The chain was never supposed to be a toy.
According to the oral tradition of Ilaro, it was the last physical link between the living and Oronna, the legendary warrior who had disappeared beneath the earth after years of defending his people.
Before he vanished, Oronna had made a promise. If Ilaro was ever in serious danger, his people could call him back.
The method was extraordinary.
They only had to pull the chain.
For generations, that promise carried enormous meaning. Somewhere beneath the earth, according to the tradition, the great warrior remained with his leopard, waiting for the day his people would genuinely need him again.
But eventually, someone decided to find out whether the story was true.
There was no invading army at the gates.
No great enemy had surrounded Ilaro.
No desperate battle was taking place.
There was simply curiosity.
And when the chain was pulled, Oronna came back.
What happened next turned one of Ilaro’s greatest heroic traditions into one of its darkest stories.
They Wanted to Know If Oronna Would Really Return
Oronna was not supposed to be summoned casually.
His promise had been made in the context of protecting the community from danger. But according to the tradition, some members of the community eventually wanted to test whether the legendary warrior was really still beneath the earth.
It was almost like testing a story that had been passed down for generations.
Would the chain actually work?
Would Oronna really appear?
Would the great warrior who had disappeared from the world truly return if called?
They pulled it.
And the legend says that the earth gave back its warrior.
But Oronna did not return as a peaceful ancestor coming home to greet his descendants.
He returned as a warrior.
And a warrior returning from beneath the earth was not looking for curious spectators.
He was looking for an enemy.
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Then the Earth Opened
The tradition says that Oronna emerged from beneath the earth with his leopard.
The warrior had returned.
But something had gone terribly wrong.
Instead of recognising the people around him as his descendants and community, Oronna interpreted what he saw as a battlefield.
He responded as he had been trained to respond throughout his life.
He fought.
The problem was that there was no invading army.
The people around him were his own people.
The very community that had called him back was now facing the warrior it had summoned.
According to the oral account, Oronna began attacking them.
The protector had become the threat.
And the people who had wanted proof of the old story suddenly found themselves living inside its most terrifying chapter.
The Warrior Turned Against His Own People
Oronna’s story is unusual because the tragedy does not come from an enemy defeating him.
It comes from a terrible mistake.
The people had expected their legendary protector to recognise them.
Instead, the warrior returned in the spirit of battle.
He fought those standing before him, and people were killed.
The tradition does not give us a modern casualty figure, and there is no contemporary record that allows the number of deaths to be established.
But the oral tradition remembers the event as a devastating tragedy.
The people who had summoned their protector had brought destruction upon themselves.
Then came the moment when Oronna realised what he had done.
The Faces That Revealed the Truth
According to the tradition, Oronna eventually discovered that the people he had attacked were not enemies.
They were his own people.
The most painful version of the story goes further.
Among those killed were said to be his own children.
The warrior reportedly recognised them through their facial marks.
In traditional Yoruba society, scarification could be associated with identity, lineage and community belonging. To recognise a person through such marks therefore carried a profound meaning.
The marks that identified his own people became the evidence that revealed Oronna’s terrible mistake.
The warrior who had returned to defend his community had killed members of that same community.
And, according to the tradition, he had even killed his own descendants.
It was no longer a victory.
It was a tragedy.
Why Did They Summon Him?
That question sits at the heart of the story.
Why would anyone call back a warrior from the earth when there was no war?
According to the tradition, they wanted to test the truth of his promise.
That decision became the turning point.
Oronna demanded to know why he had been summoned.
The people explained that they had wanted to see whether he would really return.
The warrior was reportedly furious.
He had made the promise for a time of genuine danger, not as an experiment.
His people had treated something sacred as a curiosity.
And the consequences were irreversible.
Oronna Refused to Return Again
After discovering what had happened, Oronna was said to have decided that he would never again return physically to Ilaro.
The promise had been broken in spirit.
His people had called him without a real need for his protection, and the result had been bloodshed.
According to the tradition, Oronna therefore returned to his spiritual dwelling beneath the earth.
He would remain a protector of Ilaro, but he would no longer emerge physically when the chain was pulled.
The story had changed forever.
The chain was no longer simply a symbol of hope.
It had become a warning.
The Warrior and His Leopard
One of the most distinctive details in the Oronna tradition is his relationship with the leopard.
Oronna is commonly remembered alongside ẹkùn, the Yoruba word for leopard. Traditional accounts associate the animal with the warrior’s extraordinary powers, and representations of Oronna often show him accompanied by a leopard.
This is important because the legend does not portray Oronna as an ordinary soldier.
His strength is connected to a world beyond ordinary human experience.
He is a warrior who disappears into the earth.
He possesses a supernatural companion.
He can supposedly be summoned from beneath the ground.
And he can continue to protect his people even after leaving the physical world.
The leopard therefore became part of the image through which generations remembered the warrior.
From Warrior to Protector of Ilaro
Over time, Oronna’s identity expanded beyond that of a military hero.
He became associated with the protection of Ilaro itself.
His story connected the living community with its ancestors and with the land on which the town stood.
The place where he was believed to have disappeared became associated with the Oronna Shrine.
The shrine remains an important part of Ilaro’s traditional heritage and is associated with the traditional institution of the town.
The story therefore became attached not only to memory but also to place.
A person could visit the location associated with the warrior and encounter a physical reminder of the old tradition.
Why the Story Survived
Stories like Oronna’s survive because they do more than recount events.
They explain identity.
They preserve memories of danger.
They celebrate courage.
They warn against disrespect.
And they give later generations a way to understand how their ancestors viewed power, loyalty and community.
The story of Oronna contains all of these elements.
He is the warrior who protected his people.
He is the man who disappeared beneath the earth.
He is the protector who promised to return.
He is the warrior who was summoned unnecessarily.
And he is the tragic figure who returned and unknowingly fought the very people he had sworn to defend.
That combination makes the story far more complicated than a simple tale of heroism.
The Chain Became a Warning
Perhaps the most memorable object in the entire story is not Oronna’s weapon.
It is the chain.
The chain represented access to extraordinary power.
Pull it, and the legendary warrior would return.
But the story also taught that having access to power did not mean that it should be used carelessly.
The people wanted certainty.
They got it.
Oronna really did return, according to the tradition.
But the answer came at a terrible price.
The lesson was therefore preserved through the tragedy itself.
Do not call upon what you do not understand merely to satisfy curiosity.
Do not turn a sacred promise into entertainment.
And do not assume that power summoned for one purpose will behave as you expect when the circumstances are completely different.
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From Oral Tradition to Festival
Oronna’s memory eventually became part of Ilaro’s public cultural life.
The modern Oronna Festival traces its organised history to the inauguration of the first Oronna Day Central Planning Committee on 24 May 1992.
The festival has since developed into a major cultural gathering associated with Ilaro and the wider Yewa community.
Through the festival, the warrior’s name has remained part of contemporary public life.
People who never experienced the world of the old warrior traditions can still encounter Oronna through ceremonies, cultural performances, traditional institutions and stories passed between generations.
The warrior beneath the earth therefore continues to have a place above it.
Author’s Note
The story of Oronna endures because it carries more than the memory of a legendary warrior. It tells of a protector whose courage became part of Ilaro’s identity, a promise that was meant to offer hope in times of danger, and a tragic return that transformed that promise into a warning. Whether remembered as history, oral tradition or cultural legend, Oronna’s story continues to connect generations of Ilaro people with the values of courage, loyalty, respect for tradition and the consequences of treating what a community holds sacred as something to be tested for mere curiosity.
References
Adediran, Biodun. The Frontier States of Western Yorubaland, 1600–1889: State Formation and Political Growth in an Ethnic Frontier Zone. Ibadan: Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique, 1994.
Asiwaju, A. I. The Birth of Yewaland: Studies and Documents Relating to the Change of a Yoruba Sub-Ethnic Name from Egbado to Yewa in Ogun State of Nigeria. Ibadan, 1995.
Folayan, Kola. “Egbado to 1832: The Birth of a Dilemma.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1967, pp. 15–33.
Smith, Robert S. Kingdoms of the Yoruba. London: Methuen, 1969.
Oronna Ilaro Festival. History of Ilaro; Oronna and His Amotekun. Ilaro, Ogun State.
