Ibiyemi is another of Chief Adelekan's sons. He was my driver for most
of the rest of my stay. This is a place where, perhaps to your and my
surprise, people live to be very old. Orisa Obatala has power over life
and longevity and he has claimed these people. So this is a place where
the history is not so easily loss. From great-grandfather to grandfather
to father to son the history gets passed on. Ibiyemi told me that when
the British and Germany archeologists arrived in Ile-Ife in the mid-late1800s,
they were so overwhelmed by the natural and spiritual wonders that they
beheld that they wanted to move the entire City some eighty miles away
so that they could take over the ancient site.
Holes piercing the earth with no end, spring water flowing with no apparent
source, a petrified wooden staff growing like a tree without leaves
or branches, a diamond so big that the reflected light of the moon and
stars gave night light to an entire town. When the Yoruba refused to
relinquish the City, the Europeans determined that the history and mysteries
of Ile-Ife, The Source of Human Spirituality, would be buried from the
world forever. I have a copy of an article that was published in a Belgium
newspaper in 1951 that describes part of the process that would be used
to destroy the Yoruba and the Soul of African people. The speech was
given by Jules
Renkin, Governor of Kinshasa to the first group of missionaries
journeying to the Congo in 1883. It is the preface to an instructional
handbook that would be given to Christian missionaries to teach them
how to teach Christianity to the Africans so that they would never again
rise into their spiritual consciousness and power.
Ibiyemi loaned me some clothes. At least I'll be able to put on some
clean clothes tomorrow even though I still don't have my luggage. I
was beginning to realize how much of the stuff I had packed into that
other bag I really didn't need. Part of my reading had referred to possible
losses. I decided to accept the fact that I might never see my luggage
again. I reread my reading, which I had decided to carry with me on
the journey. I understood fully that my life was in the hands of Orisa.
