Erelu Kuti

The Erelu Kuti of Lagos is the traditional aristocrat charged with the bearing of the ritual essence of Oloye Erelu Kuti I, an eighteenth-century Yoruba royal who aided in the consolidation of her homeland.

Erelu Kuti I was born the daughter of Lagos' paramount king, and was therefore the sister of his two immediate successors. Subsequently she became the consort of one of Lagos' chiefs, then thereafter a chief in her own right. She finally became Lagos' first queen mother. Her life was so entwined with the early history of her family's kingdom that her lineal descendants have gone on to serve as the ruling branch of its royal dynasty.^[1]