The Yoruba: A New History is the first transdisciplinary study of the two-thousand-year journey of the Yoruba people, from their origins in a small corner of the Niger-Benue Confluence in present-day Nigeria to becoming one of the most populous cultural groups on the African continent. Weaving together archaeology with linguistics, environmental science with oral traditions, and material culture with mythology, Ogundiran examines the local, regional, and even global dimensions of Yoruba history. The Yoruba: A New History offers an intriguing cultural, political, economic, intellectual, and social history from ca. 300 BC to 1840. It accounts for the events, peoples, and practices, as well as the theories of knowledge, ways of being, and social valuations that shaped the Yoruba experience at different junctures of time. The result is a new framework for understanding the Yoruba past and present.
First published in 1921, and cited on the Africa's Best 100 Books List, this is a standard work on the history of theYorubas from the earliest times to the beginning of the British Protectorate. The first part of the book discusses the people, theircountry and language, religion, government, land law, manners and customs. The second part is divided into four periods, dealing first with mytheological kings and deified heroes; with the growth, prosperity and oppression of the Yoruba people; the time of revolutionary wars and disruption; and, finally, the arrest of disintegration, inter-tribal wars, and the coming of the British. There are two appendices, on dealing with treaties and agreements, the other giving tables of Yoruba kings, rulers, and chiefs. The book also includes an index and map of the Yoruba country.
This book will help you to learn Yoruba quickly and easily. It is written in the proper Yoruba-Oyo by the author who was born and raised in Oyo Alaafin. A famous international language instructor, Professor Abraham Ajibade Adeleke has been the coordinator and professor of African Studies for about a decade. He is also a professor of Psychology and anthropology at Albany State University, Albany, Georgia, U.S.A. Yoruba grammar is best taught when it is taught in the context of the Yoruba people. For this reason, the book has covered some Yoruba major culture and tradition such as the Yoruba naming system, greeting traditions, weddings and the Yoruba moral sciences that include proverbs, oral traditions, and the use of myths, fables and idiomatic expressions. There is also some focus on poetry. Ready-made vocabulary is provided right from the start. It utilizes everyday Yoruba conversational words and phrases that sometimes sound like their English, French and Spanish equivalents. Because of its comprehensiveness, this book is ideal for all classroom instructions and private teaching.
This is a book on the social and cultural history of Yoruba people, a people in southwest Nigeria. As the first to provide a comprehensive treatment of Yoruba dress in historical perspective, this book is an important contribution to African history in general and the Yoruba cultural history in particular. The book illuminates the impact of Christianity, Islam, and British colonialism on the construction of Yoruba identity, and how dress was entangled in that construction. It also provides insightful discussions of the transformations in dress culture since independence and demonstrates the importance of dress as a site for contesting and articulating postcolonial Yoruba identity and class structure within the Nigerian national space. This book provides many insights into these issues and is thus an invaluable addition to Africana studies, anthropology, and history.
With the introduction of globalization and domestic change pulsing through Nigeria, its citizens find themselves in a social, political, and economic transition period. After decades of military rule and political instability, Nigeria has reintroduced itself as a democratic state in 1999. This change has brought about questions of how to get Nigeria moving toward economic growth and social unity in the face of globalization, the polarization of Christians and Muslims in Africa, and crises such as HIV/AIDS. The Yoruba, one of Nigeria's most well-known and historically prevalent ethnic groups in Nigeria, has taken an active role in dealing with these issues. Whether motivated by a nationalist vision of a unified, successful Nigeria, or for their own interests in reclaiming political space and retaining Yoruba culture, the Yoruba have greatly contributed to discussions on this transitional era. Contributors to this work display a wide range of disciplines and viewpoints making this work accessible to readers familiar and unfamiliar to the Yoruba. The Yoruba in Transition captures views on the era, highlighting recommendations for this new Nigeria and emphasizing contemporary issues that the Yoruba face. The contributors, many of them Yoruba, illuminate the complexity of identity and how the Yoruba seek to communicate their values, project an image, and live their lives. Included are essays dealing with contemporary issues such as migration, health, agricultural production, cyber crime, and the role of women in Yoruba society. The Yoruba in Transition represents a rare recording of how people within and outside Nigeria view the new millennium for the Yoruba. "[T]he essays are well-written, analytical, and insightful. As a comprehensive and critical volume, Falola and Genova have succeeded in editing an important reader in Yoruba studies. This significant volume will be invaluable to scholars, public policy analysts, and lay readers of Yoruba and Nigerian studies." -- The Journal of the Royal African Society
Divining the Self weaves elements of personal narrative, myth, history, and interpretive analysis into a vibrant tapestry that reflects the textured, embodied, and performative nature of scripture and scripturalizing practices. Velma Love examines the Odu—the Yoruba sacred scriptures—along with the accompanying mythology, philosophy, and ritual technologies engaged by African Americans. Drawing from the personal narratives of African American Ifa practitioners along with additional ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Oyotunji African Village, South Carolina, and New York City, Love’s work explores the ways in which an ancient worldview survives in modern times. Divining the Self also takes up the challenge of determining what it means for the scholar of religion to study scripture as both text and performance. This work provides an excellent case study of the sociocultural phenomenon of scripturalizing practices.
The Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin, over 15 million strong, are heirs to one of the oldest and greatest artistic traditions in West Africa. This text offers a look at Yoruba civilization. Over 200 photographs illustrate rarely seen objects from museums and private collections.
“The encyclopedia gives a complex, yet detailed, presentation of the Yorùbá, a dominant ethnic group in West Africa . . . an invaluable resource.” —Yoruba Studies Review The Yoruba people today number more than thirty million strong, with significant numbers in the United States, Nigeria, Europe, and Brazil. This landmark reference work emphasizes Yoruba history, geography and demography, language and linguistics, literature, philosophy, religion, and art. The 285 entries include biographies of prominent Yoruba figures, artists, and authors; the histories of political institutions; and the impact of technology and media, urban living, and contemporary culture on Yoruba people worldwide. Written by Yoruba experts on all continents, this encyclopedia provides comprehensive background to the global Yoruba and their distinctive and vibrant history and culture. “Readers unfamiliar with the Yoruba will find the introduction a concise and valuable overview of their language and its dialects, recent history, mythology and religion, and diaspora movements . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice
Yorùbá Identity and Power Politics covers the major issues in Yorùbá history and politics, offering through narratives of the past and present a solid understanding of one of the most popular ethnic groups in Africa. Yorùbá Identity and Power Politics covers the major issues on Yorùbá history and politics, thus offering a solid understanding of one of the most popular ethnic groups in Africa. With a careful blend of sources and methods, narratives on the past and present, the book manages to present a long history as the backdrop to complicated contemporary politics. Contributors: Tunde M. Akinwumi, Olufunke A. Adeboye, R. T. Akinyele, Aribidesi Usman, Tunde Oduwobi, Olufemi Vaughan, Abolade Adeniji, Jean-Luc Martineau, Ann O'Hear, Rasheed Olaniyi, Charles Temitope Adeyanju, Julius O. Adekunle, Funso Afolayan, Olayiwola Abegunrin. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Ann Genova is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin.
