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1
Odugbemi, Ibrahim A. "Toyin Falola and Akintunde Akinyemi (Eds). Encyclopedia of the Yoruba. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2016. 371pp." Yoruba Studies Review 3, no. 1 (December 21, 2021): 1–3. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.v3i1.129933.
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Encyclopedia of the Yoruba is a single-volume encyclopedia that is comprised of 285 entries of short essays written by 188 authors who are predominantly scholars and academic researchers from Africa, Europe and North America. The different word-ranges of the essays vary from 1000 words (for 78 entries) to 750 words (for 88 entries) and 500 words (for 119 entries). Across these entries, the encyclopedia gives a complex, yet detailed, presentation of the Yorùbá, a dominant ethnic group in West Africa and the most prominent African cultural population, identity and presence in the African diaspora including North America, the Caribbean and South America. It presents the Yorùbá with respect to their involvements in, and interactions with, different sociocultural experiences, practices and expressions by “emphasizing the peculiarities, features, and commonalities of the people” (xi). Following an alphabetical ordering, each entry in the encyclopedia is complete on its own as it examines and discusses a subject, subject matter, concept or topic that shares an affiliation with the Yorùbá world in time (the traditional past in all its distant and intricate temporal dimensions and the modern present in all its complex interrelations) and/or space (Yoruba homes across West Africa and the African diaspora. Such concentrations of the entry include persons/personalities, demographics, worldviews and cosmological values and elements, and several material and non-material aspects of the Yorùbá culture and folklore, and their corresponding affiliates. It is important to add that the completeness of the entries is considerably informed by the suitability of the word-ranges used. It is commendable that 358 Ibrahim A. Odugbemi the editors are able to determine the word-range that fits the discourse of every entry and the authors are also able to conform. By writing across the various word-limits, the authors have been able to give adequate information about their subjects of discussion. Each word-limit is moderate enough to convey the basic information on the subject or topic of every entry.
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Olugbenga, Dasaolu Babajide. "On Efficient Causation for Homosexual Behaviours among Traditional Africans: An Exploration of the Traditional Yoruba Model." Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 9, no. 2 (April 25, 2019): 26–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v9i2.41187.
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In the face of the recent backlashes against homosexual persons in Africa, on the ground that the phenomenon is un-African and/or threat to procreation and marital values, it is pertinent to review the discourse in the light of how ancient Africans perceived the reality. This is imperative given the lack of consensus on the part of scientists to disinter a conclusive finding on what causes homosexual behaviours among humans. In this research, I employ traditional Yorùbá philosophy to provide a plausible justification for homosexuality among the people. In the face of this justification via Yorùbá folklore, I find that there is no documented evidence among the ancient Yorùbá that is suggestive of discrimination and stigmatization of homosexuals and inter-sex persons. As homosexual persons were respected but not criminalized, this study recommends the regurgitation of this outlook in the contemporaneous dealings with homosexual persons, beginning with the repealing of the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014 in Nigeria, which is inconsistent with African values and outlooks on the subject.
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Finley, Mackenzie. "Constructing Identities: Amos Tutuola and the Ibadan Literary Elite in the wake of Nigerian Independence." Yoruba Studies Review 2, no. 2 (December 21, 2021): 1–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.v2i2.129908.
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With Nigerian novelist Amos Tutuola as primary subject, this paper at[1]tempts to understand the construction of sociocultural identities in Nigeria in the wake of independence. Despite the international success of his literary publications, Tutuola was denied access to the most intimate discourses on the development of African literature by his Nigerian elite contemporaries, who emerged from University College, Ibadan, in the 1950s and early 1960s. Having completed only a few years of colonial schooling, Tutuola was differentiated from his elite literary contemporaries in terms of education. Yet if education represented a rather concrete, institutionalized divide between the elite and the everyday Nigerian, this paper will suggest that the resulting epistemological difference served as a more fluid, ideological divide. Both Western epistemology, rooted in Western academic spaces, and African epistemology, preserved from African traditions like proverbs and storytelling, informed the elite and Tutuola’s worldviews. The varying degrees to which one epistemology was privileged over the other reinforced the boundary between Tutuola and the elite. Furthermore, educational experiences and sociocultural identities informed the ways in which independent Nigeria was envisioned by both Tutuola and the elite writers. While the elites’ discourse on independence reflected their proximity to Nigeria’s political elite, Tutuola positioned himself as a distinctly Yoruba writer in the new Nigeria. He envisioned a state in which traditional knowledge remained central to the African identity. Ultimately, his life and work attest to the endurance of indigenous epistemology through years of European colonialism and into independence. 148 Mackenzie Finley During a lecture series at the University of Palermo, Italy, Nigerian novelist Amos Tutuola presented himself, his work, and his Yoruba heritage to an audience of Italian students and professors of English and Anglophone literatures. During his first lecture, the Yoruba elder asked his audience, “Why are we people afraid to go to the burial ground at night?” An audience member ventured a guess: “Perhaps we are afraid to know what we cannot know.” Tutuola replied, “But, you remember, we Africans believe that death is not the end of life. We know that when one dies, that is not the end of his life [. . .] So why are all people afraid to go to the burial ground at night? They’re afraid to meet the ghosts from the dead” (emphasis in original).1 Amos Tutuola (1920–1997) was recognized globally for his perpetuation of Yoruba folklore tradition via novels and short stories written in unconventional English. His works, especially The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), were translated into numerous European languages, including Italian. Given the chance to speak directly with an Italian audience at Palermo, Tutuola elaborated on the elements of Yoruba culture that saturated his fiction. His lectures reflected the same sense of purpose that drove his writing. Tutuola explained, “As much as I could [in my novels], I tried my best to bring out for the people to see the secrets of my tribe—I mean, the Yoruba people—and of Nigerian people, and African people as a whole. I’m trying my best to bring out our traditional things for the people to know a little about us, about our beliefs, our character, and so on.”2 Tutuola’s didactics during the lecture at Palermo reflect his distinct intellectual and cultural commitment to a Yoruba cosmology, one that was not so much learned in his short years of schooling in the colonial education system as it was absorbed from his life of engagement with Yoruba oral tradition. With Tutuola as primary subject, this paper attempts to understand the construction of sociocultural identities in Nigeria in the wake of independence. The educated elite writers, such as Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, who emerged from University College, Ibadan, during the same time period, will serve as a point of comparison. On October 1, 1960, when Nigeria gained independence from Britain, Tutuola occupied an unusual place relative to the university-educated elite, the semi-literate “average man,” the international 1 Alassandra di Maio, Tutuola at the University: The Italian Voice of a Yoruba Ancestor, with an Interview with the Author and an Afterword by Claudio Gorlier (Rome: Bulzoni, 2000), 38. The lecture’s transcriber utilized graphic devices (italicized and bolded words, brackets denoting pauses and movements) to preserve the dynamic oral experience of the lecture. However, so that the dialogue reads more easily in the context of this paper, I have removed the graphic devices but maintained what the transcriber presented as Tutuola’s emphasized words, simply italicizing what was originally in bold. 2 Di Maio, Tutuola at the University, 148. Constructing Identities 149 stage of literary criticism, and the emerging field of African literature. This position helped shape his sense of identity. Despite the success of his literary publications, Tutuola was not allowed to participate in the most intimate dis[1]courses on the development of African literature by his elite contemporaries. In addition to his lack of access to higher education, Tutuola was differentiated from his elite literary contemporaries on epistemological grounds. If education represented a rather concrete, institutionalized divide between the elite and the everyday Nigerian, an epistemological difference served as a more fluid, ideological divide. Both Western epistemology, rooted in Western academic spaces, and African epistemology, preserved from African traditions like proverbs and storytelling, informed the elite and Tutuola’s worldviews. The varying degrees to which one epistemology was privileged over the other reinforced the boundary between the elite and Tutuola. This paper draws largely on correspondence, conference reports, and the personal papers of Tutuola and his elite contemporaries housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as on interviews transcribed by the Transcription Centre in London, the periodical Africa Report (1960–1970), and Robert M. Wren and Claudio Gorlier, concentrating on primary sources produced during the years immediately prior to and shortly after Nigerian independence in 1960. Tutuola’s ideas generally did not fit into the sociocultural objectives of his elite counterparts. Though they would come in contact with one another via the world of English-language literature, Tutuola usually remained absent from or relegated to the margins of elite discussions on African creative writing. Accordingly, the historical record has less to say about his intellectual ruminations than about those of his elite contemporaries. Nonetheless, his hand-written drafts, interviews, and correspondences with European agents offer a glimpse at the epistemology and sense of identity of an “average” Nigerian in the aftermath of colonialism and independence.
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Khan, Lubna Akhlaq, Muhammad Safeer Awan, and Aadila Hussain. "Oral cultures and sexism: A comparative analysis of African and Punjabi folklore." Pakistan Journal of Women's Studies: Alam-e-Niswan 26, no. 2 (December 19, 2019): 105–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.46521/pjws.026.02.0010.
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The present study embarked with a supposition that there are similarities (traditional, under-developed, agri-based) between the Punjabi and African cultures, so the gender ideology might have similar patterns, which can be verified through the analysis of oral genres of the respective cultures. From Africa, Nigerian (Yoruba) proverbs are selected to be studied in comparison with Punjabi proverbs, while taking insights from Feminist CDA (Lazar 2005). The study has examined how Punjabi and Yoruba proverbs mirror, produce and conserve gendered ideology and patriarchism. Punjabi proverbs are selected through purposive sampling from ‘Our Proverbs’ (Shahbaz 2005) and Yoruba examples (with English translations and interpretations) are elicited from a dictionary of Yoruba proverbs (Owomoyela 2005), as well as articles written about gender by native Yoruba researchers. The investigation has uncovered through thematic content analysis that the portrayal of women in both communities is primarily biased, face-threatening and nullifying. Both languages have presented womenfolk mainly as unreliable, insensible, loquacious, insincere, ungrateful, opportunist, materialistic and troublemaking. Men have been depicted for the most part as aggressive, rational, prevailing, and anxious to take risks. This analysis infers that in asymmetrically organised Punjabi and African (Yoruba) communities, proverbs are deliberately sustaining inequality.
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Alabi, Adesanya M. "The Decline of Indigenous Language in African Literature: A Model of the Yoruba Language." African Research & Documentation 139 (2021): 114–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x00023980.
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“African literature has presented a lot of problems especially what is to be considered African literature, in which language it should be written, what it should be about, and who should be considered an African writer“(Ndede, 2016:2). This article discusses the linguistic hegemony of the colonial languages with particular reference to Yoruba. “The Yoruba country lies roughly between latitudes 6° and 9°N and longitudes 2° 30’ and 6° 30’ East. The area spreads across the republics of Benin and Togo. The Yoruba are also found in such places as Sierra Leone, Gambia and across the Atlantic in the Caribbean and South America especially in Brazil” (Atanda, 1996; cited in Salawu, 2004).According to Arifalo and Ogen, Yoruba people are forty million worldwide and they further assert that the Yoruba ethnic group is one of the biggest in West Africa (Arifalo and Ogen, 2003; cited in Salawu, 2004).
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Adeoye, EA, AO Okeowo, AF Yusuf, and O. Rotimi. "Proposing an Indigenous Nigerian Folktale Therapy as a Counselling Model for Character Training and Behaviour Change among School Children." Journal of Science and Sustainable Development 5, no. 1 (June 12, 2013): 29–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jssd.v5i1.3.
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Using the Yoruba race of Nigeria as fulcrum for the study, this paper examines the universality and didactic significance of archetypes in African folklore. The authors contend that Africa folklore, by virtue of its highly moralizing and didactic elements made possible by an embedded commonality of instructive archetypes, offers a lifeline that counsellors andpsychologists can use in combating the moral decay in the Nigerian society. Based on this premise the paper goes on to present a counselling model for character training and behaviour change through the use of an indigenous Nigerian Folktale Therapy (I.N.F.T). The model is a response to the needed paradigm shift in the counterproductive traditional punitive method of combating undesirable behaviours that seem to have become rampant currently in Nigerian society. This model could indeed serve as springboard for adaptation in other African settings which are very rich infolklores.Keywords · Folktale · Therapy · Counselling psychology
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Hendrie, Hugh C., Olusegun Baiyewu, Denise Eldemire, and Carol Prince. "Caribbean, Native American, and Yoruba." International Psychogeriatrics 8, S3 (May 1997): 483–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1041610297003906.
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Studying behavioral disturbances of dementia across cultures allows us to identify commonalities and differences that may be useful in determining the best approach to managing these problems. However, what we tend to find in cross-cultural studies is that the best approach may not be the same approach, given the different prevalence of and levels of tolerance for various behavioral problems. These differences are apparent in the authors' studies of four populations—Jamaicans in Kingston; Cree in Northern Manitoba, Canada; Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria; and African Americans in the United States. The Jamaicans in this study live in a poor suburb of Kingston, the Cree live in two fairly small, isolated communities in Northern Manitoba, and the Yoruba live in Ibadan, a city of more than 1 million people. The Yoruba community the authors are studying, although concentrated in the city center, functions much like a village. The African-American population resides in Indianapolis, Indiana, a moderately sized city of approximately 1 million people.
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LOVEJOY, PAUL E. "The Frontier States of Western Yorubaland, 1600–1889. By BIODUN ADEDIRAN. Ibadan: Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique, 1994. Pp. x + 248. No price given (ISBN 978-2015-25-3)." Journal of African History 38, no. 1 (March 1997): 123–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s002185379648690x.
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The identification of the various sub-groups of the Yoruba offers a challenge to historians, particularly since large numbers of Yoruba-speaking people were deported into the African diaspora. In this contribution to Yoruba historiography, Adediran analyses the history of the western Yoruba sub-groups, especially those resident in République du Benin and also in Togo. This study expands upon Adediran's Ph.D. thesis (Awolowo University, 1980) and is based on oral traditions and archival materials, as well as an excellent grasp of the published literature.
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Olaleye-Otunla, Olufemi Joseph, Eyitayo Tolulope Ijisakin, Babasehinde Augustine Ademuleya, and Mosobalaje Oyebamiji Adeoye. "Beyond Frank Willett: The Need for Compositional Analysis of Yoruba Art Objects." Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 13, no. 2 (March 5, 2022): 76. http://dx.doi.org/10.36941/mjss-2022-0018.
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Since the pioneering efforts of Frank Willett that examine the Yoruba arts, there remains a yearning gap to holistically investigate the material contents and classification of Yoruba art objects. For proper documentation, information and placement of Yoruba arts, the need for a scientific material compositional analysis of Yoruba arts cannot be overemphasised. This discourse employs a qualitative and evaluative mode of research to emphasize the need, importance and prospects of proper scientific material investigation of Yoruba arts. The study provides information on Frank Willett, the Yoruba people, and relevant studies on the Yoruba arts. It further discusses compositional analysis through the lens of literature, art authentication, and makes a case for authenticating Yoruba art collections. Considering the elegance and importance of African arts and antiquities, the findings of this study show that the provenance of Yoruba art objects has not received adequate attention; this has consequently resulted into illegal excavation, manipulations, and trade of Yoruba art collections. The study concludes that there is utmost importance and necessity for scientific material probing of Yoruba art, if it must go beyond the point where Frank Willett stopped. Hence, the need for all African art historical scholars to prospect for scientific probing of the material contents of Yoruba arts objects.
Received: 13 January 2022 / Accepted: 28 February 2022 / Published: 5 March 2022
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Awojobi, Peter Olanrewaju. "Rereading Psalm 121 in an African (Yoruba) context." Integrity Journal of Arts and Humanities 2, no. 1 (June 28, 2021): 8–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.31248/ijah2021.014.
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This article is an attempt to reread Psalm 121 in an African context with reference to the culture of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. The study considers certain Eurocentric interpretation of the Book of Psalms which Africans maintained do not meet their social, physical and spiritual aspirations. An African interpretation of the Bible is an interpretation which adopts the African world view. In this study, Psalm 121 is interpreted in the light of help and protection which are the greatest needs of the African people. The study adopts the African Biblical Hermeneutics. The central focus of this approach is to provide a useful lens to reread biblical text in African context. It was discovered that as early as the third century Christian era, worshippers in the temple chanted, and sung on a regular basis from Psalms. The Psalms were popular in the fourth century with the rise of monasticism as monks chanted the psalms as daily prayer not only for personal guidance but also for spiritual warfare against demons. The ancient Israelites who were the original authors of the Psalter wrote from their experiences. Many biblical scholars and members of African indigenous churches in Nigeria, see the Psalter as divine and potent words. Psalm 121 can be used to invoke help and protection on those who desire them in the same way as words of incantation (ogede) are used among the Yoruba ethnic group of Nigeria. It is hoped that the Psalms and the entire Bible will be properly contextualized to address the challenges that Africans are currently facing.
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Akingbe, Niyi. "MYTHOLOGIZING YORUBA ORATURE: LOBOTO MIZING SWIVELLED PULSES OF LAUGHTER IN NIYI OSUNDARE’S WAITING LAUGHTERS AND REMI RAJI’S A HARVEST OF LAUGHTERS." Imbizo 6, no. 2 (June 21, 2017): 22–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/2078-9785/2803.
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Every literary work emerges from the particular alternatives of its time. This is ostensibly reflected in the attempted innovative renderings of these alternatives in the poetry of contemporary Nigerian poets of Yoruba extraction. Discernible in the poetry of Niyi Osundare and Remi Raji is the shaping and ordering of the linguistic appurtenances of the Yoruba orature, which themselves are sublimely rooted in the proverbial, chants, anecdotes, songs and praises derived from the Yoruba oral poetry of Ijala, Orin Agbe, Ese Ifa, Rara, folklore as well as from other elements of oral performance. This engagement with the Yoruba oral tradition significantly permeates the poetics of Niyi Osundare’s Waiting laughters and Remi Raji’s A Harvest of Laughters. In these anthologies, both Osundare and Raji traverse the cliffs and valleys of the contemporary Nigerian milieu to distil the social changes rendered in the Yoruba proverbial, as well as its chants and verbal formulae, all of which mutate from momentary happiness into an enduring anomie grounded in seasonal variations in agricultural production, ruinous political turmoil, suspense and a harvest of unresolved, mysterious deaths. The article is primarily concerned with how the African oral tradition has been harnessed by Osundare and Raji to construct an avalanche of damning, peculiarly Nigerian, socio-political upheavals (which are essentially delineated by the signification of laughter/s) and display these in relation to the country’s variegated ecology.
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Olatunji, Ezekiel Kolawole, John B. Oladosu, Odetunji A. Odejobi, and Stephen O. Olabiyisi. "Design and implementation of an African native language-based programming language." International Journal of Advances in Applied Sciences 10, no. 2 (June 1, 2021): 171. http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijaas.v10.i2.pp171-177.
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<p>Most of the existing high level programming languages havehitherto borrowed their lexical items from human languages including European and Asian languages. However, there is paucity of research information on programming languages developed with the lexicons of an African indigenous language. This research explored the design and implementation of an African indigenous language-based programming language using Yoruba as case study. Yoruba is the first language of over 30 million people in the south-west of Nigeria, Africa; and is spoken by over one hundred million people world-wide. It is hoped, as established by research studies, that making computer programming possible in one’s mother tongue will enhance computer-based problem-solving processes by indigenous learners and teachers. The alphabets and reserved words of the programming language were respectively formed from the basic Yoruba alphabets and standard Yoruba words. The lexical items and syntactic structures of the programming language were designed with appropriate regular expressions and context-free grammars, using Backus-Naur Form (BNF) notations. A prototype implementation of the programming language was carried out as a source-to-source, 5-pass compiler. QBasic within QB64 IDE was the implementation language. The results from implementation showed functional correctness and effectiveness of the developed programming language. Thus lexical items of a programming language need not be borrowed exclusively from European and Asian languages, they can and should be borrowed from most African native languages. Furthermore, the developed native language programming language can be used to introduce computer programming to indigenous pupils of primary and junior secondary schools.</p>
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S.B., Aliyu. "Oral Tradition and African Environmentalism in Wasiu Abimbola’s Yoruba Movie, Ikoko Ebora." International Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics 5, no. 2 (June 30, 2022): 26–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.52589/ijlll-dpgkpmlv.
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The oral tradition in African society has always served the purpose of transmitting the values of the African people across generations among other functions of entertaining and provoking critical thought. In the emerging global concern over environmental sustainability, understanding the perspective from which people view and interact with the environment around them would provide insights into the human-induced challenges facing it, and how these challenges can be overcome. This paper thus posited that the oral repertoires of African societies would provide insights into the people’s perspective of the environment around them. This paper, therefore, undertook an examination of the oral literary forms such as incantations, proverbs, myths, and songs in Wasiu Abimbola’s Yoruba film titled Ikoko Ebora for the deployment of environmental aesthetics which are peculiar to the Yoruba culture. The study concluded that the deployment of environmental agencies in oral literary forms reflects the African conception of the environment as a functional entity and a complementary agency for the use of man.
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Òkéwándé, Olúwọlé Tẹ́wọ́gboyè, and Adéfúnkẹ Kẹhìndé Adébáyọ. "Investigating African Belief in the Concept of Reincarnation: The case of Ifá and Ayò Ọlọ́pọ́n. Symbolism among the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria." Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies 13, no. 2 (2021): 267–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2021.209.
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The concept of reincarnation, a situation where a dead person comes back to life, is as old as human beings. However, there is divergence in the belief among various religions. African religion such as Ifá uses symbols to validate the belief in reincarnation. Ifá is the foundation of the culture of the Yoruba people. The present study aims to define the concept of reincarnation in Ifá and in ayò ọlọ́pọ́n to substantiate African beliefs in the concept of reincarnation. No known work either relates Ifá with the concept of reincarnation or connects ayò ọlọ́pọ́n with Ifá to solve a cultural problem. The present study fills this gap. Symbolism, a mode in semiotics where an object signifies or represents something or somebody, is adopted for the analysis of the study since symbolism is fundamental to Ifá. The visitation of Odù in Ifá is related to the ayò game, linking the symbolism in both Ifá and ayò ọlọ́pọ́n to the realization or application of the concept of reincarnation in human life, especially among Africans and the Yoruba people. It is determined that there is synergy between Ifá and ayò ọlọ́pọ́n, and reincarnation. The study concludes that reincarnation is an encapsulated concept illustrated by Ifá and ayò ọlọ́pọ́n- the religious and social life of the Yoruba people. African cultural symbols are tangible means of cultural heritage that solve contemporary and controversial human issues such as the African belief in reincarnation.
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Fape, Michael O. "National Anglican Identity Formation: An African Perspective." Journal of Anglican Studies 6, no. 1 (June 2008): 17–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1740355308091383.
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ABSTRACTAfrica played a prominent role in the formation of earliest Christianity not least in the persons of Cyprian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo. The Anglican heritage is considered through the experience of the Yoruba people in south-west Nigeria through whom christian faith came to the rest of Nigeria. The Anglicanism which came to the Yoruba was evangelical through the Church Missionary Society, though a key role was played by liberated slaves from Sierra Leone. Contexts in which the gospel is proclaimed and the way it is expressed may change, yet the contents of the gospel do not. A contextualized curriculum thus includes key courses such as biblical studies and systematic theology. It also includes contextual subjects such as African traditional religions and Islam and Christianity. The Church of Nigeria has thus undertaken a thorough review of the curriculum to adequately represent this kind of contextualized theology.
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Smith, Katherine. "African Religions and Art in the Americas." Nova Religio 16, no. 1 (August 1, 2012): 5–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2012.16.1.5.
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This print symposium of Nova Religio is devoted to African religions and arts in the Americas, focusing specifically on devotional arts inspired by the Yoruba people of West Africa. The authors presented here privilege an emic approach to the study of art and religion, basing their work on extensive interviews with artists, religious practitioners, and consumers. These articles contribute an understanding of devotional arts that shows Africa, or the idea of Africa, remains a powerful political and aesthetic force in the religious imagination of the Americas.
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Oluwaseun S. Osadola. "Reincarnation in the Yoruba Ontology: Abiku." Matondang Journal 2, no. 1 (December 14, 2022): 27–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.33258/matondang.v2i1.806.
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This study will present an argument on reincarnation beliefs among the Yoruba people in Nigeria, focusing on the born-to-die phenomenon, Abiku. According to the Yoruba tradition, the Abikus were once spiritual creatures before evolving into humans. But the Yoruba people's reincarnation beliefs concerning Abiku may be a myth. With the lack of medical technology in Yorubaland and other pre-colonial African nations to ascertain couples’ genotype compatibility, sickle cell anemia, and other illnesses may have been the underlying cause of child mortality. Although previous scholars have attempted an explanation of the phenomenon, most scholarly works are premised on the medical perspective of child mortality, lack of adequate healthcare, folktales, and religious beliefs. A typical phenomenon among the Yoruba is the mutilation of body parts of the children assumed to be an Abiku. They do this to easily recognize the child if he returns to the family as a new child. When newborn babies are born with mutilation marks like the ones that died, it confirms the belief that he is an Abiku. However, it is hard to determine if the Abiku phenomenon is a myth or reality. To explain and establish this, I will explore research and documented stories of reincarnation experiences of people who have been caught on this web. This will also uncover parallels in the reincarnated individuals' experiences, the consequences for these people, and the impact of reincarnation belief systems and rituals on Yoruba society.
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Kazeem, Fayemi Ademola, and Akintunde Folake Adeogun. "On the myth called 'African Bioethics': further reflections on Segun Gbadegesin's account." Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 3, no. 3 (November 9, 2012): 4–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v3i3.12558.
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This paper examines, and further reflects, on Segun Gbadegesins position on the question of African bioethics. In an attempt to situate bioethical discourse within the garb of cultural appropriateness, Gbadegesin gives an African perspective of bioethics by exploring the attitudes of the Yoruba people (an example of an African culture) towards bioethical issues. Through this, he calls for a transcultural bioethics, which will underscore the universality of bioethics without undermining the significance of cultural identities. This paper challenges as a myth?, the assumptions and positions of Gbadegesin in his recent discourse on African bioethics. By raising and adducing reasons to fundamental questions (such as: How authentic is Gbadegesins reportage on the Yoruba attitude to bioethical issues? How plausible is the possibility of a universal/global bioethics that is anchored on the recognition of all cultures in bioethical discourse? Is there a distinctive African bioethics? If yes, what is the nature of such an inquiry? What are the bioethical principles employed in solving bioethical issues in African culture?), this paper defends the position that there is not yet an African bioethics.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v3i3.12558 Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2012; 3(3):4-11
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Ojo, Olatunji. "Beyond Diversity: Women, Scarification, and Yoruba Identity." History in Africa 35 (January 2008): 347–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hia.0.0015.
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On 18 March 1898 Okolu, an Ijesa man, accused Otunba of Italemo ward, Ondo of seizing and enslaving his sister Osun and his niece. Both mother and daughter, enslaved by the Ikale in 1894, had fled from their master in 1895, but as they headed toward Ilesa, the accused seized them. Osun claimed the accused forced her to become his wife, “hoe a farm,” and marked her daughter's face with one deep, bold line on each cheek. Otunba denied the slavery charge, claiming he only “rescued [Osun] from Soba who was taking her away [and] took her for wife.” Itoyimaki, a defense witness, supported the claim that Osun was not Otunba's slave. In his decision, Albert Erharhdt, the presiding British Commissioner, freed the captives and ordered the accused to pay a fine of two pounds. In addition to integrating Osun through marriage, the mark conferred on her daughter a standard feature of Ondo identity. Although this case came up late in the nineteenth century, it represents a trend in precolonial Yorubaland whereby marriages and esthetics served the purpose of ethnic incorporation.Studies on the roots of African ethnic identity consciousness have concentrated mostly on the activities of outsiders, usually Euro-American Christian missions, repatriated ex-slaves, and Muslims, whose ideas of nations as geocultural entities were applied to various African groups during the era of the slave trade and, more intensely, under colonialism. For instance, prior to the late nineteenth century, the people now called Yoruba were divided into multiple opposing ethnicities. Ethnic wars displaced millions of people, including about a million Yoruba-speakers deported as slaves to the Americas, Sierra Leone, and the central Sudan, mostly between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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Afolayan, Michael Oladejo. "“Welcome to the White Man’s World”: An English Translation of Isaac Oluwole Delano’s Historical Novel Aiyé D’Aiyé Òyìnbó." Yoruba Studies Review 4, no. 2 (December 21, 2021): 1–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.v4i2.130043.
Full textAbstract:
Welcome to the White Man’s World
By Chief Isaac O. Delano
Author of Soul of Nigeria, An African Look at Marriage, One Church for Nigeria, Notes and Comments from Nigeria, The Singing Minister of Nigeria, Ìran Ọrun, Ìtàn Ogun Àdùb ̀ í, and Ìwé Atúmọ Yorùbá ̀ (Yoruba – Yoruba Dictionary) London: Tomas Nelson Ltd., 1953
Foreword
I appreciate the kind of love with which you, my readers, embraced my previous books, whether those I wrote in the English language or in Yoruba. For the record, one important thing I would like to say right here is that all names, be it of towns or of people, that are used in this book are totally fictional. We had no one in mind when this story was being written. The story is purely fictional but based on our various experiences in the Yoruba society.
Isaac O. Delano Bajiki Ake, Abeokuta London, 1953
Dedication
Tis book is dedicated to Ẹgbẹ́Ọmọ Odùduwà (Te Society of Sons and Daughters of Oduduwa), which is frantically engaged in working relentlessly towards the progress of the Yoruba society.
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Akitoye, Hakeem A. "Islam and Traditional Titles in Contemporary Lagos Society: A Historical Analysis." International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences 25 (March 2014): 42–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ilshs.25.42.
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Lagos, an area basically inhabited by the Yoruba speaking people of South Western Nigeria and by extension some other parts of West Africa where Islam, Christianity and the African Traditional Religion are still being practised side by side till date with the Africans still being converted to the new faiths without dropping their traditional religion or cultural affiliations. This ideology is very common to the average African who still believes in his culture which has always tainted his way of life or as far as his religion is concerned should not interfere with his culture as the religion as not tacitly condemned some of these practices. This paper intends to examine the extent to which the Yoruba Muslims have been involved in syncretism especially as regards the introduction of the conferment of titles into the Muslim community.
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Adebayo, Akanmu G. "Currency Devaluation and Rank: The Yoruba and Akan Experiences." African Studies Review 50, no. 2 (September 2007): 87–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/arw.2007.0077.
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Abstract:Jane Guyer has clearly demonstrated in Marginal Gains (2004) that the ranking of people historically was linked to quantitative scales of money. Guyer's study focuses on the Igbo and Ibibio, two societies in which ranking was by achievement rather than ascription. How do ranking and money interface in other African societies with strong monarchical or centralized social systems? What impact does currency instability have on rank in such societies? This paper examines these questions. Focusing on the Yoruba of Nigeria and the Akan of Ghana, it evaluates the degree to which ranking has been affected by currency devaluation and economic instability since the mid-1980s.
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Oyedeji, Wale. "Reflections on the Yoruba Past: Toyin Falola on Isaac Delano." Yoruba Studies Review 4, no. 2 (December 21, 2021): 1–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.v4i2.130049.
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Toyin Falola remains one of the most illuminating voices with remarkable efforts to reposition the continent of Africa on the appropriate place on the global map. He has provided sufficient evidence that he deserves the accolades he attracts from contemporaries and admirers. More than many of his contemporaries, Toyin Falola continues to demonstrate that knowledge production from Africa is sustainable if past events are interrogated accordingly. In very many ways, he displays quality content that gives him the sort of image he has built for Africans generally, and himself particularly in the world of intellectualism. The debate about the essentialism of African knowledge economy, especially the Yoruba culture, is centuries old, and frozen in its condition. It became prominently popular from the beginning of African’s contact with Europeans and Arabs, and this, ever since then, has attracted deepened engagement by African scholars whose primary intention was to defend their cultural legacy.
Understanding that the proliferation of such desecrating rhetoric that Africans are a people without history by Eurocentric scholars like Trevor Roper and David Hume was a consummate attempt to undermine their existence, and then justify their expansionist agenda, makes African scholars of various disciplines to stand in defense of their history, hence decolonization process in pre- and post-independence era. Apparently, it was Edward Said who asserts that, “domination and inequities of power and wealth are perennial facts of human society. But in today’s global setting they are also interpretable as having something to do with imperialism, its history, its new forms.”1 It thus seems that the generations that witnessed such unmistakable assault on their cultural heritage were not ready to accept it in good faith, and this provoked 1 Edward Said. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1993, p.19. 270 Wale Oyedeji corresponding resistance from them. They however reacted intellectually. It was in the spirit of reacting defensively that the first, second and third generations of historians emerged. Their sudden increase in the production of intelligent materials sent such a strong signal to the West so much that the world was compelled to change their erroneous misconception about Africa and Africans. As such, scholars like Samuel Johnson, Isaac Delano, Kenneth Dike, Bala Usman, Obaro Ikime, Bolanle Awe and a host of others took up the challenge of setting the record straight.
The trend continues in that fashion even in postcolonial environment. For one thing, it birthed the Ibadan School of History, an intellectual society that achieved beautiful and daunting results in their quest for African cultural redemption. Many contemporary scholars consider the efforts of these pioneer intellectuals purposely because their works provide sufficient background to understanding African cultures and values, its steady evolution and travails. As such, in this writing, I intend to consider the greatness of Yoruba culture, a people in West Africa, visa-a-vie their precolonial undertaking and their colonial experience. Leaning on the works of Isaac Delano, this work will look into the Yoruba past to reflect on the culture, philosophy, ideology, epistemology and ontology of the people, with a view to educating the general public on the inexhaustible items of their knowledge economy and productions. Falola has done exponentially well to relate to us the seemingly beautiful body of works produced by Isaac Delano in journals, newspapers, periodicals, personal records among many other things. All these are indications that ingenuity cannot be covered by the web of power because while power is transient, ingenuity that persists is not.
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Onyango, Bethwell O., and Ekisa Olaimer-Anyara. "The Value of Leafy Vegetables: An Exploration of African Folklore." African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 7, no. 14 (May 28, 2007): 01–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.18697/ajfand.14.ipgri1-10.
Full textAbstract:
Indigenous Leafy Vegetables foods have an exceptional place in African cuisine. It is commonly argued that vegetable consumption reflects cultural backgrounds and their value transcends a biological one, as food, to symbolism enhancing the functioning of society and promoting social order. This study set to determine species use, folkloric dimensions and taste preferences in a rural East African setting. A bio-cultural approach reinforced by ethno-botanical tools conducted over a three-year period and recourse to a corpus of Luo ethnic food plant literature and gathering of folklore elements from a conversational context was used to study socio-cultural elements of vegetables foods of people in Migori and Suba districts of Kenya. Seventy-four respondents, 56 female and 18 males, of mean age 43years and ranging between 16 and 84 years participated in focus group discussions and research interviews. Herbarium specimens of 34 leafy edible plant species in seventeen plant families are deposited at the University of Nairobi and the Catholic University of Eastern Africa herbaria. This study documents 17 sayings (folkloristic products) of different genre: mantras, traditional beliefs, customs, practices, folk stories/ tales, songs, jokes and lexical phrases. Their sociolinguistic analysis reveals they address issues appropriate to Luo ritual, social status, nutrition, taste preferences, cooking habits and conflict resolution. Though Luo folklore indicates aversion for bitter vegetables, the body of folkloric wisdom sustains vegetable dish consumption. The preference and craving for bitter tasting herbs by elder women was because of an understanding of both food and medicinal values. This paper concludes that vegetable consumption reflects cultural backgrounds and experiences. Folklore defines how Africans perceive, define, and value indigenous Leafy Vegetables in their own terms and presents a stable platform for cultural analysis of oral food culture. Indigenous Leafy Vegetables are symbolic "sources of illumination" that orient African people persistently with the system of meaning in their culture.
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Fayemi, Ademola Kazeem. "African Sartorial Culture and the Question of Identity: Towards an African Philosophy of Dress." Uchenie zapiski Instituta Afriki RAN, no. 2 (June 30, 2021): 66–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.31132/2412-5717-2021-55-2-66-79.
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This paper is a critical interrogation of the apparel culture as a marker of African identity in traditional and contemporary Africa. The article philosophically discusses the sartorial culture of sub-Saharan Africans in the light of its defining elements, identity, and non-verbal communicative proclivities. Focusing on the Yoruba and the Ashanti people, the author argues that African dress expresses some symbolic, linguistic, and sometimes hidden, complex and immanent meaning(s) requiring extensive interpretations and meaning construction. With illustrative examples, he defends the position that the identity of some cultural regions in Africa can be grouped together based on the original, specific techniques and essence of dress that they commonly share. Against the present absence of an African philosophy of dress in the African sartorial culture and knowledge production, he argues the imperativeness of an African philosophy of dress, its subject matter, and connections to other cognate branches of African philosophy, and the prospects of such an ancillary African philosophy.
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Iyalla-Amadi, Priye. "Langage technique et univers technologique africain." Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 42, no. 4 (January 1, 1996): 193–210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/babel.42.4.02iya.
Full textAbstract:
Résumé Du fait qu'il apparaît lent à participer à la marche technologique de son temps, l'Africain est perçu comme un retardataire dans l'univers technologique actuel. Or, dans cette étude, nous sommes d'avis qu'il est bel et bien possible de se lancer dans la technologie en se créant un langage technique approprié et en adoptant les procédés ponctuels et précis de la traduction technique. Nous avons choisi la langue yoruba comme modèle de ce travail embryonnaire car nous estimons qu'il s'agit d'une langue africaine "auto-suffisante" et capable de subvenir aux besoins de ses locuteurs à tous les niveaux. Nous avons donc imaginé de formuler un langage technique en nous servant de la langue française comme modèle métalinguistique en vue de parvenir à nos fins, à savoir de doter l'esprit de l'Africain d'une pensée dite technique, afin de faire naître en lui une conscience technologique par la voie lexicologique, pour qu'enfin puissent avoir lieu les inventions technologiques. Abstract The need for the African to be an active part of the technological age is felt now more than ever. Efforts need to be made to make the African aware of the technological realities, manifested via scientific phenomena, present in his environment. One way we intend to do this is by evolving an appropriate lexicological framework whereby indigenous African languages, in this case the Yoruba language, can be made to express scientific and technological phenomena using the concise and precise procedures of technical translation. It is our belief that abstract conceptions concretized by linguistic expressions can give impetus to technological inventions. When the Yoruba speaker knows that he can express the term 'solar collector' in his native language as 'akónajo olóòrùn', he will be better able to appreciate and apprehend the phenomenon in his environment. As David Crystal (1987) noted in his comments on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, people recall things more easily if they correspond to readily available words or phrases. It is our intention to make such words which will convey technological import readily available to Yoruba speakers through this study. We also intend to use the Yoruba language as a model to be emulated by other languages in need of lexicological development, i.e. designed to express scientific and technological realities in such a way as ultimately to give impetus to technological inventions.
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Makgopa, Mokgale, and Mmaphuti Mamaleka. "Mmapoo ga a nyalwe, the challenges of tradition versus modernity from a social work perspective." African Journal of Religion, Philosophy and Culture 1, no. 2 (December 1, 2020): 61–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.31920/2634-7644/2020/1n2a4.
Full textAbstract:
African culture and tradition are questioned and tested on whether they fit to be part of the changing world. This makes folklore an endangered species as most cultural beliefs and traditions are seen to be out-dated. The instruments used to measure these cultural beliefs and traditions are transformation and globalisation. Folklore, which is currently treated like an appendage to disciplines such as languages, indigenous knowledge systems and anthropology, is now targeted. The authors aim to demonstrate the synergy between folklore and social work in which the social work values and principles are applied and analysed in terms of the figurative language; mmapoo ga a nyalwe. The authors advocate for an interdisciplinary approach, hence the focus is on folklore, language and social work. The theoretical consideration for this article was system theory with its proposition that people are part of the system and their connectedness, wholeness and their feedback in the system is valuable.
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Rouyan, G. U. "Comparing Concepts of God: Translating God in the Chinese and Yoruba Religious Contexts." Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 11, no. 1 (March 9, 2022): 139–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ft.v11i1.10.
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This article discusses the concept of God with a focus on the translation of God in the Chinese and Yoruba religious contexts. Translating the word God is of the essence when comparing concepts of god(s). The translation of the Christian God as Olodumare misrepresents the latter. As suggested by Africanists, there should be appropriate translations for God, Olodumare, and other African gods. As a preliminary comparative attempt, this article presents a case on the introduction of God to the Chinese people. The translation of God into Chinese reflects different views regarding the correlation between the Christian God and the Chinese gods.
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Afolayan, Michael O. "Yoruba Epistemology, Art, Language and the Universe of Meanings: A Meta-Analysis." Yoruba Studies Review 2, no. 2 (December 21, 2021): 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.v2i2.130127.
Full textAbstract:
I had the rare privilege of delivering in proxy the original paper of Professor Moyo Okediji at the African Studies Association meeting, where it was first presented on December 2, 2016. Although short in quantity, I consider it to be loaded in quality, contents, intents, intensities, and in its ability to problematize a discourse critical to our understanding of indigenous scholarship and all its epistemological implications that span the entire landscape of the humanities. Indeed, Okediji’s pedagogy is the proverbial Yoruba drum of “ògìdìgbó” which is revealed only to the wise and the prudent, and they are the only two capable of effectively dancing to its rhythm. The paper reminds one of the title of the memoir of Ellen DeGeneres, the famous American comedian, titled Seriously . . . I’m Kid[1]ding. Even as a non-apologist of Ellen DeGeneres, or of any other American comedian for that matter, one would find profound meaning to that title, and embrace it as very deep and philosophical. Like in many Shakespearean plays, many truths are expressed in the acts of the jesters, not in the court of the privileged kings and pundits. This is exactly the way I responded to Okediji’s beautiful write-up. It got me thinking. It is a needed shock therapy, an organic rendition of an intellectual exposition of the Yoruba art. This commentary is janus-faced. On one hand, it looks at the unique way in which Moyo Okediji critiqued the work of Rowland Abiodun, Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art. On the other, it concurs with Abiodun’s thesis of the indispensability of the Yoruba language and oral tradition in the understanding of the Yoruba art.
In his contribution to the roundtable forum on Professor Abiodun’s book at the African Studies Association in Washington, DC (December 1-3, 2016), Okediji provided his full presentation in Yoruba language, unalloyed (see the first essay in this forum). In order to broaden the scope of his readership and audiences, I chose to translate his write-up to the English language (Appendix 1). However, I used the translation to underscore the challenges of inter-cultural interpretation. The translation process demonstrates the problem of using one language to dissect another language without the depth of knowledge of the cultural make-up of the originator of the text. The attempt provides the data in which we are able to draw conclusions on a variety of issues: One, it highlights the futility of translation of a cultural theme at any level; two, it speaks to the frustration inherent in the imposition of one language over the art and culture of another; and three, it demonstrates the need for a cultural understanding between the originator of a text and the translator as precluding any reasonable translation and/or interpretation of the text. Using my attempt at translating as an example, I argue that at the very best what my effort could produce was an interpretation rather than a translation of Okediji’s text. I then argue that Okediji’s text brings to light the main thrust of Abiodun’s argument, which is that the indigenous language that births the art and culture of a people is the only channel through which the said art and culture could be most accurately interpreted or critiqued. Any attempt at superimposing other languages on the art can only result in a secondary, if not tertiary, interpretation and consequently a watered-down version of the original. The corollary is that such attempt will of necessity tamper with the sacred epistemological authenticity of the language-art-culture continuum.
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Adegbamigbe, Abayomi Agboade. "The Mystery of Akudaaya in Yoruba Films: Interrogating Death and Destiny in Aye Loja, Directed by Seun Olaiva." SCHOLARS: Journal of Arts & Humanities 4, no. 2 (August 11, 2022): 51–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/sjah.v4i2.47422.
Full textAbstract:
The study of afterlife has remained within the mythic mode because of its non-empirical but impelling nature. Many scholars insist that death cannot be annihilative and the debate is intensified as Wole Soyinka proposes robust African perspectives on existential issues of life and death. Akudaaya (‘transmigrated soul’) describes people returning to life after death, a phenomenon, which is regularly explored in Yoruba films. This paper expounds the mysteries surrounding this Akudaaya and the dramatic/filmic techniques deployed to present the phenomenon. It also addresses how Yoruba films have presented the phenomenon to define the relationship between death and destiny. With the film directed by Seun Olaiya and titled Aye Loja as the primary text, more information is accessed through interaction with notable traditionalists, and relevant works in literature, religion and philosophy were consulted. While Akudaaya remains a mystery, the phenomenon is discovered to be driven by unfulfilled destiny. Akudaaya is therefore seen as a metaphor for the continuity of life in death and a measure through which the conflict between death and destiny is mediated.
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Love, Velma. "Casting the Sacred Reading the Self." Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts 4, no. 2 (November 12, 2010): 217–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/post.v4i2.217.
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"Casting the Sacred" examines the material culture and storied environment associated with African American engagements with the unwritten scriptures of the Yoruba Ifa tradition of West African origin, and offers a compelling case for expanding conventional notions of scriptures. This essay builds on the work of historians of religion who take a relational approach to the study of scriptures, placing the focus on the people and their engagement with sacred texts as cultural practice and system of meaning-making. Showcasing the diviner as the chief orchestrator of the storied environment, this work draws attention to the set of personal scriptures derived form Oracular utterances. It also notes the physicality of bodies, shells, divining chains, palm nuts, floor mats, and notebooks, all of which are significant aspects of "reading," a means of accessing and engaging a form of sacred knowledge which clients incorporate into their lives.
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OLAIYA, Olajumoke Olufunmilola. "The Oughtness of the Politics and Culture of ‘Created’ Identities for Teaching Nigerian History: A Case Study of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa." Filosofiya osvity. Philosophy of Education 27, no. 1 (August 11, 2021): 141–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.31874/2309-1606-2021-27-1-8.
Full textAbstract:
History education has been able to give a flowing account of how various cultures have been co-existing prior European encounter. The historical account has evolved from the mythical stage into the scientific stage with evidence adduced and coming forward to revise and even correct initial assumptions. In the face of these revisions and corrections, it is not in place to demand: how do we teach African history to students? What is the connection between religion and culture in the making of a people? Using Kwame Appiah’s cosmopolitan perspective as my theoretical framework and through the method of philosophical analysis, I tender that the idea of an identity that is distinct or peculiar to a particular people cannot be reliable. To make my point lucid, this research uses the Yoruba of south-west Nigeria as paradigm. I contend that the emergence of Egbe Omo Oduduwa is not tied to a special or peculiar identity, but a surge in the need to emphasize common grounds over differences in order to establish a common cause for a perceived identity. The point that has been established thus far is that all the small kingdoms and mighty empires that claim to share the Yoruba identity in contemporary times, were hitherto sworn enemies who hardly perceive things from a similar perspective. It is however interesting to note that it was during the colonial era and the press for political independence that informed the need to coalesce and create an identity from that which cuts across all of them to initiate a common denominator. From the exploration of the Yoruba peoples from earliest times to the present times, it is the case that there was no perception of common ground prior 1945. The factors that led to the recognition of a common ground are tied to the struggle for liberation from foreign powers. It is on this that note that this research submits that identities are human creations and they neither primordially original nor pure.
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Timothy-Asobele, Jide. "Problèmes de l'adaptation et de la traduction française de Lanke Omu (Omuti) de Kola Ogunmola." Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 38, no. 2 (January 1, 1992): 101–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/babel.38.2.06tim.
Full textAbstract:
Omuti is a theatrical adaptation of Amos Tutuola's work titled: The Palmwine Drinkard and His Dead Palm-wine Tapster in the Dead's Town, published in London by Faber and Faber in 1952. A year after, in 1953, a French translator, Raymond Queneau translated it into French with the title LTvrogne dans la brousse. Many long essays, theses and articles in learned journals have been devoted to this work. In addition to all this literary fortune, Kola Ogunmola, adapted it for the stage in 1962. During the 1969 Pan-African Festival of Arts in Algiers, in Algeria, the adapted play won a Silver medal for theatre. This was one of the major reasons why we translated this work into French in 1982. We encountered many problems during the translation of Omuti, the least of which are, how to render the "Longish" title into a short one, the difficulty in establishing grammatical and semantic equivalents between the Yoruba original and the French translation. Certain linguistic habits that belong to the Oral tradition of the Yoruba people, such as the use of riddles, proverbs, talking drum register etc. made the French version difficult to work on. But there is communication in spite of all the above linguistic and cultural problems.
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Karim, Sajjadul, and Mohd Muzhafar Bin Idrus. "Black empowerment and Afro-American values in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye." IIUC Studies 16 (November 7, 2020): 111–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/iiucs.v16i0.50181.
Full textAbstract:
The Bluest Eye of Toni Morrison is extraordinarily significant, as it addresses the different sides of American literature, and the lives of the Afro-American people. Although the conventional theological aspects of white culture can negatively influence other characters of Morrison, it is Pecola whose life appears to be increasingly defenseless against the impulses of the individuals who have accepted the Western custom. In a democratic country, people generally have the same value, but there are still prejudices in the concepts of beauty and worthiness. The search for freedom, black identity, the nature of evil and the robust voices of African-Americans have become themes for African-American literature. Folklore covers the history of black and white interaction in the United States and also summarizes the feelings expressed in protest literature1. Morrison argues that the survival of the dark ladies in a white dominated society depends on loving their own way of life and dark race and rejecting the models of white culture or white excellence. This article attempts to examine The Bluest Eye from the perspective of empowerment of blacks and African American and their value system.
IIUC Studies Vol.16, December 2019: 111-121
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Mugovhani, N. G. "THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TSHIVENDA LINGUISTIC VOCABULARY AND MUSICAL TRAJECTORIES AS ENCAPSULATED IN MIRERO, MAAMBELE AND DZITHAI." Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies 24, no. 1 (September 30, 2016): 65–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/1016-8427/1673.
Full textAbstract:
African societies have always had-well established oral traditions. Vhavenḓa have a great wealth of folklore, such as mirero (proverbs), maambele (idioms) and dzithai (riddles) which help portray myriad aspects of their cultural heritage. As part of indigenous knowledge system, folkloric elements such as mirero, maambele and dzithai are used as vehicles for advising, correcting, reprimanding or rebuking. They are also used in providing direction, support and guidance. Through these folkloric elements, Vhavenḓa have always had their way of expressing how they perceive the significance of their different musical practices and styles. In their general day-to-day language, they have their own musical terminology to explain a particular perception. There is always a close connection between indigenous music and the day-to-day lives of people in traditional African societies.
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Chireau, Yvonne. "Conjure and Christianity in the Nineteenth Century: Religious Elements in African American Magic." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 7, no. 2 (1997): 225–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rac.1997.7.2.03a00030.
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Shortly before the turn of the nineteenth Century, an amateur collector of Negro Spirituals and folklore recounted a conversation that she had had with an unidentified African American clergyman. According to the collector, the clergyman, “one of the most scholarly and noted ministers of the colored race,” admitted that, even as a professed Christian, he found himself “under the influences of voodooism” and other African occult practices. He explained that, as a young pastor, he had grown “completely discouraged” after numerous unsuccessful attempts to attract new worshipers into his congregation until one day an unexpected visitor happened his way:I was in my study praying when the door opened and a little Conjure man came in and said softly: “You don't understand de people. You must get you a hand as a friend to draw 'em. Ef you will let me fix you a luck charm, you'll git 'em.”
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Tella, Abiola Opemipo. "Traditional Rain Control Practice Through Indigenous Knowledge System and Technology Among Ikire People of Osun State, Southwest Nigeria." International Journal of Social Science Research and Review 5, no. 9 (September 11, 2022): 155–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.47814/ijssrr.v5i9.451.
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This paper aims to trace the history of rain prevention, and examine for documentation, the rituals involved. Traditional rain control in this context is considered as a process involving the making and preventing of rain to modify atmospheric condition of a place using Indigenous Knowledge and Technology (IKT). Rain control ritual is an age-long indigenous knowledge and technology aimed at influencing weather condition. As part of a broadened African society, the art of preventing rainfall is a part of the heritage resources practised by the people of Ikire in Osun State. This ritualistic art which is put to use mainly during socio-cultural gatherings such as festivals, feasts, burials, weddings, and naming ceremonies is called òjòwíwó or òjòmímó in local parlance. The help of rain doctors is sought by people who want to carry out any of these activities during rainy seasons to avoid disruption. Ethnographic method was used to elicit information. Research findings traced the art of rain prevention to Orunmila a god in Yoruba mythology. The rituals involved the use of the details of IKT which is significant in the response of the people to the ever-changing climate
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Ibbi, Andrew Ali. "Subtitling in the Nigerian Film Industry, Informative or Misleading?" CINEJ Cinema Journal 4, no. 1 (July 13, 2015): 47–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2014.100.
Full textAbstract:
Subtitles are captions displayed at the bottom of a cinema or television screen that translate or transcribe the dialogue or narrative. Nigeria and indeed Africa should be a major beneficiary of the subtitles considering the number of ethnic groups in the continent. The emergence of different film industries in countries around Africa has helped in showcasing Africa to the international community. Hence, subtitles came in handy, considering the fact that most viewers cannot understand the language with which the movies were produced. This paper explores the battle for meaning by English subtitles to movies produced in African languages especially the Nigerian film industry. The paper will look at the Hermaneutic Theory of Mass Communication to buttress the relevance of deriving meaning out of movie subtitles. The Hausa and the Yoruba film industries are the subjects of this study because of the large viewership they enjoy by people even outside Nigeria. The research came up as a result of the persistent errors which I have noticed while watching Yoruba and Hausa films with subtitles. Subtitles convey a summary of the dialogues taking place in a movie. Viewers who cannot understand the language used for the dialogue rely on the subtitles to make meaning out of the movie. If they are unable to make meaning out of the subtitles because of some inadequacies as a result of carelessness in the process of production, the aim of having the subtitles is defeated.
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Ayonrinde, Oyedeji, Oye Gureje, and Rahmaan Lawal. "Psychiatric research in Nigeria: Bridging tradition and modernisation." British Journal of Psychiatry 184, no. 6 (June 2004): 536–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.184.6.536.
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Nigeria is a large West African country, more than 900 000 km2 in area–nearly four times the size of the UK. Despite having a population of about 117 million people, 42% of whom live in cities, Nigeria has about half the population density of the UK. About a sixth of all Africans are Nigerian. The country has a diverse ethnic mix, with over 200 spoken languages, of which three (Yoruba, Hausa and Ibo) are spoken by about 60% of the population. The official language of government and educational instruction is English. There is a federal system of government and 36 states. Religious practice has a major role in Nigeria's culture; of the two main religions, Islam predominates in the northern part of the country and Christianity in the south. A large proportion of the population still embraces traditional religions exclusively, or interwoven with either Islam or Christianity.
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Banwo, Adeyinka O. "The African Clergy and Historical Reconstruction: The Very Reverend J.B. Olafimihan's Iwe Itan Ofa." History in Africa 28 (2001): 1–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3172204.
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One of the foremost achievements of missionary enterprise in the African region was the training of individuals, particularly clergymen, who came to play pioneering roles in the documentation of the history of their peoples. One of the reasons usually advanced by such chroniclers for taking part in this tedious attempts at historical reconstruction, is basically, to safeguard the history of their people and most especially, the need to prevent their history from being distorted, forgotten or sent into some oblivion. Examples of clergymen or missionary influenced personalities who have performed such tasks in Nigeria include Reverend Samuel Johnson, on the history of the Yoruba, J.D. Egharevba on the history of Benin, and Reverend Samuel Ojo, on the history of Ilorin and Shaki.These chronicles have their limitations. The writers often serve as public image launderers for the people they write about. As a result, a lot of bias and subjectivism is embellished in what they attempt to project. Historical facts are distorted in this process. The lack of the chroniclers' basic methods of historical research is also evident in their narrative method of historical writing. This approach does not provide any opportunity for proper historical analysis. In spite of the limitations of these chronicles, they have served as very useful sources of primary information for contemporary historians. More importantly, their writings have been able to create a sense of identity and cultural awareness among their intended audience. In other words they have sometimes proved more relevant and acceptable to the intended audience even more than the works of contemporary historians.2 It is with this hindsight that we examine Iwe Itan Ofa by The Very Reverend J.B. Olafimihan.
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Jirata, Tadesse Jaleta. "LEARNING THROUGH PLAY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF CHILDREN'S RIDDLING IN ETHIOPIA." Africa 82, no. 2 (May 2012): 272–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0001972012000058.
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ABSTRACTAlthough the educational value of African oral traditions, particularly folktales, has been discussed widely in social studies of children, education and folklore, riddling is not commonly investigated as a part of children's everyday social practice. In this article, I present riddling as a part of children's expressive culture, through which they play together and learn about their local environment. I generated the data through ten months of ethnographic fieldwork among Guji people in southern Ethiopia. Based on analyses of the times and locations of this activity, as well as the social interaction involved, I argue that children perform riddling in order to entertain themselves and to learn from their immediate social and natural environment through discrete peer networks.
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Okafor, Eddie E. "Francophone Catholic Achievements in Igboland, 1883-–1905." History in Africa 32 (2005): 307–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hia.2005.0020.
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When the leading European powers were scrambling for political dominion in Africa, the greatest rival of France was Britain. The French Catholics were working side by side with their government to ensure that they would triumph in Africa beyond the boundaries of the territories already annexed by their country. Thus, even when the British sovereignty claim on Nigeria was endorsed by Europe during the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, the French Catholics did not concede defeat. They still hoped that in Nigeria they could supplant their religious rivals: the British Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the other Protestant missionary groups. While they allowed the British to exercise political power there, they took immediate actions to curtail the spread and dominion of Protestantism in the country. Thus some of their missionaries stationed in the key French territories of Africa—Senegal, Dahomey, and Gabon—were urgently dispatched to Nigeria to compete with their Protestant counterparts and to establish Catholicism in the country.Two different French Catholic missions operated in Nigeria between 1860s and 1900s. The first was the Society of the African Missions (Société des Missions Africaines or SMA), whose members worked mainly among the Yoruba people of western Nigeria and the Igbos of western Igboland. The second were the Holy Ghost Fathers (Pères du Saint Esprit), also called Spiritans, who ministered specifically to the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria. The French Catholics, the SMA priests, and the Holy Ghost Fathers competed vehemently with the British Protestants, the CMS, for the conversion of African souls. Just as in the political sphere, the French and British governments competed ardently for annexation and colonization of African territories.
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Ajayi, Abiodun. "Contribution to Britain’s War Efforts in Osun Division of Western Nigeria, 1939–1945." Journal of African Military History 4, no. 1-2 (October 26, 2020): 133–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/24680966-bja10005.
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Abstract Although no real battle was fought in Nigeria during the Second World War (1939–1945), the burden of the war was much felt by Nigerians. They made significant contributions to the war effort; a method through which the British shifted the burden of the war onto their colonial subjects. This strategy had caught the attentions of many scholars, and various discussions have centered on its origin, purpose and operation at provincial and Nigeria wide level. Thus, contributions at the Districts and Division levels have always been subsumed into colony-wide studies, and by that fact remained unresearched. This paper focuses the effects of the imperial coping strategy on the Yoruba society with Osun Division as a case study. The study adopts historical approach, which depends on written, oral, and archival sources. However, it is hoped that, with due attention being given to the efforts of the people at a local level, the impact of the Second World War on African social order will be better understood.
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Aju, Oluseyi, and Eshani Beddewela. "Afrocentric Attitudinal Reciprocity and Social Expectations of Employees: The Role of Employee-Centred CSR in Africa." Journal of Business Ethics 161, no. 4 (November 14, 2019): 763–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04346-x.
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AbstractIn view of the limited consideration for Afrocentric perspectives in organisational ethics literature, we examine Employee-Centred Corporate Social Responsibility (EC-CSR) from the perspective of Afrocentric employees’ social expectations. We posit that Afrocentric employees’ social expectations and the organisational practices for addressing these expectations differ from conventional conceptualisation. By focusing specifically upon the psychological attributes evolving from the fulfilment of employees’ social expectations, we argue that Afrocentric socio-cultural factors could influence perceived organisational support and perceived employee cynicism. We further draw upon social exchange theory to explore rational reciprocity (i.e. attitude and behaviour) evolving from the fulfilment and breach of employees’ social expectations at work. Contrary to the rational norm of reciprocity, we identify a reciprocity norm within which the breach of employees’ social expectations could in fact engender positive reciprocity rooted in esan reciprocity ideology—an ideology that emerged from the ethical tradition of the Yoruba people from Nigeria, West Africa. Overall, our paper elucidates the implications of Afrocentric peculiarities for employees’ social exchange within the African workplace, thus extending the present understanding in this regard.
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Okpadah, Stephen Ogheneruro. "Social Reality and Cultural Propagation in Funke Akindele-Bello’s Jenifa’s Diary." Przegląd Krytyczny 3, no. 1 (May 6, 2021): 99–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pk.2021.3.1.6.
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Apart from originating contemporary norms and cultures among its viewers, Nigerian television series portray new and emerging constructions and practices that the populace is able to identify with. Recently, one television series that has become popular in Nigeria is Jenifa’s Diary. Its popularity stems from its incorporation of the Nigerian English, the British English and the indigenous Yoruba language, as well as the antics and codification(s) of the eponymous character, Jennifer. Her utility of a distinctive English language which deviates from the Nigerian Pidgin and the British English, has made this series popular among viewers. This has created a new linguistic culture and also appropriated what I term the Jenifanlingua franca. It is not a rarity to see children, teenagers and adults communicate in the same manner as Jennifer. Against this backdrop, this paper examines Funke Akindele-Bello’s television series Jenifa’s Diary as Nigerian social reality and a medium for cultural propagation. This study examines socio-cultural nuances in Jenifas Diary. The research is qualitative as it utilises the literary and content analysis methods. The study reveals that Jenifa’s Diary captures the plight of the African been to in the Western world and that the television serial is rich with its incorporation of the Nigerian Pidgin English, the British English and some indigenous Nigerian languages such as the Yoruba language, as well as the antics and codification(s) of the eponymous character, Jennifer. While Jenifa’s Diary and other Nigerian television series are products of social realities, they also create spaces for new socio-cultural landscapes. The study has been able to explain the imperative of television series on the Nigerian socio-cultural space. Cineastes should produce television serials that will educate and stimulate the populace towards becoming better people in the society.
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Crandall, David P. "Himba Animal Classification and the Strange Case of the Hyena." Africa 72, no. 2 (May 2002): 293–311. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/afr.2002.72.2.293.
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AbstractContinent-wide in African folklore the hyena is depicted as a dull witted, easily duped creature—despite the fact that the hyena is also known as a cunning and dangerous predator. This article explores why in particular the Himba of northwestern Namibia entertain the characterisation of the hyena as stupid yet from the management of their flocks and herds have experienced first hand how clever a predator the hyena is. For the Himba, the answer lies in the hyena's anatomy, in the perception that the hyena is a hermaphrodite. As such, the hyena stands at the margins of fixed social categories; it is neither this nor that but a hybrid, a creature acting outside of its proper bounds. Among the Himba, such marginal people or creatures are not felt to be dangerous, rather, their primary characteristic is stupidity.
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Aboelazm, Ingy. "Africanizing Greek Mythology: Femi Osofisan’s Retelling of Euripides’the Trojan Women." European Journal of Language and Literature 4, no. 1 (April 30, 2016): 87. http://dx.doi.org/10.26417/ejls.v4i1.p87-103.
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Nigerian writer Femi Osofisan’s new version of Euripides' The Trojan Women, is an African retelling of the Greek tragedy. In Women of Owu (2004), Osofisan relocates the action of Euripides' classical drama outside the walls of the defeated Kingdom of Owu in nineteenth century Yorubaland, what is now known as Nigeria. In a “Note on the Play’s Genesis”, Osofisan refers to the correspondences between the stories of Owu and Troy. He explains that Women of Owu deals with the Owu War, which started when the allied forces of the southern Yoruba kingdoms Ijebu and Ife, together with recruited mercenaries from Oyo, attacked Owu with the pretext of liberating the flourishing market of Apomu from Owu’s control. When asked to write an adaptation of Euripides’ tragedy, in the season of the Iraqi War, Osofisan thought of the tragic Owu War. The Owu War similarly started over a woman, when Iyunloye, the favourite wife of Ife’s leader Okunade, was captured and given as a wife to one of Owu’s princes. Like Troy, Owu did not surrender easily, for it lasted out a seven-year siege until its defeat. Moreover, the fate of the people of Owu at the hands of the allied forces is similar to that of the people of Troy at the hands of the Greeks: the males were slaughtered and the women enslaved. The play sheds light on the aftermath experiences of war, the defeat and the accompanied agony of the survivors, namely the women of Owu. The aim of this study is to emphasize the play’s similarities to as well as shed light on its differences from the classical Greek text, since the understanding of Osofisan’s African play ought to be informed by the Euripidean source text.
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Guindo, Bocary, and Petr A. Kutsenkov. "THE “FEEDBACK EFFECT” IN MODERN DOGON CULTURE (MALI)." Journal of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS, no. 1 (19) (2022): 158–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.31696/2618-7302-2022-1-158-170.
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The ‘Feedback effect’ is a phenomenon of a ‘feedback’, repeatedly described for discussing the oral tradition: Back in 1982, German ethnologist David Henige noted that researchers of African traditional cultures more and more often encounter the practice when they are recounted the results of the field materials of their predecessors. In all such cases, informants reproduce the works of anthropologists, but the authenticity of recorded traditions in general is beyond doubt. That is not the case with Dogon. The example of this people shows that the phenomenon of ‘feedback’ can not only complicate the work of anthropologists, but also contribute to the growth of ethnic and national identity. Myths borrowed from anthropological literature began to penetrate rural folklore with the development of tourism in the 1990s– 2000s. But the purposeful imposition of a united mythology ‘according to Griaule’ began to play a very important role in the development of ethnic and national identity. The most important role belongs here to the festivals of Ogobagnia. Thus, using the example of the Dogon, one can see a kind of a ‘secondary’ mythology version based on the phenomenon of feedback. The imposition of this ideology is still opposed by local traditions and local folklore, which are very different from the “Dogon mirage” introduced by intellectuals, as well as local customs and rituals, sometimes having little in common with each other; so far, the linguistic and cultural diversity of the ethno-social organism of the Dogon has resisted the pressure of these myths, but perhaps the day is not far off when not only in the Sangha, but also in Semari and Tintan, visitors will be told about Nommo and Sirius names which do not exist (sigu tolo or pô tolo), and the mythology of the Dogon will really turn into a harmonious, but artificial system.
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Matusevich, Maxim. "An exotic subversive: Africa, Africans and the Soviet everyday." Race & Class 49, no. 4 (April 2008): 57–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306396808089288.
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The Leninist argument, that the class struggle of the European proletariat was intertwined with the liberation of the `toiling masses of the East', led to an official ideology of Soviet internationalism in which Africans occupied a special place. Depictions of the evils of racism in the US became a staple of Soviet popular culture and a number of black radicals, among them Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and Claude McKay, flocked to the Soviet Union in the 1920s-30s, inspired by the belief that a society free of racism had been created. While there was some truth to this view, people of African descent in the Soviet Union nevertheless experienced a condescending paternalism, reflected also in their cinematic portrayal and in popular literature and folklore. With the onset of the cold war, young Africans were encouraged to study in Russia, where they received a mixed reaction and, on account of occasional conflict with the authorities and Soviet cultural norms, became symbols of dissent against official Soviet culture. Later, in the perestroika period, Africa became a scapegoat for popular discontent amidst a worsening climate of racism.
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Tang, Ke, and Wei Zhang. "Transcriptional similarity in couples reveals the impact of shared environment and lifestyle on gene regulation through modified cytosines." PeerJ 4 (June 14, 2016): e2123. http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2123.
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Gene expression is a complex and quantitative trait that is influenced by both genetic and non-genetic regulators including environmental factors. Evaluating the contribution of environment to gene expression regulation and identifying which genes are more likely to be influenced by environmental factors are important for understanding human complex traits. We hypothesize that by living together as couples, there can be commonly co-regulated genes that may reflect the shared living environment (e.g., diet, indoor air pollutants, behavioral lifestyle). The lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) derived from unrelated couples of African ancestry (YRI, Yoruba people from Ibadan, Nigeria) from the International HapMap Project provided a unique model for us to characterize gene expression pattern in couples by comparing gene expression levels between husbands and wives. Strikingly, 778 genes were found to show much smaller variances in couples than random pairs of individuals at a false discovery rate (FDR) of 5%. Since genetic variation between unrelated family members in a general population is expected to be the same assuming a random-mating society, non-genetic factors (e.g., epigenetic systems) are more likely to be the mediators for the observed transcriptional similarity in couples. We thus evaluated the contribution of modified cytosines to those genes showing transcriptional similarity in couples as well as the relationships these CpG sites with other gene regulatory elements, such as transcription factor binding sites (TFBS). Our findings suggested that transcriptional similarity in couples likely reflected shared common environment partially mediated through cytosine modifications.