Bashorun Gaa
Yoruba · mortal · oyo empire · mortal
Gaa is the constitutional crisis of eighteenth-century Oyo in one man. The Oyo Mesi's power to present the parrot's egg — after which the Alaafin had no option but to die — was meant as a check on a bad king; Gaa turned it into a method, and for twenty years the Alaafin was whoever he currently permitted. The empire did not recover the balance afterwards. His end at Akesan, with every citizen ordered to take a pound of his flesh, is told in Yoruba tradition as the standard example of what is owed to a tyrant, and 'ohun t'a se f'ọlọrun Gaa' entered the language from it. He was absent from this registry entirely, as were all four of the Alaafins he killed.
Domains
- tyranny
- statecraft
Relations
- enemy: Abiodun
- killed by: Abiodun
- enemy: Labisi
- killer of: Labisi
- enemy: Awonbioju
- killer of: Awonbioju
- enemy: Agboluaje
- killer of: Agboluaje
- enemy: Majeogbe
- killer of: Majeogbe
Sources
- Reference treatments of Gaha's tenure as Bashorun, the four forced suicides and his death under Abiodun.