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The traditional Yoruba city has proved a refractory concept in the otherwise ordered universe of urban enquiry. Most students of Yoruba culture have felt obliged to treat the permanent and compact aggregations of population which were, and are, characteristic of south-western Nigeria as urban forms while yet recognizing that they differ in important respects both from the present-day industrial and commercial city of the West and from the several genres of city occurring elsewhere in the traditional world. Among the first to attempt to assign a precise status to these settlements was Professor William Bascom. Measuring them against the yardstick of Louis Wirth' minimal definition of a city as ‘a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals,’ he concluded that the urban status of the larger Yoruba settlements was in doubt only in respect of the last of these criteria, namely heterogeneity.
1 In this paper the term city is used generically to denote any urban form, and carries none of the ancillary connotations of size, status, or origin implicit in contemporary everyday American or English usage. Urbanism is used to denote that particular set of functionally integrated institutions which were first devised some 5,000 years ago to mediate the transforma tion of relatively egalitarian, ascriptive, kin-structured groups into socially stratified, politically organized, territorially based societies, and which have since progressively extended the scope and autonomy of their institutional spheres so that today they mould the actions and aspirations of vastly the larger proportion of mankind. Urbanization refers to the ratio of city dwellers to total population.
2 Wirth, Louis, ‘Urbanism as a way of life’, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 44 (1938), 8. Reprinted in Marvick, Elizabeth Wirth and Reiss, Albert J. Jr., eds., Community life and social policy (University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 110–32, and in Reiss, Albert J. Jr., , ed., Louis Wirth. On cities and social life (Phoenix Book No. 172, University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 60–83.
3 Bascom, William, ‘Urbanization among the Yoruba’, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 60, no. 5 (1955), 446–54. Cf. also the same author's ‘Urbanism as a traditional African pattern’, The Sociological Review, new series, Vol. 7, no. 1 (1959), 29–43;‘Some aspects of Yoruba urbanism’, American Anthropologist Vol. 64, no. 4 (1962), 699–709; and ‘Yoruba urbanism: a summary’, Man, Vol. 68, no. 253 (1958), 190–91.
4 ‘Urbanization among the Yoruba’, p. 453.
5 ‘Yoruba urbanism’, p. 191, and ‘Urbanization among the Yoruba’, p. 452–3.
6 ‘Urbanization among the Yoruba’, p. 453.
7 Forde, C. Daryll, The Yoruba-speaking peoples of South- Western Nigeria, Ethnographic Survey of Africa: Western Africa: pt. IV (International African Institute, London, 1951).
8 Lloyd, Peter C., ‘The Yoruba town today’, The Sociological Review, new series, Vol. 7, no. 1 (1959), 45–63, and Yoruba land law (London, New York and Ibadan: Oxford University Press, for the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, Ibadan, 1962), pp. 50 et seq.
9 Mabogunje, A. L., Yoruba towns (Ibadan University Press, 1962), pp. 3–4.
10 Morton-Williams, peter, ‘Some Yoruba kingdoms under modern conditions’, Journal of African Administration, Vol. 7, no. 4 (1955), 175.
11 Wirth, , ‘Urbanism as a way of life’, p. 14.
12 Lloyd, , ‘The Yoruba town today’, p. 45.
13 Mitchel, N. C., ‘Yoruba towns’, in Barbour, K. M. and Prothero, R. M., eds., Essays on African population (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961), pp. 279–301.
14 Steel, R. W., ‘The towns of tropical Africa’ in Essays on African population, p. 253et seq.
15 Buchanan, K. M. and Pugh, J. C., Land and people in Nigeria (London: University of London Press, 1955), pp. 63et seq.
16 Harrison-Church, R. J., West Africa (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1957), p. 465.
17 Goddard, S., ‘Town-farm relationships in Yorubaland: a case study from Oyo’, Africa, Vol. 35, no. 1 (1965), 21–9.
18 Morgan, W. B., ‘The influence of European contacts on the landscape of Southern Nigeria’, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 125, pt. 1 (1959), 48–64, and review of Mabogunje's Yoruba towns in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 129, pt. 2 (1963), 217–18. For somewhat similar comments on urban forms in a neighbouring territory see Boateng, E. A., ‘Recent changes in settlement in South-East Gold Coast’, The Institute of British Geographers, Trans actions & Papers (1955), pp. 157–69.
19 Schwab, William B. in an unpublished manuscript entitled Urbanization and acculturation. I have not seen this paper but the quotation is cited in Bascom, , ‘Urbanization among the Yoruba’, p. 446, and ‘Urbanism as a traditional African pattern,’ pp. 38–9.
20 Of course kin-based groups generate and distribute power even in the most complex of present-day industrialized societies but they operate on a predominantly informal plane and are of a peripheral, or at best supplementary, character. For comments on this theme see Wolf, Eric R., ‘Kinship, friendship, and patron-client relations in complex societies’, in Banton, Michael, ed., The social anthropology of complex societies (London: Tavistock Publications Ltd., 1966), pp. 1–22.
21 The first steps towards the formulation of such a theory have recently been proposed by Adams, Robert McC., The evolution of urban society: Early Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mexico (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1966) and discussed by the present author in The pivot of the four quarters: a preliminary enquiry into the origins and character of the ancient Chinese city (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, in press), chap. 3.
22 By primary urban generation I mean the essentially independent emergence of urban forms through the restructuring of a society that was previously at a folk level of integration and which was subject to no or negligible stimulus from already existing urban societies. Although genetic interconnections between the various culture realms of the ancient world are by no means adequately elucidated, I would suggest as an operational expedient that Lower Mesopo tamia, the Nile valley, the Indus valley, the North China Plain, Meso-America, and the Central Andes be treated as regions of primary urban generation. Regions where the diffusion of traits from already urbanized societies can be shown to have either initiated and/or significantly accelerated the transformation from folk to urban society (and, of course, where the process was still clearly one of generation rather than imposition) I shall designate as regions of secondary urban generation. For a fuller exposition of this distinction see The pivot of the four quarters, chaps. I and III.
23 There are indications that the designation Yoruba originally denoted only the Qyp people, other speakers of the same language referring to themselves by tribal names such as Egba, Ijebu, Ijesa and so forth. In this paper the term Yoruba will be used, as is customary at the present time, to denote all the Yoruba-speaking peoples.
24 A succinct summary of the relatively meagre archaeological information available for the Yoruba territories is contained, together with a comprehensive bibliography, in Willett, Frank, Ife in the history of West African sculpture (London: Thames & Hudson, 1967).
25 A great deal of material of this nature has been incorporated in Johnson, Samuel (edited by Johnson, O.), The history of the Yorubas from the earliest times to the beginning of the British Protectorate (Lagos: C.M.S. Bookshops, 1921: reprinted 1937 and 1956; and London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1957, 1960, 1966). Cf also Beier, H. Ulli, ‘The historical and psychological significance of Yoruba myths’, Odù, Vol. 1 (1954), 17–25, and Lloyd, Peter C., ‘Yoruba myths: a sociologist's interpretation’, Odù, Vol. 2 (1955), 20–8. The official hereditary transmitters, preservers and codifiers of Yoruba dynastic traditions were certain families attached to the afin of the Alafin of Qyo, who included among their duties the responsibilities of bards and musicians.
26 Bascom, W., ‘Les premiers fondements historiques de l'urbanisme yorouba’, Présence Africaine, new series, No. 23 (1958-1959), 22–40.
27 The Late Commander (Hugh) Clapperton, Journal of a second expedition into the interior of Africa, from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo (London: John Murray, and Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Carey, 1829).
28 Richard, and Lander, John, Journal of an expedition to explore the course and termination of the Niger (London: John Murray, 1832; New York: Harper and Bros., 1854).
29 Labat, J.-B., Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinée, isles voisines, et à Cayenne, fait en 1725, 1726 et 1727, Vol. 2 (Amsterdam: La Compagnie, 1731), pp. 101–4.
30 Snelgrave, W., A new account of some parts of Guinea, and the slave trade (London: James, John & Paul Knapton, 1734), pp. 55–6.
31 Bosman, W., A new and accurate description of Guinea (second edition; London: Knapton, J., Midwinter, D., Lintot, B., Strahan, G., Round, J., & Bell, E., 1721; first published in 1705), p. 13.
32 Dapper, O., Umständliche und eigentliche Beschreibung von Africa (Amsterdam: Jacob von Meurs, 1670: first published in Flemish in 1668), p. 482.
33 Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, map of Africa dated 1743 and reproduced in Foa, E., Le Dahomey (Paris: A. Hennuyer, 1895), p. 10. On this map d'Anville corrected the error he had made on his map of 1729 of locating the Oyo to the north-west of Dahomey (cf. Labat, , Voyage, Vol. I, p. 1).
34 Talbot, P. Amaury, The peoples of Southern Nigeria, Vol. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1924), p. 218. The use of the term ciudade in this context is important as explicitly confirming that the author regarded the settlement in question as an urban form.
35 Pereira, Duarte Pacheco, Esmeralda de situ orbis. Translated and edited by Kimble, G. H. T. (Hakluyt Society, second series, Vol. LXXIX, London, 1937: written in two parts in 1505 and 1507/8; first published in 1892), p. 124. Kimble's identification of Geebuu with Abeokuta must be rejected on the grounds, among others, that the latter city was not founded until the nineteenth century.
36 de Sandoval, P. Alonso, De Instauranda Æthiopium Salute (Madrid, 1657), p. 59.
37 Dapper, , Beschreibung von Africa, p. 491.
38 A form which appears on a Portuguese map printed in Amsterdam in 1700 and cited by Talbot, , The peoples of Southern Nigeria, Vol. 1, p. 219.
39 Barbot, J., A description of the coasts of North and South Guinea (no imprimatur, London, 1732), p. 354.
40 On d'Anville's map of 1729: cf. Note 33 above.
41 On d'Anville's map of 1743: cf. Note 33 above.
42 Map compiled by John Norris and reproduced, with some modifications, in Dalzell, A., The history of Dahomey, an inland kingdom of Africa (For the Author by Spilsbury, T., London, 1793).
43 de Barros, João, Asia de João de Barros, Dos feitos que os Portugueses fizeram no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente, Vol. 1 (sixth edition: Divisão de Publicacões e Biblioteca, Agênda General das Colónias, Ministério das Colónias, República Portuguesa, Lisboa, 1945), pp. 124–8 [first published in 1552, in which edition the reference is to decada I, livro iii, cap. 4].
44 Talbot, , The peoples of Southern Nigeria, Vol. 1, p. 156. It will also be recalled that the Qba of Benin on his accession formerly received a brass staff, hat and cross from the Qni of Ife: de Barros, vide, loc. cit. A translation of the relevant passage is incorporated in Ryder, A. F. C., ‘A reconsideration of the Ife-Benin relationship’, Journal of African History Vol. 6, no. 1 (1965), 26–7, 33, and 36.
45 This particular myth was almost certainly borrowed ultimately from the cosmological lore of the Western Semites. For the concept of first Jerusalem, and subsequently Mecca, as an omphalos see Wensinck, A. J., ‘The ideas of the Western Semites concerning the navel of the earth’, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde, new series, Vol. 17, no. 1 (1916). The specifically Muslim version, according to which Mecca had a prior existence of forty years before serving as the focus of creation, is narrated by, int al., AzraqI in his Akhbār Makkah (Wüstenfeld's edition, Leipzig, 1858), p. 1.
46 Fagg, Bernard E. B., ‘An outline of the Stone Age of the Plateau Minefield', Proceedings of the Third International West African Conference,Ibadan, 1949 (Lagos,1956), pp. 203–22;‘The Nok culture’, West African Review (1956), 1083–7;‘The Nok culture in prehistory’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 1 (1959), 288–93;‘Radiocarbon dating of the Nok culture, Northern Nigeria’, Nature (1965), 205 and 212;Willett, Frank, Ife, chap. VIII.
47 Clark, J. Desmond, ‘Africa south of the Sahara’, in Braidwood, Robert J. and Willey, Gordon R., eds., Courses toward urban life (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1962), p. 21.
48 Braidwood and Willey, basing their conclusion on Clark's evaluation of the Nok culture, would seem to incline to assign that culture to the phase of Developed Village-Farming Efficiency: at least they discuss its implications under their sections III, IV, and V [Courses toward urban life, pp. 346 and 353: Clark's remarks are set out on p. 21 and incorporated in a chronological chart on pp. 12–13]. The concept of Village-Farming Efficiency is expounded by Braidwood, in ‘Levels in prehistory’, in Tax, Sol, ed., Evolution of man after Darwin, Vol. 2 (University of Chicago Press, 1960).
49 An egalitarian society is defined by Morton Fried as a society in which there are as many positions of prestige in any given age-sex grade as there are persons capable of filling them. In a rank society, on the other hand, limitations having nothing to do with sex, age or personal attributes are placed on access to prestige, so that there are fewer positions of valued status than individuals capable of achieving them. Neither in egalitarian nor in rank society is there developed either exploitative economic or genuine political power. In typical rank societies only two kinds of authority can be invoked, familial and sacred, and there is no access to the privileged use of force in support of either. Vide, Fried, Morton H., ‘On the evolution of social stratification and the state’, in Diamond, Stanley, ed., Culture in history; essays in honor of Paul Radin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 713–31.
50 For the numerous variations in the form of these myths see, int. al., Ellis, A. B., The Yoruba-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London: Chapman & Hall, Ltd., 1894), pp. 89–92;Frobenius, Leo, Mythologie de l'Atlantide: le ‘Poseidon' de I‘Afrique noire, son culte chez les Yorouba du Benin (Paris: Payot, 1949), pp. 161–3;Bolajildowu, E., Olódùmarè, God in Yoruba belief (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1962), pp. 19et seq;Wyndham, John. ‘Yoruba folklore: the creation’, Man, Vol. 19 (1919), 58, and Myths of Ife (London: Erskine MacDonald, 1921);Johnson, , History of the Yorubas, chaps. I and II. For an interpretation of these myths see Lloyd, , ‘Yoruba myths: a sociologist's interpretation’. In more recent times Muslim Yoruba have generally accepted an Arabian provenance for their people, a version which was related to Hugh Clapperton by Sultan Bello of Sokoto [vide Denham, D. and Clapperton, H., Narrative of travels and discoveries (London: John Murray, 1826), p. 165] and repeated by Johnson, (History of the Yorubas, p. 3). Christian Yoruba, by contrast, often regard themselves as descendants of a lost tribe of Israel. Needless to say, these alien mythologies can be disregarded in the present discussion.
51 E.g., Lloyd, , ‘Yoruba myths’;Beier, H. Ulli, ‘Before Oduduwa’, Odu, Vol. 3 (1956), 25–32;Willett, , Ife, pp. 122–5.
52 Transformations on this pattern resulting from agricultural innovation have, in fact, been documented in recent times by, int. al., Linton, Ralph and Kardiner, Abram, ‘The change from dry to wet rice cultivation—Betsileo’, in The individual and his society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), pp. 282–90 [Reprinted in Readings in social psychology (New York, 1952)];Nakane, Chie, ‘Report on ethnological field work among primitive tribes in Tripura State’, Japanese Journal of Ethnology, Vol. 19 (1955), 58–60 [In Japanese, with English summary]; and Sopher, David E., ‘The swidden/wet rice transition zone in the Chitta-gong hills’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 54, no. 1 (1964), 107–26.
53 Virtually nothing is known of the provenance of those cultural infusions which have frequently been postulated as instrumental in effecting the transformation of Yoruba society, but various authors (other than those who derived them by means of direct cultural or political conquest from Ancient Egypt or Arabia) have suggested severally the Meroitic empire (which collapsed early in the fourth century), or, in later centuries, Zaghawa or Christian Nubia.
54 I am aware that more precise formulations have from time to time been advanced by students of Yoruba culture (e.g. Biobaku, Saburi O., The Lugard Lectures (Federal Information Service, Lagos, 1955);Jeffreys, M. D. W., ‘When was He Ife founded?’, The Nigerian Field, Vol. 23, no. 1 (1958), 21–3] but, however acceptable at the time when they were proposed, none is consonant with currently received views of Yoruba culture history.
55 The circumstance that the pottery traditions of Ife and Qyo were radically different serves to confirm that this shift in the locus of power was not accompanied by a mass migration of population: vide, for example, Willett, Frank, ‘Excavations at Old Oyo and Ife’, West Africa, No. 2153 (06 19, 1958), 675;‘Ife and its archaeology’, The Journal of African History, Vol. 1, no. 2 (1960), 244;‘Bronze and terracotta sculptures from Ita Yemoo, Ife’, The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 14, no. 56 (1960), 135–7;‘Investigations at Old Oyo, 1956–57, an interim report’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 2 (1961), 59–77;Fagg, William and Willett, , ‘Ancient Ife, an ethnographical summary’, Odù, no. 8 (1960), 29.
Recently A. F. C. Ryder has proposed that one way of reconciling certain information recorded by European travellers with the Edo tradition of their Ife origins would be to postulate a migration of the cult centre of Ife from a location somewhere in the Nupe-Igala area athwart the confluence of the Niger and the Benue to its present site at some time prior to the sixteenth century [‘A reconsideration of the Ife-Benin relationship’, pp. 36–7]. This is an attractive solution to an exceedingly complex problem, but it has not so far been corroborated by independent evidence.
56 Bradbury, R. E., ‘The historical uses of comparative ethnography with special reference to Benin and the Yoruba’, in Vansina, J., Mauny, R. and Thomas, L. V., The historian in tropical Africa. Studies presented and discussed at the Fourth International African Seminar at the University of Dakar, Senegal, 1961 (London, Ibadan, Accra: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1964), pp. 145–64. Cf. also Robert G. Armstrong, ‘The use of linguistic and ethnographic data in the study of Idoma and Yoruba history’, ibid., 127–44.
57 Willett, , Ife, pp. 125–6.
58 Lloyd, Peter C., ‘Sacred kingship and government among the Yoruba’, Africa, Vol. 30, no. 3 (1960), 223;Biobaku, , The Lugard Lectures, Lecture 6.
59 Johnson's assertion (History of the Yorubas, p. 197) that Nupe and Bariba were tributary to Qyo, although frequently repeated in subsequent works, cannot be confirmed and appears a priori unlikely.
60 Both Clapperton, Hugh [Journal of a second expedition into the interior of Africa, from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo (London: John Murray, 1829)] and the Lander brothers [Richard, and Lander, John, Journal of an expedition to explore the course and termination of the Niger (1832)] remarked on the number of settlements ‘destroyed by the Fellatahs’, during their journeys in 1825 and 1830 respectively. In 1849 the Rev. Bowen ‘counted the sites of eighteen desolated towns within a distance of sixty miles between Badagry and Abeokuta’, and added, ‘The whole of Yoruba country is full of depopulated towns …’. Adventures and missionary labours in several countries in the interior of Africa from 1849–1856 (Charleston: Southern Baptist Publication Society, 1857; second edition, London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1968), p. 114.Stone, R. H. [In Africa's forest and jungle (London, 1900), p. 48] observed the ruins of eighteen ‘large towns’ within a distance of seventy miles. The dates of destruction of the majority of these settlements can only be inferred from circumstantial evidence, but in a few instances more precise information is available: e.g. Owu was overthrown in about 1825, Ijana in 1832, Iwawun in 1861, Isaga in 1862, Ijaye in 1862.
61 This notion of an ideal-type is very close to that which Arthur Spiethoff denoted by the term ‘real type’: vide ‘Pure theory and economic gestalt theory: ideal types and real types’, in Lane, F. C. and Riemersma, Jelle C., Enterprise and secular change (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1953), pp. 444–63.
62 It is fortunate that Dr. Morton-Williams has devoted several extremely perceptive studies to the elucidation of aspects of Oyo social and political structure [cf. especially ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, Africa, Vol. 30 (1960), 362–74, and ‘An outline of the cosmology and cult organization of the Oyo Yoruba’, Africa, Vol. 34 (1964), 243–61.
63 The precise theological status of this dual existence is not entirely clear, but it is usually said that the oba ruled in the Ile Aiye, the House of the World (meaning the Yoruba oecumene, or perhaps more accurately, the habitabilis) while his orun or spirit double dwelt with Olorun, the Supreme God, in the heavens.
64 Peter Morton-Williams explicates these titles as follows: ‘World’ connotes all social activity; Ile, besides Earth, means also territory, and territory is equated with the people owning it; the last title refers to the status of the Alafln as a sacred king and religious head of the Yoruba, Oyo [‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’, in Forde, Daryll and Kaberry, P. M., West African kingdoms in the nineteenth century (London: Oxford University Press for the Inter national African Institute, 1967), p. 53]. Lloyd has also provided a great deal of useful informa tion about the role of the oba generally in ‘Sacred kingship and government among the Yoruba’ [cf. Note 58 above] and specifically in the kingdoms of Ekiti, Oyo and Ijebu in ‘The traditional political system of the Yoruba’, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 10, (1954) 366–84. Reprinted in Cohen, Ronald and Middleton, John, eds., Comparative political systems; studies in the politics of pre-industrial societies (New York: The Natural History Press for the American Museum of Natural History, 1967), pp. 269–92.
65 Ojo, G. J. Afolabi, Yoruba palaces. A study of afins of Yorubaland (London: University of London Press Ltd., 1966), p. 75.
66 Some traditions ascribe no less than 401 shrines to He Ife, but this is certainly a conven tional figure. In 1948 Kenneth Murray identified about 120, and only a handful have been brought to light since that time [cited by Fagg, and Willett, , ‘Ancient Ife’, p 23].
67 Ojo, , Yoruba palaces, p. 76.
68 The exception to this rule is Sagamu where, as the result of a process of synoecism involving thirteen discrete settlements in the second half of the nineteenth century, four crowned pbas rule simultaneously over separate quarters of the city.
69 The information in this paragraph is mainly from Ojo, , Yoruba palaces, chap. 2.
70 du Bois, Cora, Social forces in Southeast Asia (second printing, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 31.
71 There is a sketch showing the course of the walls of Ife in relation to present-day topography in Willett, Frank, ‘Ife and its archaeology’, p. 247. Cf. also the same author's Ife in the history of West African sculpture, chap. VII,‘Excavations at Old Oyo and Ife’, and ‘Investiga tions at Old Oyo, 1956–57’; and Fagg and Willett, ‘Ancient Ife’.
72 Clapperton, , Journal of a second expedition, p. 58.
73 Op. cit., pp. 58–9.
74 Bowen, , Adventures and missionary labours, pp. 295–6. The Landers were scarcely more complimentary: ‘Generally speaking, the description of one town in Yarriba would answer for the whole … the form of the houses and squares is everywhere the same; irregular and badly built clay walls, ragged-looking thatched roofs, and floors of mud polished with cow-dung, form the habitations of the chief part of the natives of Yarriba, compared to most of which a common English barn is a palace. The only difference between the residence of a chief and those of his subjects, lies in the number and not in the superiority of his court-yards … [Journal of an expedition, Vol. 1, p. 156].
75 There is a brief survey of these ceremonial complexes in regions of both primary and secondary urban generation in Wheatley, The pivot of the four quarters, chap. III.
76 Bellah, Robert N., ‘Religious evolution’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 29, no. 3 (1964), 358–73, especially 361–4. Cf. 363: ‘Primitive religious action is characterized by identification, “participation”, acting out. Just as the primitive symbol system is myth parexcellence, so primitive religious action is ritual par excellence.’
77 Morton-Williams, , ‘An outline of the cosmology and cult organization of the Oyo Yoruba’, esp. p. 245. Cf. also Idowu, , Olóùmaré, passim.
78 Vide Hubert, Henri and Mauss, Marcel, ‘Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice’, L'Année Sociologique, Vol. 2 (1897-1898), 29–138.
79 E.g. Fairservis, Walter, ‘The Harappan civilization—new evidence and more theory’, American Museum Novitates, No. 2055 (1961), pp. 29 and 32;Adams, , The evolution of urban society, pp. 122et seq.
80 Bellah, , ‘Religious evolution’, p. 365.
81 Durkheim, Emile, The elementary forms of the religious life (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1947).
82 For an attempt to extend this terminology to all regions of nuclear urbanism see Steward, Julian, ed., Irrigation Civilizations: a comparative study: A symposium on method and result in cross-cultural regularities. Social Science Monographs I, Social Science Section, Department of Cultural Affairs of the Pan American Union (Washington, D.C., 1955). In the Central Andean Co-tradition the equally expressive term ‘Expansionist’ has been applied to this phase of urban development.
83 Cf. Morton-Williams, , ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, p. 364: ‘The Ogboni is thought of by the Yoruba generally as supporting the power of the Alafin’, in confirmation of which the author quotes the remark of the Apena, one of the leading officials of the cult, to the effect that: ‘Every Oba must have Ogboni so that people may fear him.’
84 Goddard, , ‘Town-farm relationship in Yorubaland’, p. 28.
85 At least it is true of the agnatic lineages of the northern Yoruba, including those of Oyo where Goddard worked, but a different model would be required to elucidate urban-rural relationships among the cognatic descent groups of Ijebu and Ondo. Cf. p. 414 below.
86 This term was coined by Mitchell, J. Clyde [‘Social change and the new towns of Bantu Africa’, in Balandier, G., ed., Social implications of technological change (Paris: International Social Science Council, 1962), p. 128; cf. also ‘Theoretical orientations in African urban studies’, in Banton, Michael, ed., The social anthropology of complex societies (London: Tavistock Publications, 1966), p. 44], and is analogous to what P. Mayer called an alternation model of change [‘Migrancy and the study of Africans in town,’ American Anthropologist, Vol. 64 (1962), 579]. Mitchell's ‘situational change’ refers to the modifications in behaviour which follow on participation in different social systems.
87 For comments on this theme see Eisenstadt, S. N., ‘Social change, differentiation and evolution’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 29 (1964), 375–86, but especially 379–80.
88 The transformation has been variously categorized as, int. al., from Concordia to Justitia (Lucretius and the Epicureans), from Status to Contract (SirMaine, Henry), from Societas to Civitas(Morgan, Lewis Henry), and from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft (Tonnies, Ferdinand) but, whatever the conceptualization of the transition, the replacement of kin-based by politized, spatially organized groups was a central theme.
89 Adams, , The evolution of urban society, chap. 3.
90 Kirchhoff, Paul, ‘The principles of clanship in human society’, Davidson Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 1 (1955), 1–10: reprinted in Fried, Morton, Readings in Anthropology, Vol. 2 (1959), 259–70.
91 Eric Wolf's summary, from Sons of the Shaking Earth (Chicago: Phoenix Book No. 90, University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 136.
92 Adams, , The evolution of urban society, p. 86. An English summary of Igor M. Diakonoff's studies on corporate landholding groups is available in ‘Sale of land in pre-Sargonic Sumer’, Papers presented by the Soviet Delegation at the XXIII International Congress of Orientalists, Assyriology Section (Moscow: Publishing House of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science, 1954).
93 For an introduction to this topic see Monzón, Arturo, El Calpulli en la organización social de los Tenochca (México, D. F.: Institute de Historia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, 1949), and Kirchhoff, , ‘The principles of clanship in human society’. There are discussions of lineages among the Maya in Roys, Ralph L., The Indian background of colonial Yucatdn, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication No. 548 (Washington, D.C., 1943);Carrasco, Pedro, Kinship and territorial groups in Pre-Spanish Guatemala (Paper read at the Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting of the Association of American Anthropologists, Washington, D.C., 1958);Lounsbury, Floyd G., A componential analysis of the 16th century Yucatec Maya kinship terminology (undated MS.). Not without value in this connection is Villa Rojas's, Alfonso ‘Barrios y calpules en las Comunidades Tzeltales y Tzotziles del México actuel’, Actas del XXXV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Vol. 1 (1964), 321–34.
94 Adams, , The evolution of urban society, p. 119.
95 Wheatley, , The pivot of the four quarters, chap. I.
96 Op. cit., chap. IV.
97 For statements of these differences see Lloyd, Peter C., ‘The Yoruba town today’, pp. 45–7,‘The Yoruba lineage’, Africa, Vol. 25, no. 3 (1955), 235–51, and Yoruba land law, pp. 33–5 and 53–8. The differences between these two types of kin organization are not every where quite so distinct in practice as the brief statement above may seem to imply and the reader is referred for further information on one manifestation of the northern system to Schwab, William B., ‘Kinship and lineage among the Yoruba’, Africa, Vol. 25, no. 4 (1955), 352–74, and for a discussion of the situation in one of the southern territories to Lloyd, in Bradbury, R. E., The Benin kingdom and the Edo-speaking peoples of South-Western Nigeria. With a section on the Itsekiri. The Ethnographic Survey of Africa, Western Africa, Part XIII (London: International African Institute, 1957), pp. 172–205.
98 These contrasted settlement hierarchies are depicted in diagrammatic form in Lloyd, , Yoruba land law, p. 56.
99 Cf. Lloyd, , ‘The political system of the Yoruba’ in Comparative political systems, pp. 284–8, and Yoruba land law, pp. 41–3, 54, 105–9, and 146–50;Bradbury, , ‘The historical uses of comparative ethnography’, p. 153.
100 This structural opposition within the Oyo government is explored and evaluated in three papers by Morton-Williams, all cited previously: ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, esp. pp. 363–7,‘An outline of the cosmology and cult organization of the Oyo Yoruba’, esp. pp. 251–9, and ‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’ esp. pp. 50–66.
101 Morton-Williams, , ‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’, p. 62. In Ado, and perhaps in some other eastern Yoruba cities, no member of the royal lineage might hold any chieftaincy title which conferred political power, though he might accept lesser titles which incurred admini strative duties. ‘Poor and without political rights, the status of the royal lineage is debased’: writes Lloyd, ‘Sacred kingship and government among the Yoruba’, p. 235. Cf. also the same author's ‘The traditional political system of the Yoruba’, p. 283, where it is stated that members of the royal lineages also failed to play any significant part in government in Iwo, Ekiti, or Ijebu.
102 Cf. Weber, Max, Staatssoziologie (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1956). For a com pendious exposition in English of the nature of patrimonial domain consult Bendix, Reinhard, Max Weber. An intellectual portrait (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Book A281, 1962), pp. 334–60. For the ebi system of government see Akinjogbin, I. A., ‘The Oyo empire in the eighteenth century—a reassessment’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 3, no. 3 (1966), 451: e.g. ‘All these [Yoruba] kingdoms believed in and practised the Ebi system of government. Under this system, a kingdom was regarded as a larger version of the family. …’
103 For discussions of the uncertain etymology of this name (which is often vocalized in Oyo itself as Oyo Misi or even Omesi) see Morton-Williams, , ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, p. 364, note 1, and ‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’, p. 67, note 7.
104 Vide Wheatley, , The pivot of the four quarters, chap. 3.
103 In most other cults the situation was quite different, with the high priests residing in wards presided over by members of the Oyo Mesi to whom they might be obliged to divulge their activities.
106 Morton-Williams, , ‘An outline of the cosmology and cult organization of the Oyo Yoruba’, pp. 252–3. The Qyo political structure is summarized diagrammatically by Morton-Williams in ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, p. 363 and ‘The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo’, p. 52.
107 Cf. for example, on the Egbado and Egba cities, Morton-Williams, , ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, p. 367;Biobaku, Saimri O., The Egba and their neighbours, 1842–1872 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), and ‘An historical sketch of the Egba traditional authorities’, Africa, Vol. 22, no. 1 (1952), 35–49; and on Kabba, Ado and Ijebu see Lloyd, ‘The political system of the Yoruba’.
108 Adams, , The evolution of urban society, chap. III.
109 Adams, , op. cit., chap. III;Wolf, , Sons of the Shaking Earth, chap. VII;Monzon, Arturo, El Calpulli en la organización social de los Tenochca (México, D.F.: Instituto de Historia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1949);Katz, Friedrich, Die Sozialōkonomischen Verhältnisse bei den Azteken im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Etnographisch-Archaeologische Forschungen, Vol. 3, pt. 2 (Berlin, 1956).
110 Coe, Michael, ‘A model of ancient community structure in the Maya lowlands’, South western Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 21, no. 2 (1965), 97–114;Cancian, Frank, ‘Some aspects of the social and religious organization of a Maya society’, Adas del XXXV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Vol. 1 (1964), 335–43;Vogt, Evon Z., ‘Some aspects of Zinacantan settlement patterns and ceremonial organization’, Estudios de Cultura Maya, Vol. 1 (1961), 131–45;Willey, Gordon R., ‘The structure of ancient Mayan society: evidence from the southern lowlands’, American Anthropologist, Vol. 58 (1956), 777–82.
111 Wheatley, , The pivot of the four quarters, chap. I;Chang, Kwang-chih, ‘Some dualistic phenomena in Shang society’, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 24, no. 1 (1964), 45–61.
112 The earliest, and in some respects still the most complete, discussion of the role of corporate descent groups in the cities of ancient Greece and Rome is that of Muma Denis Fustel de Coulanges who, as long ago as 1864, proposed that the cities of the ancient world had taken their origins in the designation of territories as sanctuaries common to diverse tribes, and that citizenship had derived from a shared adherence to the gods of these sanctuaries [La cité antique, Librairie Hachette, Paris: English translation under the title The ancient city (New York: Doubleday Anchor Book No. A76, N.D.)].
113 Cf. Lloyd, Peter, ‘Craft organization in Yoruba towns’, Africa, Vol. 23, no. 1 (1953), 30–44; also Bray, Jennifer M., ‘The craft structure of a traditional Yoruba town-the example of weaving in Iseyin, Nigeria’, Aspects of Central Place Theory and the city in developing countries(The Institute of British Geographers Study Group in Urban Geography: Durham Conference,September, 1967), no pagination [mimeo.].
114 Cf. int. al., Burton, Richard F., Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains. An exploration, Vol. 1 (Tinsley Bros., London, 1863), p. 80;Lander, , Journal, Vol. 1, pp. 179–81;Bowen, , Adventures, pp. 296–7.
115 Lander, , Journal, Vol. 1, pp. 109–10. Cf. also Clapperton's remark [Journal of a second expedition, p. 21]: ‘The king of Eyeo's [Qyp] wives are to be found in every place trading for him….’ Recently I. A. Akinjogbin has re-interpreted the political history of the Qyo empire during the eighteenth century in terms of the need to foster such long-distance trade: ‘The Oyo empire in the eighteenth century—a reassessment’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 3 (1966), 449–60.
116 Bascom, , ‘Urbanization among the Yoruba’, p. 449.
117 Ojo, , Yoruba palaces, chap. 7.
118 Johnson, , The history of the Yorubas, p. 50.
119 The interpretation of such evidence as is available is not made easier by the fact that students of economic anthropology and of so-called ‘primitive economies’ are not completely in agreement among themselves as to the precise nature of the processes involved in contemporary African exchange patterns. Essentially the debate is between those who believe that the difference between the representative contemporary Western-style market and primitive subsistence exchange is one of degree and those who believe it is one of kind. The classic statement of the latter view is that expounded by Polanyi, Karl, Arensberg, Conrad M. and Pearson, Harry W., eds., in Trade and market in the early empires (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1957); the most formidable critique of this view is that mounted by Cook, Scott, ‘The obsolete “anti-market” mentality: a critique of the substantive approach to economic anthropology’, American Anthropologist, Vol. 68 (1966), 323–45. This last incorporates a bibliography of the works of leading proponents of both sides of the argument.
* In this paper letters in Yoruba place-names and personal names have the values of the Africa alphabet of the International African Institute, with the modifications conventionally employed in the interests of economy of ẹ for ε, ọ, for ò.ṣ for ∫, p the double plosive kp, and nasalization of a vowel denoted by a following n. Tones are not discriminated.
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