Part 1 — Chapter 6

Chapter VI YORUBA TOWNS AND VILLAGES All Yoruba towns with very few exceptions are built on one uniform plan, and the origin of most of them is more or less the same, and all have certain identical features. A cluster of huts around the farmstead of an enterprising farmer may be the starting point : perhaps a halting place for refreshments in a long line of march between two towns. In any case it is one individual that first attracts others to the spot; if the site be on the highway to a large town, or in a caravan route, so much the better ; the wives of the farmers ever ready to cater refreshments for wearied travellers render the spot in time a recognised halting place : the more distant from a town, the more essential it necessarily must be as a resting place ; if a popular resort, a market soon springs up in the place, into which neighbouring farmers bring their wares for sale, and weekly fairs held : market sheds are built all over the place and it becomes a sort of caravanserai or sleeping place for travellers. As soon as houses begin to spring up and a village or hamlet formed, the necessity for order and control becomes apparent. The men would thereupon assemble at the gate of the principal man who has attracted people to the place and formally recognise him as the Bale or Mayor of the village (Ht. father of the land) and thenceforth the mayoralty becomes perpetuated in his family, with a member of the family either the son or the brother or a cousin, succeeding in perpetuity. This however is the only hereditary title in the village. The house of the Bale becomes the official residence, and is thenceforth kept in good repairs by the men of the town, and the frontage of his house becomes the principal market of the town. The Bale having been elected, he in turn appoints his Otun (or right hand man), Osi (the left) and other civil officers of a town. Even in this early stage, the necessity for defence is felt ; the bravest man among them will be chosen as the Jagun or Balogun and he in turn picks out his heutenants, so that in any matter that may spring up, either civil or mihtary everybody knows his duty and whom to look up to. The village must necessarily be answerable to the nearest town from which it sprang and thus an embryo town is formed. There 90 are cases in which an influential personage with a large following deliberately built a town, and is from the beginning the recognised head of the same. In fact if there are but half a dozen huts in the place, that of the headman or embryo Bale would be recognised. From this we see how it is that the principal market of the town is always in the centre of the town and in the front of the house of the chief ruler. This rule is without an exception and hence the term Oloja (one having a market) is used as a generic term or title/ of all chief rulers of a town be he a King or a Bale. Minor chiefs also have smaller markets in front of their houses. Market squares as a rule mark out the frontage of a chief or a distinguished man, and the principal entrance to his compound is marked out by its having a street verandah added to it right and left, and if a King two or more kobis are added to the street verandah. The larger the town, the larger the principal market to which everyone resorts for morning and evening marketings and is the general rendezvous of the town on every national or municipal occasion. It is planted all over with shady trees for sellers and loungers of an evening. The central market also contains the principal mosque of the town, and the fetish temple of the chief ruler, if he be a pagan. Every town is walled, deep trenches are dug all round it outside, the more exposed to attack the more substantial the wall and for the greater security of smaller towns a bush or thicket called Igbo He (home forest) is kept, about half to one mile from the walls right round the town. This forms a security against a sudden cavalry attack, and a safe ambush for defence, as well as hiding places in a defeat or sudden hostile irruption. The tall trees in them are sometimes used as a watch tower to observe the move- ments of the enemy : except in tim.es of profound peace, it is penal to cut trees in the home forest. Highways are made through them straight to the town gate, and are always kept in excellent repair. Towns in the plain that are greatly exposed to sudden attacks, or those that have had to stand long sieges have a second or outer wall enclosing a large area which is used for farming during a siege. This wall is called " Odi Amola " (wall of safety), sometimes it is called " Odi Amonu " (wall of ruin) as the wall has been to them the means of safety, or has been unavailing for its purpose. The town gates are always massive and a gateman lives in a house adjoining the town wall, he collects the tolls from passers by. Market people have a fixed amount to pay, varying from 40 to 200 cowries, and farm people contribute a trifle from whatever they are bringing home, a head or two of corn, a handful of beans, a yam or two, a few dry sticks and so forth, for his sustenance, r' The gates are named after the most important town they lead to. ^ Each of these gates is in charge of a chief who is responsible to the town for whatever may occur there or along the route to which it leads right on to the frontier, also for keeping the walls of that part in good repairs, as well as the highway leading out of the town. This chief it is who is to put his servant there for collecting tolls, the amount to be collected from each person being fixed by the Town Council. This servant is expected to pay to his master a certain sum every 9 or 18 days, being the average of what the gate yields. Whatever surplus there may be in a brisk season, he appropriates to himself or if there is a deficit, he is expected to make it good. In Yoruba Proper (including the Egbas) streets are not properly made or named except large thoroughfares leading to town gates, and the squares and markets of chiefs. It does not appear that any care is ever taken to choose the site of a town, as the neighbourhood of large streams: wells are sunk by individuals to supply drinking water. The streams that may be flowing through the town are fouled beyond degree, and are by no means fit for drinking purposes. For keeping the town clean every compound looks after its own frontage and surround- ings, in the market place every seller sweeps the space around her stall. The system of sanitary arrangements is the most primitive imaginable ; near every large thoroughfare or a market place is a spot selected as a dust heap for the disposal of all sorts of refuse and sweepings of the neighbourhood, and at intervals, fire is set to the pile of rubbish. Here and there about the town are found leafy groves, usually clumps of fignut trees, the neighbourhood of which is unsavoury from the disposal of sewage. These sites are always infested by crowds of those keen-scented scavengers of nature, the hungry- looking vultures. Important chiefs have a large area of land enclosed within their compounds within which spots are selected for sanitary purposes. Every chief is responsible to the town council for the quarter of the town in which he resides. When a town has grown up to the town wall, the town council has to determine the amount of area to be taken in, and a new wall is built enclosing such area. The whole of the town participates in the work, even women and children also are engaged in fetching water to mix the swish and in providing refreshments for the men- folk ; the streets of the area simply follow the old line of the foot paths to the farms now enclosed within the town. It must strike the most casual observer who has travelled over the Yoruba country that those portions of the country which are supposed to be more backward in intelligence viz. the Ijesa, Ekiti, If e andother provinceshave betterstreets than themoreintelhgentones. Old men attribute this fact to the effect of the intertribal wars. E.g. in the case of Abeokuta, however well laid may have been the streets of the original farm villas, when the refugees began to flock in, attention could scarcely be paid to the ahgnment of the houses each one simply tried to find out the whereabouts of the members of his township, and thus they grouped themselves by their famihes in every available space around the chief of their town. The same may be said of all the towns of Yoruba proper which have suffered from the vicissitudes of war. In later years the .people seem to have lost altogether the art of laying out and naming streets as is the case in Ijesa and Ekiti towns. Roads.—^Before the period of the revolutionary and intertribal wars, the bulk of the Yoruba people Hved in the towns of the plain, the towns in forest lands were small and unimportant, except the city of Owu, all below this being regarded as in the outskirts. Roads at that time were comparatively good. The country being flat was interspersed with hundreds of towns and villages, the inhabitants of which enjoyed the blessings of peace, and the fruits of their industry. Good roads were then made from one town to another, and were annually repaired at the time of the drummers' and Egugun festivals. They were wide enough for the easy progress of the company of dancers at these festivals and also for nuptial processions. But they are now neglected not only that they may impede the easy advance of invaders, but also to aid the concealment of the panic-stricken inhabitants, who at the first alarm disappear at once in the bushes surrounding their towns and villages. § 2 Peculiar Yoruba Towns There are some important towns which form exceptions to some of the rules above given ; in their case the cause is due to intertribal and the revolutionary wars as we shall find in detail in the second part of this book. I. Abeokuta.—This large town is a conglomeration of villages, to the number of 153 with Ake as the chief. Each township (as they are called) has its own organization. Ake can scarcely be said to have any authority over them in their own local affairs, except such authority as is granted by the Principal Chiefs or " Ogbonis " who form the chief political organization. Hence we see that there is not one central market for the town as such, in the frontage of the chief ruler. There may be several Baloguns or Serikis, there are at least four kinglings, and several Ogboni houses, each section being jealous of its liberty and tenacious of its rights. Abeokuta in short was never organized as a single town : its pecuhar pohtical organization should be the subject of another chapter. Ibadan.—This town was originally a small Egba village around the site of the central market, but occupied by a portion of the army that destroyed the city of Owu and devastated the Egba villages. After the withdrawal of the Egbas into Abeokuta, the motley crowd forming the army settled at Ibadan. Ibadan has since been the mihtary encampment of Yoruba; the titles, order of precedence, etc. are chiefly military. For that reason there is not one family in which the title of Bale is hereditary and no official residence for the Bale. The Bale is always chosen from old retired war-chiefs, always by sufferance of the Balogun, who has equal authority and more real power. But when the Balogun has become old and has already won his laurels, he is expected to be the next Bale. A young Balogun with his future to make yields the mayoralty to an older chief, usually the Otun Bale. This is the only town where such arrangement exists. Ibadan has no hom.e forests. Attempts were made from time to time to form one, but always without success through the habit of firing the fields year by year at the dry season. They are in no fear of invasion. To be in Ibadan is to be in a place of safety. Hence the Ibadans style their town " Idi Ibon " i.e. the butt end of the gun ; for the same reason also the town walls are very indifferently kept. Ilorin.—Ilorin is in one respect different from the other Yoruba towns, in that the ruhng powers are aliens to the place. How it came about that Ilorin a pure Yoruba town, and one time the third city in the kingdom fell into the hands of ahens and to this day owns allegiance to other than its rightful sovereign, will be told in its place ; but to this day the principal market and the chief mosque of the town remain still in front of the house of the founder and rightful owner of Ilorin. These three towns, Abeokuta, Ibadan, and Ilorin are the largest towns in the Yoruba country, and probably in West Africa, and the three are the outcome of the revolutionary and intertribal wars.