Nigeria comprises of about three hundred and fifty dialectal ethnic groups which are living side by side from time immemorial. The Yoruba ethnic groups which further consisted of Akoko, Awori, Egba, Egun, Ekiti, Ijebu, Ikale, Ondo, Owo, and Oyo dialectical divisions are found in the western zone of Nigeria. The history of origin of each of the dialectal groups basically depended on oral history since many of the members of the groups were not able to read or write in any form, during the period under review. The crust of this article therefore, is to: • give an insight into the place of oral history in Yorubaland between the 18th and 19th centuries before the introduction of Western education; • show the significance of oral history in state creation and community life in Yorubaland in the 19th and 20th centuries after the introduction of Western education in Nigeria; • show how the dependability on oral evidence of history had aided the longevity of communal participation; • discuss oral history as a tool to delineate ethnic boundaries, sustenance of ethnic stability and growth in the Yoruba speaking areas, and • proffer possible ways through which oral histories could be reliably handled to prevent historical distortions in this computer age.

Keywords: oral histories, Yoruba states, community participation, illiteracy, distortions. Introduction