Yoruba Blog

03/06/2024

Onka nÍ èdè Ọ̀ghọ̀

She tries to read numbers in the Ọ̀wọ̀ dialect 😊

ṣé ẹ̀yin lè gbìyànjú rẹ̀ wọ̀?

📸 TiTok/Ondo_dairy

01/06/2024

Okitipupa. Ondo, 1940.
Six women wearing head ties and matching dresses.
ẹgbó̩ sẹ́ ẹgbẹ́jọdá ni tàbí aṣọ ẹbí ?

📸: E.H Duckworth Collection

28/05/2024

Would you use these local washing machines found here in Ivory Coast🇨🇮

25/05/2024

Three Obas, who are members of the Ijebu-Ode Judicial Council circa 1940s.
From Left to right - The Ajalorun of Ijebu-Ife possibly Oba Asani Mabadeje who became the Ajalorun in 1943, in the middle Olowu of Owu-Ijebu Oba Adelani Gbogboade and the Dagburewa of Idowa Oba Samuel Adebonojo 1.

📸: E.H Duckworth Collection

24/05/2024

THE MBARI CLUB

In the year 1961, in an old Lebanese restaurant at Dugbe market in Ibadan, a bunch of writers and visual artists, came together and founded what came to be known as the Mbari Club. The club was founded with the help of Ulli Beier, a teacher at the University of Ibadan.

The philosophy of the Mbari Club was that the arts operate from the centre of the culture, and is located in its historical heritage and traditional values which educate the masses and reflect the society’s values.

Mbari became a major confluence for Nigerian artists, but also attracted artists from across Africa. The club was so prestigious, it had the best artists in Nigeria as members – the likes of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, Demas Nwoko, John P. Clark etc.

At Mbari, open air performances were done by artists, there was a gallery where painters and sculptors exhibited their works and there was a library. Visual Arts giants like Yusuf Grillo, Bruce Onabrakpeya frequented the club and showcased their works.

The Premieres of Wole Soyinka’s “the Trial of brother Jero and JP Clark’s “Song of a goat” were staged at Mbari. It was also at Mbari that renowned Nigerian Singer, composer and activist, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti made his debut as a bandleader.

In its days, Mbari was host to internationally renowned artists like US poet Langston Hughes, and Jacob Lawrence, possibly the most widely acclaimed African American artist of the last century to either play or exhibit their works.

Ulli Beier, the German scholar who had helped the artists establish the club, began publishing the “Black Orpheus” literary magazine. At the time, the magazine was a platform for African writers to have their stories published without having to wait for journals in the UK or US.

Mbari was considered to be the only Africa-based publisher publishing titles by African authors like JP Clark, Wole Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo.

Mbari became the home for art, and the exhibition of the talent of the African continent and the new born Nation, Nigeria by giving visibility to the artists. Unfortunately, the breakout of the Civil war in 1967 interrupted probably the most successful movement of artists in Africa and the diaspora.

Peep that Peugot 403 parked in front of the club.

21/05/2024

Àwọn àgbà bọ̀o wón ní Odò Ti Ó Bá Gbàgbé Orísun rè gbí gbe ló Ngbẹ – “A River That Forgets Its Source Will Eventually Dry Up”

As Yorubas we must look to the future through the lens of history, examine the mistakes of the people before us, sieve out their wrongs and revolutionise the good.

As against popular belief that the Ijaw man, Isaac Adaka Boro, was the first secessionist in the history of Nigeria.

New reports revealed that this Yorùbá man in the picture, Modiyu Adeniyi Osinowo is infact the first man to declare an Independent Yorùbá Nation. Modiyu was provoked by the shabby treatment meted on Chief Obafemi Awolowo by the Fulani-led federal Government.

Modiyu who at that time was a 27 years old primary school headmaster led a one man campaign on Independence Day, October 1st 1960, calling for the immediate withdrawal of Yorùbá people. In his words, Modiyu said; “Let’s have our own Pakistan. If they could rubbish Awo like this, sooner or later, they will be defecating on our heads... let’s have our own Sovereignty”.

Modiyu was assassinated 5 years later, his death was never reported or recorded. Not much is known about him or his family or the life he lived before then. Modiyu was competely erased.

Ayé tó tó ayé àkámarà.

18/05/2024

Falomo Village, Lagos circa 1910s.

16/05/2024

Òjò ti ń pa Igún bọ̀ ọjọ́ ti pẹ́

àwọn àgbà òṣèrè mélòó ni ẹ̀yin dá mò ?

15/05/2024

Oba Okunade Sijuwade Olubuse II, the Ooni Ife from 1980 to 2015 at the Vintage Olojo Festival in 1996.

📸 : Mainframe Production

14/05/2024

The Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrasheed Akanbi, presents the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with traditional royal coral bead necklace and Aso-Oke.

📸

14/05/2024

Egúngún láti ìlú Ẹdẹ ní ọdún 1970.

Eliot Elisofon lọ́ ni àwòrán yìí.

We must note the significance of this picture in the face of history and the future ahead. As per Wikipedia: Ẹdẹ is a predominantly Muslim town with about 60% of the population. This can be traced back to 19th century during the reign of Timi Abibu Lagunju as the king of Ẹdẹ, who is the first Muslim Oba in Yorubaland given the fact that he was already on the throne for a few years when in November 1857, the Baptist missionary W. H. Clark visited Ẹdẹ. Clarke recorded thus: “This young follower of the Prophet (Prophet Muhammad), a short time since became the ruler of this town in the place of his father (Oduniyi), the deceased, and brings with him into office, the influence of his new religion (Islam).”

Fast forward to 1970’s we still enjoy enough tolerance for our tradition and cultures to thrive. What has happened to us ọmọ oótù òjíre? kíní dé tí àṣà wa kò wá jọwá lọ́jú ní òde òní?

12/05/2024

ṣé ẹ rántí 😂

àgbà wá búra

11/05/2024

Lucumí vs Yorùbá pronunciation

Lucumí is considered a spiritual language in the Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian communities who practice the Santeria religion. The religion itself is a blend of traditional religion and Roman Catholicism.

Just like the Yoruba traditional beliefs, Santería teaches the existence of a transcendent creator divinity called Olodumare, under whom are spirits known as oricha/orixa/orishas. For you to join the religion you have to go through the initiation process and offer fruits, flowers and make sacrifice to the orishas.

One of the most prominent orisha amongst the Santeria practitioners is Eleguá, also known as Eshu Elegbara. Worshippers usually keep a small cement heads with cowries in their homes to represent this orisha.

Being able to speak the Lucumi language is considered a very strong spiritual gift. One would agree : this is synonymous to being able to Speak in tongues or memorize the Koran in the Christianity and Islamic community respectively.

10/05/2024

irúu ọbẹ̀ wọ ni yìí

kete ọmọ Akure kèé li bèyií síkọ́ ?

What’s that soup they are eating ?
Akure people should tell us oo

📸:

08/05/2024

A Yoruba Barber in Lagos, August 1925.

Who knows the Yoruba word for a Barber?

07/05/2024

This is the herbalist who helped British colonialists survived Malaria in the early 1900s.

Born in Abeokuta to Sierra Leonean missionaries in 1848. He was 4 when his parents returned to Sierra Leone. In Freetown he was put under the tutelage of the great A.B.C. Sibthorpe at Hastings, a suburb of Freetown. He received a Bachelors degree in Medicine from the Fourah Bay College.

After graduating from Fourah Bay College, he taught at the Evangelical United Brethren Church School, he was in his mid-twenties when he left his home country of Sierra Leone and moved to the United States where he was ordained a Minister in the American Wesleyan Methodist church. He later qualified as a medical doctor and became a Fellow of the Society of Apothecaries (F.S.A.) of the United States. Shortly thereafter, he became an affiliate of the National Association of Medical Herbalists in the United Kingdom.

Combining his scientific training with a wealth of knowledge on the healing properties of traditional herbs, roots and leaves, his fame soon spread to all parts of West Africa. His cures were a mixture of the orthodox and the traditional. He cured rheumatic pains, skin diseases such as “alay”, nervous and eye diseases, etc. During the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic, he invented a mixture of “tea-bush”, “camphor”, lime and spirit which saved many lives at a time when the influenza death toll was so high globally just like the 2020 pandemic.

He was appointed by the Colonial Government to help find a cure for Malaria when it became a drastic taker of lives, mainly amongst the Europeans living in West Africa. His preparation of herbs which consist mainly of ‘broomstone leaves’ and ‘agiri’ proved to be effective until his patients returned within a week to complain of the same symptoms. With his research he was able to prove that the cause of malaria was as a result of mosquitoes breeding in stagnant pools of water around houses. His name is Dr. AUGUSTUS ABAYOMI-COLE and he died in 1942 at the age of 93.

06/05/2024

njẹ́ ẹ̀yin rántí sinimá yìí ?

This is how people used to live a fake life before smartphones and video calls 😁

But may God rest the souls of these two actresses.

Who remember their names.

30/04/2024

Some fish and their Yoruba names via

29/04/2024

Susanne Wenger with Ajagemo, an high priest of Obatala in Ede, circa 1955. Photo: Ulli Beier

Born in Graz, Austria in 1915. She was a sculptor and illustrator. She met her first husband Ulli Beier in 1949 while on a work tour of Europe. Beier had been offered a position as a phoneticist at the University College Ibadan. The position was only offered to a married lecturer, the couple who had given little consideration to marriage prior to the offer decided to get married in London and emigrated to Nigeria.

After living in Ìbàdàn for a few years, the couple moved to Ẹdẹ, where she had her first contact with and initiation into the traditional Yorùbá religion by her spiritual mentor and dear friend, the Ọbàtálá priest called Ajagẹmọ Láaró.

Thereafter, she became engrossed with the development and promotion of the Yorùbá religion and culture particularly the Osun Grove, where as the custodian of the scared grove she built and dotted the forests of the Sacred Grove with works of arts and created a new art movement known as New Sacred Art. It was a branch of Osogbo School of Arts that guards the Sacred Grove of Osun goddess on the banks of the Osun River in Osogbo.

Thanks to her, the Osun River Grove has been preserved for posterity and has become a global attraction to different nationals across the world.

Though her marriage with Bieir later ended in divorce, she later got married to a Yorùbá man, Lasisi Alarape, and continued to promote Yoruba culture and tradition in Osogbo.

She died in 2009 at the age of 93 in her Osogbo residence.

28/04/2024

Olóyè Ulli Beier: Yọrùbá aláwọ̀ funfun

Born into a Jewish middle class family in Chotwitz (today Poland) in July of 1922. Ulli was teaching handicapped children in Battersea in 1949 when he spotted a newspaper advertisement for a position as lecturer in English at University College Ibadan.

Ulli came to Nigeria in 1950,with his wife, the renowned Austrian artist and later high priestess of the Osun Groove in Oshogbo, Suzanne Wenger.

After living in Ede and Ilobu, Ulli settled in Oshogbo in 1958, where he continued to eagerly learn about Yoruba arts and culture. He took part in Yoruba everyday and ritual life, collected stories and took photographs. In subsequent years he wrote a great number of articles and books on Yoruba culture.

In 1957 he founded Black Orpheus, a literary magazine that was to become a most important journal, not only in Nigeria, but in Africa and the black world. It was in this magazine that many of the continent’s leading writers such as Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, John Pepper Clark, the late Christopher Okigbo and others were first published.

Some of his works include: Yoruba Myths, Not even God is ripe enough, Yoruba poetry and many more.

27/04/2024

Bandele ti ìlú Otan, famous Ṣàngó priest and dancer, in trance during the Ṣàngó festival in Otan Aiyegbaju, 1962.

Bandele of Otan was the most powerful Sango dancer and performer in the 50s and 60s. He was a close friend of Ulli Beier and often stayed in his house in Osogbo. Ulli attended his performances whenever he could, because he felt that like no other Sango priest Bandele personified
both the power and the playful humour of his orisa.

Credit : Omoluabi Ulli Beier Yoruba Society and Culture via

26/04/2024

Ní ìrántí Alhaji Oyeyemi Ganiyu Akinpelu tí a mọ̀ sí Ogunjimi Ajagajigi Oogun

nje ẹ̀yin rántí àkọ́lé eré yìí?

25/04/2024

Àwọn òrékelẹ́wà 😍

Queen Elizabeth II chats with this pair of students when she visited the British council’s student hostel in London on Dec. 13, 1955.

The occasion of her visit was to help celebrate the 21st anniversary of the council. The two students, dressed in their colorful native garb are: 22 years old Funlayo Williams from Lagos (first from left) and Miss Remi Sekoni from Ibadan.

28/03/2024

ẹ̀yin nàá ẹ fi ti yín kun

📸

27/03/2024

PATAKI ITAN AWA YORUBA
MAY 25 2024
12PM
MAUVE 21 RINGROAD IBADAN
+2348023687432

24/03/2024

What is the indigenous view on polygyny and polygamy?
Let’s take the Yoruba example, which is found in this Ifa verse.
Please pay attention to the details:

Ọ̣̀kan ṣoṣo péré lobìnrín dùn mọ nílé ọkọ
(Only one wife is desirable in a man’s house)
Tí wọ́n bá di méjì wọn a dòjòwú
(Once there are two, they get envious)
Tí wọ́n bá di méta wọn á di ẹ̀ta ǹtúlé
(Once there are three, they wreck the household)
Tí wọ́n bá di mérin, wọn á di bó o bá rín mi, ma rín ọ
(Once there are four, they ridicule each other)
Tí wọ́n bá di márǔn, wọn a di ìyá a lágbájá ni yíò run ọkọ ọ wa
(Once they are five, they accuse one another of aiming to ruin their husband)
Tí wọ́n bá di mefa wọn a di bó o fà mí láṣọ, ma fà ọ láṣọ ya
(Once there are six, they yell, “If you tug at my dress, I’ll tear yours”)
Tí wọ́n bá di méje wọ̣n a di ọjọ́ méje-méje ni Tàmẹ̀dù ń bu igi jẹ
(Once they become seven, they accuse one among them as acting nuts every seventh day)
Tí wọ́n bá di mẹ́jọ won a di Làkáṣègbé kì í bí ọmọ kó jọ ọkọ wa
(Once they become eight, they accuse each other of infidelity
Tí wọ́n bá di mẹ́sǎn wọn a di ẹnìkan ò kúkú san owó orí i wọn
(Once they become nine, they complain they were obtained free without payment of dowry)
Tí wọ́n bá di méwǎ, wọn a di ilé ni a wà tí gbogbo wọn ń wá ọkọ wa wá
(Once they become ten, they claim “Women keep flocking into our husband’s home”).

1. When Ifa says “Only one wife is desirable in a man’s house,” does that imply that the man could keep one wife only at home, and keep others outside the home?
2. Or does it mean that one must NEVER marry more than one wife?
3. Or that you may marry more than one, keep all of them at home, though there will be grievous consequences?

Credit: Professor Moyo Okediji, University of Texas, Austin

12/03/2024

08/03/2024

‘Bale of Igbosere, Ramonu Adelakun. circa 1940’s

This is one of the many pictures from the E.H Duckworth’s collection. Duckworth was the founding editor of the Nigeria Magazine between 1930’s to 1970’s.

From the history of Lagos, Igbosere is derived from the two Yoruba words; 'Igbo' and 'Osere', meaning the forest of Osere trees. It is so named after the predominant ‘Osere’ trees found in the forest of that area. Osere trees are popular for its wood which is used for carpentary (Ìkàn) and the carving of canoes (Ọkọ̀) for transport and fishing on the Lagos lagoon (Ọ̀sà). The economic activities in the area drew traders from far and near, including Ijebu, Ilaje, Oyo, Ijesha, Egun, Itsekiri and many others including Benin who come to trade and acquire items on Aromire's farm (Oko Aromire) at Iduro Imota (station of the Imota people), which became Idumota. The Osere trees at Igbo osere (Osere Forest) were also sold as plank and wood for carpentry at Onikan (the Carpenters) from where finished products were moved to the Iddo island market.