The heritage of Oduduwa: traditional history and political propaganda among the Yoruba

Abstract

According to Yoruba traditions, the royal dynasties of all the principal kingdoms in the area were descended from the children of Oduduwa, the founder and first king of Lle Ife. This tradition implied, or could be represented as implying, that the various kingdoms formed a political unit, a ‘family’ of related dynasties. The article considers the political implicatins of the Yoruba traditions of origin, and seeks to relate the existence of certain variants of the tradition to the use of it for purposes of political propaganda. In particular, it is suggested that the tradition was manipulated and modified in an attempt to support the claims to paramountcy of the king of Oyo, when this kingdom became the most powerful state in the Yoruba area during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The case illustrates, it is argued, the intellectual problems involved in altering received traditions, and suggests the inadequacy of those views which see the process of the modification of traditions as a simple and unobtrusive response to changing political needs.