The Brazilian and Cuban returnees to Lagos and Porto-Novo, the Afro-Brazilian architecture they built, the twentieth-century traffic in training and pilgrimage running both ways, and how diaspora demand now shapes Nigerian practice and its economics.
Machine na im translate dis page and no person don check am. The Yorùbá wey dem quote, the proverbs, the meanings and the citations dey exactly as the original. Everything else fit wrong.
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.
The Atlantic route no close when slave trade end. Free Africans and Afro-Brazilians travel through that route for business and religion for the next one hundred and fifty years, and na this movement make Bahia, Havana and Lagos never really separate at all. This file dey look the return journey: who come back, wetin dem build, wetin dey move go and come throughout the twentieth century, and wetin the flow of money and people today dey do to practice inside Nigeria.
From the 1830s, people wey return from Brazil start to dey arrive West Africa, some after the 1835 Malê revolt for Bahia wey make dem deport Africans, and plenty more after Brazil abolish slavery for 1888 . For Lagos dem dey call dem Agùdà; for Porto-Novo and along the French coast na Amaro and Agouda; Pierre Verger prefer the term revenants brésiliens, Brazilian returnees .
Dem no be one single kind group and person no suppose describe dem like that. Some na people wey dem born for Africa take dem as slave; plenty na for Brazil dem born dem. Some na Catholic and dem build church, some na Muslim and dem build mosque, some na òrìṣà worshippers, and many family house get all the three inside. Plenty of dem get handwork: mason, carpenter, cabinetmaker, tailor, trader. Dem arrive with money, with Portuguese language, and with business connection for Bahia.
For Lagos dem gather plenty for Pópó Agùdà, the Brazilian Quarter for Lagos Island, and build with Portuguese-Brazilian style wey still be the main design mark of old Lagos: arched window, painted wall with plaster, decorative molding, iron balcony, high steps . The public building dem build include Holy Cross Cathedral and Shitta-Bey Mosque; this second one na mosque wey returnees build with heavy design skill. The same style dey show for Abẹ́òkúta and for Porto-Novo, where returnees build the Great Mosque like Brazilian church pattern.
Their business role na the part wey matter pass for this section. Plenty Agùdà make big money through trading between Brazil and Nigeria, and many travel go and come several times instead of just settling for one place . That regular movement to and fro, wey family branches for both sides of Atlantic dey maintain, na the physical foundation of Matory argument. E carry market goods, letter, people, ritual things and religious knowledge.
The Sàró, Yoruba people wey gain freedom for Freetown and return from the 1830s, na the other group wey even big pass, and dem treat dem for 03-history because their main impact na on Yoruba reading and writing, Christianity and how Yoruba people describe themselves, no be on diaspora religion . But the two returnee group mix together for Lagos, marry each other, and form the Lagos elite wey their cultural nationalism reach Bahia as Matory point out.
The individual case wey get document pass all involve people wey travel cross ocean go learn.
Martiniano Eliseu do Bonfim (c. 1859 to 1943) na the main example. Dem born am for Bahia to African parents, send am go Lagos when e dey young for school, and e return go Salvador with ability to read and write English plus Ifá training wey e get for Africa. E come turn the person dem dey quote pass on African tradition for Bahia, work with Nina Rodrigues, and advise Mãe Aninha for Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá, where dem set up the twelve Obás de Xangô for 1937 based on one Ọ̀yọ́ model wey e supply . One Bahian institution wey dem dey see today as ancestral na for twentieth century dem set am up through advice wey come from Lagos.
Pierre Verger (1902 to 1996) na the case wey waka go the other side and come back again. One French photographer and self-taught ethnographer wey settle for Bahia, dem initiate am into Ifá for Kétu as Fatumbi, and e spend many decades dey travel between Bahia and the Bight of Benin . Him book Flux et reflux de la traite des nègres entre le golfe de Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Santos, wey publish for 1968, still remain the main study on this two-way movement and the book self join facilitate the movement: Verger carry message, ritual object, family history information and introductions between Bahian houses and West African families, and Bahian priests use wetin e discover to establish or confirm their African connection . E be unusual person to cite because at the same time e be the main scholar of this movement and also one of the people wey actively dey drive am.
Bahian priestess dem travel go Africa throughout twentieth century make dem fit authenticate their houses, sometimes with help from Brazilian government once dem don take Afro-Brazilian culture as national symbol . Important people from Nigeria and Benin Republic travel go Brazil and Cuba. The number of people wey travel no plenty like that, but the effect big well well, because na specialists dey move, and na specialists dey carry institutions.
The one single development inside twentieth century wey get weight pass for this return movement na the creation of one Nigerian office wey face the diaspora.
Wándé Abímbọ́lá dem install am as Àwísẹ Awo Àgbáyé for 1981 by the Ọ̀ọ̀ni of Ifẹ̀, based on recommendation from council of babaláwo of Yorubaland . The meaning of the title na spokesperson for Ifá and Yoruba religion for the world. E don serve as President of the International Congress of Orisa Tradition and Culture since dem start am for 1981 . Him career run alongside am: professor of Yoruba language and literature, Vice-Chancellor of University of Ifẹ̀, wey be Obafemi Awolowo University now, from 1982 to 1989, Senate Majority Leader of the Federal Republic from 1992 to 1993, and Special Adviser on Cultural Affairs and Traditional Matters to the President from 2003 to 2005 .
Two things about the office dey worth noticing. Dem create am, in the sense say no role like that wey face the whole world dey before 1981, and dem create am at the exact moment wey global òrìṣà community need Nigerian address. Abimbola scholarly work on the Ifá corpus, wey dey among the most substantial transcription and translation projects wey dem don ever do on Yoruba oral literature, give the office academic authority wey ordinary traditional title for no carry go abroad.
The things wey e do get real effect on how people dey practice am for diaspora. The way e openly support make dem initiate women into Ifá as ìyánífá na the clearest example: e put Nigerian authority behind one practice wey Cuban Ifá reject completely, and e don turn major matter wey dey divide people across countries. Nigerian babaláwo don initiate American and European women as ìyánífá; Cuban and Cuban-American babalawos mostly believe say those initiation no valid; each side fit point to authority.
Four movement dey happen now, and their volumes different well well.
People wey dey travel go Nigeria for initiation. Americans, Brazilians, Europeans and increasingly Latin Americans dey travel go Ọ̀yọ́, Ifẹ̀, Ọ̀ṣogbo, Abẹ́òkúta and Ilé-Ifẹ̀ for Ifá and òrìṣà initiations. This one don turn big and organised business with agents, package arrangements, and price list wey dem dey charge in dollars.
Nigerian priests wey dey travel go abroad. Babaláwo and òrìṣà priests wey dey live or dey visit United States, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Spain and other places regular-regular, dey do initiation for there, and this one dey remove the travel cost for clients and e dey increase the number of people well well.
Pilgrimage and festival tourism. The Ọ̀ṣun-Òṣogbo festival, wey enter UNESCO World Heritage list as Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove for 2005, dey bring plenty international visitors every year, including big groups from Brazil, Cuba and African American communities. Ilé-Ifẹ̀ dey receive heritage travellers throughout the year. Benin's Ouidah Vodún festival on 10 January dey operate on the same model on the Beninese side.
Knowledge wey dey move back the other way. Cuban ritual protocol, Brazilian song collections and diaspora scholarship dey enter Nigeria, and na this movement people least dey acknowledge. Nigerian practitioners dey read diaspora books, dey watch diaspora ceremonies online, and sometimes dem dey adopt diaspora practices. Where Nigerian house adopt practice wey dem develop for Havana, that na the two-way Atlantic connection wey still dey work.
Diaspora demand don make òrìṣà religion source of foreign currency for Nigeria, and this one get consequences wey neither romanticising nor condemnation fit describe well.
The demand side na foreign practitioners, wey plenty of dem get money by Nigerian standard, wey dey find wetin dem believe say na only Nigeria fit supply: original authority. The supply side na Nigerian priests wey their domestic position don weak because of more than one century of Christian and Muslim expansion, wey plenty of their practitioners dey poor, and wey foreign initiation fees fit change their income completely.
The results dey clear to see. Initiation prices for foreigners dey set at levels wey no relate to local prices at all. Competition between lineages and towns for foreign clients dey real. Dem dey offer compressed ceremonies to fit tourist schedule, where the traditional sequence dey take far longer. Some agents dey operate without any lineage authority at all. And wetin dem call authenticity na wetin paying market recognise as authentic dey shape am, wey no be always wetin Nigerian lineage for emphasize on their own.
Against this, three things still dey wey person must talk. The money don keep lineages alive wey for don collapse under domestic pressure. The demand don raise the domestic status of practice wey Nigerian Christians and Muslims don make shameful before, and that na real reversal. And the movement don produce real scholarly and liturgical recovery, including recorded Ifá corpora, published texts and language teaching wey exist because market dey for am.
The Nigerian state and Ọ̀ṣun State government in particular don deliberately promote heritage tourism, wey put official interest behind the festival economy. Whether that one mean support for traditional religion or say dem dey turn am to show na wetin Nigerian practitioners themselves dey argue, and the argument never settle.
The return circulation dey dissolve the frame where Africa be the source and diaspora be the copy. E don be circuit since the 1830s, with money, people, texts and authority moving in both directions, and the current asymmetry, where Nigeria dey supply authenticity and diaspora dey supply money, na recent configuration rather than natural order.
E also mean say Yoruba person for Lagos today wey encounter òrìṣà religion no necessarily dey encounter something wey wait unchanged for dem. Dem fit dey encounter practice wey Havana, Salvador and South Carolina don partly shape, and that no be say e spoil. Na wetin living Atlantic tradition be.
The history and structure of Candomblé in Brazil, why the nations matter, the great Bahian terreiros and the women who led them, the regional variants, Umbanda as a distinct formation, and the current situation under evangelical pressure.
The history and structure of Yoruba-derived religion in Cuba, from the cabildos de nación to the modern casa-templo, including initiation, Ifá, diloggún, the saint correspondences and the traditions it is wrongly conflated with.
How orisa religion reached the United States through Cuban migration, how African Americans reclaimed it as a nationalist project at Oyotunji and elsewhere, what the 1993 Hialeah ruling established in constitutional law, and the shape of the contemporary US practitioner landscape.
The current global spread of orisa religion, why practitioner numbers are unreliable, what the World Orisa Congress did and did not achieve, the authority disputes between Nigerian, Cuban and American practitioners, and the commercialization and online-initiation problem.
The Yoruba people who came back, from Sierra Leone and from Brazil and Cuba, and what they built in Lagos: the mosques, the Brazilian quarter, the newspapers, and a babaláwo who carried Ifá back across the Atlantic.
The courtyard compound and its rain-catching impluvium, the palace as the same building at maximum scale, the town laid out around palace and market, the Afro-Brazilian houses of Lagos, and how little of it is still standing.