He will kill his father and marry his mother. In line with the Yoruba customs and traditions, they consult the service of Baba Fakunle, a gifted but blind Ifa priest, to divine the boy’s future.ĭivination reveals that the boy is cursed by the gods. On the ninth day of the child’s birth, the new parents take the child to the shrine of Ogun, the god of iron, for blessings in the presence of the Ogun priest. King Adetusa and his wife, Ojuola, of Kutuje Land are in joyous mood on the account of their newly born baby boy, their first son. Their currency of transaction is the cowry which evidently prove the events in the play take place in an era marked by the zero presence of Europeans and their submerging civilisation in the hinterland of Yoruba lands. They hold dear their beliefs in Yoruba deities and act in accordance with these beliefs. They are also warriors when situation demands. The people of Kutuje are predominantly farmers and hunters. Snatches of conversation and the use of flashback technique also intimate the readers of prominent Yoruba towns like Oyo, Ife, Ilorin, Ede, Ibadan, Oshogbo and Iwo. Most of the actions in the play take place within the precinct of Kutuje Palace. The setting of the play is Kutuje Land during the pre-colonial period. The play covertly extols the virtues of patience, good leadership, and communal responsibility while denouncing the evils of anger and distrust. His restlessness and hot temper, apparently his flaws, bring him closer to the fulfillment of his destiny even when he thinks he has escaped his ill fate. Whichever way he is taken or runs, he gets closer and closer to fulfilling his ill-fated destiny of killing his father to marry his mother. The Gods are not to Blame shows how the wheels of fate and the weaknesses of a man conspire against him and set him on a cyclic path of bad fate.
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