The "Great Journey" of Ile-Ife's "Great Crown"

Source: exploringafrica

"In the history of Ile-Ife, 1903 was an earth-shattering year for the yoruba people. It was the year that the Ooni, the god-king of the Yoruba, encountered directly the full impact of British modern colonial rule. From the perspective of the Ooni and from the perspective of the colonial governor in Lagos, the year ended the preceding era and opened a new investiture for Ile-ife City and the Yoruba states of south-western Nigeria.

Although the governor, Sir William Macgregor, referred cursorily to the occasion as the 'Great Crown' case, to Ooni Adelekan Olubuse 1 (1894-1910) and to the Yoruba people, it was a precedent-setting 'Great Journey' because it marked the first time in the history  of Ile-Ife that an Ooni would venture out of his palace and beyond the center of the universe.

For Westerners, the occasion would have been tantamount to asking God to leave heaven to answer the call of a mere mortal.

The Ooni traveled to Lagos, then the center of British regional administration. For the Yoruba, news of the unprecedented journey provoked fear, anxiety, and uncertainty because it was a great taboo for the Ooni to vacate the sacred city of Ile-Ife to travel to another seat of power, however that power might be defined."

Jacob K. Olupona (2011: 77)

City of 201 Gods: Ile-Ife in Time, Space, and the Imagination