Developing the Tourist Potential
of
Benin-City
"Aghase Edo, Edo Ree"
"When You Arrive in Edo, Edo is Distant"
Part 3
Oro Grove on Oro Street at Uselu
in Relation to
Story of Queen Mother Idia
and
Oba Esigie
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Compcros
"Developing the Tourist Potential of Benin-City": "Aghase Edo, Edo Ree": "When You Arrive in Edo, Edo is Distant": Part 3: Oro Grove on Oro Street at Uselu in Relation to the Story of Queen Idia and Oba Esigie
Oba Esigie's mother, Idia, was about to be executed, as was the custom in Benin whenever the Oba ascended the throne.
This was to prevent her having undue influence on him.
Esigie, however, decided to break this rule, but he could not simply abolish the tradition through a decree.
Benin government operated through a system of checks and balances which framed the power of the Oba even though be was regarded as next to deity, a reflection of Olokun, spirit of the world's waters, present everywhere through the pervasive presence of water, Olokun, the son of Osanobua, the creator of the universe, Olokun's majesty reflected in the Oba understood as the Anthill of Totality, in which the Benin community and it's vast empire was unified.
The Oba hid his mother in a forest in Uselu, then a community outside Benin, swearing her custodians at Uselu to an oath of secrecy.
Oludamola Adewale elaborates:
" ( Oba Esigie) asked for the help of Omoregie Ero the 17th Ero of Benin. It was him that helped Esigie preserve Idia, the Oba's mother, in 1504.
Omoregie Ero had a secret grove at Idumwum-Oro at Uselu and called it Aro-Osun- the Shrine of the God of Herbs- which no one, except those initiated could enter...
For a long time, he kept Idia the mother of Esigie there while Oba Esigie also fought to eradicate the bad custom of eliminating the Oba's mother."( "The Untold Tale between Oba Esigie and Iyoba Idia of Benin",Guardian, Nigeria, 4th June 2019, https://guardian.ng/life/the-untold-tale-between-oba-esigie-and-iyoba-idia-of-benin//)
The Oba eventually prevailed and the tradition of executing the Oba's mother on his ascending the throne was abolished.
Idia subsequently used the forest as a zone of preparation for warfare, where she armed herself before entering battles fought to advance the fortunes of her son.
She was known as spiritually powerful, so such fortification may have included both physical arming to engage in hand to hand combat with material weapons as well as drawing from what is understood to be the spiritual powers of the forest, a primary concentration of spiritual force in African cultures, which, like all animist systems, see nature as a privileged confluence of spirit and matter.
In honour of the great cooperation given the Oba by the people of Uselu, whenever the Oba ascends the throne, the Queen Mother moves to Uselu, symbolically reenacting the concealment of the other queen mother in an Uselu forest. The Crown Prince also begins his coronation trek, his walk into Benin to be crowned Oba, from Uselu.
What remains of the forest in which the Oba's mother was hidden?
It had become a small but tightly woven grove of trees when last I saw it 20 years ago. I hope it is still standing.
The grove was inaccessible to anyone unless permitted by the Oba's palace.
I was drawn to the grove by its awesome atmosphere, well before I knew anything about it, before being told the story above by an old man on Oro Street, where Oro Grove, as I was told it is called, is located, a story reinforced by my later reading of the Wikipedia article on Idia, Adewale's essay and an analysis of the famous mask of her face stolen by the British in their attack on Benin and now in the British Museum, James Singer's "Masterpiece Story: Queen Mother Idia of Benin" at Daily Art magazine ( https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/queen-mother-idia-of-benin/).
The tree seemed to constellate a universe of strange powers, a cloud of eldritch potency, as strange intelligences, just out of reach but accessible to the persistently questing mind, existed in dynamic vitality in their own unique universe, distant in nature from the human world but intersecting with it.
"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far" states the narrator of one of the stories of US fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft.
Benin still remains home to trees and groves that suggest such orientations, such a sense of the compelling and the almost frightful, hinting at the transcendence of the categories of existence to which the mind is accustomed, something awesome, grandly beautiful and yet remote, evoking the boundaries of human knowledge at the edge of the known universe, a horizon not out in space or existing in a speculative zone but right on the street where cars pass, people live and commerce thrives, privileged zones where the architects of Benin landscape discovered uniquely sacred spaces and consecrated it through ritual and taboos of protection.
People should have a chance to reflect on such wonders of nature. They should also be able to consider their demonstration of humanity's partnership with nature in preserving history through sustaining locations associated with transformative events, such as the Oro Grove.
I visualize a tour guide explaining the
significance of the grove to tourists and opportunities provided for those who wish to contemplate the grove, seeking to immerse themselves in and perhaps pierce the mystery of it's arcane identity.
Could controlled entry into the sacred space be possible, one person at a time so as not to disturb the serenity of the atmospherically charged zone?
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