The carved figures made when a Yoruba twin dies, what the family does with them, the genuinely exceptional twinning rate that produced them, and how tens of thousands of them ended up in Western collections.
The Yorùbá wey dem quote, the proverbs, oríkì, ẹsẹ Ifá, word list headwords, Odù names and citations dey exactly as the corpus record dem, for every language.
When one person among twin inside Yoruba land die, di family fit commission small carved wooden figure, an ẹrẹ̀ ìbejì, and from dat time dem go dey treat am di same way dem for treat di pikin: to baff am, rub am oil, dress am cloth, feed am, carry am. Di figure no be portrait and no be play-play doll. Na place where di twin wey die go dey, so dat di twin go still dey inside di family and so dat di twin wey dey alive no go remain half of a pair. Because Yoruba people get di highest rate of twins wey dem don ever record for human history, and because di practice spread well well and continue reach di twentieth century, plenty plenty of dis figures dey, and large part of dem dey outside Nigeria now.
Di rate of twins among Yoruba people no be just folktale, na one of di facts wey dem document well well for human population genetics. Di rate wey dem dey talk about na dizygotic twinning, dat na fraternal twins wey come from two different eggs, wey be di type wey dey vary between different populations; monozygotic twinning dey roughly di same everywhere around four per every one thousand births.
Ìgbó-Òra for Oyo State, wey dey call itself di twin capital of di world, get recorded dizygotic twinning rate of about 45 for every 1,000 live births . Di whole world average for dizygotic twinning normally dey between 8 and 16 per thousand . So di Yoruba rate reach roughly three to five times di world average, and na Patrick Nylander do di research work wey establish am from late 1960s .
Two explanations dey on ground and dem no dey contradict each other.
Di first one na genetics. High dizygotic twinning dey run for families and populations, na mother dey pass am down, and na follicle-stimulating hormone levels wey dey make woman release multiple eggs dey cause am. Na dis be di main explanation for differences wey dey population level.
Di second one na about wetin dem dey chop, and na him people dey talk pass for public. Nylander suggest say phytoestrogens, especially di one wey dey yam species of di genus Dioscorea, fit stimulate di ovaries make dem release multiple eggs . Dis idea don tey for decades, e dey sweet to believe because Yoruba food get yam well well, but dem never prove am with scientific proof. Make dem report am as idea (hypothesis) and no be as fact wey dem don confirm, wey be wetin people dey mostly do.
Another detail from Nylander work get strong proof but people no dey mention am plenty: di peak time wey Yoruba mothers dey born twin pass na between age 30 to 34, while for oda populations di peak dey happen for older age groups .
One methodological warning dey wey make sense. Modern rates wey dem measure for one specific town no mean say e automatically apply to historical Yoruba population as a whole, and Ìgbó-Òra special even inside Yorubaland, na why e popular. Di safe thing to talk na say Yoruba dizygotic twinning high well well by world standards and Ìgbó-Òra na di highest recorded place.
Di cultural point wey follow am dey clear. Society wey twins plenty pass anywhere, and wey get high rate of small children death historically, go get many families wey get one twin wey dey alive and one twin wey don die. Di ẹrẹ̀ ìbejì na cultural response to wetin dey happen naturally for dem population.
Yoruba twins dey get fixed names instead of names wey dem just pick. Di first one wey dem born na Táíwò, from shortcut wey dem dey explain as tọ́ ayé wò, "taste di world" or "come look di world," wey dem sometimes dey call with di full name Táíyéwò or Táyélolú. Di second one wey dem born na Kẹ́hìndé, "di one wey come last," or Ọmọ́kẹ́hìndé.
Di tradition change di normal way wey people dey think about who senior. Kẹ́hìndé, wey dem born second, na him dem take as di elder, because dem believe say Kẹ́hìndé send Táíwò come outside first make e go check whether di world good to enter, and na when message return e come follow . Because of dat, Táíwò na di junior, di one wey dem send message, and Kẹ́hìndé na di senior wey send di message. Di third pikin wey dem born after twins na Ìdòwú, and di pikin wey follow dat one na Àlàbá.
Twins get dia own body of oríkì, wey mothers and ìyá ìbejì dey sing, and di opening line na one of di most popular lines for Yoruba oral poetry.
Ẹ̀jìrẹ́ ará ìṣokún, Ọmọ ẹdún tíí ṣeré orí igi.
Ẹ̀jìrẹ́: the two-who-are-one, the paired ones (from èjì, two). ará ìṣokún: person of / native of Ìṣokún. Ọmọ: child, offspring. ẹdún: the colobus monkey. tíí: who habitually. ṣeré: plays, sports, makes play. orí igi: on top of the tree, at the head of the tree.
Ẹjirẹ, native of Isokun, Child of the monkey that plays in the treetops.
Translator: Ìpilẹ̀ṣẹ̀ editorial rendering, unreviewed
Di translation wey dey here na my own from di Yoruba text wey dey circulate well and na so dem mark am; di confidence for dis specific translation dey medium and dem put di text because di formula na standard, no be because dem see one single authoritative published copy.
Three things dey miss inside English. Ẹ̀jìrẹ́ no be "twins", wey be ìbejì; na praise-name wey dem build on èjì, two, and e carry di meaning of matched or paired excellence, so to call pikin Ẹ̀jìrẹ́ dey closer to "you paired one" pass to just state plain fact. Ìṣokún na name of place and di line dey claim say all twins originate from there, wey be origin claim rather than real history, and nobody expect say any twin go get actual connection with Ìṣokún. Ẹdún na specific animal, di colobus monkey, and di way twins join with monkey na important part of di tradition: monkeys, wey normally dey born multiple young ones and dey waka for group, dey linked to twins across Yoruba stories, and for some stories dem say twins descend from dem or be family with dem. To translate ẹdún as normal generic "monkey" go make di species loss and di main meaning go loss. Di full oríkì long pass dis and e continue with oda praise names.
The chapter wey Elisha Renne write, "The Ambiguous Ordinariness of Yoruba Twins," inside the collection Twins in African and Diaspora Cultures, na the right place to look if person wan understand how this matter really get two sides . Dem dey treat twins like people wey dey bring wealth and blessing, and at the same time like people wey dey dangerous and dey demand plenty things, and the same way dem dey take honour dem na also the way dem dey take appease dem make dem cool down.
When dem dey make am. If one twin die, whether na when e still small or later for life, the family go consult diviner, and if divination talk say make dem carve am, dem go commission carver make e carve figure . If na the two twins die, dem go carve two figures. The figure na the mama own, and when the mama die, e go pass go to the twin wey remain alive or to another family member.
How e dey look. Most times e dey reach 20 to 30 centimetre high, figure wey stand on top round base, the hands dem dey by the side, many times dem place the hands against the thighs, with fine hairstyle wey dem weave well, and carvers dey often carve the family facial marks put on top . That last detail dey important: the figure dey carry the lineage identity of the child wey e stand for, and this one dey make am belong to one particular family even though say no be portrait of the child.
Dem dey carve am as adult. The figure dey get adult body size, adult private part, and if na female, adult breast, even when the child wey e represent die when e only reach few days old. This one dey confuse people wey dey look am for the first time, but no be mistake. E dey follow the aesthetic rule of ọ̀dọ́, the requirement say figure must show as person wey dey the prime of life, and e also follow the logic of the object: the dead twin still dey exist and still dey grow, so the figure dey show the person wey the twin don become now, no be the baby wey die .
Wetin dem dey do with am. Na here the object take different pass from anything wey dey inside Western category. Dem dey wash the figure, rub am oil, rub am camwood powder, dress am with cloth, give am beads and cowries, feed am, and the mama go carry am for back inside wrapper just as dem go carry child wey dey alive . Dem dey place am together with other important things for the house and dem dey speak to am. The care no be just to remember the dead; e dey continue, and one common reason wey dem dey give na say to treat the dead twin well dey protect the surviving twin, because dem believe say their fate dey tied together .
The physical sign wey this care dey leave na wetin dem dey use identify the genre. Ìbejì wey dem use for decades dey get faces wey don rub off, soft features, sometimes the nose and mouth almost disappear, and thick dark layer of camwood, indigo and oil go cover am. Collectors dey call this one patina and dem dey value am. For Yoruba account, no be patina, na the record of everything wey the object don experience for life, and na wetin ìwà mean when dem apply am to object . Any ìbejì wey clean, sharp, and unworn na either recent one, or say dem never use am before, or dem just carve am to sell.
When both mama and the figure no dey available. For the later part of the twentieth century, families sometimes dey use plastic rubber doll wey company produce, or photograph, replace carved figure. Marilyn Houlberg document these substitutions during her fieldwork for Nigeria . The practice adapt; e no just stop.
Plenty ẹrẹ̀ ìbejì dey for Western hands well well, e pass any other single Yoruba object type, and the reason na combination of how Yoruba people dey born twins plenty, how the figures small and easy to carry, and twentieth-century market wey dey specifically look for dem.
Fausto Polo, wey compile photo reference of ìbejì according to carver, calculate say the number of identifiable ìbejì carvers wey work between about 1830 and 1960 reach three to four hundred . Gert Stoll publish the first reference book on top this subject for 1980 . The two publications na for collector market instead of academic work, and the way dem take link figures to carvers rest on stylistic grouping, so make person use dem as typologies instead of documented artist attributions like the kind one dem establish for Olówè.
The scholarly documentation no plenty, but e get value pass. Marilyn Houlberg take photos among the Yoruba from 1961 to around 2007, and her collection for Smithsonian Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives reach 8,515 colour slides, wey roughly 854 inside na her ìbejì series, dated from about 1969 to about 1990 . Her field notes dey kept separately for archive . That na the closest thing to systematic photographic record wey show the figures as dem dey use dem instead of to just place dem on top plinths.
The 1974 article wey Tim Chappel write for Africa set the historical framing, as e argue say make people understand the twin cult as something wey get history and development instead of timeless custom .
The ethical side of the collection history make sense to state plainly without exaggeration. Ìbejì no be say soldiers loot am during war, the way dem loot Benin bronzes. Dem buy am, very often from the families wey get dem, for market where the price wey buyers offer substantial by local standards and where missionary and later Pentecostal pressure dey actively define the figures as idols wey people must give up. Sale under those conditions na real sale, but e also no be free transaction for any strong sense. Wetin dem sell for each case na object wey one specific mother don wash and feed for years and wey stand for one specific dead child. The museum label "Twin figure, Yoruba peoples, Nigeria, 20th century" na the whole record wey remain for that.
The genres of Yoruba wood carving, from Ifá trays to palace doors to epa masks, the master carvers and family workshops who made them, and the reason so much of this work sits in museums without an artist's name attached.
The criteria Yoruba critics actually use to judge a carving, why the language and its praise poetry are the entry point rather than the ornament, and what goes wrong when European art-historical categories are applied to this material.
A practical guide to the museums holding Yoruba art in Nigeria and abroad, what can be searched online and where, and a factual account of the restitution and provenance position as it stands.
What oríkì are, the different kinds, who performs them and why, and how they carry history that written records do not.
Yoruba twins, the highest twinning rate in the world, the ere ibeji figure carved when a twin dies, and the reversal from infanticide to veneration.
The cosmology, ritual care, material culture, and diaspora evolution of the Yoruba divine twins who share a single soul.