ABSTRACT
The western kingdoms of the Yoruba lie for the most part beyond the frontiers of Nigeria in the neighbouring state of Dahomey – the latter a French creation in the same sense that Nigeria was created by the British, and taking its name from the Fon kingdom in the south-east of the country which had Abomey as its capital. Ketu tradition describes how the westward migration of the Yoruba from Ife split into three groups after crossing the River Ogun. There is some recollection among them of pressure from Oyo, under a leader called in their tradition Adjinakou, a name which does not occur in the list of Alafin but may refer to an Oyo general. John Duncan, a Scot who had been a member of the Niger Expedition of 1841, passed over the Dassa mountains on his return from Abomey in 1846.
