Awori people

The Awori migrated first from Ile Ife, through the Oyo Empire and eventually settled in the presentday Lagos.

[3] The Awori people have a long history of settlement in the Lagos area, dating back to the pre-colonial era.

The city of Lagos was originally established by them, they were fishermen and traders, and it served as a major center of trade in West Africa.

The story is that Olofin Ogunfunminire and his followers left the palace of King Oduduwa (founder of the Yoruba) in Ile-Ife and migrated southward along a river.

The Ile-Ife King had given Olofin a mud plate and instructed him to place it on the water and follow it until it sank into the river.

After they settled in Isheri, Olofin consulted the Ifa oracle where they were told to proceed to a place where there was salt water.

Wormalin in his Intelligence Report on the Badagry district of the colony (1935) gives a graphic description of the early Awori he encountered when he writes that:" They speak a slurred dialect of the Yoruba language.

Islam was introduced to different parts of Aworiland before the twentieth century by Muslim clerics from the hinterland, while the diffusion of Christianity followed missionary activities in the region of Badagry from the 1840s.

The use of Ifa oracle in the determination of certain issues and events such as date of festival, coronation ceremony, causes of state calamity is in practice among traditional believers.

For instance, the possession of Ade crown and recognition of Oba, which is the highest conception of political authority among the Yoruba, is what every tradition leader; especially those from royal lineages in Aworiland aspire to.

The food crops are supplemented by vegetables as well as animals such as goats, sheep and rabbits; birds like quail, cock, hen and goose, edible insects such as termites as well as alligators, which are prepared as a delicacy known as 'Ònì' among the Aworis of Lagos State.