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694 documents inside 38 sections. Sort am by section, level, how sure e be, or tag.
How Yorùbá people actually live with three religious traditions at once, the real tensions, what scholars document about coexistence, and the full range of positions people hold.
The machinery Yorùbá uses to make new words, and a worked, confidence-flagged examination of the etymologies of the key religious and philosophical terms.
Index and reading guide to the orisa section, covering what an orisa is, how worship is organized, each major orisa, the masquerade and cult societies, the festival calendar, the ancestors, and the tradition today.
The competing scholarly definitions of òrìṣà, why "god" and "idol" are bad translations, what the numbers 201 and 401 are doing, and how òrìṣà relate to Olódùmarè and to the dead.
There is no Yoruba church. Òrìṣà devotion is organised town by town and lineage by lineage, with local priesthoods, local shrines, and local festivals, and this page explains how those structures work.
The foundational tripartite colour system of the Yoruba world, organizing visual, thermal, and spiritual realities into chromatic temperaments rather than narrow spectral wavelengths.
A side-by-side reference of orisa names, attributes and saint correspondences across four traditions, with a sustained warning that these are not clean equivalences and a commentary on exactly where the mapping breaks.
What an òrìṣà is, how the pantheon is organised, who the major figures are, how devotion actually works, and why the demon framing does not describe any of it.
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.
How Yoruba families and towns hold Christianity, Islam, and indigenous Orisa devotion together at once, and the scholarly argument over whether "syncretism" is even the right word for what is happening.
How Yoruba religious thought treats food as a channel of spiritual power, structured by deific and lineage prohibitions, the mechanics of sacrifice as a food transaction, and the ethics of eating together.
How ordinary Yoruba men and women wear beads and metal jewellery, what waist beads and colour-coded devotional strands mean on a non-royal body, and the sumptuary lines that separate commoner, chief, and king.
Twenty-two Yorùbá proverbs in which òrìṣà appear as the vehicle of an argument about human affairs, showing how ordinary speech treats the gods as present, particular, and sometimes named individually.
Fifty Yorùbá proverbs on ọ̀run-àpáàdì, orí and àyànmọ́ (fate and destiny), drawn from Owomoyela's dedicated section "On fate (and reciprocity)," showing destiny as chosen before birth, unappealable, yet compatible with real human effort.
Guide to the thirty files in the orisa deep section, covering primordial divinities, deified dynastic figures, metaphysical forces, nature spirits, and masking institutions.
Ògún is the Yoruba orisa of iron, metallurgy, hunting, warfare, tool-making, and pathways, serving as the cosmic pioneer and enforcer of covenants.
Ṣàngó is the Yoruba divinity of thunder, lightning, fire, justice, and royal power, whose cult formed the theological foundation of the Ọ̀yọ́ Empire.
A comprehensive scholarly treatment of Ọ̀ṣun, the Yoruba divinity of fresh waters, fertility, wealth, and sovereignty, examining her theology, oríkì, priesthood, and transatlantic developments.
A comprehensive scholarly reference on the Yoruba orisha Oya, covering her riverine, atmospheric, and ancestral domains, mythic variants, ritual priesthood, and transatlantic developments.
The Yoruba deity of the Ogun River, maternal fertility, and fresh waters, tracing her West African riverine cult, priesthood, and transatlantic transformation into an oceanic sovereign.
A comprehensive scholarly examination of Èṣù across Yoruba cosmology, oral literature, ritual iconography, regional cult organization, and transatlantic diaspora traditions.
The Yoruba deity of botanical pharmacopoeia, herbal medicine, and forest mysteries, who operates in essential partnership with Ifa divination.
The Yoruba orisa of hunting, stealth, forest strategy, and unerring justice, from his royal center in Ketu to his transformed status in the Atlantic diaspora.
A comprehensive scholarly reference on Erinle, the Yoruba orisa of hunting, water, herbal medicine, and royal protection, examining his mainland cult, iconography, priesthood, and transatlantic transformations.
Scholarly analysis of the river deity Oba, her historical cult centers, liturgical poetry, mythological narratives, and transatlantic divergences in Lucumi and Candomble traditions.
A comprehensive scholarly analysis of Aganjú as an ancient Oyo monarch, wilderness divinity, and transformed Afro-Atlantic deity across West Africa, Cuba, and Brazil.
Scholarly analysis of Olokun Seniade, the female-associated manifestation of the ocean deity linked to beadmaking, wealth, crown regalia, and sacred water priesthoods in Yoruba and Atlantic traditions.
A comprehensive scholarly reference on Ọbalúayé, the Yoruba divinity of the earth, infectious disease, and physical healing, covering theological domains, liturgical poetry, colonial suppression, and transatlantic diaspora developments.
An exhaustive scholarly examination of Ayélála, the deified Yoruba-Ijaw divinity of retributive justice, covenants, anti-witchcraft, and moral order.
A comprehensive scholarly study of Agẹmọ, the supreme protective deity, chameleon messenger, and sixteen-seat masking institution of the Ìjẹ̀bú Yorùbá.