The spiritual centre
Ile-Ife is held in Yoruba tradition to be the place where the world was created and where Oduduwa, ancestor of the Yoruba kings, established his rule. Many Yoruba dynasties trace their legitimacy to Ife. Its ruler, the Ooni, holds a ritual seniority that does not depend on military power.
Art and urban life
Between roughly the twelfth and fifteenth centuries Ife was a flourishing city. Its naturalistic heads in copper alloy and terracotta are among the finest works of African art. Many were found in 1938 at the Wunmonije compound, and they revealed a court culture of great technical skill.
Ifa and the ethical tradition
Ife is closely linked to Ifa, the system of divination and knowledge associated with Orunmila. Its body of verses, organised into 256 odu, carries law, history, medicine and moral instruction. UNESCO proclaimed the Ifa divination system a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005. Ifa and the orisa traditions travelled with enslaved Yoruba people to Brazil, Cuba and the Caribbean, where they remain alive today.
Further reading
- UNESCO, Ifa divination system (Intangible Cultural Heritage list)
- Henry John Drewal and Enid Schildkrout, Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria (2009)
- Wande Abimbola, Ifa: An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus (1976)