Aro Edion Edo Shrine

The little building has only one door. Inside the building is an altar on a raised dais, on which stands the stave the Ukhurhe, which represents the collective dead of the City. These multitudinous dead, citizens who have lived in, and cared for, this town for over a thousand years are exhorted, invoked and propitiated through the wooden stave, the UKHURHE EDION, which represents their collective presence.

The ESOBAN of Benin is the ODIONWERE of the City, and therefore the Priest of the Aro Edion Edo.He alone officiates at the Shrine, at the behest of the Oba of Benin.

When the Esogban dies the Ukhurhe, the stave at alter, is made to lie horizontally until another Esogban is appointed by the Oba. When the City has her new Odionwere the Ukhurhe, is stood upright again and so remains until another Esogban transition occurs.

The Aro Edion Edo has always been in occupation of its present location for as long as human memory can recall. There is oral evidence to suggest that Oba EWEDO was not the first Benin monarch to occupy the present site of the Benin palace. The site was said to have been first occupied by the palace of later OGISOS of the first Dynasty. The last occupant was Ogiso OWODO who lived at the beginning of now dying Second Christian Millennium, about a thousand years ago. When that line of kings died out the palace became derelict and was taken over by bush. It ultimately disappeared and the area became known as:

Ogbe Ogiso n’ Uzamokon

Later it was also referred to as: Ogbe Ogiso n’ Oghionba during the early decades the Obaship dynasty. The huge drum Agba with which those Ogisos of old summoned towns meetings was said to have been sited where Oba EWEDO later built his IKOHAE, the temporary abode which sheltered him when the first arrived in Benin Urban, fresh from his suburban USAMA palace. It was while living in the IKOHAE that the young king tackled the arduous task of building himself a palace in the grounds of the cemetery that the Ogbe Ogiso had meantime became. The location of the Ogiso’s Agba drum, and later of Oba EWEDO’s IKOHAE is near where the URHOKPOTA Hall now stands. The Edion Edo Shrine was, even at that time probably already where it occupies today, at the approaches to the palace.

The Edion Edo Shrine is the first Station in the Processional Route of Honour, the Pilgrimage through the City, which the new Chief has to make as the chore in the long process involved in the validation of his title. The Chief comes out in procession from the palace where the Oba, seated on the Throne had already received his thanksgiving. He walks forward a short distance and then turns lift to the Aro Edion Edo.

In front of the Aro Edion Edo the Chief disengages his arms from the supporting hands of his ENOBORE, his Arm-Supporters, and takes the EBEN, the Junior Sword-of-State, possessed by all Chiefs, from his Eben-Bearer. He trills the sword four times, in thanksgiving and in self-identification, to the Spirits of the collective dead of the land. He hands the EBEN back to the Eben-Bearer, and re-surrenders his arms to his two arm-supporters. With the drums egging him on, and the stirring songs of the chorus women remaining him of the historical past, the nobleman comes fully into the realisation of who he truly his yet another link in the unbroken chain of the long history of the ancient land. With quickened and lightened step he departs the presence of the collective dead, and strides out on his long pilgrimage through the streets of Benin.

The celebrants might have been conferred with the senior title of an EGHAEVBO. This honour entitles him to share with the Oba of Benin the possession of the two swords of authority in Benin land, the ADA and the Eben. These two swords have been emblems of authority in Benin for one and a half thousand years .They were inherited by the Obas from the Ogiso monarchs.

The ADA is the superior emblem, and it takes precedence, wherever it appears, over the EBEN. All chiefs are invested with the authority to possess the EBEN. But it is only a number of them who are additionally conferred with the right to possess the ADA. Titles which have this right are called EGIE ADA. In old Benin an Enogie or Ovie (in Urhobo-land) could not order the execution of any of his subjects unless the right to possess The ADA had been conferred on him by the Oba of Benin.

The EGIE ADA Chiefs of the OGISO era notably the UZAMA nobles: the Oliha, the Edohen, the Ero, the Eholor n’ ire, hoisted their ADA as they made their way through the streets of Benin to OGISO palace, and later with the change of dynasty, to the Oba palace at USAMA. But some seven hundred and fifty years ago when Oba Ewedo came to the throne and moved from USAMA to the Ogbe Ogiso n’ Uzamokan, the present Benin Palace site he engineered the loss of their right by the Egie Ada Chiefs. Since that time no other Ada has remained aloft in the presence of the Oba of Benin and his own lofted Ada.

The Ekponmwen Orere Pilgrimage round the City by the new Chief provides the only opportunity nowadays when the Egie Ada Chiefs able to go round the town with his Ada held aloft before him. He leaves his home that morning decked in all the perquisites with which t he title has been endowed, including his Ada and Eben Swords of authority, held aloft by attendants

But even on this special day the Chief’s lofted Ada does not get into the Oba Palace rounds Only the Eben does. At the approach to the Palace, and by the ARO EDION EDO the chiefs OMADA, the Ada-Bearer, would drop out of the procession and wait patiently by the Shrine until picked up again by the concourse returning from the Palace. Thereafter the Ada was held aloft before the Chief, until the completion of the Pilgrimage, and the celebrant arrived back at his home The Ada would henceforth feature only in the ceremonies which took place within the premises of the chief.

All ennobled citizens pay obeisance with Eben at the Aro Edion Edo when in procession to and from the Palace the OGIEFA NOMUEKPO is the only chief who does not do honour to, or offer worship at the Shrine. This is because of what happened some five hundred and fifty years ago.

OGUN later Oba EWUARE was a fugitive Prince with his life forfeited if caught He sought and obtained refuge in the Forestry Road premises of Chief Ogiefa Nomuekpo. Helped by his slave called EDO the Ogiefa hid Prince OGUN in the depths of a dry well in the premises.

EDO helped OGUN to escape when the bondsman discovered that his lord the Ogiefa, under great pressure, had yielded the secret of Ogun’s hiding place to his fellow chiefs. For this gross act of insubordinate the Ogiefa punished the bondsman by hanging him near the spot through where the IYAERO Moat was later dug by Oba Ewuare

When Ogun became the Oba he purchased Edo’s remains from Chief Ogiefa Then he exhumed whatever was left of the remains and gave the slave his freedom posthumously. He had the remains buried underneath the altar of the Ukhurhe Edion, at the Aro Edion Edo. He invited the people to join him in honouring this bondsman who lost his life in order that he, Ewuare might live.

The main Ekpenede Shrine

THE ARO EKPENEDE

The New chief leaves the Aro Edion Edo in procession. Arrives at IWEBO Street and turns right, towards the ARO EKPENEDE, the second Station in the Pilgrimage route

The Aro Ekpenede, the Ekpenede Shrine, is in two locations, doubled as it were. The portion of it which is first encountered by the celebrant, and which is only about a hundred metres from the Aro Edion Edo, receives only an acknowledgement of a twirl or two of the Eben from the celebrant when he draws opposite it. The second portion, to be encountered later, and situated along Ekpenede Street constitutes the main Ekpenede Shrine. It is at this second portion that the new Chief will present his propitiation gifts and receive the recognition and the prayers of the keepers of the Shrine.

At neither of the two Ekpenede’s Shrines is drumming permitted in the procession accompanying the newly ennobled citizen. The women-forks take over the music making and their Ukuse, the native castanets, alone provide the instrumental accompaniment to the sung melodies.

This proper at this stage to tell the story of the man in whose honour the doubled Shrine has been created >>Full Story