Chapter 3 Yoruba, Self and Education

This chapter introduces Yoruba concepts vital to the proposed education theory, starting with geographical and historical context. The term Yoruba refers to a language, religion, geographical region, and art objects from the region or associated with Yoruba beliefs, whose culture is centered in Southwestern Nigeria and in areas of neighboring Benin and Togo. Amongst these are regional variations originating in twenty cultural subgroups that were once independent kingdoms. Continuity in linguistic and fundamental belief systems, however, allows for a single grouping. Yoruba arts are among the most prolific and ancient of the African continent, including metal cast sculpture, wood carving, architecture and architectural sculpture, costume associated with masquerade, textiles, and body art. Yoruba Society is inherently urbanised; archeological and linguistic evidence dates its political, religious and social systems to the first millennium CE (Barnes, 1989) Myths and religious beliefs referred to in this chapter originate in this era, which also saw the establishment of Yoruba city-states. John Pemberton summarises,

From the beginning, Yoruba culture has been characterized by an urban life-style, and a political system of sacred rulers. By the twelfth to fifteenth century the political/cultural position the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife had developed to a point where an artistry of extraordinary technical skill and imagination created the famous Ife bronze and terracotta sculptures, and there were other Yoruba artistic centres at Esie in the northeast and Owo in the southeast. By the seventeenth century, Oyo, a city in the north-central Yoruba region, was emerging as a significant power that over the next century would establish itself as the centre of an empire. (Pemberton III, 2000, pp. 16–17)

Yoruba identity, in continuation and in legacy, tempered by time and adaptation, is evident in many contemporary fields, as well as in objects and social systems of the past. Of significance in the history of Yoruba ideas is their spread to the Americas. During the sixteenth to mid nineteenth century enforced movement and enslavement of West African men women and children across the Atlantic, Yoruba religious systems were transported to the Caribbean islands and to Brazil. There, African religions, practiced covertly by converts to Catholicism,

© koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2018 | DOI 10.1163/9789004367272_004 58 Chapter 3 became syncretised with elements of Christianity and emerged eventually as Condomble, Santeria, Bai’a and other offshoots of Yoruba religious practices. Religious systems related to the African pantheon of orissa (gods/dieties) have made another more recent voyage, along with people of African descent migrating to the United States and also within Latin America. As a result, In New York, Texas, California, Florida, the orissa (god/deity) Ogun is worshipped by adherents who originated in Haiti and Cuba. From Brazil the faith has spread to neighboring Uruguay and Argentina. In both continents, the number of followers has grown in the 20th century, with the result that,

More than 70 million African and new world peoples participate in, or are closely familiar with religious systems that include Ogun, and the number is increasing rather than declining. (Barnes, 1989, p. 3)

The particularly intriguing orissa of creativity and destruction Ogun, is taken up later in this chapter, as an indicator of sensitive observations of human nature in Yoruba thought. Concepts arising from Ogun myths relevant to modernist ideas of artistic genius, the bedrock of art school pedagogy, will also be introduced. The orissa is mentioned at this point only to indicate the geographical spread of Yoruba ideas today. An important caveat to proposing Yoruba ideas as relevant to art schools today lies in recognising that while they are very present, they are not necessarily important in the same way to all modern day Yoruba people. One of course finds thriving in modern day Nigeria art, literature, theatre and other contemporary discourses; these naturally respond to international, as well as indigenous cultural influences (Olanrewaju, 2013) Nor should indigenous sources be imagined as static. There are also many religions including Islam and Christianity, which exist side by side with African religions (Picton, 1995). An in built flexibility and multicultural fluency allows external influences to be absorbed and implemented in new ways. The result is that contemporary African people can be proudly Christian, while also participating in selected elements of traditional African religious functions and festivals. For example Christians will participate in various elements of the Festival of Ogun, (to be discussed later), but not eat the sacrificial meat; or, in illness, Christians and Muslims will seek medical help from traditional African healers who divine the cause and treatment of ailments (Abimbola, 2001). This hetero- culturalism of modern Africa will be discussed later in the chapter too. The understanding of the human mind implied by the metaphysical concepts of the divination process, grasped by lay persons as well as healers will be shown to be particularly relevant.1 Even so, while the past is firmly intertwined with