Yoruba

Yoruba, people of SW Nigeria and Benin, numbering about 20 million. Today many of the large cities in Nigeria (including Lagos, Ibadan, and Abeokuta) are in Yorubaland. The old Yoruba kingdom of Oyo was traditionally one of the largest states of W Africa, but after the mid-1700s its power slowly waned. At the beginning of the 19th cent., Fulani invasions, slave raids from Dahomey, and the growing contact with Europeans divided the Yoruba into a number of small states. In the second half of the 19th cent. the Yoruba gradually fell under British control, and they were under direct British administration from 1893 until 1960. Yoruba religion includes a variety of gods. Vestiges of Yoruba culture are also found in Brazil and Cuba, where Yoruba were imported as slaves.

One of Nigeria's three largest ethnic groups, numbering more than 22 million. The many dialects comprising the Yoruba language belong to the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo family. The Yoruba states, including the Oyo empire, were built in the 11th–16th centuries. Yorubaland remains divided into politically autonomous kingdoms, each centred on a capital city or town and headed by a hereditary king (oba), traditionally considered sacred. Most Yoruba men are farmers, growing yams, corn, and millet as staples; cocoa is a cash crop. Yoruba women control much of the complex market system. Craftsmen work in blacksmithing, weaving, leatherworking, glassmaking, bronze casting, and ivory- and wood-carving. Though some Yoruba are now Christians or Muslims, belief in their traditional religion continues, and it remains alive, too, in the New World countries to which may Yoruba were transported to work as slaves (see Candomblé; Macumba; Santería; vodun). The Yoruba language has an extensive literature of poetry, short stories, myths, and proverbs.

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Ori is a metaphysical concept important to Yoruba spirituality and mythology.

Ori, literally meaning "head," refers to one's spiritual intuition and destiny. It is the reflective spark of human consciousness embedded into the human essence. In Yoruba tradition, it is believed that human beings are able to heal themselves both spiritually and physically by working with the Orishas to achieve a balanced character, or iwa-pele. When one has a balanced character, one obtain an alignment with one's Ori.

Alignment with one's Ori brings, to the person who obtains it, inner peace and satistaction with life. To come to know the Ori is, essentially, to come to know oneself, a concept far from foreign to Western philosophy.

Bibliography

• Camara, Louis, 1996. Le choix de l'Ori: conte. Saint-Louis: Xamal.
• Gbadegesin, Segun, 2003. 'Ènìyàn, The Yoruba Concept of a Person', in P.H. Coetzee and A.P.J. Roux (eds) The African Philosophy Reader (2nd ed.), 175-191. (This study originally appeared under the same title in Gbadegesin, Segun, 1991. African philosophy: Traditional Yoruba philosophy and contemporary African realities. New York: Peter Lang, 27-59.)
• Makinde, M.A. 1985. 'A Philosophical analysis of the Yoruba concepts of Ori and human destiny', International Studies in Philosophy, 17, 1, 54-69.
• Ifaloju, Kori A. 2007. ' Ori - The Divine Container of Destiny, Character & Potential, Seed of the Creator ', Ifa Speaks, blog article, Yoruba concepts of destiny & purpose Presented at University of Habana, Cuba - Dept of Anthropology 2007, during sessions teaching traditional Ifa worship - International Ifa Training Institute conference Ifa Speaks Articles

External links

• Alawoye.com Baba'Awo Awoyinfa Ifaloju, showcasing Ifa using web media 2.0 (blogs, podcasting, video & photocasting)