A VISIT TO OSUN-OSHOGBO SACRED GROVE

I got an invitation to wine and dine with history on the table of culture, tradition, myth, legend and religious rituals at the shrine of the water goddess, Osun. I couldn’t resist this meal because

I envisaged the trip to be filled with well packaged educative, informative, inquisitive and historical insights into the wonders surrounding the Osun Oshogbo sacred grove. The origin of the ancient city, Oshogbo and the globally recognized Osun Oshogbo festival which is celebrated in every August emanates from this sacred grove. Little wonder, it is one of the few tourist centres in Nigeria that are on the list of UNESCO’s world tourist destinations. All these ingredients made this trip too zesty to be rejected, so I said to my friends, I must be off! To pay homage to Osun.

          Just some minutes drive from the crowded city of Oshogo, I ended up at the beginning of a thick evergreen forest; the entrance to the Osun-Oshogbo sacred grove .The beginning of the neatly tarred road into the sacred grove was littered with praise singing billboards that exalted the prestige of this UNESCO world heritage site. Along the road into the grove, billboards kept appearing with bold and declarative statements both in English language and the local dialect, Yoruba language; warning visitors not to touch or harm any animal in the forest. To the delight of my eyes, the sideways were stained with artworks and figurine sculptures that served as a preamble to what I was to experience in this historical site of the river goddess.

          We got to the gate of the grove where the office of the national commission for museums and monuments is to obtain our tickets at a token of just 50 naira, after which we were assigned a tour guild to take us round the forest for our Hungary eyes to harvest and feed on every sight that we had relished. The relatively aged woman who was appointed as our tour guild pampered us like her little kids; she garnished every question we dished out with succulent answers that satisfied our thirst for knowledge.

 The ‘Osun-Osogbo’ sacred grove is located along the banks of Osun River in Osogbo Local government Area of Osun state.  It is an organically enveloped cultural landscape that is associated with the Yoruba people and their traditional religion and culture. Osun grove boasts of rainforest vegetation that covers an area of 75 hectares of land with a buffer zone of 47 hectares surrounding it. It is on a raised parcel with about 350 meters above sea level.

The legend of Origin surrounding this spectacle is found in Yoruba cosmology which says that Osun metamorphosed into the River as a result of a misunderstanding with ‘Oba’, a co-wife of Sango. {god of thunder} It is also believed that the goddess inhabited the groove while the river meanders’ within and in to the Groove called Osun Sacred Grove.

Today, Osun sacred grove is one of the few UNESCO world heritage sites in Nigeria due to its prestige, historical, religious, and traditional artifacts that are abound there for the amusement of tourist. At the grove, you will get to see the first palace in Oshogbo, the shrine of the river goddess {Osun}, uncountable number of figurines {each with its unique, name, power and purpose}, and then a troop of monkeys will play with you as you walk pass the neatly tarred road that pass through the forest.