to northern Muslim emirs and kings in Ilorin, Ogbomosho, Oyo and Ibadan towns was balanced by not posing any opposition to southern Christians in Lagos and back home among the Yoruba elite. In practice, members of the Pariola family in Ijebu claimed to be Muslims among their Muslim neighbours in Oke Shopin district of their town, but readily sent their most promising children to St Jame’s, St Luke’s and All-Saints Christian schools in Ojowo and Atikori districts in Ijebu.

In Muslim Ilorin, Pariola’s little grand-grand children were sent to the horror of Muslim classes that taught children to cram unexplained Arabic words and symbols by force of long whips made from the hides of dried, tough, long, cow tails. Pariola’s grand-daughters, and there were many of them, all had sufficient basic Christian schooling in Lagos where they mixed and married with the rich sons of urban Christian elites. Small local church communities with their attendant vibrant African music, the lighting of candles, excited show of spiritual possession and vibrant private prayers for specific individual problems therefore often made strong impressions on them. European impact had begun among these people.

The overall result of their religious prudence was that Pariola family members were never strong religious adherents to preach solemn sermons to anyone, nor fanatic followers of any denomination of any religious sect. They remained part of the audience, never a part of the priesthood.

Continued in Aladura Apostle – the church Priest

(See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)

Religion confronts African Trade:

scriptural conversion, missionary Christianity

- Religion confronts African Trade:
In Islam, the same African respect for openness, practicality and demonstrated truth became endangered not just by scriptural conversion but literally by force of the sword. Islam being a totalitarian religion in that it seeks domination of state as well as private life wherever Islam came, prominent families had to conform or pretend to conform to its demands. This was certainly the case for the Pariola family whose trading radius spanned from rain-belt Ijebu farms near Lagos on the Atlantic coast to the arid north of Ilorin.

Note that Pariola family trade dates from after the Yoruba kingdom of Old Oyo was defeated and dominated by Fulani Muslims. In short, Pariola’s family could not remain effective traders with the Islamic north without showing at least symbolic allegiance to Islam. Nor could the family alienate its growing southern Christian community where missionary Christianity was dominated by a European (mostly British) colonial administration that monopolised all import-export trade certainly until the 20th century.

Continued in Trade and Appellations of Pariola family – an Ijebu case

See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)

Origin of the Ijebu people

Ajebu, Ode, Ijebu-Ode, Awujale, Eko -Lagos, Wadai in East Africa, Erelu Bantale-Pariola dynasty, cowries -money

Origin of the Ijebu people
Prior to Oduduwa, a related folk had also migrated from Wadai in East Africa, before Ethiopia around the Blue Nile, to settle in two locations in West Africa. Part of that earlier group settled west of lake Chad and mingled with those who became known as the Hausas in today’s northern Nigeria. The rest of the group led by one man called Ajebu and his friend Ode went further west, and descended southwards, crossed Odo Oya (meaning swift or flood river – now known as river Niger) towards the Atlantic coast to settle in today’s Ijebu area of Yoruba land. They became today’s Ijebu folk, now among the Yoruba tribes. The Ijebu were named after Ajebu, and the name of their capital – Ijebu-Ode, also reflects the name of their other founding leader Ode.

Lagos city, still the commercial capital of the country Nigeria (actually named Niger Area by British colonists), was originally part of Ijebu territory before the Portuguese renamed it from Eko – its local Ijebu name. Eko was renamed Lagos by Portuguese adventurers after their southern town Lagos in Portugal’s Algarve because its big lagoon (inland reach of sea water stretch) reminded them of home.

As a special variation of Yoruba language, the language of Ijebu people is Ijebu, with dialects varying slightly between towns and villages. From the very beginning, the oba (king) of Ijebu-Ode (titled Awujale) has always been the most senior among the other kings of other towns in Ijebu. Ijebu area is now Ogun state including Egbaland in Nigeria.

A detailed trace of Yoruba history and Ijebu history is beyond the scope of this article. Rather, let us focus on developments in the life of a reasonably informed member of a Yoruba family who has traced his Ijebu ancestors as far back as about 1675 AD. In that time, Dutch slave traders were still shipping African slaves packed like sardines to the Caribbeans in large numbers. (see 300-Year Trace of Erelu Bantale: Pariola’s heritage: a family tree of 14 generations 1675-1982, published in 1973 by ITTS, Lagos, Nigeria).

The fourteen generations of this family as traced to 1982 resulted in a genealogy of over 700 individuals and their names, which if updated to include the children born since then would now most certainly exceed a thousand persons.

This specific family – the Bantale-Pariola – produced the seven successive kings or chiefs of the Erelu dynasty of Ijebu-Igbo, a town that evolved centuries ago from a huge hunting territory for those from Ijebu-Ode who ventured too far into the forest to return home the same day. The currently ruling king, Oba Awujale, still the most senior among the kings of Ijebu land, descended from chief Bantale, the Erelu VII. Bantale was a woman who chose to part from the rituals of chieftaincy so as to focus on promoting trade and industry roughly two centuries ago around the time of English queen Victoria. Bantale’s children continued this commitment to trade beyond Yoruba land in an age when cowries* were used as money before copper coins (called kobo for that reason) were commonly used by the ordinary village man in Yoruba land. The specific member of this family whose life we shall trace here is Arowona, in the 11th generation of the Erelu Bantale-Pariola genealogy. The present author knows him like no other does, but real full names will be avoided for reasons of privacy.

Continued in Religion confronts African Trade:

(See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)

Origin of the Yoruba people

Oduduwa emigrates from Islamic violence East Africa to Ile-Ife, Oyo, Benin, Ijebu,

Origin of the Yoruba people
Sometime around the sixth or seventh century AD, social unrest arising from the violent spread of Islam directly threatened the political and religious life of one prince in East Africa. Somalia was perhaps then recently conquered by marauding Muslims who had been strongly resisted by Coptic Christian Ethiopians. Determined not to abandon the pagan tradition of his ancestors, but also to avoid too much destruction of his people, the prince in question – Oduduwa chose to emigrate with all his followers to found a new settlement.

Unwilling to engage in wars for seizing land already occupied by others, his search for new territory took him over thousands of miles and across several rivers and mountains until he finally arrived at the spot in the West African rain forest where he founded Ile-Ife and established the Yoruba kingdom.

Continued in Origin of the Ijebu people

(See African development struggle amidst hindrances – a Yoruba case)