ONILE, FOR THE OSHUGBO CULT

When William Fagg visited Nigeria in 1959 he interviewed many brass casters who worked for the local Oshugbo (as Ogboni is called in Ijebu-Ode) houses and his information was confirmed by Salami Akinsanya of Idomowo, the most immportant brass caster in Ijebu-Ode. He was told that onile were cast as pairs of a male and a female kneeling figure, which once consecrated and placed in the shrine may never leave it. In a note to a male figure which may well be the pair to the present female (Christie's, London, 14 July, 1976, lot 46) he describes the function of both onile and edan, and relates how the decay of many Oshugbo houses has led to the dispersal of the goods they contain, but also that the casters were permitted to sell their wares to members of the public as long as they had not been consecrated. The male figure about which he wrote he considered to have been cast before the Second World War.