694 documents across 38 sections. Filter by section, reader level, confidence or tag.
The machinery Yorùbá uses to make new words, and a worked, confidence-flagged examination of the etymologies of the key religious and philosophical terms.
An analysis of the Yorùbá three-level register tone system, demonstrating through minimal pairs and grammatical operations why tone is an essential phonemic component rather than optional decoration.
What the sources actually attribute to Olodumare, the disputed etymologies, and the live scholarly argument over whether the supreme-being framing is indigenous Yoruba thought or a shape given to it by the missionary encounter.
The three Yoruba terms for destiny, how destiny is received, and the sustained scholarly argument over whether Yoruba destiny is fatalistic, with the case that it is negotiable rather than fixed.
Ara, emi, ori, okan and ojiji, the disagreement among scholars about how many elements there are, why "soul" fits none of them, and what Yoruba rebirth and ancestorhood actually claim.
What Esu is in the Yoruba sources, why the divination system cannot function without him, and the documented history of the missionary translation that turned him into Satan.
The four-day week and the ritual calendar, how a Yoruba diagnosis of a problem actually proceeds, and an accurate account of aje, women's spiritual authority and the Gelede response.
The white orisa who moulds human bodies, the contested creation narrative in which Oduduwa takes his place, the palm wine story and what Ife devotees actually say about it, and the politics carried inside the itan.
The thunder orisa and fourth Alaafin of Oyo, the contested question of whether a king became a god or a god absorbed a king, the Oba ko so narrative, and Sango in Cuba and Brazil.
The orisa of wind, storm and the Niger river, wife of Sango, the buffalo narrative, her relation to the dead, and the difference between the Yoruba Oya and the Oya of Cuba and Brazil.
The figure Yoruba dynasties descend from, held simultaneously as a creation divinity, a migrating conqueror, and an ancestor, sometimes as female, and now as the name of a political identity.
The restricted societies that sit alongside orisa worship: Oro and its night curfew, the Ijebu Agemo, the Ogboni earth society and its judicial role, described soberly and with the limits of public knowledge stated.
Seniority based on relative age and lineage entry constitutes the primary operational logic of social hierarchy, kinship terms, and interactive etiquette in Yoruba society.
The figure at the root of Yoruba dynastic claims, the several incompatible traditions about who or what Òdùduwà was, the conflict with Ọbàtálá at Ilé-Ifẹ̀, and what archaeology and historians can and cannot establish.
The figure credited in tradition with founding both Ọ̀yọ́ and the second Benin dynasty, what the traditions say, where they conflict, and why the stone monolith bearing his name cannot date him.
Ṣàngó is worshipped as the òrìṣà of thunder and named in Ọ̀yọ́ king lists as the fourth Aláàfin, and this file sets out what each tradition says, why the two cannot simply be merged, and what scholars have argued.
The narrative of the Ifẹ̀ woman who let herself be captured to learn the raiders' secret and paid for it with her only son, the Ugbo counter-tradition in which she is a traitor, and the confusion of Ugbo with Igbo that has caused lasting trouble.
Ọbalúfọ̀n II Aláyẹmore, the Ifẹ̀ ruler credited with the introduction of brass casting and worshipped as patron of casters and weavers, and the copper mask that carries his name on an attribution made by a king in 1937.
The Yoruba country that faced Benin, its female kingship at Ondó, the Ọ̀wọ̀ ivories that link Ifẹ̀ and Benin, and the Ugbo claim to have owned Ilé-Ifẹ̀ before Odùduwà.
How an Ọ̀yọ́ military outpost passed from Àfọ̀njá to a Fulani emirate inside the Sokoto Caliphate, what the sources actually establish about that sequence, and the four positions people hold about Ìlọrin's identity today.
An analysis of the biochemical and chemical mechanisms governing traditional West African indigo dyeing, from glucoside hydrolysis and alkaline vat fermentation to atmospheric oxidation.
An examination of contemporary Yoruba textile production, tracing artisanal weaving in Iseyin and Oyo, resist-dyeing in Abeokuta and Osogbo, import competition, and modern design revivals.
An examination of female sacerdotal leadership, institutional authority, theological debates on gender, and the historical dispute surrounding the initiation of female Ifá diviners.
An examination of Yoruba defensive war medicine, exploring the physical preparation of ayeta and related charms, practitioner ontologies, tactical battlefield consequences, and critical historiographical debates.
An examination of Yoruba women during nineteenth-century warfare as military financiers, logisticians, captives, slaveholders, and political leaders under changing militarized state structures.
The diplomatic settlements, British interventions, demobilisation crises, and socioeconomic transformations that ended the nineteenth-century Yoruba wars and restructured political authority under colonial rule.
A comprehensive history of the Ọ̀yọ́ kingdom from its ancient origins at Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé and imperial consolidation to colonial bombardment and modern succession politics.
The historical development of Lagos Èkó from its Awori foundations and Benin dynastic origins to its institutional structures, royal succession, and nineteenth-century political transformation.
A comprehensive scholarly history of the Yoruba kingdom of Ìwó, covering its dynastic origins from Ile-Ife, spatial structure, king list, Islamic legal traditions, refugee integration, and contemporary status.
A comprehensive historical examination of the northern Yoruba frontier kingdom of Ṣakí, tracing its dual founding traditions, royal dynastic structure, imperial role within Ọ̀yọ́, and modern evolution.