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Yoruba
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Who are the Yoruba people?
The Yoruba are one of Nigeria's three largest ethnic groups, located primarily in the country's southwest, with smaller communities in Benin and northern Togo. Their population was over 20 million at the start of the 21st century, and they speak a language belonging to the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family.
Most Yoruba people are farmers, but many are also traders and craftsmen. They have a rich history of craftsmanship, including blacksmithing, weaving, and carving. The Yoruba have lived in the region for over a millennium, developing urban centers and kingdoms such as Oyo and Ile-Ife. Today, many Yoruba people are Christians or Muslims, but traditional religious beliefs persist.
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Where do most Yoruba people live?
The Yoruba people are one of Nigeria's three largest ethnic groups. Concentrated in the southwestern part of Nigeria, smaller groups live in Benin and Togo. The Yoruba number more than 20 million. They speak a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. The Yoruba have shared a common language and culture for centuries but were probably never a single political unit. They formed numerous kingdoms, each ruled by a hereditary king. Their towns became densely populated and grew into cities such as Oyo, Ile-Ife, and Ibadan.
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What language do the Yoruba speak?
The Yoruba people speak the Yoruba language, a Niger-Congo language with over 20 million speakers in southwestern Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. It belongs to the Yoruboid cluster of the Defoid subbranch. There are many dialects, but a standard written form emerged in 1884, thanks to Bishop Samuel Crowther's Bible translation. Yoruba is used in broadcasting and education and has a significant body of literature.
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What are some important traditions or festivals for the Yoruba?
The Yoruba people, primarily located in southwestern Nigeria, have a rich cultural heritage that includes various traditions, festivals, and religious practices.
Important Yoruba traditions and festivals:
* Orisha Veneration The Yoruba religion centers on the worship of deities known as Orisha, who are believed to be deified ancestors, primordial divinities, or personified natural forces.
* Efe/Gelede festivals The Gelede ritual is performed in the Ketu-Yoruba villages of Nigeria and Benin. At midnight the Efe mask dramatically appears to the expectant community, its wearer uttering potent incantations to placate witches. The dancer then moves into a powerful stamping dance in honor of the great Earth Mother and the women elders of the community.
* Dundun drumming The dundun pressure drum is employed during Yoruba ceremonies and festivals and leads town processions.
* Oba (king) coronation At the crowning of an Oba (king) in Yorubaland, the ruler leads a procession through the town as he dances with upright carriage and dignified step, his gestures dictated by the nature of his kingly role and the insignia he carries.
* Funeral rites Dances are designed to be performed during funeral rites, after burial ceremonies, and at anniversaries.8 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
What role does religion play in Yoruba culture?
The Yoruba people, primarily located in southwestern Nigeria, have a rich cultural heritage where religion plays a significant role. While many Yoruba are now Christians or Muslims, aspects of their traditional religion persist. This traditional faith features a hierarchy of deities, including a supreme creator and hundreds of lesser gods and spirits known as orishas.
These orishas are associated with cults, priests, and natural forces, and are seen as intermediaries between humanity and the natural world. The Yoruba religious beliefs have also influenced the emergence of new religions, such as Vodou and Santería, in the Americas.
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How have the Yoruba influenced art, music, or literature in West Africa and beyond?
The Yoruba people have significantly influenced art, music, and literature in West Africa and beyond.
Art
Yoruba art is diverse, including wood sculpture, metalwork, and pottery. Yoruba traditions have influenced art styles in Owo, blending with Benin traditions. The Yoruba are known for their bronze casting using the lost-wax method, which reached its peak in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Music
Juju music, a Nigerian popular music, developed from the mingling of Christian congregational singing, Yoruba vocal and percussion traditions, and assorted African and Western popular genres. The Yoruba talking drum, which imitates the tones and rhythms of the Yoruba language, was added to the ensemble in 1948. Candomblé, a Brazilian African-based religious practice, is an adaptation of the Yoruba spiritual system from West Africa and uses dance as a central feature of worship.
Literature
D.O. Fagunwa's Ogboju ode ninu igbo irunmale (1938; The Forest of a Thousand Daemons) is the best-known work in Yoruba and a significant contribution to fiction. Yoruba literature has two competing strands: one influenced by the rich Yoruba oral tradition, the other receiving its impetus from the West.
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Yoruba, one of the three largest ethnic groups of Nigeria, concentrated in the southwestern part of that country. Much smaller, scattered groups live in Benin and northern Togo. The Yoruba numbered more than 20 million at the turn of the 21st century. They speak a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family.
Most Yoruba men are farmers, growing yams, corn (maize), and millet as staples and plantains, peanuts (groundnuts), beans, and peas as subsidiary crops; cocoa is a major cash crop. Others are traders or craftsmen. Women do little farm work but control much of the complex market system—their status depends more on their own position in the marketplace than on their husbands’ status. The Yoruba have traditionally been among the most skilled and productive craftsmen of Africa. They worked at such trades as blacksmithing, weaving, leatherworking, glassmaking, and ivory and wood carving. In the 13th and 14th centuries Yoruba bronze casting using the lost-wax (cire perdue) method reached a peak of technical excellence never subsequently equaled in western Africa. Yoruba women engage in cotton spinning, basketry, and dyeing.
The Yoruba have shared a common language and culture for centuries but were probably never a single political unit. They seem to have migrated from the east to their present lands west of the lower Niger River more than a millennium ago. They eventually became the most urbanized Africans of precolonial times. They formed numerous kingdoms of various sizes, each of which was centred on a capital city or town and ruled by a hereditary king, or oba. Their towns became densely populated and eventually grew into the present-day cities of Oyo, Ile-Ife, Ilesha, Ibadan, Ilorin, Ijebu-Ode, Ikere-Ekiti, and others. Oyo developed in the 17th century into the largest of the Yoruba kingdoms (see Oyo empire), while Ile-Ife remained a town of potent religious significance as the site of the earth’s creation according to Yoruba mythology. Oyo and the other kingdoms declined in the late 18th and 19th centuries owing to disputes among minor Yoruba rulers and invasions by the Fon of Dahomey (now Benin) and the Muslim Fulani. The traditional Yoruba kingships still survive, but with only a hint of their former political power.
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In a traditional Yoruba town the large and elaborate palace of the oba lies at the centre, and grouped around it are the compounds of the patrilineages. The palace and the compounds are now often modern structures.
There is much diversity in social and political organization among the Yoruba, but they share many basic features. Inheritance and succession are based on patrilineal descent; members of the patrilineage live together under the authority of a headman, share certain names and taboos, worship their own deity, and have rights in lineage lands. The Yoruba also have several kinds of voluntary associations, including the egbe, a male recreational association; the aro, a mutual-aid association of farmers; and the esusu, whose members contribute a fixed amount of money and from which they can receive loans. Political authority is vested in the oba and a council of chiefs; constituent towns each have their own ruler, who is subordinate to the oba. The oba is also a ritual leader and is considered sacred.
Many Yoruba are now Christians or Muslims, but aspects of their traditional religion survive. The traditional Yoruba religion has an elaborate hierarchy of deities, including a supreme creator and some 400 lesser gods and spirits, most of whom are associated with their own cults and priests. The Yoruba language has an extensive literature of poetry, short stories, myths, and proverbs.