Posted by By NWAGBO NNENYELIKE, Ilorin on
It is now 231 years when a hunter, named Baragbon, in Esie, Kwara State, discovered over 1, 500 stone images under a palm tree in the grove.....
It is now 231 years when a hunter, named Baragbon, in Esie, Kwara State, discovered over 1, 500 stone images under a palm tree in the grove. After these two centuries and three decades, the Esie community is yet to believe that human being carved the stones.
This is against the argument of archaeologists that unknown carvers carved them, despite the fact that these stones are the largest collection of natural stone images in Africa.
In any case, Esie community had continued to insist that nature kept the stones where they were found. "If they were carved by human beings, why is it that the broken parts of some of them could not be put together by any human being?" asked His Royal Highness, Oba Yakubu Babalola, Egunjobi II, the Elesie of Esie land.
The monarch also said: "Those images were not carved. The communities believe that it was the handiwork of God.
'They are really the work of God. Efforts have been made by many people to put together the parts of some of the images that got broken. The whitemen also tried but it was impossible. I mean the hands, the legs and some other parts of the images broke off long ago, but nobody could fix them together. If they were carved by human beings, there is no way the materials used in carving them would not have been known, to make for easy putting together of the broken parts.''
There had been several versions of stories of how these stone images came to be. The oral account had it that in the olden days, when Baragbon discovered the stone images in 1775, during his hunting expedition, he was astonished. These over 1,500 images were in a semi-circular form under a palm tree with a king image in their midst as if he was presiding over a village meeting. Then, Baragbon ran to call the then Elesie of Esie. When Elesie came and saw it, he was frightened.
Elesie decided that an Ifa priest should be invited to consult the Ifa oracle. When this was done, the Ifa priest said that the images were human beings who had annoyed the gods and as a punishment, the gods turned them into stones. Fear gripped the Elesie that his subjects could be similarly turned into stones. He ordered that the stone images be worshiped. However, 222 years into the worship, the current monarch of Esie ordered that the worship must stop.
That was in 1997, when he celebrated his 10th year on throne. He told Daily Sun why he stopped the community from the stone worship.
"I ordered that nobody should worship them again. We are now in the era of Islam and Christian religions. Everybody is either a Christian or a Moslem. We were told that our forefathers ordered the worship because the stones were mysterious to them. We cannot continue with that. There are many churches and mosques all over the Place,'' he said.
Some of the oba that ruled the land are Olakosin, Elemole, Ita Ajada Oniwowosofi Onileowo, Igbilajobi, Olarinde, Olayinka, Momoloso, Fadolopo I, Afa-Olaleye, Olasupo, Oyedokun.
Others are Abikoye, who reigned from 1932 to 1951, then Babalola Egunjobi, from 1951 to 1955. After Oyeyipo, Alhaji Yakubu Babalola ascended the throne in 1987.
The archaeological angle posited that somebody carved the images. To prove that they were carved, archaeologists noted that the outer parts of the images are smaller than the inner parts.
Also, they found that the carvers' knives finishing points are conspicuous in the hidden parts, and only the external parts are polished. Other things they observed are that the stones appeared three times smaller than the normal human size.
The time of discovery, which was 1775 by the hunter, was the stone age. It could be either in the early, middle or late stone age. Further studies, according to archaeologists, revealed that the carvers could be from either Ebira or Nupe tribe. They reached this conclusion because of the tribal marks on the faces of the images, as well as the nature of the images, especially the ones that looked like masquerades. They stated that such marks and masquerades are seen among the Ebira and Nupe.
These tribal marks viewpoint is another line of thinking Esie people would not want hear.
Oba Babalola raised his voice when he said: "No! This is unacceptable.'' He explained, "that argument is knocked off completely. Let me ask you. If the Ebira or Nupe people carved them, were there means to convey them to Esie land? There had never been any evidence that the images were conveyed from any place to Esie where they were discovered.
If the so-called carvers were carving the images, Baragbon would have seen them in one of his expeditions. But he only saw images alone. Did the carvers leave them under the tree and forgot they were there? Besides, the weights of the images are so large that nobody could carry them to travel a long distance. There were no vehicles then. The truth is that the images are mysterious. No Ebira man or Nupe man carved them.''
Elesie disclosed that the heaviest among the images weighs 104 kilogrammes. It is the image of an old man resting on what looks like a walking stick on his beard. Because this is not too clear, he could be said to be eating or trying to drink water from a bowl. In the main Gallery of the House of Images established 61 years ago, the over 1,500 images were arranged in groups. The Federal Government officially took over the museum and commissioned it in 1945. It is under the custody of National Commission for Museum and Monuments (NCMM).
Meanwhile, the groupings were done based on the activities each of the images. There are economic, political, religious, social groups. Among the social group, you discover all sorts of hair styles among the images that look like women. There is Ajankolokolo tagged puf puf or Elesinsin lori. This kind of hairdo still exists today among the women. Beads are seen on many of the women images. In the political group, you have the king, his servants and the men of war who wore helmet and have Ifunpa (bullet proof) with them.
It is believed that they used it for protection during war. Some of the images pose like subjects who are paying allegiance to the king. Though there were no mosques and churches, the images in the religious group, appeared in total submission to the creator. There are other art works in the gallery.
At the site of discovery, the palm tree where Baragbon saw the images was noticed to have fallen down. A mango tree was instead planted there. Also, Daily Sun learnt that when NCMM wanted to build a new crafts shop close to the site, those digging the foundation saw more stone images buried under ground. NCMM decided to bury them back because any attempt to excavate them without modern technology would crack and destroy the newly found images. A groove Peregun believed to have been there since 1775. It is believed among the Yoruba that this groove is sacred and is always near a shrine or a boundary and it is close to the site of the discovery, where images were being worshipped before.
Oba Babalola, who disclosed that the community has provide an enabling environment for not only the images, but the workers in the museum called on the Federal Government to register more presence in Esie.
"The museum celebrated 60 years anniversary. The community, on its part, is making tremendous effort. At the 60th year we organised a launch. We want to establish a superb quest house. The museum has been attracting attention from all corners of the world. It is a good tourist site. We need good roads. In fact, some presidents of Nigeria have visited the site of the discovery.
Meanwhile, the duo of Mr. Akin Ololade and Tunde Kolade, whom Daily Sun encountered in Esie, called on United Nations Organisation to declare the site of the discovery a world heritage site. According to them, Osun Groove in Osogbo, which share similarity with Esie stone images, had been so declared, adding. "The Esie stone image collection is a great heritage for a greater future in Africa. Let modern implement be brought to excavate the newly seen ones when the NCMM was constructing the crafts shop."