| Queen Oronsen | |
|---|---|
| Queen | |
 | |
| Born | Oronsen Owo. Ondo State Nigeria |
| Spouse | Olowo Rerengejen |
| Religion | Traditional Religion |
Queen Oronsen is an orisha from Yoruba mythology. She was the spouse of Olowo Rerengejen. The annual Igogo festival in Owo is celebrated in her honour. [1] [2] [3]
 |
Some 600 years ago, King Rerengejen of Owo met a young maiden by the name of Oronsen during one of his hunting expeditions. Instantly taken with her beauty, he subsequently took her back to his palace and had her installed as a member of his harem. After their marriage, Oronsen revealed her true nature to her husband: rather than merely being a maiden, Oronsen was in fact an orisha.
The king was scandalized. Ordinarily, consorting with the gods as he had been doing with her would have led to an immediate death. Oronsen told him not to fear her. She was happy with him, and would therefore gladly remain on Earth as one of his wives, if he made certain that three of her unbreakable taboos were never violated. Rerengejen promised that he would do so, and later warned both his senior wife and other wives to never break the taboos.
The king and his divine queen became even closer than they had been before after this revelation was made, and Oronsen soon blessed her husband's entire household with abundant wealth. One day, while Rerengejen was out hunting, Oronsen had a disagreement with the other queens, and they in turn violated her three taboos in an attempt to spite her.
Crying out in pain, Oronsen fled the palace thereafter, and the chiefs and guards that set out to find her and bring her back found that their efforts ultimately proved to be futile. When the king returned from the hunt, he was informed of what had happened in his absence and, being greatly grieved, set out to search for his wife himself.
After four days and four nights of searching, he finally found her in a forest. Rerengejen begged Oronsen to return with him, but she sadly told him that having been betrayed, she would never again live in the world of mankind. She then asked him to institute a ceremony of remembrance in her honour, so that she would bless Owo and guard it for all of time. The heartbroken king agreed to do so, and indeed later gave the order creating the ceremony upon his return to the palace. This is why the Owos have celebrated the Igogo festival from that day to this one.
A taboo, also spelled tabu, is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred, or allowed only for certain people. Such prohibitions are present in virtually all societies. Taboos may be prohibited explicitly, for example within a legal system or religion, or implicitly, for example by social norms or conventions followed by a particular culture or organization.
Shango is an Orisha in Yoruba religion. Genealogically speaking, Shango is a royal ancestor of the Yoruba as he was the third Alaafin of the Oyo Kingdom prior to his posthumous deification. Shango has numerous manifestations, including Airá, Agodo, Afonja, Lubé, and Obomin. He is known for his powerful double axe (Oṣè). He is considered to be one of the most powerful rulers that Yorubaland has ever produced.
Olokun is an orisha spirit in Yoruba religion. Olokun is believed to be the parent of Aje, the orisha of great wealth and of the bottom of the ocean. Olokun is revered as the ruler of all bodies of water and for the authority over other water deities. Olokun is highly praised for their ability to give great wealth, health, and prosperity to their followers. Communities in both West Africa and the African diaspora view Olokun variously as female, male, or androgynous.
Obatala is an orisha in the Yoruba religion that is believed to have been given the task to create the Earth but failed the task by being drunk on palm wine and was outperformed by his little brother Oduduwa. He was instead given the job of creating human beings. This was authorized by his father, Olodumare which gave Obatala the name sculptor of mankind.
"Now Olodumare [the supreme being] once called on Obatala and told him that he would love him to assist in creating human beings that would live in the world he was about to create. This is because as he (Olodumare) said further he would not like the world he was planning to create to exist without human beings."
Kalevipoeg is a 19th-century epic poem by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald which has since been considered the Estonian national epic.
The Pandavas is a group name referring to the five legendary brothers, Yudhishtira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva, who are central figures of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. They are acknowledged as the sons of Pandu, the King of Kuru, but were fathered by different Devas (gods) due to Pandu's cursed inability to naturally conceive children. In the epic, the Pandavas married Draupadi, the princess of Panchala, and founded the city of Indraprastha after the Kuru Kingdom was split to avoid succession disputes. After the split, the other part of the kingdom was ruled by their cousins, the Kauravas. However, the Pandavas lost their kingdom to Duryodhana when Yudhishtira gambled it away during a game of dice. The bet Yudhishtira agreed to was that the Pandavas would hand the kingdom to the Kauravas and go into exile for 13 years. After this time the Kauravas refused to return the kingdom. As a result, the Pandavas waged a civil war against their extended family, and this conflict was known as the Kurukshetra War. With the help of the god Krishna, the Pandavas eventually won the war with the death of the Kauravas, albeit at great cost.
Owo is a local government area in Ondo state, Nigeria. Between 1400 and 1600 CE, it was the capital of a Yoruba city-state. The local government area has a population of 222,262 based on 2006 population census.
Dushyanta is a king of the Chandravamsha (Lunar) dynasty featured in Hindu literature. He is the husband of Shakuntala and the father of Bharata. He appears in the Mahabharata and in Kalidasa's play, Abhijnanashakuntalam.
Babalú-Aye, Oluaye, Ṣọpọna, Ayé in Trinidad Orisha, or Obaluaiye, is one of the orishas or manifestations of the supreme creator god Olodumare in the Yoruba religion of West Africa. Babalú-Aye is the spirit of the Earth and strongly associated with infectious disease, and healing.
Kunti, born Pritha, was the queen of Kuru in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Kunti was married to Pandu and is the mother of Karna, Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna. She is depicted to possess beauty, intelligence and shrewdness.
The Story of Zoulvisia is an Armenian fairy tale published in Hamov-Hotov, a collection of Armenian fairy tales by ethnologue and clergyman Karekin Servantsians published in 1884. Andrew Lang included it in The Olive Fairy Book. The story was also featured in the book Once Long Ago, by Roger Lancelyn Green and illustrated by Vojtech Kubasta.
The Legends of Africa reflect a wide-ranging series of kings, queens, chiefs and other leaders from across the African continent including Mali, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea and South Africa.
The Erelu Kuti of Lagos is the traditional aristocrat charged with the bearing of the ritual essence of Oloye Erelu Kuti I, an eighteenth-century Yoruba royal who aided in the consolidation of her homeland.
Ọbà is the Orisha of the River Oba whose source lies near Igbon where her worship originates. During the wars of the 19th century, her centers of worship moved to the more secure town Ogbomosho. She is traditionally identified as the senior wife of Shango. Oba was tricked by Oya or Oshun into cutting off her ear and trying to feed it to Shango. She is syncretized with Saint Catherine of Siena.
Distinctive cultural norms prevail in Yorubaland and among the Yoruba people.
The Akure Kingdom is a traditional state with headquarters in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. It is the successor to an ancient Yoruba city state of the same name. The ruler bears the title "Deji of Akure".
The Igogo festival is a Yoruba festival held in Owo, Nigeria. It is held annually in September to honor Queen Oronsen, a mythical wife of Rerengejen. During the festival, the incumbent Olowo of Owo, Oba Ajibade Gbadegesin Ogunoye III, and high chiefs of Owo Kingdom dress like women with coral beads, beaded gowns and plaited hair. The wearing of headgears and caps as well as the beating of drums and firing of guns are forbidden during the festival.
Olori, otherwise appearing as Oloorì, is a title of honour within the chieftaincy system of the Yorubas of West Africa. It is typically translated from the Yoruba language as queen consort or, more correctly, princess consort.
Yam is a staple food in West Africa and other regions classified as a tuber crop and it is an annual or perennial crop. The New Yam festival is celebrated by almost every ethnic group in Nigeria and is observed annually at the end of June.
The Olowo's palace Aghọfẹn Ọlọghọ, is the largest palace in Africa. It is located in Owo, a local government area in Ondo State, and is pronounced a national monument by the federal government of Nigeria in 2000. The palace holds cultural importance with the occupance by 14 Olowo of owo who ascended the throne since the existence of the palace.
  | This Nigerian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |