Entity registry
People, places & powers of the book
Every entry carries its name variants and every passage where it appears. ⑂ marks figures whose story is told in competing accounts.
People
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Odùduwà ⑂
The reputed founder and ancestor of the Yoruba race — in Johnson's words 'really a mythical personage' — claimed both as a migrating prince and, in Ife tradition, as the heaven-sent creator of the earth.
19 mentions
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Lamurudu ⑂
A king of Mecca in the received tradition, father of Oduduwa; Johnson reads the name as a dialectic form of Nimrod.
4 mentions
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Ọranyan (Ọranmiyan) ⑂
Grandson (or youngest descendant) of Oduduwa, progenitor of the Ọyọ royal line and reputed founder of Ọyọ; his staff at Ile-Ife (Ọpa Ọranyan) remained a famous monument.
45 mentions
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Ṣàngó ⑂
Fourth king of the Yorubas, of fiery disposition, whose reign ended in catastrophe and abdication; afterwards deified as the god of thunder and lightning, his emblems smooth axe-head 'thunder stones'.
63 mentions
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Ajaka
Brother of Ṣàngó who reigned twice — deposed for mildness before Ṣàngó's reign, and restored after it.
17 mentions
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Abiọdun
King whose long, peaceful and prosperous reign closed the era of Ọyọ's greatness; from his time onward Johnson's sources are eyewitnesses rather than bards alone.
28 mentions
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Baṣọrun Gaha
The kingmaker Baṣọrun whose atrocities and dominance over successive kings fill a chapter of Part II, until his fall under Abiọdun.
22 mentions
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Atiba ⑂
Son of Abiọdun and founder of the present city of Ọyọ after the fall of the old capital; his birth is told in two competing accounts.
45 mentions
Places
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Ilé-Ifẹ̀ ⑂
The sacred city: cradle of the race in Yoruba tradition, seat of the Ọọni, and in Ife cosmogony the spot where the earth itself was created.
204 mentions
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Ọ̀yọ́
The metropolis and seat of the Aláàfin — known to Hausa traders and early European records as Katunga; old Ọyọ fell in the revolutionary wars and was refounded by Atiba.
472 mentions
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Ibadan
The great war-camp turned city-state whose armies checked Ilorin at Osogbo and dominated the wars of the later nineteenth century.
904 mentions
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Ilọrin
Frontier city lost to the Fulani in the revolution; base of the jihadist push south until the defeat at Osogbo, and a party to the wars down to the British settlement.
295 mentions
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Abẹ́òkúta
The Ẹgba city under Olumo rock, founded in the upheavals of the wars; gateway for missionaries and a principal power in the conflicts with Dahomey and Ibadan.
125 mentions