Cosmology

The two-part Yoruba cosmos, why translating orun as "heaven" and aye as "earth" gets it wrong, how the two are joined rather than opposed, and what the calabash image actually claims.

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.

Ori as physical head, inner head, personal destiny and personal divinity, why the sources rank ori above the orisa, and the practice of ibori.

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.

Character as the whole content of Yoruba ethics, iwa pele and iwa rere, the identity of character with beauty, patience as the source of character, and an ethical system grounded in consequence and community rather than divine command.

The concept that runs from "so be it" at the end of a prayer to the force by which anything happens at all, why both "power" and "life force" are inadequate translations, and how ase works in speech, ritual and art.

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.

Hallen and Sodipo's finding that the Yoruba distinction between knowing and believing is drawn in a different place from the English one, why that is a genuine philosophical result, and what it exposes about Western epistemology.

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.

What ebo does inside the system's own logic, its dependence on divination, the range from daily offering to symbolic substitution, and why the missionary reading of it as appeasement was wrong.

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.

How Yoruba philosophical concepts map and fail to map onto Greek, Christian, Islamic and modern Western categories, and what goes wrong when the translation is made anyway.

An analysis of human destiny in Yoruba metaphysics, examining the tripartite taxonomy of destiny, the role of human striving and moral character, and how self-inflicted ruin complicates fatalism.