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Prof. Jacob Olupona
THE Portuguese image of Ile Ife: The Europeans saw Ile-Ife as the preeminent city-state and as an important ceremonial centre in what was then often referred to as “the Negro world.” The seafaring Portuguese, the first Europeans to explore the coast of West Africa, arrived in the fifteenth century. Although they had heard much about the city of Ile-Ife, their inability to access interior forested regions made contact very difficult. However, the Portuguese recorded their impressions of the importance of this ancient city, especially of its artistic and historical relationship and connection to the kingdom of Benin, with which the Portuguese had earlier contact.
Writing in his navigational guidebook Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, the well-known Portuguese explorer Duarte Pacheco Pereira noted that to the east of the Benin Kingdom, about one hundred leagues (four hundred miles) inland, was a country with a king named Licasaguou, who was said to be lord of many people and to possess great power. Close by, Pereira explained, another great lord, Hooguanee, “is considered among the Negroes as the Pope is among us.” Although the identity of the first king, Licasaguou, remains unknown, the “Pope of the Negroes” may refer to the Ooni of Ile-Ife, since the neighbouring Benin people commonly referred to this king as Hooguanee (Ogene).
Some of the earliest written records about Ile- Ife come from the Portuguese seafarers who traded with the Benin Kingdom. One such record was Da Asia, by Joao de Barros, which provided a detailed discussion of the political and ritual kinshiIp of Benin and Ile-Ife in the precolonial period.
According to this interesting account, the king of Portugal, Don Joao, learned from the ambassador of the king of Beny (Benin) and also from Joa Alfonso d’Aveiro that to the east of the Benin Kingdom, about a twenty moons’ journey (about 250 leagues), “there lived the most powerful monarch of these parts called Igane. Among the pagan chiefs of the territories of Beny [Benin], he was held in as great veneration as is the Supreme Pontiff with us.” The informant also described a ritual link between Benin and Ile-Ife. In compliance with an ancient tradition, whenever a new king ascended the throne of Benin, the Benin sent ambassadors to the monarch to the east with many gifts to inform him that the new king of Benin had succeeded his deceased father and to request confirmation of his new status.
As a sign of consent, Prince Ogene sent the new Benin king a “staff and a headpiece of shining brass, fashioned like a Spanish helmet in place of crown and scepter: He sent a brass cross to be worn around the neck, “a holy and religious emblem similar to that worn by the commendadores as of the Order of Saint John.” for, “without these emblems, the people do not recognize him as the lawful ruler, nor can he call himself truly king.” De Barros reported that the ambassadors from Benin never saw the king himself, since he was always secluded behind a “curtain of silk.”
However, to authenticate the mission, just before the ambassadors departed from Ile-Ife, the king showed “a foot behind the curtains,” indicating that he agreed to Benin’s request. The ambassadors were bestowed with gifts as compensation for the great journey to Ile-Ife. The gift to each ambassador consisted of a “small cross similar to that sent to the king, which is thrown round his neck to signify that he is free and exempt from all servitudes and is privileged in his native country, as the Commendadores are with us.”
The Ifa Temple on the Oke Itase, the sacred hill of Ifa
This is one of the most detailed descriptions we have of Benin’s connection with Ile-Ife, illustrating the perception of Ile-Ife and the sacred kingship in Benin. There have been several discussions about the historicity of this passage, especially regarding the authenticity of the Benin ambassadors and the gift of the cross. The passage supports the account of the modern Benin monarchy’s origin in Ife and the role of Oranmiyan (also named Oranyan), the son of Oduduwa, in the establishment of Benin’s modern rule. It also establishes the ritual relationship between the two kingdoms in rites of coronation and burial. Although some traditional rituals have been modified or have disappeared in the contemporary Nigerian state, the coronation ceremony performed today for the Oba of Benin, whereby the Ooni of Ile-Ife sends a traditional gift to the new Oba, confirms the ancient connection between the two kingdoms described in the Portuguese sources. Moreover, archaeological investigation in Ile-Ife reveals an ancient burial ground, called Orun Oba Ado (literally, “the heaven of Benin kings”) that holds only certain parts of the dead bodies of kings brought from Benin. Some scholars suggest that the Ile-Ife burial site reserved for the Benin kings shows their ancestral connection with the city of Ile-Ife.
Because rituals are constantly reinvented in response to the contemporary social and political contexts in which they are performed, such customs often disappear gradually from practice. In my view, the significance of the Portuguese story does not lie in whether it is absolutely true. Even if it occurred only in the realm of the imagination, without the archaeological and ritual evidence that lends it credence, the story would still enable us to comprehend the enigma that lies behind Ile-Ife’s preeminence in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Portuguese accounts of explorations in the land of the “Negroes.” I will return to these sources later in the chapter.
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