Osun, Haven of Intellectual Pilgrims: A Historical and Cultural Tour of Osogbo

Abstract

Osun, Haven of Intellectual Pilgrims: A Historical and Cultural Tour of Osogbo   The four-letter word OSUN stands for diverse things in the trado-cultural history of the Yoruba people represents trade and industry (Osogbo, its capital is one of the oldest trading posts in pre-colonial Nigeria); it also represents art and culture (Being the home of the highest plastic and fine artists conglomerate in modern-day Nigeria), one of the oldest sobriquets of Osogbo is ilu aro (i.e.home of the tye-and-dye culture). To say "Osun" is also to honour the first group of German artists and intellectuals that made Osogbo their headquarters. German writer/artists like the great Ulli Beier, co-founder of the Black Orpheus literary group; his erstwhile fine-artist wife Susanne Wenger (better known today as Adunni Olorisa, the Yeye-Osun of Osogbo) and even the Jahnheinz Jahn of Das junge Afrika cohabited with some of the greatest exponents of Nigerian arts and culture, like the late Duro Ladipo of the Sango, Oba-Koso fame and the world-renowned artist Jimoh Buraimoh, as well as the contemporary Great Prince of Ifa heritage, Chief Priest Ifayemi Elebuibon and a host of others.