Murals at Afin Oyo

Abstract

A in Oyo, with a built-up area of seventeen acres, is the largest and most complex palace in Yorubaland, Nigeria. It is the royal residence of one of the most important Yoruba kings-the Alafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayewola Adeyemi III. During the summers of 1971 and 1973, His Highness gave his permission for a study that produced an accurate plan and measured drawings of the palace. While the palace was being measured, an outstanding painted mural was noted on the wall of the main entrance gate (Abata Aremo), and three mud relief murals were also discovered. The existence of two of the latter murals was generally known by the residents of the Afin. One is located in Kaa Iya Oloya, Courtyard of the Oya Priestess (who is in charge of the shrine to the wife of Shango; Oya is the Niger River goddess), and the second is found on the east interior wall of Kaa Baba Elesin. The third mud relief was rediscovered under the collapsed roof on the north exterior wall of Kaa Baba Elesin after having been forgotten for many years. Apparently, because of its location in a ruined and consequently abandoned section of the palace, no one knew that it still was partially intact. Samuel Johnson, in the History of the Yorubas (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1921), speaks of attempts at artistic decorations at Old Oyo consisting of traced on the wall. He may have been referring to representations of the ancestors done in mud relief or the painted figures we find at Oyo today. According to one of the arokins, or oral historians, of the palace, Captain Ross, who was the English section officer for Oyo, encouraged art work in the palace between 1915 and 1930. He might have been the catalyst for the large painted mural on the main entrance gate house (Abata Aremo) of the Afin Oyo palace. In this mural, the figures are impressed or engraved into the surface rather than raised in relief above the background, as is the case with all other wall decoration in the palace. It is on an immense scale: 3.66 meters in height and 40.23 meters in length. In the Yoruba culture, the creation of art is considered religious, and while he was working on the mural the artist had the front of the entrance gate house covered so that no one could witness the execution of this sacred act. For Salami Alabide, the man who created this masterpiece sometime between 1915 and 1917, this was his first and last mural. After its completion he went to Mecca and returned a pious follower of Islam, which prohibits figural representation in art. The theme of the mural is the kingship, and the Oba is often represented by the elephant. Also appearing are leopards, monkeys, ostriches, peacocks, slaves, swords, serpents, and royal umbrellas, and birds and swordsmen guard the entrance in a formal, symbolic manner. The placement of the figures creates a predominantly assymmetrical design. A portion of the mural faces the kobi, or extended porch, used by the Oba to cover and separate him from his people. The figures are painted black and are impressed on a beige background; along the base of the mural runs a black border 61 centimeters high. Salami Alabide used a bundle of dried raffia tied to a stick to apply the native paints. Black is a mixture of red clay, charcoal, and horse excreta, and white or beige is made from light clay. Blue is made from indigo leaves, and green is a mixture of leaves, horse excreta, and clay.