Oba Koso (The King Did Not Hang) – Review 2

If you want to read part 1, here you go: Oba Koso (The King Did Not Hang) – Review 1

The opening scene of Oba Koso showed how the Ancient Yorubas related to their kings. The chief eunuch who served Sango opened the scene as he recited Sango’s oriki.  Every Yoruba family has an oriki. My father greeted us in the morning with the first two words from our oriki. I was less than five years when my paternal grandfather died so I do not have a lot of memory of him. However, the patriarch of our family would recite most of the family oriki whenever we visited our family house in my home town.

Oriki is poetry and it captures the history of the family, their distinctive attributes and how the family differentiated itself from the rest of the other families.  It can include references to the Yoruba deity that the family worshipped, it can reference their family trades and everything that makes the family special.

Obviously, reciting a king’s oriki is accompanied by a greater deal of fanfare, so Sango’s chief eunuch was chanting the oriki to various musical instruments: bata, sekere, dundun, igbin, aro and kerikeri. Bata, sekere and dundun, I know, the rest are left to imagination.

All this time, Sango was in his chambers  as people waited for him to emerge to a big reception room in his palace. One of his numerous wives fetched a mortar on which Sango would sit. Clearly Sango did not care about having a fanciful throne!

As Sango prepared to make his majestic entrance, the drummers drummed in earnest and the chief eunuch praised Sango’s prowess and power, reminding the audience that this man was second only to the gods. The richness of the Yoruba language was in full display as various figures of speech were deployed to remind everyone how dangerous it was to cross Sango’s path. The chanting and singing reminded people of the powers of Sango, such as his ability to emit fire from his mouth.

Finally, Sango came in with his most senior wife, Oya, who took on the mantle of leading the praise of Sango from the chief eunuch. Her praised emphasised the danger of incurring the wrath of Sango. She begged Sango that if he ever turned into a bee he should not sting her and if he transformed into a lion, he should please not kill her relatives’ herd.

Finally, Sango sat down on the mortar and started receiving visitors. Of note in attendance were two powerful warriors, Timi and Gbonka. Timi was the first to come in, singing his own praise. Gbonka was the next one and followed a similar pattern to Timi. Sango affirmed the two warriors.

The last notable set of visitors were the Oyo Mesi. The Oyo Mesi  appoint kings and remove them, so they were very powerful. Their grievance was the activities of Timi and Gbonka as both were out of control, causing mayhem in Oyo. The Oyo Mesi wanted Sango to bring the duo under control, but this was a tricky problem for Sango as both were very powerful.

Sango concocted a plan and sent Timi to Ede. On getting there, the people of Ede made him a king. When Sango heard, he realised there was an opportunity to kill one of his sources of headache, so he sent Gbonka, hoping Timi would kill Gbonka. Unfortunately, Gbonka used his incantation power to put Timi to sleep and carried him to Oyo.

That was the worst outcome for Sango, his two enemies were back in Oyo town, so he insisted that the contest should happen again. Gbonka smelled a rat so he went meet the council of witches who gave him extra power and he triumphed once again over Timi, beheading him.

Gbonka was bent on retribution, so he asked to be burnt to death. He wanted to show that he was able to overcome Sango’s power: the ability to emit fire from his mouth. Gbonka was promptly burnt to ashes with nothing remaining. As the people of Oyo rejoiced that they had seen the last of Gbonka, Gbonka emerged with a crowd of people and danced into the palace! The people of Oyo turned on Sango and Sango in his fury killed several.

The disgrace inflicted by Gbonka, coupled with his regret at the damage he did to Oyo in his anger was eventually too much, so Sango decided to go back to his maternal origin. However, when he was deserted by two people closest to him, Oya and Biri, he committed suicide by hanging.

However, that was the account of Duro Ladipo, who quoted his source as the traditional houses across Yorubas in the South West of Nigeria. Samuel Johnson had a different account of Sango’s palavers. Sango was apparently experimenting with his power to cause thunder and he ended up burning his whole family to death. This drove him to abdicate though Samuel Johnson claimed other accounts suggested it was the Oyo Mesi who forced him to abdicate. The fact that none of Sango’s children survived him could add some credibility to this account.

Sango became a deity because his close friends created a narrative that his voice could be heard whenever there was thunder. There is no doubt the narrative was very successful because Sango remains a deity worshipped by some Yorubas, both in Nigeria and in the Diaspora.