Yoruba people

The Yoruba (Yo?row?ba) (Yorùbá in Yoruba orthography) are one of the largest ethno-linguistic or ethnic groups in west Africa.^[1] The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language (Yoruba: èdèe Yorùbá; èdè). The Yoruba found predominantly in Nigeria, constituting approximately 21 percent of its total population,^[2] and around 30 million individuals throughout West Africa.^[3]

As well as having access to the sea, they share borders with the Borgu (variously called Bariba and Borgawa) in the northwest, the Nupe (who they often call, 'Tapa') and Ebira in the north, the Edo who are also known as Bini or Benin people (unrelated to the people of the 'Republic of Benin'), and the ?san and Afemai to the southeast. The Igala and other related groups are found in the northeast, and the Egun, Fon, and other Gbe-speaking peoples in the southwest. While the majority of the Yoruba live in western Nigeria, there are also substantial indigenous Yoruba communities in the Republic of Benin, Ghana and Togo.^[4]

History

General history

Ife bronze casting of a Kings head currently in the British Museum.

Some contemporary historians contend that some Yoruba are not indigenous to Yorubaland, but are descendants of immigrants to the region. It is believed that an important man called Oduduwa, (also known as Odudua, Odua or Eleduwa), who many believe to have arrived from an easterly direction, established a kingdom at 'Ile Ife' (also known as Ife) and thus became the first 'oba' (meaning king or ruler in the Yoruba language) of who today are known as the Yoruba people.

Between 1100 AD and 1700 AD, the Yoruba Kingdom of Ife experienced a golden age, the oba or ruler of Ife is referred to as the Ooni of Ife.^[5] It was then surpassed by the Yoruba Oyo Empire as the dominant Yoruba military and political power between 1700 AD and 1900 AD,^[6] the (oba) or ruler of Oyo is referred to as the Alaafin of Oyo. Ife, however, remained and continues to be viewed as the spiritual homeland of the Yoruba. The nearby Benin Empire, with its capital in the modern day Benin City in modern day Nigeria was also a powerful force between 1300 and 1850 AD, the ruler of Benin City is referred to as the Oba of Benin.^[7]

Most of the city states were controlled by Obas (rulers) with various titles and councils made up of Oloye, guild of noble leaders or chiefs, and merchants. Different states saw differing ratios of power between the kingship and the chiefs' council. Some such as Oyo had powerful, autocratic monarchs with almost total control, while in others such as the Ijebu city-states, the senatorial councils held more influence and the power of the ruler or ?ba, referred to as the Awujale of Ijebuland was more limited.

Cosmogonic origin mythology

"Orisa'nla" (The Great Divinity) also known as ?batala was the arch-divinity chosen by Olodumare, the supreme deity, to create solid land out of the primordial water that constituted the earth and populating the land with human beings.^[8] ?batala descended from heaven on a chain, carrying a small snail shell full of earth, palm kernels and a five-toed chicken. He was to empty the content of the snail shell on the water after placing some pieces of iron on it, and then to place the chicken on the earth to spread it over the primordial water.

Recently, historians have attributed this cosmological mythology to a pre-existing civilization at Il?-If? which was invaded by a militant immigrants from the east, led by a king named Oduduwa. Oduduwa and his group had been persecuted on the basis of religious differences and forced out of their homeland. They came to Il?-If? where they subjugated the pre-existing Ugbo inhabitants (often erroneously rendered as Igbo but unrelated to the present Igbo people), under the leadership of Oreluere (?batala).

After Oduduwa

Upon the death of Oduduwa, there was a dispersal of his children from Il?-If? to found other kingdoms (Owu, Ketu, Benin, Ila, Sabe, Popo, and Oyo). Each made a mark in the subsequent urbanization and consolidation of Yoruba confederacy of kingdoms, with each kingdom tracing its origin to Ile-Ife.

Pre-colonial Yoruba society

Government

During the internecine wars of the 19th century, the Ijebu forced citizens of more than 150 ?gba and Owu communities to migrate to the fortified city of Abeokuta, where 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.

Foreign observation

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^[9], described Ab?okuta 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 Ab?okuta and its system of government as "the most extraordinary republic in the world."

Leadership

Gerontocratic leadership councils that guarded against the monopolization of power by a monarch were a proverbial trait of the ?gba, according to the eminent ?y? 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 ?y?, the most centralized of the precolonial kingdoms, the Alaafin consulted on all political decisions with a prime minister (the Bas?run) and the council of leading nobles known as the ?y? Mesi.

City states

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 Ilesa, Ondo, and other Yoruba communities, several traditions of female ?bas, though these were comparatively rare.

The kings were traditionally almost always polygamous and often married royal family members from other domains.^[10]

City of Ibadan

Ibadan, a city-state and proto-empire founded in the 18th century by a polyglot group of refugees, soldiers, and itinerant traders from ?y? 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 j?sa and other groups, which saw a corresponding rise in the social influence of military adventurers and successful entrepreneurs.

Groups organisations and leagues in Yorubaland

Occupational guilds, social clubs, secret or initiatory societies, and religious units, commonly known as ?gb? in Yoruba, included the Parakoyi (or league of traders) and ?gb? ?d? (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 ?gba resisted the imperial domination of the ?y? Empire, a figure named Lisabi is credited with either creating or reviving a covert traditional organization named ?gb? Aro. This group, originally a farmers' union, was converted to a network of secret militias throughout the ?gba forests, and each lodge plotted to overthrow ?y?'s Ajeles (appointed administrators) in the late 1700s.

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

Yoruba mythology

Yoruba deity "Ogun", also known as "Ogoun" present in the Candomblé and Umbanda religions of Brazil.

Itan is the term for the sum total of all Yoruba myths, songs, histories, and other cultural components.

After the ?y? empire collapsed and the region plunged into civil war, ethnic Yoruba were among the largest in number of African peoples who were enslaved and taken by European traders to Haiti, Cuba,^[11] Puerto Rico,^[12] Brazil, Trinidad,Guyana^[13] and the rest of the New World (chiefly in the 19th century). The enslaved Africans carried their Orisha 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 popularly known Vodou 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.

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 veneration 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.

Today, many contemporary Yoruba are active Christians and Muslims, yet retain many of the moral and cultural concepts of the Aborisha.

Twins in Yoruba society

Yoruba calendar

Time is measured in isheju or iseju (minutes), wakati (hours), ojo (days), ose (weeks), oshu or osu (months) and odun (years). There are 60 isheju in 1 wakati; 24 wakati in 1 ojo; 4 ojo in 1 ose; 7 ose in 1 oshu and 93 ose in 1 odun. There are 12 oshu in 1 odun.

Months in Yoruba calendar:	Months in Gregorian calendar:
Sere	January
Erele	February
Erena	March
Igbe	April
Ebibi	May
Okudu	June
Agemo	July
Ogun	August
Owere (Owewe)	September
Owara (Owawa)	October
Belu	November
Ope	December

Yoruba calendar traditional days
Days:
Ojo-Orunmila/Ifá
Ojo-Shango/Jakuta
Oj[o-Ogun
Ojo-Obatala

The Yoruba calendar (Kojoda) year starts from 3rd June to 2nd June of the following year. According to this calendar, the Gregorian year 2008 A. D. is the 10050th year of Yoruba culture. To reconcile with the Gregorian calendar, Yoruba people also measure time in seven days a week and four weeks a month:

Modified days in Yoruba calendar	Days in Gregorian calendar
Ojo-Aiku	Sunday
Oko-Aje	Monday
Ojo-Ishegun	Tuesday
Ojo-Riru	Wednesday
Ojo-Bo/Alamisi	Thursday
Ojo-Eti	Friday
Ojo-Abameta	Saturday^[15]

Demographics

Location in Nigeria

Yoruba towns

Traditionally the Yoruba organized themselves into networks of related villages, towns, and kingdoms, with most of them headed by an ?ba 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 Ifá divination request. The ?bas live in palaces usually in the center of the town. Opposite to the king's palace is the ?ja ?ba, 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.

Yoruba Diaspora

The language spread of Kru, Igbo and Yoruba in the United States according to ^[16] U. S. Census 2000.

Atlantic slave trade

<gallery> Image:Triangle trade.png Image:Triangular trade.png </gallery> A significant percentage of Africans enslaved during the Atlantic slave trade in the Americas managed to maintain the Yoruba tradition of 'Orisha' (also spelt, 'Orisa') veneration, as well as their continual belief in God, the Supreme Being, who they refer to under different names such as 'Olorun', 'Olodumare', 'Eleda', 'Olofin-Orun' and 'Eledumare'.

Different names and slavery-era diaspora

During the 19th century, the term 'Yoruba ' or 'Yariba' came into wider use, first confined to the ?y?. 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 'Yoruba' first appeared in a treatise written by the Songhai scholar Ahmed Baba (1500s) and is likely to derive from the indigenous ethnonyms ?y? (Oyo) or Yagba, two Yoruba-speaking groups along the northern borders of their territory. 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.

Aside from "Yoruba" and its variant "Yariba", this ethnic group was in different times and places known by a variety of other names, including "Yorubo", "Akú", "Okun", "Nago", "Anago" and "Ana" and "Lucumi".

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 ? kú àár?? ?good morning? and ? kú al?? ?good evening.? A variant of this group is also known as the "Okun", Okun being also a form of "A ku". These are Yorubas found in parts of the states of Kogi - the "Yagba", Ekiti and Kabba.

The terms "Nago", "Anago" and "Ana" were widely used in Spanish and Portuguese documents to describe all speakers of the language. They derive from the name of a coastal Yoruba sub-group in present-day Benin. 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. This term is at present used mainly to refer to an Afro-Caribbean religion derived from the traditional Yoruba religion, more often known as Santería.

The the origin of the Yoruba, who often refer to themselves as "Omo O'odua" (Children of Oduduwa), revolves around a man called Oduduwa who became the first Oba (meaning 'king' or 'leader' in the Yoruba language) at the Yoruba kingdom of Ile-Ife (also known as Ife), under the title of the Ooni of Ife. It was from Ile-Ife that the descendants of Oduduwa went on to find other Yoruba kingdoms such as Oyo and Ketou. One of them even managed to rule over a famous a non-Yoruba speaking kingdom towards the east of Ife as the Oba of Ile-Ibinu, which later became known as Ubini, the Edo, and finally Benin (not to be confused with the country called the Republic of Benin which was previously known as Dahomey.