Place name · Mid-1600s (traditional) · Legend
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A hunter camped under a tree, a wife made a mound she could run to when he was angry, and an archer bought his freedom with an enemy general's head. Ogbomoso's own account of how it got its name.
Ogbomoso tells its own beginning through a hunter named Ogunlola. The town's history, taken from a pamphlet printed for the new palace, says he was of Ibariba descent and came into the area following game, around the middle of the 1600s. At that time the whole place was thick jungle. He made his camp under an ajagbon tree and hung his hunting gear on its branches. Later he and his wife, Esuu, built a hut beside that same tree. The tree, the pamphlet says, still stands by the side of the palace.
Ogunlola was a skilled archer and a brave hunter. One day he noticed smoke rising from a few spots not far off. He worked up his courage, went to look, and found other hunters. Aale was at the place now called Oke-Elerin. Onsile was at what is now Ijeru. Orisatolu was at Isapa, and a fourth man was at Akande. Those names are now the names of quarters of the town, and the descendants of the first three hunters are still the Bales, or quarter heads, of Oke-Elerin, Ijeru and Isapa. The Akande line, the pamphlet notes, has no Bale any more.
The pamphlet also keeps a very human detail about the first couple. It describes Ogunlola as a very fierce man, and Esuu worried about what might happen to her when she offended him, with no neighbour close by to restrain him. So she built a mound of earth near the hut, and the two of them agreed on a rule. Whenever Ogunlola wanted to beat her, if she could escape and wrap her arms around the mound, he had to spare her, whatever she had done. That mound was named Lorungbekun, which the pamphlet spells out as Olorun-gbo-Ekun, and it still sits within the Abata enclosure in the palace.
Esuu left another mark. She brought the worship of Orisapopo to the settlement. It is the same orisa as Orisala, worshipped in other towns under other names, and its followers wear white beads, dress only in white and do not drink palm wine. The pamphlet suggests the name meant the orisa by the highway, because the hut stood on the north-south road. Orisapopo became, in its words, the patron orisa of Ogbomoso.
Ogunlola did not keep to himself. Once he had found the other hunters, he invited them to join together in what was called the Alongo society. It had three aims: defence against raids by slave catchers, hunting wild animals as a group, and helping one another. Ogunlola was made its chairman.
After each day's hunt the men went back to his hut. There they ate beans and other food and drank sekete, a wine that Esuu brewed from fermented guinea corn. They talked over the news of the day and made plans. It is easy to picture these evenings, tired men around a fire, a woman's brew going round, the forest dark at their backs.
Other settlers came and built huts nearby, and slowly a small village grew around the tree. Ogunlola's hut became the place where quarrels were settled, and he had the last word. Because the village sat on the highway running north and south from Oyo-Ile, it became a popular aroje, a place where travellers stopped to eat, rest and buy small things for the road. That traffic of strangers would matter very much for the name the place ended up with.
The turning point came during a war. Ibariba fighters led by a man called Elemoso attacked Oyo-Ile, the old capital of the Alaafin. Elemoso wrought terrible damage, and the people of Oyo came to fear meeting him in battle. He laid siege to the city, and famine and hardship followed.
At that very moment, the story goes, Ogunlola happened to be in Oyo-Ile, locked up and waiting to be tried for some alleged offence. He made the Alaafin an offer. Set me free, he said, and I will kill Elemoso. The Alaafin agreed, and Ogunlola was shown where the enemy leader was. He studied how Elemoso fought, took careful aim and shot him down from his hiding place. Then he cut off Elemoso's head and brought it to the Alaafin. With their leader dead, Elemoso's army broke and ran.
The Alaafin was so impressed that he asked Ogunlola to stay in the capital instead of going home. Ogunlola politely refused. His words, as the pamphlet gives them, were "Ejeki a ma se ohun", let me stay yonder. The Alaafin let him go back to his settlement.
Now the travellers on the highway come back into the story. As they passed to and fro, they began to speak of the place as the home of the man who beheaded Elemoso, ido eni ti o gb'Elemoso. Over time that mouthful wore down to Ogbomoso. Ogunlola's standing grew, and he was made head of the settlement with the title Soun, a word that the pamphlet says echoes his request to stay yonder. His compound by the ajagbon tree became the Soun's palace.
The village grew into a town, and its people became known as warriors. During the Fulani wars of the 1800s, the pamphlet says, about 147 towns and villages were abandoned and their people fled to Ogbomoso for safety. By 1891 the missionary S. G. Pinnock found a walled town, its gates closely watched by day and shut tight at night, its strength in its wall and moat. It had come a long way from one hunter's gear hanging in a tree.
