Obanosa

Family background

Obanosa was a son of Oba ('king') Akengbuda and a woman named Ose.^[1] Before his accession, his personal name was Osifo. He had reached an advanced age by the time he became Oba.^[2] Akengbuda was remembered as a long-lived ruler whose reign lasted approximately fifty-four years.^[3][4] French Navy officer Jean-François Landolphe described the Oba he encountered in 1778 as about sixty-five years old and without a wrinkle on his face. Anthropologist Robert Elwyn Bradbury mentions that if Landolphe's estimate was accurate and the ruler was Akengbuda, he would have been about ninety years old in 1804.^[2] Osifo therefore remained heir for an extended period while his father retained the throne, and during Akengbuda's later years, he assumed some responsibility for judicial matters.^[3][5]

Edaiken and participation in government

For many years before becoming Oba, Osifo held the title of Edaiken ('crown prince') and resided at the heir's court in Uselu.^[3] The Edaiken was the formally designated successor to the reigning Oba and governed from a separate court at Uselu.^[6] During or before 1787, Landolphe recorded a meeting between the reigning Oba and an heir whom he called "Chiffau" and le jeune roi ('the young king').^[2] Bradbury interpreted "Chiffau" as Landolphe's rendering of Osifo and regarded the passage as evidence that the future Obanosa had already been recognised as Edaiken.^[6] Landolphe did not estimate Osifo's age, and his description of the heir as young cannot be reconciled precisely with later traditions stating that Osifo had grey hair before reaching the throne.^[2][3]

In the succession system described by Bradbury, an Oba was expected to designate one of his sons, in principle the eldest legitimate son, as Edaiken. Through a procedure called yomo y isi, two or three other senior sons could receive lesser chiefdoms to administer. If an Oba died before completing these arrangements, the heir could be installed as Edaiken after the ruler's death and later allocate chiefdoms to his younger brothers. Tradition identifies Akengbuda as the last Oba to carry out yomo y isi during his lifetime. In Benin tradition, his completion of the procedure during his reign was regarded as further evidence of his longevity.^[5]

One tradition concerns the length of Osifo's period as heir. According to historian Jacob Egharevba, Osifo removed grey hairs from his head and sent them to Akengbuda to indicate that he was growing old while waiting to succeed. Akengbuda replied by sending powdered chalk mixed with salt, signifying that he still found the world too pleasant to leave.^[3] Historian Toyin Falola and his co-authors in History of Nigeria 2 likewise wrote that Osifo periodically sent his grey hair to his father to remind him that it was time for him to take office.^[4] Bradbury interpreted the tradition as supporting accounts of Akengbuda's advanced age and Osifo's prolonged wait to succeed him.^[2]

In the closing years of Akengbuda's reign, his age limited his participation in government. Before becoming Oba, Osifo, therefore, joined the chiefs in the palace and participated in deciding disputes.^[5] Egharevba also stated that, late in Akengbuda's reign, the Edaiken came from Uselu to sit with the chiefs while cases were heard.^[3] Later traditions concerning Osifo's decisions describe him as examining accusations rather than accepting the position initially advanced by influential chiefs.^[7] Bradbury regarded both Akengbuda's long reign and Osifo's participation in its final phase as relevant to reconstructing the chronology of eighteenth-century Benin.^[5] These accounts indicate that Osifo participated in royal administration before the conventional date of his accession.^[6]

Regnal name and judicial traditions

Egharevba linked the name "Obanosa" to a decision Osifo made while serving as Edaiken. According to the account, a young man brought an elderly man before the council with his hands tied, claimed that the captive was his father and accused him of speaking against the Oba. The chiefs initially commended the accuser for placing allegiance to the Oba above kinship, but Osifo questioned whether a son would treat his father in that manner. He ordered that an ordeal using sassywood determine whether the young man's mother had identified the prisoner as his father. The young man then admitted that the elderly man was not his father. The prisoner was released, and the false accuser was punished.^[3] The chiefs responded with the expression Oba n'Osa ona khin, translated by Egharevba as "this is a godly king". The title Obanosa was subsequently associated with that expression.^[3] Blackmun likewise stated that the name meant "godly king".^[8]

A second judicial account concerns Omwatavbe, one of Obanosa's favoured servants. Chiefs who opposed Omwatavbe accused him of committing adultery with one of the Oba's wives, expecting the accusation to result in his execution. Because Obanosa knew of their hostility toward Omwatavbe, he declined to accept the allegation without corroboration and ordered Omwatavbe to swear to his innocence. After taking the oath, Omwatavbe was cleared.^[9] Both accounts are preserved in later collections of Benin oral history, rather than in contemporary court records.^[7][2]

Accession and chronology

Egharevba wrote that Akengbuda died after ruling for fifty-four years and that Osifo succeeded him under the regnal name Obanosa around 1804.^[3] Falola and his co-authors also dated the accession to 1804 and described Obanosa as elderly by the time of his father's death.^[4] Bradbury cited a tradition assigning Obanosa a reign of about twelve years, whereas Egharevba reported that he died in the thirteenth year after taking the throne.^[2][3]

The surviving European accounts permit different interpretations, leaving the year of Obanosa's accession uncertain.^[2][10] Landolphe reported that no Oba died between his visits beginning in 1778, or possibly from his first arrival in the region in 1769, and his final visit in 1799.^[2] Historian Allan Ryder in Benin and the Europeans nevertheless argued that British sea captain John Adams met a middle-aged successor before the end of the eighteenth century and consequently proposed moving Akengbuda's death several years earlier.^[10] Falola and his co-authors stated that Obanosa's accession in 1804 followed a civil war caused by a succession dispute in which Osopakharha of Ugbague opposed his assumption of office.^[4] They stated that about one thousand people were killed during the conflict.^[4] Egharevba, by contrast, described Osopakharha as an enemy whom Obanosa caused to be killed shortly after his accession, and stated that more than one thousand people died in the struggle for power.^[3]

Conflict with Osopakharha

Accounts differ regarding Osopakharha's political position. Egharevba identified him as Obanosa's enemy, whereas Falola and his co-authors described him as a rival who opposed Obanosa's accession. Both accounts associate the conflict with the deaths of approximately one thousand people.^[3][4] Blackmun situated the dispute within traditions concerning the Eniwanren-Ason, a secret fraternity whose oath bound its members for life. In the account she analysed, Osopakharha, a son of the Esogban, presided over the fraternity; Akengbuda acted as its patron, while Ose, Obanosa's mother, served as its matron when Obanosa remained Edaiken at Uselu. Tradition described Osopakharha as publicly displaying his wealth, clothing and popularity in a manner that the Edaiken regarded as a threat to his position.^[1]

Because of the fraternity's influence, Akengbuda and Ose encouraged Osifo to become a member, but he declined. One account stated that Osopakharha held the title "Oba of the Night" within the fraternity, which Osifo regarded as an improper challenge to the sovereignty of the reigning Oba. After taking the throne, he acted against Osopakharha and the fraternity despite Ose's warning.^[1] In the account examined by Blackmun, a large part of the population supported Osopakharha and accused Obanosa of acting from jealousy. Obanosa ordered Osopakharha's execution and continued to suppress his followers.^[1] Egharevba recorded a tradition in which Osopakharha led a group of magicians. Some informants attributed Obanosa's death in the thirteenth year of his reign to supernatural retaliation by this group.^[3][a]

Military and administration

Egharevba attributed the conquest of Ute, a settlement in the Owo district of present-day Nigeria, to Obanosa, after which the community was required to render tribute to the Edaiken at Uselu.^[3] Falola and his co-authors also described the capture of Ute as a territorial expansion and stated that Obanosa's reign included both internal and external warfare.^[4] Other military events associated with the period involved the waterways through Itsekiri-controlled territory that vessels had to navigate to reach Benin from the coast, as relations between Benin and the Itsekiri deteriorated.^[12] Royal authority also operated at Ughoton (or Gwato), where the Oba stationed a resident veador ('overseer') to sell royal stocks of ivory and enslaved people.^[13] European captains arriving to trade were expected to visit the Oba, present gifts and negotiate commercial arrangements.^[14]

Trade and foreign relations

The commercial conditions during Obanosa's reign had developed over the final decades of Akengbuda's rule. After recovering from wounds sustained when his establishment was destroyed, naval officer Landolphe was transported to Príncipe by a French captain who was purchasing enslaved people at Ughoton. The captain worked for M. Senat and Company of Bordeaux, which maintained an agent at Príncipe from 1791 to coordinate commerce in enslaved people between the Niger Delta and Brazil.^[15] The revolutionary wars in Europe disrupted the enterprise and ended the company's operations.^[16] A 1792 report described a French trading arrangement in which a vessel travelled from Príncipe to the "port of Benin", where an agent from Bahia exchanged goods with Portuguese captains arriving from Brazil with tobacco.^[10] Ryder considered the report's "port of Benin" more likely to have been in the Itsekiri-controlled section of the river than at Ughoton. Under the arrangement, European merchandise, tobacco and money were used to purchase enslaved people for transportation to Príncipe.^[10]

Near the end of the eighteenth century, English vessels continued to obtain enslaved people from Benin, although at a lower level than in earlier decades. John Adams's remarks corresponded broadly with the limited surviving trade data, while Benin's infrequent appearance in European traders' memoirs reflected the small number of captains who entered the river. Captain Hugh Crow of Liverpool visited the Benin River once despite making several voyages to West Africa. His visit occurred during his first African voyage in 1790–1791.^[10] After trading for several months between Lagos and Benin, he sailed from Benin to Liverpool carrying ivory and other merchandise following the deaths of his company's coastal agents.^[17] Ryder noted that Crow did not refer to Landolphe's establishment.^[10] European shipping was limited by geographical conditions and health risks. Merchants regarded ports near river mouths as less hazardous than inland anchorages such as Ughoton or Ode Itsekiri, and vessels on the Benin River experienced high rates of illness. Large ships could not enter the river, smaller vessels had difficulty reaching Ughoton, and captains sometimes waited for months to complete a cargo.^[14]

Vessels from São Tomé and Brazil continued to arrive intermittently, but Lagos increasingly became the preferred location for assembling cargoes. Ryder concluded that direct European trade through Benin had declined to a low level by the first decade of the nineteenth century. The final major expansion of the transatlantic slave trade, therefore, centered on more accessible ports and largely bypassed the Benin River. The Oba may nevertheless have benefited indirectly from Lagos's expanding commerce by arranging transactions through intermediaries whom Ryder identified as Ijo and Ijebu.^[14] In 1811, the governor of Príncipe called Lagos "the port of Benin", which may indicate a commercial relationship between the tributary port and the kingdom. Adams's narrative nevertheless indicates that royal oversight of commerce remained in place. Masters of arriving vessels were still expected to meet the Oba shortly after reaching Ughoton, present gifts and negotiate trading conditions. Adams gave Obanosa silk damask, scarlet cloth and strings of coral.^[14]

Obanosa discussed trade with Adams for about an hour and complained particularly about the scarcity of Brazilian tobacco. On leaving, Adams received a small elephant tusk and several locally made cloths. Crow also stated that Benin produced a variety of tablecloth. At Ughoton, commerce remained under a resident veador appointed by the Oba to sell royal supplies of ivory and enslaved people.^[13] Trade values continued to be expressed in cloth units, which Adams reproduced in anglicised form.^[13] Ryder wrote that the decline in European trade with the Benin River area probably contributed to a further deterioration in relations between Benin and the Kingdom of Warri at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In April 1809, the governor of São Tomé reported warfare involving the Itsekiri and the Oba of Benin and Lagos.^[12]

Portuguese shipping was affected because vessels travelling toward Benin and Lagos had to cross waters controlled by the Itsekiri. During a dispute over payment for enslaved people in the following year, the Olu ('king') threatened to seize Portuguese vessels travelling to Lagos and attempted to discourage Portuguese traders from dealing with Benin. The governor of São Tomé warned that the Itsekiri ruler commanded large canoes fitted with artillery, and crewed by several rowers and warriors. Historian Ryder associated this more assertive Itsekiri policy with the accession of Olu Akengbuwa around 1809.^[12] Akengbuwa also faced opposition within the Itsekiri polity, including a dispute with chief Uwankun, the Uwangue of Warri, who established the village of Jakpa on a creek west of the Benin River.^[18] These divisions later enabled Obanosa's son and successor Osemwede to support Uwankun and confer Benin investiture on Uwankun's heirs, Diare and Nana, for their territories along the Benin River.^[19]

In the Benin account discussed by Ryder, Osemwede continued supporting Uwankun at Jakpa against pressure from the Olu, enabling Jakpa to develop as a centre of European trade while commerce at Itsekiri settlements loyal to Akengbuwa declined. A later tradition held that the conflict ended with the Oba placing a curse on Akengbuwa and his family, after which Akengbuwa and several potential successors died in succession.^[19] The final years commonly assigned to Obanosa's reign overlapped with international restrictions on the transatlantic slave trade. British prohibition substantially reduced British commerce in the Benin River because ivory alone could not sustain regular shipping. British naval operations also impeded Portuguese slave ships, while diplomatic pressure led Portugal in 1815 to prohibit its subjects from trading in enslaved people north of the equator. Spain issued a similar prohibition in 1817, making subsequent clandestine slave-trading operations more difficult to document.^[19]

Royal household and the Iyoba crisis

Following Obanosa's accession, Ose was installed as Iyoba ('queen mother').^[1] The office carried independent authority, estates, dependants and ritual responsibilities, and its holder was expected to support and protect the kingship of her son.^[20] Benin traditions associated the office with Idia, the mother of Oba Esigie, who assisted Esigie's accession and military campaigns.^[21] In Benin art, images of the Iyoba principally evoke this protective role instead of ordinary palace wives.^[22] Ose's remembered conduct differed from this model because tradition accused her of acting against her son. One version states that within the Eniwanren-Ason, she accepted Osopakharha as her ritual husband and assumed control of the fraternity after his death. Blackmun recorded an account by a Benin chief, Ihama Iguneronmwon, in which Ose used sorcery against Obanosa, entered the palace at night wearing the Oba's regalia, and was recognised by witches as their ruler. The account also attributed Obanosa's severe illness to attacks ordered by Ose.^[1] Diviners initially consulted by Obanosa were unable to identify the source of his condition, while those who suspected Ose feared accusing the Iyoba. A specialist called from outside Benin then uncovered the conspiracy. In another version, Obanosa rejected the accusation until supernatural means transported him to a meeting of the fraternity, where he overheard Ose's plans against him.^[1]

Accounts differ regarding the manner of Ose's death. One describes it as forced suicide, while another states that she was pelted with white orhue, a sacred white kaolin clay, in an act of purification following an abomination.^[1][23] Historian Egharevba's version, as quoted and discussed by Blackmun, stated more generally that Obanosa ordered his mother's death after the crisis became severe and that he died in agony soon afterward.^[1] Ose possessed substantial wealth and maintained followers independently of the king. Uselu was divided into wards, and each installation of a new Iyoba required a new palace site and the establishment of an associated ward. Following an Iyoba's death, her chiefs, relatives and dependants maintained a shrine at the former palace under an elder called an odionwere.^[1] Blackmun regarded the size of Ose's following and resources as evidence that her palace was an important political and social centre in the early nineteenth century.^[11] She noted that tradition records no other Iyoba as entering into direct rivalry with her reigning son.^[1] Despite accusing Ose of causing his illness, Obanosa remained responsible for performing her royal funerary rites. Egharevba wrote that he completed the ceremonies only a few days before his death. Blackmun inferred that the rites included the creation or furnishing of an ancestral shrine, both to fulfil a royal obligation and possibly to appease Ose's spirit.^[24]

Death and Ogbebo's accession

Egharevba reported that Obanosa died during the thirteenth year of his reign.^[3] Blackmun dated his death to about 1814 or 1815 and described it as premature.^[11][25] Falola and his co-authors instead gave 1816 as the final year of the reign.^[26] Ryder nevertheless argued that Egharevba's date of about 1804 for Akengbuda's death probably needed to be moved earlier by several years.^[10]

Tradition provides several explanations for Obanosa's death. One version attributed it to magicians associated with Osopakharha; another connected it with the illness allegedly caused by Ose and with the consequences of ordering his mother's execution.^[3] These accounts reflect Benin interpretations of political and ritual causation rather than a medically documented cause of death.^[2][11] Blackmun noted that, despite the violence associated with his reign, later traditions described Obanosa as mild in temperament and proficient in diplomacy. She interpreted the reported killing of Ose as a response to a crisis that had disrupted government.^[8]

A succession dispute followed Obanosa's death. Blackmun stated that he had not designated which of his sons would succeed him. In her account, elders met after his death, selected his son Ogbebo and crowned him ruler.^[25] Egharevba instead stated that Obanosa's two eldest sons, Erediauwa and Ogbebo, each claimed the throne. According to this version, Ogbebo defeated Erediauwa, declared himself Oba without completing the customary rites and compelled the chiefs to swear loyalty.^[9] Falola and his co-authors likewise wrote that Ogbebo assumed the title without the customary ceremonies and required the chiefs to take an oath of allegiance.^[27]

Support from the relatives and enslaved retainers of Ogbebo's mother contributed to his initial success. To avoid being killed, Erediauwa fled to Evbokhinmwi in the Ishan country.^[9] Blackmun argued that one of Ogbebo's earliest obligations as Oba would have been to direct the Igbesanmwan ivory carvers to furnish an ancestral altar for Obanosa. In her interpretation, completing and dedicating the altar would have reinforced Ogbebo's claim to be his father's ritual and political successor.^[25]

Civil war and rise of Osemwede

Ogbebo sent messengers toward Ishan with two leather boxes containing coral beads for distribution among the Enigie ('dukes'). They were instructed to demand Erediauwa's beheading and to return his head in one of the boxes so that Ogbebo could spit on it each morning. Ogie, described as Erediauwa's cousin, ambushed the delegation, killed some of its members, and drove away the survivors. He then delivered the coral beads to Erediauwa, who distributed them among the Enigie of Ishan.^[9] Egharevba stated that the gifts were intended to obtain assistance from Ishan ritual specialists in bringing the Ezomo Erebo of Uzebu and the inhabitants of Uselu into the campaign against Ogbebo.^[b] In response, Ogbebo raised troops from among his maternal relatives under commanders named Eyen and Eboide.^[9]

Erediauwa's supporters sang a battle song calling for the punishment of Eyen and Eboide and declaring that a younger brother should not be selected while the firstborn remained alive. The song expressed the claim that Ogbebo's kingship violated the expected order of seniority. Egharevba reported many deaths on both sides.^[9] Blackmun described Erediauwa as Ogbebo's half-brother.^[25] Ogbebo was eventually defeated. Before his death, he destroyed palace valuables, burned part of the palace and hanged himself.^[9][27] Eyen and Eboide also died by hanging.^[9] Ogbebo remained on the throne for eight months.^[9][27] Blackmun noted that the official Benin account attributes the burning of the palace to Ogbebo, but she suggested that Erediauwa may also have contributed to the fire.^[25] European evidence and Benin tradition indicate that part of the palace and some of its contents were destroyed during the conflict.^[24][25] An early nineteenth-century European observer described Ogbebo as popular among the population but reported that he was removed after a war in which many chiefs died and defeated opponents were subsequently executed.^[8][25]

Ivory carving under Akengbuda and Obanosa

The Igbesanmwan ivory carvers formed a hereditary titled guild responsible for major royal commissions in ivory. Altar tusks were produced collectively, with individual carvers contributing different skills according to the guild's hierarchy. Their compositions drew on inherited family motifs, innovations attributed to spiritual inspiration and forms developed by the emada, or palace swordbearers, who produced carved wooden household objects.^[29] Landolphe and his companions provided the earliest explicit European accounts of figurative carving on altar tusks.^[29][30] Between 1778 and 1787, they observed tusks bearing carved lizards, snakes and human figures on royal and chiefly ancestral shrines.^[29] Landolphe reported that Obanosa's father, Akengbuda, had installed sixty tusks on the palace altar dedicated to his own father, Eresoyen.^[31] A separate account by "Legroing" referred to carved elephant tusks used as decoration in the palace's large courtyards.^[29] Accounts of Akengbuda's reign describe substantial quantities of ivory.^[31] Landolphe claimed that one palace courtyard contained about three thousand tusks and that he purchased sixty thousand pounds of ivory in Benin.^[32] He and Legroing also reported large carved tusks on the altar of Ezomo Ekeneza.^[31]

Landolphe described Ekeneza as the kingdom's wealthiest man, claiming that he possessed over ten thousand enslaved people and could mobilise between fifty thousand and sixty thousand men for warfare. Cowrie-shell money decorated Ekeneza's audience chamber, and Legroing estimated that one tusk on the altar dedicated to Ekeneza's father was about eight feet high.^[32] Blackmun used the Ezomo tusks as a reference point for establishing the relative chronology of royal ivory production.^[33] She associated their imagery with traditions of the Ezomo lineage, military campaigns of the mid-eighteenth century and an altar that had already been established when Landolphe visited in 1786–1787.^[32] Their carving style provided a basis for comparison with royal tusks attributed first to Akengbuda and later to Obanosa.^[33] Blackmun argued that Akengbuda's long reign encompassed two generations of carvers, permitting a stylistic change before Obanosa commissioned new ancestral works. Figures on earlier tusks were often distributed more freely across the surface, whereas early nineteenth-century carvings generally used frontal figures arranged in ordered rows.^[21]

Ancestral altar for Akengbuda

At the beginning of a reign, a newly installed Oba was expected to create an altar for his deceased father.^[32][25] Obanosa would therefore have instructed royal carvers to prepare an ancestral altar for Akengbuda after taking the throne.^[34] Blackmun initially considered whether a group of royal tusks dominated by female imagery had been produced for Akengbuda's altar shortly after 1804. Under this interpretation, the prominence of Iyoba imagery could have shown Ose's increased authority following Akengbuda's death and her installation as Iyoba.^[35] Blackmun later concluded that a single large tusk in Berlin displayed features more consistent with an object commissioned by Obanosa for Akengbuda's altar. The tusk cannot be assigned to another recognised group and combines elements of eighteenth-century royal carving with motifs and conventions associated with early nineteenth-century work. Its base bears a diamond pattern rather than the guilloche interlace found on many altar tusks. On stylistic grounds, Blackmun regarded the Berlin tusk as a more probable surviving component of Akengbuda's altar than the female-dominated group. She inferred that the other tusks from the same commission may not have survived.^[8]

Funerary commemoration of Ose

Another group of large royal tusks contains an unusually high proportion of female figures and repeated representations associated with the Iyoba. Unlike the more freely arranged imagery on many earlier works, the figures face forward and are organised in regular rows.^[21] Female figures occupy nearly one-third of the carved area, and the Iyoba appears repeatedly as a principal motif.^[36] The imagery includes ceremonies and objects associated with the protective powers attributed to Idia.^[37] The scenes include representations of the Ugie Oro ceremony, recalling Esigie and Idia's victory over the Igala, and depictions of the Oba ringing an ivory bell to repel dangerous spiritual forces.^[36] Blackmun considered several possible patrons and recipients for the tusks.^[38] She examined whether they had been commissioned by Osemwede for his mother Omozogie, by Osemwede for Obanosa, by Ose or her followers for her shrine at Uselu, by Obanosa for Akengbuda, or by Obanosa for Ose after ordering her death.^[39]

An attribution to Osemwede was considered partly because his mother Omozogie was remembered as an Iyoba who assisted Benin's campaign to re-establish tribute from Akure. In 1820, an English visitor, John King, described Omozogie wearing European silks, large quantities of coral and a royal headdress resembling that of the Oba.^[39] Blackmun nevertheless concluded that the carving style dated the female-dominated tusks to the earlier period of Obanosa's reign.^[40] She considered an independent commission by Ose's adherents difficult to reconcile with the Oba's authority over the senior Igbesanmwan carvers. Although a wealthy titleholder could arrange ivory work for a future personal shrine, Blackmun considered it unlikely that the guild would have produced royal tusks for Ose's followers after her disgrace without Obanosa's approval.^[8]

After identifying the stylistically intermediate Berlin tusk as a more probable survival from Akengbuda's altar, Blackmun considered the attribution of the female-dominated tusks to Akengbuda less likely. She therefore concluded that Obanosa probably commissioned them for Ose's funerary shrine.^[8] Blackmun dated the probable commission to the period between Ose's execution and Obanosa's death, approximately 1812 to 1815, while allowing that compressed oral chronologies could indicate a longer interval.^[38] She interpreted the repeated imagery of the Iyoba, concealed power and protective ritual as a response to the tradition that Ose had directed powers intended to protect the throne against her son.^[8] The objects may also have been intended to appease Ose's spirit after her death.^[24]

Posthumous altar and the palace fire

Under customary practice, Ogbebo's accession would have required him to establish an ancestral altar for Obanosa. Blackmun argued that Ogbebo's kingship could not be ritually secured until the altar had been furnished and dedicated. Because part of the palace burned before Ogbebo's defeat, she proposed that newly carved tusks supporting his claim may have been destroyed in the fire. Their destruction would have removed objects that publicly represented Ogbebo as Obanosa's ritual and political successor.^[25] Blackmun also suggested that the fire may account for the absence of a complete tusk group that can be securely associated with Obanosa's commissions for Akengbuda or Ose.^[24]

A surviving group of tusks, including an example in the Cleveland Museum of Art, was probably made during the second decade of the nineteenth century and may have formed part of a reconstructed ancestral memorial for Obanosa.^[41] In style and imagery, these works differ from carvings produced only a few years earlier.^[25] Blackmun interpreted the change as evidence that another group of carvers became active after the succession conflict.^[25] She compared the later royal tusks with a related group produced for the Ezomo following Erebo's death around 1819. Under Benin custom, Erebo's son Osifo was required to prepare an altar within about two years of his father's death, enabling Blackmun to date both groups to approximately 1818–1820. Similarities between the chiefly and royal carvings provided a further chronological basis for attributing the later royal commission to Osemwede rather than Obanosa.^[40]

Blackmun also speculated that Osemwede may have dismissed or executed senior Igbesanmwan carvers who had begun work on Obanosa's altar and thereby supported Ogbebo's legitimacy. The proposal rests on the stylistic discontinuity and an early European report of executions following Ogbebo's defeat, rather than on direct documentation concerning individual artists.^[8][25] Following the British conquest of Benin in 1897, over two hundred altar tusks were removed from the kingdom. Blackmun stated that British forces removed objects of religious and cultural significance after encountering evidence of human sacrifice in Benin City. About 133 surviving tusks contain much figurative imagery relating to the kingdom's historical, political, mythological and ritual traditions. Their motifs include rulers, mythological beings, officials, attendants, symbolic animals, abstract patterns and depictions of foreign horsemen, soldiers, merchants and missionaries.^[30]

Children and succession

Egharevba identified Ikpoghodu and Uwahen as Obanosa's two elder daughters. Both princesses married and received property from the royal household as part of their marriages. Ikpoghodu received the more valuable ceremonial objects and personal possessions. She had no children, whereas Uwahen had several.^[42] Obanosa fathered several sons, although Egharevba named only Erediauwa and Ogbebo as the two eldest. Regarding Obanosa's wives, Egharevba's account of Omwatavbe refers only to one of the Oba's wives.^[9]

Traditions concerning Ediae and Ogbesọn

Another group of traditions associates Obanosa with Ediae, an early royal figure connected with the villages of Egbaẹn and Ogbesọn. Kathy Curnow in Umẹwaẹn: Journal of Benin and Ẹdo Studies reported that Ogiegbaẹn ('duke') Aduwa told anthropologist Robert Bradbury that a former chief Esọn of Benin City founded Ogbesọn at an unknown date as an agricultural settlement for enslaved labourers. By the eighteenth century, according to tradition, Akengbuda had appointed Ediae as the first Enogie of Egbaẹn. Bradbury recorded a tradition stating that, before or during Akengbuda's reign, the eldest son of an Oba could not have a full brother. When Ose gave birth to another son, the infant was left at the Ugonerie vb'Iyekowa in the royal palace, where he remained for seven days.^[43] A palace maidservant found the child alive while removing refuse and informed her mistress.^[44]

Akengbuda was informed and sent to Obanosa to ask what should be done with the child.^[44] Obanosa reportedly replied that the child should be allowed to live because no one could know what children had planned before leaving erimwi ('spirit world').^[43] The account identifies the child as Ediae and states that he was returned to his mother and brought up. Akengbuda later gave Ediae many things and sent him to Egbaẹn.^[45] After Ediae's appointment, the people of Egbaẹn moved with him to Ogbesọn and became the leading group in the consolidation of the settlement's population. Curnow stated that the reason for the migration is unknown. Although traditions agree that Ediae was of royal status, they differ regarding his parentage and the monarch who appointed him.^[45] Ogiegbaẹn Aduwa identified Ediae as a son of Akengbuda. By contrast, an elder interviewed in 1975 identified him as Obanosa's son while also stating that Eresoyen sent him to govern Ogbesọn. Ogbesọn residents associated Eresoyen with the settlement's establishment, and the local primary school was named after him.^[45]

Colonial reports examined by author Enawekponmwen Basimi Eweka also credited Eresoyen with establishing Ogbesọn's new headship. The presence of Eresoyen's ancestral altar in the royal courtyard led Curnow to consider whether Ediae may have been Eresoyen's son. In 1975, the Enogie of Ohovbe stated that a son of Akengbuda, whom Curnow tentatively considered possibly to be Obanosa, appointed a separate duke for Ogbesọn.^[45] Many inhabitants of Ogbesọn use Lamogun as a morning salutation; the same greeting is used for the Oba and descendants of earlier monarchs.^[45]