Ṣàwárí

What oríkì are, the different kinds, who performs them and why, and how they carry history that written records do not.

A map of the Yoruba oral genres treated in this section, what each file holds, and where the neighbouring sections carry the material this one does not duplicate.

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.

The hunters' chant associated with Ògún, its vocal manner, the ìjálá artist and how he is judged, the contest setting, and what the chant does as self-portrait and as praise of animals.

The secular chanting genre of praise, who the rárà singer is and how the performance is shaped by the audience paying for it, and the accuracy that makes rárà more than flattery.

The chant a Yoruba bride performs in the days before she leaves her father's house, its three-part structure, the social situation that produces it, and what she actually says about the marriage ahead of her.

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.

The dùndún as a literary instrument rather than a technical curiosity: oríkì and proverbs delivered on the drum, what the drummer composes from, and how drummed, sung and spoken text relate in one performance.

Guide to the eighteen files in the festivals section, examining royal renewals, masquerade complexes, ancestral commemorations, agrarian rites, and urban spectacles across Yorubaland.

The extended Àlọ́ Ìjàpá opening formula in Yorùbá with interlinear glossing, the praise-name run for the tortoise embedded in it, and what the collectors record about the apàlọ̀ and his drum.

The occasions on which oríkì is actually chanted, the royal awakening and market-day forms, and how payment shapes what a performer says, illustrated with texts the genre files in this section do not carry.

Oríkì delivered on the talking drum rather than the voice, with the patron deity of drumming's own praise text and a documented case of drummed praise used to warn a rival.