Yoruba People

Yoruba
91px91px Olusegun Obasanjo • King Sunny Adé • Wole Soyinka • Fela Kuti Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti
Total population
Upwards of 30 million (CIA Estimate, 2005 )
Regions with significant populations
Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Togo
Languages
Yoruba
Religions
Christianity, Islam, Orisha
Related ethnic groups
Nago, Itsekiri, Igala

The Yoruba (Yorùbá in Yoruba orthography) are one of the largest ethno-linguistic groups in Africa and are distinguished by their use of the Yoruba language. Yorubas constitute about 21 percent of the population of modern day Nigeria, and while that percentage may seem large, the Yoruba are commonly the majority population in their communities. For example, many of the 30 million Yorubas in West Africa live in the states of Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo, making these political areas decidely in the control of the numerically superior Yoruba.

While Yoruba can be found throughout the entirety of West Africa ,even reaching into Benin, Ghana and Togo, the greatest concentration of Yoruba is found in Yorubaland, an area in western Nigeria. Considered the nexus of the Yoruba cultural identity, Yorubaland is bordered by the Borgu (variously called Bariba and Borgawa) in the northwest, the Nupe and Ebira in the north, the Ẹsan and Edo to the southeast, and the Igala and other related groups to the northeast.

Many people of African descent in the Americas are able to claim a degree of Yoruba ancestry, as a significant percentage of Africans who were enslaved and forced to serve in the Americas originated from Yoruba controlled lands.

History of the Yoruba

Religious Views of Creation

Two varying views of creation exist within the Yoruba culture, one placing the cradle of mankind at Ile-Ifeand the other stating that a man named Oduduwa caused the spread of populations from Ile-Ife. The most popular of these two versions is the one that involves Oduduwa, as it appears supported by historical fact. Subscribers to this version of creation hold that Oduduwa sent his descendents out of Ile-Ife to conquer other existing Yoruba people and that many of his children gained leadership positions in other cities. Eventually the flow of his descendents out of Ile-Ife into other Yoruba areas unified a way of life and tied together different cultural practices.

Other versions of the myth posit that Oduduwa was sent down by Olodumare, the Creator, to fashion the first human beings out of the clay soil of Ilė-Ifę. Odudua is also the name of an important Earth goddess, the wife of Ọbatala, and some scholars postulate a connection between the semi-mythical founder of the Ifẹ, Ọyọ, and Benin monarchic traditions and the ancient female deity. The name Oduduwa has been translated to mean "the one ("O/Ohun") who created the knowledge ("odu") of character ("iwa")" or "o dudu, o l'ewa/o n'iwa": he's black and beautiful/well-mannered, signifying the figure's paramount role in establishing Yoruba philosophy and blackness, whether mythical or historical. Yoruba people are always referred to as "Yoruba, Omo Oduduwa(O'odua)," sons of Oduduwa. The name is also linked to the literature of the Yoruba geomantic divination system, Ifa. The final chapters memorized and chanted by divination consultants (babalawo) during an Ifa session are called "odu."

Oduduwa was the founder of Ile-Ife. He was sent from the heavens by Olodumare to establish the earth and create its inhabitants after another minister of Olodumare, Obatala, failed to do this. To this effect, Oduduwa was given a cock and a sack of sand since the earth was covered with water at that time. While climbing down from the heavens, he lost grip of the cock that started flying down and in his bid to catch the cock let loose the sack of sand. Sand started slipping down onto the water down below. Getting down, Oduduwa realised that the sand had formed a small "land hill" protruding from the water and that the cock had perched on it spreading the sand with its legs. The land started spreading forming the soil of the earth. He named that spot Ile n'fe, the earth was extending, and hence the name of Ile-Ife, the ancestral town of humanity and the Yoruba. Obatala later came down with the others and created the humans.

Forming the Yoruba Identity

The Yoruba people are descendants from the Nok Civilization (900 B.C.E.—200 C.E.) of Central Nigeria. By 500 C.E. the present Yoruba homeland was settled by Igbo people. By 900 C.E. Yoruba people slowly began to move from the Nok Region southwest into present Yorubaland, possibly due to a combination of drought and the expansion of Hausa civilization.

Their leader, Oduduwa, found fame by conquering the Igbo and founding the small kingdom of Ile Ife in 1100 C.E. This small kingdom began to expand, especially culturally and established itself as the dominant power south of the Niger River and east of the Volta. (central and southwest Nigeria, Benin, and Togo). The Yoruba city-states largely acknowledged the primacy of the ancient city of Ile Ife. The southeastern Benin Empire, ruled by a dynasty that traced its ancestry to Ifẹ and Oduduwa but largely populated by the Ẹdo and other related ethnicities, also held considerable sway in the election of nobles and kings in eastern Yorubaland.

Between 1100 C.E. and 1700 C.E., the Yoruba Kingdom of Ife experienced a golden age. Between 1700 C.E. and 1900 C.E., Oyo was the dominant Yoruba power. The nearby Kingdom of Benin was also a powerful force between 1300 and 1850 C.E.

Most of the city states were controlled by monarchs (Obas) and councils made up of nobles, guild leaders, and merchants. Different states saw differing ratios of power between the two. Some had powerful, semi-autocratic monarchs with almost total control, while in others, the senatorial councils were supreme and the Ọba served as a figurehead. In all cases, Yoruba monarchs were always subject to the continuing approval of their constituents, and could be easily compelled to abdicate for demonstrating dictatorial tendencies or incompetence. The order to vacate the throne was usually communicated through a symbolic message, or aroko, of parrots' eggs delivered by the senators.

Before the abolition of the slave trade, some Yoruba groups were known among Europeans as Akú, a name derived from the first words of Yoruba greetings such as Ẹ kú àárọ? ‘good morning’ and Ẹ kú alẹ? ‘good evening.’ A variant of this group is also known as the "Okun," Okun which is a form of "A ku." These are Yorubas found in parts of the states of Kogi - the "Yagba," Ekiti and Ondo. The terms "Nago," "Anago," and "Ana," derived from the name of a coastal Yoruba sub-group in the present-day Republic of Benin, were also widely used in Spanish and Portuguese documents to describe all speakers of the language. Yoruba in Francophone West Africa are still sometimes known by this ethnonym today. In Cuba and Spanish-speaking America, the Yoruba were called "Lucumi," after the phrase "O luku mi," meaning "my friend" in some dialects. During the 19th century, the term Yariba or Yoruba came into wider use, first confined to the Ọyọ. The term is often believed to be derived from a Hausa ethnonym for the populous people to their south, but this has not been substantiated by historians. As an ethnic description, the word first appeared in a treatise written by the Songhai scholar Ahmed Baba (1500s) and is likely to derive from the indigenous ethnonyms Ọyọ (Oyo) or Yagba, two Yoruba-speaking groups along the northern borders of their terrority. However, it is likely that the ethnonym was popularized by Hausa usage and ethnography written in Arabic and Ajami. Under the influence of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba clergyman, subsequent missionaries extended the term to include all speakers of related dialects.

The pre-colonial Yoruba living in the savannah region between the forest and the Niger river were pressed further south by conflicts with the Sokoto Caliphate, a militant Muslim empire founded by the Fulani Koranic scholar Uthman Dan Fodio. After usurping power in the Hausa city-states of northern Nigeria, the Sokoto Caliphate also seized power in Ilorin, one of the northernmost Yoruba towns, and ravaged Ọyọ-Ile, the capital city of the Ọyọ Empire. After losing the northern portion of their region to the cavalry-dependent Sokoto Caliphate, the Ọyọ for the most part retreated to the latitudes where tsetse flies made horses unable to survive. The Caliphate attempted to expand further into the southern region of modern-day Nigeria, but was decisively defeated by the armies of Ibadan in 1840, thereby making Ibadan the "Saviour of Yorubaland."

Precolonial social organization

Though monarchies were fairly common throughout the Yoruba-speaking region, they were not the only approach to government and social organization. The numerous Ẹgba communities, found in the forests below Ọyọ's savannah region, were a notable example. These independent polities often elected an Ọba, though real political, legislative, and judicial powers resided with the Ogboni, a council of notable elders.

When citizens of more than 150 Ẹgba and Owu communities migrated to the fortified city-state of Abeokuta during the internecine wars of the 19th century, each quarter retained its own Ogboni council of civilian leaders, along with an Olorogun, or council of military leaders, and in some cases its own elected Obas or Baales. These independent councils then elected their most capable members to join a federal civilian and military council that represented the city as a whole. Commander Frederick Forbes, a representative of the British crown writing an account of his visit to the city in an 1853 edition of the Church Military Intelligencer, described Abẹokuta as having "four presidents," and the system of government as having "840 principal rulers or 'House of Lords,' 2800 secondary chiefs or 'House of Commons,' 140 principal military ones and 280 secondary ones." He described Abẹokuta and its system of government as "the most extraordinary republic in the world."

Gerontocratic leadership councils that guarded against the monopolization of power by a monarch were a proverbial trait of the Ẹgba, according to the eminent Ọyọ historian Reverend Samuel Johnson, but such councils were also well-developed among the northern Okun groups, the eastern Ekiti, and other groups falling under the Yoruba ethnic umbrella. Even in Ọyọ, the most centralized of the precolonial kingdoms, the Alaafin consulted on all political decisions with a prime minister (the Basọrun) and the council of leading nobles known as the Ọyọ Mesi.

Ibadan, a city-state and proto-empire founded in the 19th century by a polyglot group of refugees, soldiers, and itinerant traders from Ọyọ and the other Yoruba sub-groups, largely dispensed with the concept of monarchism, preferring to elect both military and civil councils from a pool of eminent citizens. The city became a military republic, with distinguished soldiers wielding political powers through their election by popular acclaim and the respect of their peers. Similar practices were adopted by the Ijẹsa and other groups, which saw a corresponding rise in the social influence of military adventurers and successful entrepreneurs.

Occupational guilds, social clubs, secret or initiatory societies, and religious units, commonly known as Ẹgbẹ in Yoruba, included the Parakoyi (or league of traders) and Ẹgbẹ Ọdẹ (hunter's guild), and maintained an important role in commerce, social control, and vocational education in Yoruba polities.

There are also examples of other peer organizations in the region. When the Ẹgba resisted the imperial domination of the Ọyọ Empire, a figure named Lisabi is credited with either creating or reviving a covert traditional organization named Ẹgbẹ Aro. This group, originally a farmers' union, was converted to a network of secret militias throughout the Ẹgba forests, and each lodge plotted to overthrow Ọyọ's Ajeles (appointed administrators) in the late 1700s.

Similarly, covert military resistance leagues like the Ekitiparapọ and the Ogidi alliance were organized during the 19th century wars by often-decentralized communities of the Ekiti, Ijẹṣa, Ìgbómìnà and Okun Yoruba in order to resist various imperial expansionist plans of Ibadan, Nupe, and the Sokoto Caliphate.

The monarchy of any city state was usually limited to a number of royal lineages. A family could be excluded from kingship and chieftancy if any family member, servant, or slave belonging to the family committed a crime such as theft, fraud, murder or rape. In other city-states, the monarchy was open to the election of any free-born male citizen. There are also, in Ileṣa, Ondo, and other Yoruba communities, several traditions of female Ọbas, though these were comparatively rare.

The kings were almost always polygamous and many had as many as 20 wives and often married royal family members from other towns/city states.

Culture

Religion

Perhaps their best known material artist is Olowe of Ise. Their religious beliefs are complex, and recognize a wide variety of deities. Ọlọrun or Olodumare is venerated as the creator, with the other Oriṣas serving as emissaries or intermediaries that help with human concerns. Yoruba came in contact with Islam through commerce with Mansa Musa's Mali Empire, with the religion being referred to as "Esin-Mali".(Mali's religion). Muslims were mostly concentrated in most Yoruba metropolis of the time, such as Ibadan, Ijebu-Ode, Shaki, Oyo, Abeokuta. Yorubaland encountered Christianity with the coming of the colonialists about 400 years after contact with Islam, the Christian missionaries set up schools, and Yoruba have converted to Christianity since the 19th century. In the United States, they are recognizeable, along with other Nigerian immigrants, as very strict Christians, observing many of the conservative biblical views. They are also prominent in some urban Muslim congregations. They also continue to participate in various forms of Ifa/Oriṣa religious worship.

File:Eshu-statue.jpg

Statue of the orisha Eshu, Oyo, Nigeria, c1920.

Yoruba religion and mythology is a major influence in West Africa, chiefly in Nigeria, and it has given origin to several New World religions such as Santería in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Candomblé in Brazil.

Itan is the term for the sum total of all Yoruba myths, songs, histories, and other cultural components. The popularly known Vodun religion of Haiti combines the religious beliefs of the many different African ethnic nationalities taken to the island with the structure and liturgy from the Fon-Ewe of present-day Benin and the Congo-Angolan culture area, but Yoruba-derived religious ideology and deities also play an important role.

Yoruba deities include "Ọya" (wind goddess), "Ifa" (divination or fate), "Ẹlẹda" (destiny), "Ibeji" (twins), "Ọsanyin" (medicines and healing) and "Ọsun" (goddess of fertility, protector of children and mothers), Ṣango (God of thunder)

Human beings and other sentient creatures are also assumed to have their own individual deity of destiny, called "Ori," who is venerated through a sculpture symbolically decorated with cowrie shells. Traditionally, dead parents and other ancestors are also believed to possess powers of protection over their descendants. This belief is expressed in worship and sacrifice on the grave or symbol of the ancestor, or as a community in the observance of the Egungun festival where the ancestors are represented as colorfully masquerade of costumed and masked men who represent the ancestral spirits. Dead parents and ancestors are also commonly venerated by pouring libations to the earth and the breaking of kolanuts in their honor at special occasions.

A significant portion of the population either follows the traditional religion called Ifá or consult with the clergy of traditional diviners known as babalawo, or "Father of secrets."

The majority of contemporary Yoruba are Christians and Muslims, with indigenous congregations having the largest membership among Christians.

Performance

The Yoruba performance repertoire includes various masquerade plays, folk operas, and a vibrant video cinema. One Yoruba masquerade, Gẹlẹdẹ from the Ketu region of the modern Republic of Benin, has been recognized as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. Other aspects of Yoruba culture that have been recognized as masterpieces of human cultural ingenuity include the Ifa corpus, a collection of hundreds of poems used in divination ceremonies; and the Ọṣun-Oṣogbo Sacred Grove, one of the few remaining functional sites for traditional religious ceremonies in Nigeria and a magnet for visitors from all over the world. Countless scholarly articles have also examined the performances of Egungun (representative of ancestral spirits visiting the living); Epa (symbolic performances variously promoting valor and fertility); and Ẹyọ, a procession of masked dancers.

Greeting Customs

The Yoruba maintain a widely observed system of traditional manners. When greeting an elder, a man is to bow and a woman is to curtsy. Sometimes, when greeting someone such as one of the royal house, a woman or girl is to kneel and then get up quickly. A man is to lay down on the ground before the important person, and then get up.

Sports

Yorubaland stadia include the National Stadium, Lagos (55,000 capacity), Liberty Stadium, Ibadan (the first stadium in Africa) (40,000 capacity), Teslim Balogun stadium (35,000 capacity), Mọṣhood Kaṣhimawo Abiọla Stadium Abẹokuta (28,000 capacity), Lekan Salami Stadium, Ibadan (25,000 capacity).

Traditional popular sports include wrestling, called gidigbo or ijakadi; foot races; swimming and canoe races in riverine areas, horse riding in the savannah regions where horses could be bred and raised; and various forms of combative performances, particularly during festivals and religious ceremonies. As with other fellow Nigerians and other West Africans, soccer is the most popular contemporary sport, followed by track and field games, boxing, and table tennis.

Yoruba people also play Ayò, their name for the popular board game called mancala elsewhere in Africa.

The Yoruba Diaspora

Many ethnic Yoruba were enslaved and taken to Haiti,Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Trinidad and the rest of the New World (chiefly in the 19th century, after the Ọyọ empire collapsed and the region plunged into civil war), and carried their religious beliefs with them. These concepts were combined with preexisting African-based religions, Christianity, Native American mythology, and Kardecist Spiritism into various New World lineages:

The Yoruba are one of the ethnic groups in Africa whose cultural heritage and legacy are recognizable in the Americas, despite the debilitating effects of slavery. Oriṣa religion, and various musical artforms popularized in Latin America, especially Haiti, Cuba, and Puerto Rico are rooted in Yoruba music.

Yoruba cities

The chief Yoruba cities are Ibadan, Lagos, Abeokuta (Abẹokuta), Akure (Akurẹ), Ilorin (Ilọrin), Ijebu Ode (Ijẹbu Ode), Ijebu-Igbo (Ijẹbu-Igbo), Ogbomoso (Ogbomọṣọ), Ondo, Ota (Ọta),Ìlá Ọràngún, Ado-Ekiti, Shagamu (Sagamu), Ikenne (Ikẹnnẹ), Osogbo (Osogbo), Ilesa (Ilesa), Oyo (Ọyọ), Ife (Ilé-Ifẹ), Saki,and Ago-Iwoye

Traditionally the Yoruba organized themselves into networks of related villages, towns, and kingdoms, with most of them headed by an Ọba [King] or Baale [a nobleman or mayor]. Kingship is not determined by simple primogeniture, as in most monarchic systems of government. An electoral college of lineage heads is usually charged with selecting a member of one of the royal families, and the selection is usually confirmed by an Ifa divination request. The Ọbas live in palaces usually in the center of the town. Opposite to the king's palace is the Ọja Ọba, the king's market. These markets form an inherent part of Yoruba life. Traditionally the market traders are well organized, have various guilds, and an elected speaker.

See also

• Yoruba language
• Yoruba mythology

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Davidson, Basil. West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850. Pearson Education Limited. Essex, England. 1998. ISBN 0582318521
• Brooks, George E. Eurafricans in Western Africa. Ohio University Press. Ohio, United States. 2003. ISBN 0821414860
• Falola Toyin and G.O. Oguntomisin. Yoruba Warlords of the 19th Century. Africa World Press, Inc. New Jersey, United States. 2001. ISBN 0865437831

External links

• Egbe Isokan Yoruba - promotes the cultural, social, economic and political welfare of Yoruba.
• Radio Abeokuta - promoting the Yoruba culture of Togo, Republic of Benin, and Nigeria, West Africa
• Egbe Omo Yoruba, Greater New York - Egbe Omo Yoruba Association of Yoruba Descendants, Greater New York Chapter
• Yoruba Information - includes brief summary of language, religion, history, and art
• World of the Yoruba - ritual and performance in Yorubaland
• Talking About "Tribe" - looks at Yoruba identity
• Yoruba Overview - includes information on colonialism, religion, and myth
• Yoruba: Exploring an African Culture - interactive exhibit about the art and culture of the Yoruba
• Oduduwa Heritage Organization- preserve and promote Yoruba culture among the Yorubas who live in the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area.
• Oro ede Yorùbá - a searchable English to Yorùbá dictionary

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