Ewuare the Great

Mortal-tier 12th Oba of Benin (~1440-1473 CE per Egharevba 1968). Birth-name Prince Ogun; assumed the regnal name Ewuare ("the trouble has ceased") after the vengeance-restoration ending the Uwaifiokun usurpation. The canonical "Great" Oba of the Eweka dynasty: extended the Iya moat system by ~3,200 km (bringing the total to ~16,000 km, the largest single archaeological earthwork in human history per Patrick Darling 1984); constructed the inner city walls; founded the Onwina and Igbesanmwan craft-guilds that produced the canonical Benin bronzes; first European contact with the Portuguese ~1472 CE produced the Duarte Pacheco Pereira (c.1505) and Olfert Dapper (1668) accounts that called Benin City "larger and more beautiful than any European town."

Children

• Ozolua

Powers

• monumental construction
• urban administration
• Command fire
• Summon spirits and heal by charms

Epithets

• Ewuare

Relations

• sibling: Uwaifiokun
• killer of: Uwaifiokun
• father of: Ozolua
• ally: Emotan

Sources

• Egharevba, A Short History of Benin (1968)
• Bradbury (1957)
• Connah, The Archaeology of Benin (1975)
• Darling, Archaeology and history in Nigeria (1984)
• Ryder, Benin and the Europeans (1969)
• Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis (c.1505) — earliest European description
• Olfert Dapper, Description of Africa (1668) — the canonical 17th-century European account
• Benin moat archaeological survey; British Museum + Met Museum Benin Bronze collections