Iya Ayesomi

Daughter of Obin Aliu. At her youth, she was famous for her great beauty. She was fair in complexion and talented. Iya had very many virtues for which she became endeared to many people. She was outstanding among women of her own age.

Industry: Iya was a farmer of great repute. She had a big garden beside her house, while maintaining a huge farm at Uten. The garden produced all kinds of fruits and vegetables and throughout the year. It also served as the source of many herbs for curative purposes. Her menus are unique as she was capable of great improvisation. "Okokore" (snails) and "ileeken" (locust) were never wanting in her garden during the summer.

In her Uten farm were both cash and food crops. It had many threshing mills for the palm oil produced from the farm. She also produced yam, cassava and other crops from which she supported her ever full house.

Kitchen: Iya's house was a 4-bedroom brick house with "olore" (mud bed) in every room. Her kitchen was another story entirely. Uniquely, she kept an "akpase" (a wooden shelf on top of the local mud stove - "afo") which served as a kind of storage and preservative mechanism. From this she dishes out dry "ekpase" (bean cake), "odigba" (corn cake), coconut, yam, etc. to visiting children; some of who visited her solely for that purpose.

However, only disciplined children can enjoy her company. She sometimes tested their obedience by sending them to fetch her water from "Emakailu ebi" or "Otamurun" (whichever they are mature enough to go. Those who fail are likely to be greeted with sharp rebuke from her angry high pitch tone. She ended such rebukes with a broken. Yoruba dismissal statement "O lo joko".

Social Life : Although she had no children of her own, Iya was a mother to many children. While she was the midwife at their birth, she was also their nurse when they got sick. Sometimes she housed them and their mothers for many days. Besides, she nursed many children to maturity from youth. Some of those children, she gave her own name. Some examples include Bimpe (named Ademidun), Bigbe (named Afetame-igboa) and many other children of Bawa, among others.

Her house was a beehive of many social activities, day and night. She was a custodian of Ogori tradition.

Herbal Skills: Another reason why Iya's house was regularly patronized was the fact that she had skills in herbal cure for various diseases. Common injuries were simply treated with juice from "awolowo eme" (Awolowo's herb) and the like. "Okarigan" served multipurpose functions both as her garden fence and in combination with other herbs was fetched for various illnesses in addition to serving as toothbrush and antiseptics.

Iya was a brave woman, who was never anxious in or startled by any situation. She had taken a poisonous snake and threw it off far into the garden. Surprisingly, she would never let anyone kill green snakes, because for her, they were not harmful.

She kept "adokojo", a shrine on the grave of one of the forefathers, to which she poured libation and made incantations. A gong was sounded to greet it every morning and on traditional festival days. Some special 'water' from the pot at the top of the shrine was believed to hold some cure for some diseases.

Although Iya was a practicing Traditional Religionist, she was one of the foundational members of the Aladura church, situated on the foot of Omoneyen hill, just 1000 meters from her door. She played host to many of the church's visiting evangelists and prophets, while she dang and danced to their hymns music in footsteps you cannot miss to be Iya's. And later in life when the hay days of the Aladura denomination were waning, she took to Catholicism, which she practiced until her death.

Iya was an authority. She did just anything that satisfied her persuasion. An indelible anecdote of the exercise of her power is the following account. Children were usually excited to accompany her to Uten. On one occasion, she went with a number of people, including some Bawa's wives and children. It was a year of bumper harvest of palm produce. The work at the local palm processing mill within her farm took so much time that the team did not return until around 10 pm. Worried about the delay, the Ologori Bawa set on the way to Uten and guided more by the full moon light than the torch he held in his hand. On meeting Iya halfway, with the train behind her, he called out, "Iya, you have kept my children too late in the farm" Iya shouted back at him, "Oo lo joko, U su edele ne u wa ba ogben na?" ( Go and sit down - in her Yoruba idiolect - have you any penis, let alone having children?). Bawa knew it would be a waste of time to argue any further.

Thus was Iya's power and authority. Iya is so outstanding in attributes that she remains a legendary figure to all who were fortunate to know her today.