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What this corpus is, who the Yorùbá are, and how to read the material without being misled in either direction.
Dis na reference corpus on top Yorùbá culture, history and thought, wey dem build for people wey want know, people wey dey practice am, people wey get doubt, and scholars sef. No be devotional text, no be defence for religion, and e no be attack on top anybody faith. E dey describe wetin dey documented, name who document am, and show clearly where documentation stop. Di method dey di same no mata wetin make you come: claim dey get space base on evidence, no be say na di conclusion wey sweet person.
Di Yorùbá na one of di largest ethno-linguistic groups for Africa, dem reach like fifty million people, wey boku pass for southwestern Nigeria with plenty population for Benin and Togo, plus diaspora across di Americas wey senior most modern nations . Dem build cities before dem get contact with Europe, run divination system wey get mathematically formal structure and corpus wey dem memorise wey reach hundreds of thousands of verses, produce sculpture with copper alloy wey European curators first refuse to believe say na African work, and today majority of dem na Christian and Muslim in roughly equal parts . All dis things na true at di same time, and di wahala to hold all of dem together na di main thing wey dis corpus dey try address.
Who di Yorùbá be
Numbers
Estimates dey vary according to method and none of dem precise reach census level. Nigeria census figures sef get political contention on top and dem never reliably divide am by ethnicity since 1963. Working figures wey dey use now put di total Yorùbá population around fifty million or pass dat . Ethnologue count around forty-eight million first-language speakers of Yorùbá with extra two million second-language speakers, wey be language count instead of ethnic count, but na di number wey make sense pass methodologically . Benin get like 1.6 million and Togo get like one hundred thousand .
Make una take all dis numbers as rough estimate of di size. Wetin dey clear be say Yorùbá dey among di African languages wey dem dey speak pass, and di Yorùbá dey among di three largest ethnic groups for Nigeria together with Hausa and Igbo .
Di homeland
Di Yorùbá-speaking region dey for southwestern Nigeria and e extend go west cross international border enta Republic of Benin and eastern Togo. For Nigeria, dis cover Ọ̀yọ́, Ògùn, Ondó, Ọ̀ṣun, Èkìtì and Lagos states, together with areas for Kwara and Kogi wey Yorùbá-majority dey. Di region no be one single political entity and e never be like dat before. Na group of related peoples, wey historically arrange demselves as separate kingdoms and city-states with dia own dynasties, dia own institutions, and dia own dialects: Ọ̀yọ́, Ijẹ̀bú, Ẹ̀gbá, Ìjẹ̀ṣà, Èkìtì, Ondó, Ọ̀wọ̀, Àwórì, Kétu, Sábẹ̀ and odas.
Ilé-Ifẹ̀ hold special position as di place wey traditions call di origin of Yorùbá world and of kingship. Dat na claim wey come from inside di tradition itself, and na so dem treat am for di history section of dis corpus, alongside wetin excavation for Ifẹ̀ establish independently.
Di Yorùbá dey among di population wey urbanise pass for pre-colonial Africa. Dis mata dey important because "traditional African religion" for wetin many people dey think na village religion, but di case of Yorùbá no match dat idea: di òrìṣà and Ifá na di religious apparatus of cities wey get wall, with kings wey dey live dia, palace bureaucracies, craft production wey guild dey organize, long-distance trade, and market systems wey women mostly dey run.
Di diaspora
Di Atlantic slave trade carry boku Yorùbá-speaking people go di Americas, especially during di last decades of di trade for di time of di nineteenth-century wars . Because dem reach late and dem plenty together, and because trade go Cuba and Brazil continue afta British abolish am, Yorùbá religious and linguistic forms survive for di Americas with unusual completeness. Lucumí and Santería for Cuba, Candomblé Ketu for Brazil, Orisha religion for Trinidad, and di later North American Òrìṣà movements all dey in documented line of descent from Yorùbá practice, wey dia circumstances change instead of say dem preserve am without change .
One diaspora wey recent pass, wey twentieth and twenty-first century migration cause, don put substantial Yorùbá populations for United Kingdom, United States and Canada. Di way e relate to di tradition different again, because most of di people don already be Christian or Muslim before dem leave Nigeria.
Wetin dis corpus be
Six commitments dey govern every file.
Dem no dey ever mix three registers together. Wetin di tradition talk about imself, wetin historians and archaeologists document, and wetin colonial and missionary sources claim na three different kinds of statement with three different kinds of proof. To mix dem na wetin dey make both di version wey dey against and di version wey dey praise go wrong. Di next file, on top how dis corpus dey handle evidence, explain di rule full.
Every important claim dey carry source. Inline markers dey point to one Sources block for di bottom of each file. Where source weak, dem talk am. Where scholars no gree on top sometin, dem name di different positions and dem no dey quietly choose one pass di oda.
Dem dey mark confidence. Each file get confidence rating for im frontmatter, and material wey people dey contest, dem mark am say e dey contested instead of making am look like say everybody agree.
Dem dey leave space open. Some Yorùbá knowledge na only initiates hold am and dem no publish am. Where e be so, dis corpus go talk am and stop dia, instead of filling di space with speculation wey wear cloth like say na description.
Dem dey write Yorùbá properly. Full diacritics everywhere, tone marks and subdots, because ọkọ̀ and ọkọ and ọ̀kọ̀ na different words and to write all of dem as oko dey destroy information. Quoted Yorùbá text dey appear for three layers: original, literal gloss, idiomatic translation, with di translator name.
No be to support any side. Dis work no dey argue say Yorùbá tradition na true, e no dey argue say Christianity or Islam na lie, and e no dey paint pre-colonial past make e look fine pass how e be. To describe things as dem be, with proper source, na him be di whole method.
How to use dis work
Di work dey divided into ten sections. Foundations, wey you dey read so, na orientation. Language cover Yorùbá as language, di tone system, di origin of words and di oral genres. History arrange di past from wetin archaeology, oral tori, language and written records talk. Cosmology cover di idea system: destiny, character, personhood, and how existence be. Ifá cover di divination system and di literary corpus wey follow am. Òrìṣà cover di deities, their priest-dem and their festival-dem. Arts cover sculpture, textile, architecture, drumming and masquerade. Diaspora cover di traditions wey dey Americas. Social cover family relation, kingship, law, market and traditional medicine. Onboarding get simple-language explainers, glossary, learning path-dem and FAQ.
If you just dey start new for all dis things, read dis file, come read di conceptual map wey dey di end of dis section, and after dat, read di fifteen-minute explainers wey dey di onboarding section. Dat one na about ninety minutes and e go give you full orientation.
If you dey practice, or you dey reconnect with di tradition, di practice section cover practitioner roles, ẹbọ, ethics and di wrong idea-dem wey people get about all three, and di learning paths file for onboarding get route wey dem build specially for diaspora Yorùbá.
If na because of Ifá as information system you take come, read di fifteen-minute Ifá explainer wey dey onboarding first, because e explain di mechanics properly, before you come read di Ifá section. No rush jump go di binary structure without di mechanics; di sweet part no be di comparison with computing, na di real architecture itself.
If you wan know how di tradition take turn to wetin dem dey call devil worship, dat history dey well documented for inside di file about demonization for dis section, where dem trace di missionary, colonial and Nollywood records go specific decisions and dates. Na him be di longest file wey get proper source pass for here.
Di onboarding section also get glossary of every Yorùbá word wey dem use anywhere inside dis work, with literal meaning, and pronunciation guide for di diacritics marks. Dem design di two make you fit open dem keep for another tab.
Wetin dis work no go do for you
E no go tell you wetin you suppose believe. E no go settle personal question about faith, inheritance or practice, because dat kind question no be wetin evidence dey answer. E no go initiate you enter anything, and e no even fit: di material wey belong to initiation no dey print and e no dey here.
E no go also flatter anybody. Some of wetin dem document here dey uncomfortable for di two sides. Yorùbá states participate inside Atlantic slave trade as sellers, and di trade also destroy dem as victims. Human sacrifice happen for specific documented ways inside nineteenth century, and European observers wey get interest to blow am out of proportion also exaggerate am well well. Some of di strong claims wey dey fly around today about Yorùbá antiquity, Egyptian origins and di invention of computing no get evidence to support dem, and dem address dem directly for inside di file about wetin Yorùbá tradition no be. Any work wey no fit talk dis kind things no go make sense to trust for any oda thing.