# Anyone familiar with Orompotoniyun, the 'legendary first female king of Oyo Alaafin' **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 27, 2022, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-familiar-with-orompotoniyun-the-legendary-first-female-king-of-oyo-alaafin/958505 "2022-01-27T17:54:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![batsto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b2d939/32.png) [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-familiar-with-orompotoniyun-the-legendary-first-female-king-of-oyo-alaafin/958505/1 "2022-01-27T17:54:48Z")
There are several articles online talking about her, mostly repeating the same story (often verbatim). Here’s one example: [https://ng.opera.news/ng/en/politics/0204918ed030e22cfadfad6bf429ddb0](https://ng.opera.news/ng/en/politics/0204918ed030e22cfadfad6bf429ddb0) Long story short—she wasn’t allowed to take the throne, but then claimed she was a man, undressing to prove it—and ‘magically’ she now had male genitalia, so was allowed to take the throne. What’s really strange is the articles that describe this as though it were unremarkable, requiring no additional comment. Just curious if there’s any more to this story—just an legend with no backup evidence? Was she transgender? (saw at least one article actually claiming she performed gender reassignment surgery or something like that on herself, in seven days) Did she even exist? The wiki on the Oyo empire makes no mention of her, other than (maybe?) this one line: “After this, Oba [Orompoto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orompoto) led attacks to obliterate the Nupe to ensure Oyo was never threatened by them again.” So what’s the story with this person? ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-familiar-with-orompotoniyun-the-legendary-first-female-king-of-oyo-alaafin/958505/2 "2022-01-27T18:05:01Z")
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orompoto) does have a page, it says: > Some traditions of the oral record hold that she was miraculously transformed into a man before assuming the throne there It seems she absolutely was a historical figure, regardless of that being true or not. My 2 cents (as someone who is now a renown expert of medieval west African history, having read that wiki page) would be it went something like: Some guy: "You can’t be king, only men can be king!’ Orompoto (surrounded by burly sword wielding attendants):“OK i’ve been magically transformed into a man, and am king now. Have a problem with that?” Some guy: “_gulps_ nope” More interesting to me is the wiki page says she was the first to introduce cavalry, is that actually new to that bit of west Africa in the 14th century? ---
**Author:** ![batsto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b2d939/32.png) [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-familiar-with-orompotoniyun-the-legendary-first-female-king-of-oyo-alaafin/958505/3 "2022-01-27T18:07:46Z")
Maybe the first to introduce it to her people, but Wiki says they got it from a neighboring region: " The key to Yoruba rebuilding of Oyo was a stronger military and a more centralized government. Taking a cue from their [Nupe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupe_people) enemies (whom they called “Tapa”), the Yoruba rearmed with armor and cavalry.[" ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-familiar-with-orompotoniyun-the-legendary-first-female-king-of-oyo-alaafin/958505/4 "2022-01-27T18:08:57Z")
Reminds me of the various [female Egyptian kings/pharaohs](https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-egypt/the-female-kings-of-ancient-egypt/), some of whom wore fake beards to ensure that they were “male” enough to convey their power. In the case of Orompotoniyun, if she was clever enough to do all the things attributed to her, she was probably clever enough to get a strap-on made. Or, you know, the sword thing. ---
**Author:** ![batsto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b2d939/32.png) [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-familiar-with-orompotoniyun-the-legendary-first-female-king-of-oyo-alaafin/958505/5 "2022-01-27T18:10:36Z")
Yeah, a lot of ‘maybes’ surrounding this…I was curious if anyone knew of anything more concrete, perhaps in a more scholarly source than I’ve been able to find. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-familiar-with-orompotoniyun-the-legendary-first-female-king-of-oyo-alaafin/958505/6 "2022-01-27T18:51:53Z")
[This](https://books.google.com/books?id=RlUBDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA179#v=onepage&q&f=false) is listed as a reference in the wiki page: [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/8Bjp7B9.png "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/8Bjp7B9)