In the defoid group of languages, yoruba is in the yoruboid cluster which also includes igala. Essay on yoruba art and culture 702 words bartleby. Seeking the african in african art provides a seminal and authoritative work pertaining to yoruba art and languages of nigeria. Seeking the african 19 spiritual essence of a subject or situation ori is made manifest through oriki 31. Yoruba peoples are associated with a love of the arts, urban living, philosophy, penchant for esoteric language and rich theological life. Ila 1992 makes the case for yoruba as a literary language close to the lifeworld of its speakers, while adejunm. The history and traditions of the yoruba people panorama. The handbook of yoruba religious concepts by baba ifa karade, olodumare. Names are extremely important to yoruba people, and they believe that. Understanding yoruba art and aesthetics amherst college.
The yoruba traditional religion believes that all human beings pass through what is known as ayanmo which translate to destiny or fate. If we take seriously the analogy with the pointandshoot camera. Thanks to linguist victor manfredi for drawing my attention to all these papers. It comprises the beliefs of the yoruba people, whose homeland is in the south western part of nigeria and adjoining parts of benin and togo. The aggregate of the ways of life of the yoruba speaking peoples of southwestern nigeria and their kiths and kins elsewhere in the world.
The arts of the yoruba are as numerous as their deities, and many objects are placed on shrines to honor the gods and the ancestors. These works con tain myths, legends and tales of yoruba gods and goddesses. Yoruba art and language consists of an introduction and nine chapters. It is possible that with this publication professor rowland abiodun has consolidated a recognizable. Describing rowland abioduns latest book yoruba art and language. This exploratory study, according to the linguistic comparative method, tries to show that large numbers of cognate lexical items are available between egyptian pharaonic language and modern yoruba of nigeria. The official language of nigeria, english, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country postcolonization by the british. A unique feature of yoruba art is its striking realism that, unlike most african art, chose to create human sculptures in vividly realistic and life sized forms. The art history of the nearby benin empire shows that there was a cross fertilization of ideas between the neighboring yoruba and edo. African into african art discourse, description, scope, and evaluation. Dominant characteristics of the yoruba culture 1440 words 6 pages. The study of yoruba religious tradition in historical. Their visual traditions range from the superrealist art of ife po. The major native languages spoken in nigeria represent three major families of african languages the majority are nigercongo languages, such as yoruba, ibo, the hausa language is afroasiatic.
Specifically, it examines the fundamentality of oriki a word that encompasses a variety of yoruba literary, verbal, and performance genres including recitations. The yoruba constitute about 44 million people in total. Topics yoruba language collection opensource language english. The vast majority of this population is from nigeria, where the yoruba make up 16% of the countrys population, making them one of the largest ethnic groups in africa. Seeking the african in african art olufemi taiwo nka. Let us do it, the way it is usually done, so that we may have the usual result. Yoruba introduction, location, language, folklore, religion. Ife art from the vantage of yoruba cultural practices collected in nigeria more broadly, andor the indiscriminate use of regional and modern yoruba proverbs, poems, or language idioms to inform this citys unique 700yearold sculptural oeuvre. They analytically articulate and decompose yoruba conception of creativity and art.
The nearby benin empire was also a powerful force between 0 and 1850 oyo developed in the 17th century and become one of the largest yoruba kingdoms, while ileife remained as a religiously significant rival to its power at the site of the divine creation of the. The other yoruboid languages include igala and itsekiri. Image source yoruba is a west african spirituality that some anthropologists estimate is 10,000 years old. The yoruba culture, for the present purpose, can be defined as follows. Also, you can read online full book search results for vocabularyoftheyorubalanguage free ebooks pdf. Seeking the african in african art the yoruba was one of the most important civilizations of subsaharan africa. Traces of arabic words in yoruba language apart from the borrowed words from hausa to yoruba language like means leave the placekai, gani means to see properly, magaji means heirleader of a family and host of others, there are still many words in yoruba language which emanate from arabic. Olorun, the sky god, gave to orishala, the god of whiteness, a chain, a bit of earth in a snail shell, and a fivetoed chicken. Yoruba people, language, religion, tribe, culture, facts. He called these nongreek societies barbarian, a word in greek in his time that meant people whose language, religion, ways of life, and customs differed from those of the greeks. Yoruba is spoken by more than 20 million people in southwestern. Irrespective of the aforementioned discrepancies in the yoruba language, the tribe has a standard variety of yoruba known as literary yoruba, yoruba koine, or yoruba.
Oct 01, 2019 finally, the modern yoruba writing manual published by the yoruba crossborder language commission in 2017. Yoruba, endangerment, globalisation, acquisition, and attrition. There are four classes of yoruba drums, each with several varieties, which. The yoruba language preservation law has been commended, and rightly so, by various stakeholders across the land, as very vital to the preservation of yoruba language, especially at time when the. Symbolic values of clothing and textiles art in traditional. A divine journey to the inner self and god consciousness. The yoruba of west africa benin, nigeria and togo, with migrant communities in parts of ghana and sierra leone are responsible for one of the finest artistic traditions in africa, a tradition that remains vital and influential today much of the art of the yoruba, including staffs, court dress, and beadwork for crowns, is associated with the royal courts. Newton professor of art, the history of art and black studies at amherst college, is an astute art historian, researcher, and culture activist, whose work will. The yoruba numbered more than 20 million at the turn of the 21st century. A study of relationship between arabic and yoruba languages.
The basics of yoruba an african spiritual tradition. There is no doubt that in any culture or civilization, language is basic, and wherever you find a similar language being spoken, there is no doubt that there must be some historical connection. Seeking the african in african art demonstrates how certain yoruba art forms fit into a larger cultural and linguistic context. Some examples rituals and rites abound in yoruba traditional religion. Seeking the african in african art pdf,, download ebookee alternative effective tips for a improve ebook reading experience. Download full book in pdf, epub, mobi and all ebook format. This variety, which has its origin in the 1850s, is the written form of the language and is widely used in the media by newsreaders.
According to a yoruba creation myth, the deities gods originally lived in the sky with only water below them. Scholars have also cited the influence of the yoruba in our carnival and calypso art forms as well as in our language. The center for advanced research on language acquisition at the university of minnesota indicates there are 31 college and universities in the u. Fsi yoruba basic course student text skype language school. They have a general language called yoruba yooba which is the form that is taught in schools in the southwestern zone of nigeria. Initially, barbarian meant different from what was greek. However, the subsequent works of frobenius contain several interesting accounts of prehistoric yoruba religious culture. The yoruba people occupy the states lagos, ondo, oyo, ogun, osun, ekiti, and some parts of kwara and edo states respectively. This article aims to shed more light on the origin and history of the yoruba people. Influence of yoruba culture in christian religious worship. African art from the paul and ruth tishman collection, an exhibition catalog from the metropolitan museum of art libraries fully available online as pdf, which contains material on yoruba art ibeji archive.
It is a continuum beginning from their subsistence, communal, agrarian life of the. Owe are a form of verbal oriki, such as proverbs and metaphors, that point to the essence of the mat. Most yoruba people speak the yoruba language, which is. Yoruba language and literature african studies oxford. Some of the more popular dishes include moin moin, akara, amala, plantains, ekuru, jollof rice and cassava. This ancient text, the ifa corpus, is the foundation for the art of divine herbology. Name class professors name date dominant narratives of the yoruba culture live culture defined the term culture as the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music, and arts.
Therefore, according to the yoruba, humans are eventually expected to. Much smaller, scattered groups live in benin and northern togo. Influence of yoruba culture in christian religious worship by odejobi cecilia omobola institute of education, faculty of education, obafemi awolowo university, ileife, osun state, nigeria. Seeking the african in african art pdf, epub, docx and torrent then this site is not for you. Abiodun draws on his fluency and prodigious knowledge of yoruba culture and language to dramatically enrich our understanding of yoruba civilization and its arts. If youre looking for a free download links of yoruba art and language.
Lagos and the preservation of yoruba language vanguard news. Yoruba language had a signifi cant place in the scale of things around this period. Iran yoruba are an ethnic group that inhabits western africa, mainly nigeria and benin. The book therefore begins with a section on orthography and phonologi. Orunmilas teachings were directed at the yoruba people which centered around the topics of divination, prayer, dance, symbolic gestures, personal and communal elevation, spiritual baths, meditation, and herbal medicine. Bamako bogolanfini mud cloth and kuba raffia cloth and a host of others.
Beautiful sculpture abounds in wood and brass and the occasional terracotta. Pdf download vocabulary of the yoruba language free. Ife was surpassed by the oyo empire as the dominant yoruba military and political power between 1600 and 1800 ad. Yoruba cuisine has strongly influenced the food of nigeria, particularly in restaurants in the south of the country. Jun 20, 2019 the yoruba religion system comprises of traditional practices and spiritual concepts which has evolved into a robust religious system.
Journal of contemporary african art, number 40, 2017, pp. Faced with the methodological gridlock embedded in the discipline of art history, african scholars and their africanist counterparts have continuously struggled in their effort to analyze aspects of the material and visual cultures of africa. Abstract religion is the strongest element in african culture and exerts great. Yoruba art and culture 9 the yoruba people live on the west coast of africa in nigeria and can also be found in the eastern republic of benin and togo. It is in view of the above that this study analyses and justifies the roles of visual arts in traditional and contemporary africa, dwelling more on the mediating functions of clothing and textiles, with reference to yoruba asooke. Perhaps the most famous yoruba art form, however, is music.
African art and especially, yoruba art scholar ship todayp. Seeking the african in african art volume 58 issue 3 tejumola olaniyan please note, due to essential maintenance online purchasing will be unavailable between 6. The book includes a companion website with audio clips of the yoruba language, helping the reader better grasp the integral connection between art and language in yoruba culture. Yoruba language, one of a small group of languages that comprise the yoruboid cluster of the defoid subbranch of the benuecongo branch of the nigercongo language family. Later brass and terracotta sculptures of the ife and benin cultures show significant similarities with those found at nok. Okun and oworo are the two main dialects in yoruba. Yoruba music is based around a complex tradition of drumming. Seeking the african in african art revisits the vexing question of the role of indigenous african philosophical. We would attempt to examine the influences on the language, dressing, food and cultural practices and norm of the yoruba people, in an attempt to reach a befitting conclusion as to the history of the yoruba, we would also include some folk lore and stories, to enable you the readers reach a strong conclusion.
Because the majority of the slaves brought to the americas were from west africa yoruban descendants can also be found in brazil, cuba, the caribbean, and the united states. Our african heritage national archives of trinidad and. Ibori are aform of visual oriki 24 that invoke messages between the spiritual and material world. Yoruba aesthetics at the confluence of disciplines rowland. The ife arts were of such superb quality, that frobenius thought they could not have been the creation of the black race. Yoruba, one of the three largest ethnic groups of nigeria, concentrated in the southwestern part of that country. Rowland abioduns yoruba art and language rowland ola abiodun. Varied masking traditions have resulted in a great diversity of mask forms. Specifically, the yoruba language is classified as a member of the defoid category of the benuecongo subgroup of languages, part of the nigercongo language family campbell 1991.
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