On My Daughter Mọ́remí's Birthday: Remember Your Historic Namesake, The Young Queen Who Saved Her People
- Iya Ibeji Adeyela
- Mar 22
- 3 min read
By Ìyà Ibejí, Adeyela Bennett
Happy, happy birthday, my dearest Ìyálóde!
On your 32nd birthday in March 2025, Ẹkú Ìṣẹ ọmọ mi!
I salute you for how you care for yourself, both spiritually and physically.
I salute you for how you nurture your creativity.
I salute you for your commitment to family and community.
I salute you for the boundaries you put in place to protect your peace.
On the occasion of your birthday, I remind you of your powerful namesake, Mọ́remí Àjàsorò. Please study her life as a lodestone to guide your path.
Sweet daughter, please click the portrait to watch a stirring Yoruba musical tribute to Mọ́remí Àjàsorò by Bayo Ododo.
Please read below an excerpt about Mọ́remí Àjàsorò in my book, Only the Strong Survive: A Womanist Journey:
Ayaba Mọ́remí Àjàsorò is the most revered and beloved ancestor in the Yoruba pantheon. In fact, her name means “my beloved child.”
Mọ́remí lived in the twelfth century in Ilè-Ifẹ̀, an ancient city-state in the center of the country we now call Nigeria. Born into a royal family, Mọ́remí Àjàsorò was married to Ọrànmíyàn, who was the Ọọ̀ni of Ilè-Ifẹ̀, the spiritual head of the Yoruba Empire.
Mọ́remí Àjàsorò was also the daughter of Odùduwà, the progenitor of the Yoruba race. Primarily because of the Transatlantic Slave Trade that took place from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, Oduduwa’s offspring have been dispersed throughout the world.
Numbering around one hundred million people, Odùduwà's descendants live today in Benin, southwest Nigeria, Togo, as well as Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States, Venezuela, and elsewhere.
Please click on the image below of Mọ́remí Àjàsorò to hear a portion of my TEDx, Wisdom in Her Eyes, that talks about the ancient queen and other mythological forces who have made an extraordinary impact on the world.
As a young queen, Mọ́remí was perplexed by the large numbers of her people who were being kidnapped by mysterious spirits. She went to the river Esimirin to seek guidance about how to save her people.
The advice came with a warning: she would have to make a great personal sacrifice to save her nation.
Mọ́remí accepted the advice, dressed in her finest apparel and went to the middle of the marketplace, as instructed. There, the mysterious kidnappers captured her and took her to the king of the Ugbo nation. Stunned by her beauty, the king married Mọ́remí and crowned her queen.
From this vantage point, Mọ́remí learned the kidnappers’ secret: they were sending men dressed from head to toe in raffia—fiber made from palm tree leaves—to kidnap and enslave the Yorubas. The kidnappers were not mysterious spirits!
Mọ́remí sneaked away and returned to Yorubaland. There, she told her husband, Ọrànmíyàn, the secret. The next time these “mysterious spirits” appeared, the Ifẹ̀s were ready with fire to burn the raffia, thus ending the enslavement of their people.
Mọ́remí then went to the river Esimirin to show appreciation for the advice that saved her people. The river reminded Mọ́remí of her agreement to sacrifice her only son, Olúorógbó, to save the people of Ilè-Ifẹ̀. As Olúorógbó humbly descended into the river as a willing sacrifice for freedom, his body transformed into the rainbow.
From that day on, Yoruba women and men pay the same obeisance to Mọ́remí that they pay to their birth mothers. They honor her for making the ultimate sacrifice of giving her only son for their freedom.
The entire Yoruba nation honors Mọ́remí, the divine mother of social justice, at the Edi Festival in Ilè-Ifẹ̀ annually.
To pay tribute to the courageous young queen, women's societies in Yoruba communities are sometimes called Ẹgbẹ Mọ́remí in honor of Mọ́remí Àjàsorò.
The reiging Ọọ̀ni of Ilè-Ifẹ̀, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, erected a 32-feet high statue of Mọ́remí on the palace grounds in 2017. It is the tallest statue in Nigeria and one of the tallest statues on the African continent.
Comments