I⋅fe
[ee-fey] 
feɪ
| 1. | a town in SW Nigeria. 176,000. |
| 2. | a male or female given name: from a Yoruba word meaning “love.” |
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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| I·fe (ē'fā) A city of southwest Nigeria east of Ibadan. Center of a powerful Yoruba kingdom until the late 17th century, it is an agricultural market with varied industries. Population: 372,000. |
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Ife
town, Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. The town lies at the intersection of roads from Ibadan (40 miles [64 km] west), Ilesha, and Ondo. It is one of the larger centres and probably the oldest town of the Yoruba people. Considered by the Yoruba to be a holy city and the legendary birthplace of mankind, it was held to have been founded by a son of the deity Oduduwa and was certainly the capital of a well-established kingdom (probably named for Ifa, the god of divination) by the early 11th century. By the late 12th or early 13th century, its artisans were producing the naturalistic terra-cotta heads and bronze pieces made by the cire perdue ("lost-wax") process for which the Ife kingdom is now well known. Ife had great political and cultural influence over the Edo kingdom of Benin to the southeast
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