Ṣàwárí

The concept that runs from "so be it" at the end of a prayer to the force by which anything happens at all, why both "power" and "life force" are inadequate translations, and how ase works in speech, ritual and art.

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.

The praise poetry that attaches a person to a place of origin, why Yoruba people carry a town identity they may never have lived in, and how that identity crossed the Atlantic.

How Yoruba verbal art is classified into named genres by vocal manner rather than subject, who performs each and on what occasion, and why the European category "oral literature" fits the material imperfectly.

How proverbs behave when they are embedded in chanted and sung genres rather than used in conversation, and why a quoted proverb changes what a performance is doing.

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.

An examination of Yoruba women's oral verbal arts, focusing on bridal laments, praise poetry custody, lullabies, and domestic work songs.

An exhaustive scholarly analysis of Egúngún masquerade traditions, ancestor veneration, ritual hierarchies, historical origins, and Atlantic diaspora transformations.

The career, dramaturgy, political censorship, and archival record of Chief Hubert Adedeji Ogunde, the founder of modern Nigerian commercial traveling theatre.

How oríkì is built from independent units rather than narrative sequence, and the specific mechanisms, tonal, structural, and referential, that make it resist translation.

Karin Barber's finding that oríkì in Okuku is held and performed mainly by women, with texts showing what that custodianship does at a wedding, at a festival, and inside a marriage.

Where oríkì with reliable Yoruba originals and named translators actually lives in print, who collected it, and what is and is not digitised or open access.

Three lineage oríkì from Karin Barber's Okuku fieldwork, plus the Olúfọ́n dynasty and the Ìkòyí warrior lineage whose praise obliges the chanter to include its own dishonour.

A historical analysis of structural transformations, theological shifts, and archival biases in Yoruba religious practice from pre-1830 lineage shrines to contemporary global networks.