09/03/2023
Today, just by their names, you can easily identify a Chinese and know him apart from an Indian.
When you hear the names of the Dutch, Germans, Russians and many others like that you can easily identify them by their countries and culture of origin.
These are people who didn't joke with their roots.
They know what NAMES meant.
It is no longer so in Yoruba a land.
We don't care. We think we are wiser than our Forefathers because we can speak and write in English language.
Do you know that in the Yoruba CUSTOM, a man didn't just look up the skies, scratches his fingers and conjures a name for his child?
Our ancestors were very wise.
Our Elders say: A man looks at [ Considers and reflects on ] his home [ History and heritage ] to give names to his children!
It is because the YORUBA ANCESTORS KNEW AND BELIEVES that Names have strong spiritual connotations which can determine and define a child's path in his life's journey.
In those days, child naming was a very elaborate spiritual practice.
First, the child's Ìkosèjayé was determined by IFÁ divination on the 3rd day after birth. The child's spiritual essence and identity was known immediately so the parents can know to assist him in his life's journey according to his life's essence.
A child could have come from spiritual world of Obàtálá and there were things he shouldn't be doing.
On the day of the naming ceremony, as his Ìkosèjayé was already known, the baby was accordingly named and consecrated along the dictates of his spiritual essence
But today's parents are now "Born-Again" and "civilized" and because they couldn't have known any better, being Ajebutter themselves, they just look into the skies, give names to their children and the poor children will be doing those things he shouldn't be doing right from childhood and he will have problems on his journey until he is lucky to be told later in life.
This is who we have become, a PEOPLE disconnected from the CUSTOMS, strict and immutable programming codes for a PEOPLE which ought not to be touched.
And it troubles us.
You can hear a man called Peter Smith and you will think he is from United States of America but the man is YORUBA from Isale-Eko in Lagos State.
A man can be Gregory Holloway and he is Égún from Badagry Lagos State but you will be thinking he is from England.
An Ijesa man gave birth to a child, named him Awoseyi Awosanmi but the young man became Born-Again and changed his name to George Awesome.
That is funky.
Another man is from one of the Òjè families of Egba land Abeokuta. He had a son and his child was named Akinwade Ojetunde. He soon became a Pastorpreneur and General Overseer, the Òjètúnde name became an embarrassment to him because it is connected to Égúngún masquerade so he changed his name to Wandy Davies.
You can go to Ìwó or Oyo towns and you will find that a Yoruba man is called Abdullah Ibn Ya-kun Allukumfatiah. You will assume he is from Iraq.
I started getting conscious of these things long ago, even from my childhood.
I was named Adedamola Jibril Olatunji Adetayo.
But my grandfather will call me Jìbìrílù. One of my uncles used to pronounce it Jìbìrì. My grandmother used to call me Jubirilla. Many of my friends called it Jubril.
Infact one of our mummies in the estate, an Ijaw woman used to call me Zubirin.
I started to think about it in my secondary school and soon discarded the name for the more proper Adedamola Olatunji, something which had meaning in my ears.
And I have done same for my children. There are no Non-Yoruba names in their birth certificates.
NAMES are important items in a child's life, it has the power to determine his way of life and destiny because if you kept drumming that name into his life from infancy he will likely grow up to live by the meaning of the name.
Same with Oríkì.
Most often, if you were a true born of a particular family, you are very likely to grow up according to the characters and attributes of your family Oríkì because this is something that is recited into your life and consciousness from infancy.
Our mothers learnt the Oríkì of our fathers from their mothers-in-law.
They MUST know it ni because very often they will need to use that Oríkì to get things from their husbands and to clam down the men when they are tensed up or in bad mood.
How many men and women of today's Yoruba land even know their Oríkì let alone their spouses?
There is a problem.
© Adedamola Adetayo
25 August 2023
