Prince Aromolarun, royal priest, is often credited with bringing the knowledge of metallurgy to the Lokoja settlements and
major trading cities south.
From Lokoja, it is said, metal working spread southwards until the land of many rivers was known as the land of Copper, Iron and Brass. We cannot be sure, entirely, that Prince Aromolarun was the sole reason that metallurgy came to Lokoja. It is said, however, that he was "Omo Ogun," a remarkable swordsmith and the most acute soldier to don regal garbs.
Generally, we know Alaafin Shango, aside from his reputation, by his glyphs--a twin-headed axe, a calabash, a lightning bolt and a tree. One European man with sunglasses, he believes that what we imagine to be a tree is actually the motion water makes at the bottom of a waterfall. It is possible. It is possible. In fact, the literature of the Niger and Benue is replete with ambiguity.
Pot-bellied men with spears, thin, tribal-marked men with axes, two horses and the Alaafin. Shango, he was a thin, tribal-marked, stern man with just enough humor about life to give life to our literature in those days. And never a day walked he without his trademark striped khaki agbada with the gold embroidery. And such was the value of his reputation, gold, that we used not dyes to invoke his insistence in art. We carved his spirit, instead, in cast iron and
precious metals as a symbol of the strength of the elements that Prince Aromolarun had used to provoke that great revolution in farming.
A friend that flies with the Ogisos, he tells me that Ijaw people might take offense to the implication that Prince Aromolarun migrated from the Sahel and his ancestors from up yonder where the giant man lives. As though to imagine that Madam Amuno, herself, was not well-known in those places where our ideas of metal-working had no choice but to elevate our collective consciousness, before our people inhabited the dense forests and savannah and made our home in the land of many rivers; a land replete, as Eze's, with fish and the elements.
"Merin-dilogun" this was the counting system that was popular back then. For whatever reason, the Alaafin's sixteen heavenly signs were in great use in counting, and for dynasties after this great man's name rung forth all the way to Morocco. Four basketfuls of crop less than my two hands twice, per farming family during the festival, and the large market towns were all bustling at the same time when the river flooded. This was, of course, until that year when fully half of the inhabitants of the large trading cities surrounding the royal settlements produced less.
The current Alaafin's Chiefs took the advice of a young man who had journeyed towards Morocco, defending the Kingdom, and who had come into the company of a great magician searching for his family near the big mountains. This magician, whom people followed because of his ability to bless the lands with rain, suggested that the citizenry would begin to question the Alaafin's Priests if they did not have a handle of the harvest.
The current Alaafin, then an old and intensely wise fellow, is said to have invited this magician to administer the yearly harvest. The young magician responded that he was saddened
that "his father" did not know him. The Alaafin, as you know, sent a gold sword to the magician, then ascended into Heaven shortly thereafter. In the mean time, the Harvest Council, they, in quiet meetings, decided that it would be more efficient, not to mention more functionally appropriate, if less families were involved in producing the desired quantity of crops. They also decided which families would grow twice-a-season crops and those who would grow once-a-season crops.
With the Alaafin on his way to Heaven, his nephew, Prince Ade-tun-reh had taken charge of administration and had an eye to implementing these new changes with a heavy hand.
As you might imagine, the council deciding and the council implementing Ade-tun-reh's changes that would make their government relevant were two different kettle of fish. As if the gods
were not happy enough with this riddle, the magician, Baba Ibn-Ajantala sent word that he would, after all, be returning to "the land of our father" to serve in any capacity Olodumare willed.
As we will see, this led, initially, to taxation and the decentralization of the Alaafin's government. But, more importantly, this was the point in our history when Ibn-Ajantala was forced to escape, with his vast and wealthy entourage, imminent assassination, finding his way to Ile Ibn-Obatala, ruled by Ogi-ahmen-re, where Ibn-Ajantala's ancestor, Obata'nla, had entrenched a beautiful and vibrant city; this, after failing to find the much spoken of Banubian city Alaafin Shango had tasked of him.
Certainly, you will recall, Obata'nla had "followed the wrong star" but had been guided by the right spirits.
We will speak of Ajantala's influence on the Alaafin's institution and government after, you must imagine, I have had more palm wine.
Guides
