Omodé gbón, àgbà gbón la fi da Ile-Ife

Some of us that still understand African proverbs never really understand where those proverbs emanated from. Due to late orthography of indigenous languages in Africa especially Yoruba which started in 1864, it made documentation of our past histories and words of our fore-fathers hard to get. Thank God for "àtowó dówó". Today, I am pleased to tell you that I shall be telling you what led to "Any" or "Every" African proverbs and constructive sayings of our forefathers.

To start with, many of us have heard about this proverb: Omodé gbón, àgbà gbón la fi da Ile-Ife... But do you know how it came about?

Let me tell you...

Its believed that Ife is the Spiritual home of the Yorubas while Oyo is the political head. In those days, the Yorubas took time before they engaged each other in war. Before the war, Town A must send a message(àrokò) to Town B which Town B must answer correctly, else, there would be war. So, in this year, during the reins of Oranmiyan in Oyo and Àdìmu in Ile-Ife, Oranmiyan sent an He-Goat to the palace in Ife with the message that Ile-Ife MUST return the baby from the He-Goat within a year.

The palace was thrown into disarray because there was no way an HE-Goat would give birth except its impregnates a She-Goat. This continued until a small boy in the palace intervened. It was the answer from this young boy that saved Ile-Ife from war that year because Oyo would have defeated them with the help of Oranmiyan who was a king in Ile-Ife before he went to establish and settled in Oyo after his self banishment from Ile-Ife when they ignorantly crowned Àdìmú as king due to his long years of absence from the throne. So it would have been a total destruction of Ile-Ife, thank God for the wisdom of a small boy.

The boy said, "Return the He-Goat back to Oyo after the expiration of the year and tell the king that's the child"

That they did and the war was averted... Omodé gbón, àgbà gbón, la fi da Ile-Ife.

Olalekan.
@maxiculture
lekanddream@yahoo.com