Osogbo's founding story ties the entire town's existence to a bargain its ancestors struck directly with the river running through it.
A covenant that founded a town
Yoruba tradition holds that early settlers of Osogbo made a covenant with Osun, the river goddess associated with fertility, love and prosperity, after disturbances to the river prompted the goddess to promise protection and abundance in exchange for continued reverence, a founding narrative that ties the town's identity directly to the river rather than treating the grove as separate from civic life.
A festival still drawing large crowds
The annual Osun-Osogbo Festival continues to draw large numbers of devotees, tourists and Yoruba diaspora visitors from across the world, centred on ceremonies conducted at the grove and river, making the site an actively used religious destination rather than only a historical or artistic curiosity.
As this entry's companion article covers
The extensive twentieth century artistic revitalisation of the grove's shrines led by the Austrian-born artist Susanne Wenger, whose sculptural work gave much of the grove's present visual character, and the resulting question of how much of what visitors see today reflects ancient tradition versus her own modern artistic vision, are addressed directly in this entry's companion article rather than repeated here.