Look Around

How Ọ̀yọ́ rose to dominate the western Yoruba region and beyond, the constitutional machinery that constrained its king, the cavalry that made it work, and why both eventually failed.

The CMS mission and Crowther, how and why Yoruba people converted to two world religions, the British annexation, indirect rule and what it did to kingship, and the making of "Yoruba" as one 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.

The smith and his god, the paired brass figures that carried the authority of the Ogboni society, the women who built pots without a wheel, the carved and burnt calabash, and the leather trades of Ilorin and Oyo.

The oba and why Yoruba kingship was sacred and constrained at the same time, the chieftaincy title system, the palace, the town council, Ogboni as judiciary and check, and how a king was actually removed.

The Yoruba court hierarchy from the compound to the palace, how evidence and oaths worked, why the aim was restoration rather than blame, and what the colonial and Nigerian legal systems did to all of it.

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.

How Abẹ́òkúta went from a chief without a crown to a crowned Aláké in 1854, and the attempt by returnee intellectuals and traditional chiefs to build a modern state there that collapsed in 1874.

Àrẹ̀ògún of Òsi, the Adúgbológun workshop of Abẹ́òkúta, Olówè of Ìṣẹ̀ and the carving lineages, and why so much of their work sits in museums labelled only "Yoruba."

An institutional and political history of the confederal city of Abeokuta from its founding around 1830 to the contemporary era.

An examination of Orò as a male ancestral judicial institution, its acoustic manifestation through the bullroarer, ritual curfews, and transatlantic developments.

An authoritative overview of the Ọ̀yọ́ Yorùbá, examining their linguistic profile, political institutions, royal cults, and major historiographical debates.

A comprehensive scholarly study of the Ẹ̀gbá subgroup, detailing their forest origin traditions, 1830 resettlement at Abẹ́òkúta, quadripartite federal institutions, dialectology, and distinctive religious systems.

Paired brass casting staffs of the Yoruba Ògbóni society, examining lost-wax metallurgy, gendered iconology, institutional judicial authority, and collection provenance.

The procedural hierarchy, judicial venues, appellate processes, and enforcement mechanisms of pre-colonial Yoruba dispute resolution from the household to the royal palace court.

How traditional Yoruba jurisprudence establishes truth through metaphysical covenants, deity invocations, and judicial ordeals when material evidence is absent.

An analysis of pre-colonial Yoruba jurisprudence, detailing the classification of offences, the institutional preference for restitution, mechanisms of banishment, capital sanctions, and the colonial transformation of customary criminal law.

An analysis of the pedagogical structures, initiation rites, duration, and esoteric boundaries governing Ifá diviners, herbalists, and deity priests in Yoruba tradition.