Erelu Kuti

The Erelu Kuti of Lagos is the traditional noblewoman charged with the bearing of the ritual essence of Oloye Erelu Kuti I, a seventeenth century Yoruba royal who aided in the consolidation of her homeland, first as the daughter of its paramount king, then as the sister of two of his successors, subsequently as the consort of one of its chiefs, then as a chief in her own right, and finally as its first queen mother. Her life would ultimately be so entwined with that of her family's kingdom that her lineal descendants would go on to feature in its history from her day to our own.