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Yoruba Religion
Introduction
The Yoruba are a cultural group that animates in West Africa, and the majorities of them live in Nigeria and account for approximately 21% of the country’s populace and communicate in the Yoruba language. This cultural group embraces a unique religion, the Yoruba religion, which is a mingling of aboriginal beliefs and does of the Yoruba people globally. This religion encompasses of customary performs and divine notions which have advanced into a full-bodied devout system. The Yoruba religion has its homeland in present-day Southwestern Nigeria besides the adjacent portions of Togo and Benin, which are universally referred to as Yorubaland.
Also, the Yoruba customary belief considers that all mortal creatures pass over what is branded as Ayanmo, which decodes to fortune or luck. However, bestowing to the Yoruba, beings are ultimately anticipated to develop one in soul with the godly maker who is too the font of entire liveliness, a condition which is furthermore identified as Olodumare. Also, each act or opinion of an individual in the bodily territory interrelates with other existing things, and everyone attempts to attain and discover a fortune in the divine compass (Karade, Baba Ifa). Additionally, according to this religion, a person who sojourns developing mystically in whichever phase of their lives are ordained for indiscernible potsherds. Being besides demise in the Yoruba religion faith system is an unceasing progression of being in diverse arrangements of bodily figures while an entity’s essence progresses to otherworldliness.
The Yoruba individuals trust that before an individual is born, they decide their fortune. They choose extended before they interminably reach on the World on whatever they will be undertaking in the realm, wherever they will animate, and whoever they will dear, then more so on how they would pass away. Besides, the Yoruba belief asserts that once an individual is born into the sphere all their strategies and assurances are elapsed and likewise their fate is also overlooked. A person, thus, attempts to recall and privilege the prospect they planned out beforehand they emanated into the sphere. God is an omnipotent creature who is unrestricted by sex then is the ultimate idol amongst the Yoruba civic. It is alleged that he exists in the heavens. The conversation amid the individuals and their God, Olodumare, is conceded by the intermediaries usually identified as the Orishas.
Creation in Yoruba religion
The Yoruba tribe of West Africa traces its creation story, that in the beginning there was only the sky above, water and marshland below. The paramount god Olorun reined the sky, and the goddess Olokun reigned what was underneath. Olorun subsisted in the atmosphere with the Orishas. These Orishas were both male and female. Olorun and the Orishas subsisted nearby a young baobab tree, where the Orishas found all they wanted for their lives, and thus they wore stunning clothes and gold jewels. Besides, Olorun told the Orishas that the huge sky was theirs to sightsee, but all Orishas were contented to stay close to the baobab tree, except one, the Obatala. Obatala was not pleased to live idyllically by the baobab tree since he sought to put his supremacies into usage (Olumide, Esther Bamitale). As he contemplated whatever to do, he observed faraway down over the fogs beneath the atmosphere, and after a keen eyeing; he began to recognize that there was a massive bare ocean underneath the fog. However, Obatala went down to Olorun to request for permission to make something compact in the enormous waters beneath. Obatala intended that he makes beings that he and other Orishas could aid with their supremacies.
Olorun was impressed by Obatala’s wish to do something beneficial and accepted to lead Obatala to the waterlogged world under. Obatala thus inquired Orunmila, the Orisha who sees the prospect, to guide him on whatever he should do to organize for his task. Consequently, Orunmila took out a holy plate and speckled the powder of baobab roots on it, he stirred sixteen palm seeds onto the plate and studied the marks and trails they prepared on the powder, whereby he repeated this eight times while keenly perceiving the outlines at every time. Lastly, he voiced Obatala to make a gold chain and to collect sand, palm nuts, and maize. Also, he told Obatala to get the holy egg carrying the characters of all the Orishas.
Obatala went to his sister Orishas to request for their gold and took it to the goldsmith who smelted all the jewels to create the links of the golden chain. Also, Obatala collected all sand in the sky and put it in a void snail shell, and added baobab powder into it. He thus put it with his package alongside with the other requisites, and enveloped the egg in his shirt, adjacent to his ribcage to ensure it remained warm throughout the journey. He hooked the chain into the atmosphere and started to hike down the chain and reached the finish of the chain after a seven-day climb. He then swung on its end and eavesdropped for a hint, which came from Orunmila, his prophet, telling him to use the sand. Obatala removed the shell from his package and emptied the sand into the water beneath, and on striking the water, the sand coagulated to create enormous land. However, he had no option of what to do since he slung on the chain, his heart struck much that the egg broke. On the egg, it hovered Sankofa, the bird bearing the feelings of all the Orishas. Resembling a hurricane, they puffed the sand to create banks, hills, and valleys, thus giving it personality just as the Orishas have personality.
Lastly, Obatala let go of the chain and fell to this new land, which he referred to as “Ife,” the place that gulfs the waters. Quickly he started to travel this terrestrial, and as he did so, he dispersed the kernels from his package, and the kernels began to produce behindhand him as he strode, the terrestrial, however, turned green. After hiking for a long period, Obatala developed thirsty and clogged at a small pool. As he curved above the water, he saw his image and was thrilled (Shuaib, Shadiat Olapeju, and Hairat Bukola Yusuf). He grabbed some mud at the edge of the pool and immediately started to mold it into the figure he saw in the image, and after finishing, he molded more of these figures from the black earth at the pool’s flank. By then, he was even thirstier than previously and removed juice from the newly-grown palm plants and it agitated into palm wine, which he sipped more of it and was later drunk. He resumed to the pool’s edge to create extra forms, but was not cautious, and finished some minus eyes or even with malformed limbs.
Subsequently, Olorun sent Chameleon down the golden chain to gaze on Obatala’s advancement. However, the Chameleon recounted Obatala’s disillusionment at creating figures that had form but no life. Collecting air from the universe past the sky, Olorun flashed the airs into a blast that he molded into a fireball, which he led to Ife, where it desiccated the lands that were still drizzly and started to swelter the clay bodies that were finished by Obatala. The fireball even fixed the globe to rotate, as it still does currently. Olorun then puffed his breath through Ife, and Obatala’s bodies gradually came to be as the leading persons of life.
The prominence of Yoruba religion
The religiousness of Yoruba emphasizes intensely on self-exploration, learning one’s vocation or fortune, intermingling with the spirits of nature as well as one’s lineages, and getting oneself precise with the almighty creator Oludumare. The Yoruba religion encompasses various aspects that are very beneficial to the community as a whole. These are deities and Orishas, their practices and celebrations, and the reincarnation belief.
Considerably similar to the saints of the Roman Catholic faith, the Yoruba Orishas act as mediators amid beings and the highest creator, and the heavenly world. There are several categories of Orishas in this religion, of which most of them are believed to have stayed into existence from the beginning of the biosphere, and others were formerly humanoid, and then surpassed into a state of semi-godly being. However, certain Orishas seem in the custom of a natural feature; streams, highlands, plants, or other ecological symbols (Enaikele and Adeleke, 5). The Orishas are a good replication of humanity since their being resembled that of human beings, since they bash, eat, drink, adore, and even espouse, and relish music. The devotion of the Yoruba people is focused at the Orisha that resides within the natural portent, regularly at the place where the natural portent reveals itself.
Besides, the Orishas can replicate some of the signs of Olodumare. They are honored for having control over nature. For example, the Orunmila is the Yoruba magnificent priest and overseer of the creation process, and a font of knowledge of the humanoid form, cleanliness, and the treatments of diseases and abnormalities. Also, another Orisha known as Oshun is referred to as the Orisha of streams or rivers and is allied with numerous supremacies such as curative with cool water, stimulation of fruitfulness, and the regulator of the female essence. She is very significant in the Yoruba community since women plea to her for child-bearing and for the relief of feminine syndromes. Also, the Yoruba religion acknowledges her as being loving of babies and her mediation is wanted if a baby becomes ill.
It is approximated that some Yoruba practices today, are a continuance of the customary religion of their dynasties. In addition to honoring the creator god, Olorun, and the eminent Orishas, cliques of the Yoruban belief often partake in festivities during which sacrifices are presented to the diverse gods that regulate things like rain, sunshine, and the harvest, amongst other aspects. In Yoruba religious commemorations, partakers are engaged in several ritualistic-re- presentation of tales, alongside mythologies and other happenings that to aid in enlightening the humankind’s place in the universe. For Yorubans, evading the involvement in these rituals was termed as turning one’s back on his or her dynasties, spirits, and deities. These festivals are an important occasion for the community since it is the period of building the community and ensuring that everybody has sufficient of whatever they requisite.
In the yearly Ifa festivity, which tumbles at the period of the yam reap, there is a detriment offered to Ifa, as well as a ceremonial cutting of the fresh yam. Besides, there is a pronounced banquet, with dancing, drumming, and other customs of melody all gathered into the ceremonial festival. Also, devotions are said to ward off untimely demises, and other safeguard and consecrations to the whole community for the next year. Ifa is a prominent prophecy god amongst the Yoruba, and the Yoruba people often refer to the Ifa prophecy before they do any commotion. They refer him for direction and counsel in all their events as of his understanding and acquaintance of the historical, contemporary and prospect.
However, the yearly Ifa festival is the period when people customarily express their appreciation to Ifa for all that they have received from him. It is grounded on joy and thanksgiving. Individuals arise out in their paramount and offer of their greatest to Ifa, and this preforms a time of unity amid the spirituality or religion and his believers and a period for distinct rejuvenation of agreements (Ogunleye, Adetunbi Richard, 68-77). The Ifa festival commonly brings the individuals of the civic from other residences together; merchants record greater sales since people purchase foodstuffs and resources for sacrifices. These may include, goats, rams, doves, and many others, for the commemoration, and the divine complications get resolutions since bad luck is transformed into good luck over rites. For instance, if the civic is confronted with exterior difficulties, Ifa will voice them whatever to do to resolve these difficulties; therefore it subsidizes political steadiness.
Also, the era of the Ifa commemoration is used to purify the terrestrial of bad luck and it is alleged that there is typically enhancement in the undertakings of the civic after the festivity of Ifa commemoration. Additionally, this festival offers a chance for musicians to advance and validate their talents, as they implement in these commemorations; they thus develop popular and raise additional cash. There is continually a high plea for indigenous beads, fly-whisk and other items that individuals use throughout the commemorations. This has generated employment for numerous persons who would have been unemployed.
Another yearly festival which is a necessity to the Yoruba people is the Ogun festival and is carried out in the dry period or season, while there is decent hunting. Ogun is the deity of iron and accordingly the divinity of hunters, therefore flesh savannah meat is obligatory for this commemoration (Adeleye, Oluwafunke Adeola, 33). This commemoration is celebrated every year to soothe Ogun to ward off pending misfortunes both on the highways and in the farmsteads, or savannah throughout hunting. Just as the other Yoruba deities, Ogun is an intercessor amid god, Olodumare, and humankind, and thus they appeal upon him for sanctifications, safeguard, and backings.
In the Ogun festival, the believers offer several gifts of foodstuff and drinks, and there is the disbursement of swears to Ogun. However, on the time of the commemoration, drink in form of water or palm wine is drizzled at the Ogun memorial and the provisions for sacrifice are carried before Ogun snails, palm-oil, pigeons, and dogs. The participants thus begin by posing kola-nuts to Ogun. This implies a revitalization of bind amid Ogun and his believers. However, the palm-oil, snails, and pigeons are intended to cool Ogun’s fury and annoyance (Ojo, Olatunji, 1-27). After posing the sacrifices, the partakers share the sanctified meat of the dog and the bush-meat contribution while humming Ogun’s tributes. The core of this is that through the sacrificial ritual, the participants must share the sanctified animal so that its defensive good abilities would be assimilated and sinful effects banished. However, this commemoration is not just for gratitude but for the removal of immorality, particularly sins devoted beside the divinity, and those devoted beside the neighbors, and for the refurbishment of the decent favor of them affronted. Consequently, they strengthen Ogun’s affiliation with them and refurbish the ties of union amongst themselves.
Contrasting in most western spiritual principles, Yoruba devoutness stresses leading a decent being; reincarnation or rebirth is a fragment of the course and is rather a key aspect to be observed. Only persons that lead a righteous and respectable being receive the opportunity of rebirth. Individuals that are unfriendly or fraudulent do not acquire to be reincarnated (Ọsanyìnbí, Ọládotun, and Kehinde Falana, 59-67). Kids are usually perceived as the revived soul of dynasties who has traversed over; this notion of ancestral rebirth is known as Atunwa. Also, Yoruba titles like Babatunde, meaning “father returns,” and Yetunde, “mother returns,” mirror the notion of rebirth in one’s household.
Besides, the Yoruba faith, masculinity is not a concern based on rebirth, and then is supposed to vary with every new reincarnation. Once a new kid is born as a revived creature, they emulate not lone the understanding of the antecedent humanity they infatuated previously, but also the accrued acquaintance of all of their lives (Olufadekemi, Adagbada). The rebirth faith in the Yoruba religion helps Yoruba Christians in translating and enhancing their faith in the resurrection. Also, reincarnation belief can help comprehend resurrection, since both embrace the conviction that the soul is eternal.
Conclusion
Despite that, the Yoruba religion is most ordinarily originate in west Africa, in realms like Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, aimed at the earlier numerous years, it has too remained to create its approach into the United States, wherever it is echoing by numerous black Americans (Udo, Emem Michael). Various persons discover themselves strained to Yoruba since it allows them to link to a mystical tradition that precedes annexation and the transatlantic slave trade.
Adding, Yoruba partook a substantial effect on new faith systems which are deliberated a portion of the African spread. Besides, African customary beliefs like Santeria, Candomble, and Trinidad Orisha all can locate numerous backgrounds back to the philosophies and does of Yoruba resides. In Brazil, incarcerated Yoruba fetched their customs with them, syncretized them with the Roman Catholicism of their owners, and shaped the known Umbanda religion, which amalgams African Orishas and creatures with Roman Catholic saints and native ideas of familial essences.
Besides, the Yoruba religion is facilitated by the religious celebrations embraced in the Yoruba community, since these celebrations have a mutual purpose to the civic as a whole, by promoting ethnic morals and helping in the preservation of the rich custom of the persons who monitor them. Despite the conversion of some Yorubas to Christians and Muslims, those that uphold the customs of their dynasties have accomplished to cohabit calmly with their non-customary nationals. Additionally, the Christian clerical has conceded these philosophies by unifying their yearly encoding into the native festivities of the yield, whereas the customary Yoruba are rejoicing their deities. However, individuals unite for this dual-faith festivity meant to offer a prayer for the compassion, defense, and consecrations of dualistic very dissimilar divinities, all together for the good of the whole civic or community.
Works Cited
Adeleye, Oluwafunke Adeola. “A Historical Analysis of the Interconnectivity of Ogun Onire Festival and Ire-Ekiti: Tracing the Ancestral Link.” Editorial Board (2019): 33.
Enaikele, M. D., and A. T. Adeleke. “Yorubas’ Ifa system and human destiny: An oral narrative account.” Fourth World Journal 16.2 (2018): 5.
Karade, Baba Ifa. The handbook of Yoruba religious concepts. Weiser Classics, 2020.
Ogunleye, Adetunbi Richard. “IFA: An Epistle to the Indigenous Yoruba Worshippers in Nigeria.” Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies 3.1 (2019): 68-77.
Ojo, Olatunji. “Performing Trauma: The Ghosts of Slavery in Yoruba Music and Ritual Dance.” Journal of West African History 5.1 (2019): 1-27.
Olufadekemi, Adagbada. “THE REALITY AND NON-PECULIARITY OF THE YORUBA’S BELIEF IN REINCARNATION: AYE KEJI EXEMPLIFIED.” International Review of Humanities Studies 4.2 (2019).
Olumide, Esther Bamitale. A Comparative Analysis of Genesis Creation Story and Yorùbá Myth of Creation. Diss. Kwara State University (Nigeria), 2019.
Ọsanyìnbí, Ọládotun B., and Kehinde Falana. “An evaluation of the Akure Yorùbá traditional belief in reincarnation.” Open Journal of Philosophy 6.1 (2016): 59-67.
Shuaib, Shadiat Olapeju, and Hairat Bukola Yusuf. “AN EXPLORATION OF DANCE AND TECHNICAL AESTHETICS IN OBATALA FESTIVAL OF ILE-IFE, OSUN STATE, NIGERIA.” e-Bangi 14.2 (2018).
Udo, Emem Michael. “The Vitality of Yoruba Culture in the Americas.” Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies 41.2 (2020).
Works cited
Anthony, KANU Ikechukwu, OMOJOLA Immaculata Olu, and Mike Boni Bazza. “WOMEN IN YORUBA RELIGION AND CULTURE.” Tolle Lege: An Augustian Journal of Philosophy and Theology 2.2 (2020).
