of Ife. She was very beautiful and her marriage to the Oni was a success. It would have been a perfect marriage if she could have had a child. It was important for the Oni to have a child. But there was no child. So the good woman sacrificed herself. She had the Oni married to another woman, and she became a water sprite, an eternal protectress of the Oni and his family. This was the origin of the well. It was said to be bottomless. It had a brackish smell, and when I looked down I saw something like a very pale nettle growing in the mouth of the well.
The tradition was that at the time of his enthronement the Oni’s feet had first to be washed with water from this well. And because the well looked after him and his children, the Oni had to tell the well when he was leaving Ife.
In a quadrangle at the back people were being fed; this feeding was connected with our visit. Women helpers had done the cooking in big stainless steel pots and were still there, handling long spoons. Some of the people in our party, overcome by the idea of food, settled down to eat. On the wall, at the back of the tables, were many colour photographs of important people who had come here on other occasions; one photograph was of a previous Archbishop of Canterbury.
We went back with our guides to the air-conditioned audience hall, with all the fine chairs, and went out the way we had come. Outside the main door we saw the bust of a woman, rather squat on her stand, her features not absolutely clear. I had seen her as I was going in, but I had not been told much about her.
I was told now. She was the great Yoruba heroine. The story about her was something like this. At some time in the remote past the Yoruba were fighting a traditional enemy and were on the verge of defeat. This woman went to the oracle and said, “Please give me the secret of our enemy’s power.” The oracle said, “No trouble about that. I will give you the secret of your enemy’s power. But first you must give me what is most precious to you.” What was most precious to the woman was her only son. She had him sacrificed. The secret of the enemy was then revealed to her, and the enemy was defeated. Up to this day the woman and her son are venerated by the Yoruba. In fact, the son has taken on the lineaments of Christ, because of this story of sacrifice, and in this form has been received into the Yoruba pantheon.
It was a perfect story for a place that was the cradle of civilisation and the black race. If I had been introduced to the story cold, so to speak, just as I had arrived, it wouldn’t have meant much. But now, after a meeting with the grave chiefs, and after a sight of the garden that was the source of life, I understood a little more. For myths to take on life, they have to be supported by other myths; and there was enough support of this kind in Ife.
There was more to see. There was another garden some distance away, but still in the town, where the central object was the staff of an ancient Yoruba warrior, who was a giant. The wood of the staff, which was, of course, very big, had turned to stone. The staff stood upright in a garden as formal and clean as the Source of Life garden. The white-robed priest who looked after the staff said he had been trying for some time to get the government to put a canopy over the staff, to protect it from the weather and to prevent it from being worn away.
The story of the staff was like this. At the very beginning of things the giant ruled the Yoruba. He protected them and made them prosperous. In due course the giant was called to the world of spirits. He left behind his staff and a trumpet, and his instructions were that whenever the Yoruba needed him the trumpet was to be sounded. One day an idle young fellow, having no regard for the story, blew on the trumpet. A giant figure began then to stride over the earth, laying people low left and right with his sword. A woman ran