8 - Yoruba, Nigeria

Yoruba, Nigeria (Periods/Cultures/Kingdoms)

Culture: Yoruba (1,500_CE - present)

Yoruba (location)

Nigeria

Yoruba (dates)

1,500_CE - present

Yoruba (1,500_CE - present) notes

• from the 15th century onward, 16 Obas ruled over different sections of the Yoruba region

• same gods as Benin and Ife

Artwork ID: “Beaded Crown”

Culture: Yoruba

Location: Yoruba, Nigeria

Dates: 1,500_CE - present

Medium: mixed media w/ beads

“Beaded Crown” notes

• spiritually charged, sacred

  • Oba only gets one, most important crown

• 4 elements:

  • birds on the top (same significance and meaning as maribou birds in Benin)

  • veil of beads (protective funtion; spiritual shield; protects everyone else from the Oba’s spiritual energy)

  • face (highly abstracted; could represent ancestors, oduduwa, or duality)

  • beads (sacred, spiritually charged material like coral, bronze, and ivory for Benin)

• colors change depending on the preferred orisha

• each of the 16 obas gets one

• a shit ton of variety b/c the artists had more room for creativity

  • artists would travel around to different kings, leading to different styles

    • some were very minimalist, some were very busy

• made with a wicker cone covered in plastered canvas, then beads would be added on top

  • v e r y meticulous work

  • one craftsman makes the cone, another adds the beads, and the bodolowo makes a spiritual “packet” that goes in the top to turn it into a spiritually charged object

Artwork ID: “Opa Osanyin Staff”

Culture: Yoruba

Location: Yoruba, Nigeria

Dates: 1,500_CE - present

Medium: iron

“Opa Osanyin Staff” notes

• orisha of forests, healing, & medicine

• personified as a stork/heron

  • wisest of animals

    • looking to Osanyin for wisdom

• 16 storks surrounding Osanyin in the center represent the 16 Obas

• Made of iron, associated with Ogun

• would be kept on a shrine or placed outside a sick person’s house to bring healing

Artwork ID: “Figure of Eshu”

Culture: Yoruba

Location: Yoruba, Nigeria

Dates: 1,500_CE - present

Medium: wood, beads, and mixed media

“Figure of Eshu” notes

• youngest god

• trickster, messenger

  • not evil, just represents the indiscriminate, unavoidable chaos of life 

    • the Europeans associated him with Satan

• often holding a flute or pan pipe

• long, arched headdress (looks like a jester’s hat lol)

• strings of cowrie shells (currency at the time)

  • to ensure favor w/ him (so he doesn’t fuck your life up too much) and to ensure communication with people, gods, and ancestors goes smoothly

Artwork ID: “Ifa Divination Board”

Culture: Yoruba

Location: Yoruba, Nigeria

Dates: 1,500_CE - present

Medium: wood

“Ifa Divination Board” notes

• looks like a fancy dice tray

  • Eshu depicted on the rim (if there’s two faces, one of them is Ifa)

• very complicated divination process

  • 256 possible combinations = 256 answers w/ 8 or 9 poems, riddles, songs, etc. for each answer (all memorized)

    • one of these is chosen as the answer by the Babalowo’s discernment

Artwork ID: “Edan Ogboni”

Culture: Yoruba

Location: Yoruba, Nigeria

Dates: 1,500_CE - present

Medium: brass

“Edan Ogboni” notes

• worn around the neck

• male and female figures represent perfect balance and stability when combined with the Ogboni

  • 3 people must witness a crime for their word to be taken as fact and a judgment made

• spikes to put into the ground at the site of a crime

• hollow bronze filled w/ dirt; references Oduduwa giving humans life through dirt

Artwork ID: “Shango Shrine Figure”

Culture: Yoruba

Location: Yoruba, Nigeria

Dates: 1,500_CE - present

Medium: wood

“Shango Shrine Figure” notes

• holding oshe Shango staff

• red + white = Shango’s colors

• ideal woman

  • blue hair (royal color), dark shiny skin, of childbearing age

    • doesn’t have children b/c she is a wife of Shango

      • could have been the “perfect” woman but chose to be chaste and devote herself to Shango

Artwork ID: “King and Queen”

Artist: Olowe of Ise

Culture: Yoruba

Location: Yoruba, Nigeria

Dates: 1,500_CE - present

Medium: wood and pigment

“King and Queen” notes

• Ade crown (w/o veil because nobody’s gonna try carving that)

• chief wife looks more powerful/important than the oba

  • she is standing behind the seated Oba, she is larger, posture is very stable and confident, more detailed, colored blue (royal color), eyes are up and attentive and looking up while the Oba is looking down slightly

• Oba is in front of her, not touching the ground (sitting is moreso a privilege rather than frailness or something like that), ade crown, looking down b/c of lack of veil (possibly?)

• tiny figures and largest figures cancel each other out so the Oba is still technically larger than the others

• wife is a caryatid

  • holding up the building, supporting but more in the shadows

• chief wife has 4 main duties:

  • placing the crown on the Oba’s head during his coronation

  • designs the royal insignia

  • treasurer of the palace

  • keeper of the harem

Ade crown

• spiritually charged, sacred

  • Oba only gets one, most important crown

• 4 elements:

  • birds on the top (same significance and meaning as maribou birds in Benin)

  • veil of beads (protective funtion; spiritual shield; protects everyone else from the Oba’s spiritual energy)

  • face (highly abstracted; could represent ancestors, oduduwa, or duality)

  • beads (sacred, spiritually charged material like coral, bronze, and ivory for Benin)

• colors change depending on the preferred orisha

• each of the 16 obas gets one

• a shit ton of variety b/c the artists had more room for creativity

  • artists would travel around to different kings, leading to different styles

    • some were very minimalist, some were very busy

• made with a wicker cone covered in plastered canvas, then beads would be added on top

  • v e r y meticulous work

  • one craftsman makes the cone, another adds the beads, and the bodolowo makes a spiritual “packet” that goes in the top to turn it into a spiritually charged object

Ibeji (twins)

Orisha of twins

• Yoruba has super high twin rate

• when you know you're having twins, you get one male & one female figure (symbolizing wholeness) from priest

• if a twin dies in childbirth, mother keeps one figure and treats it like the actual child b/c twins share one soul, so both need to live

Eshu

• youngest orisha

• trickster, messenger

  • not evil, just represents the indiscriminate, unavoidable chaos of life

• often depicted with a flute or pan-pipe, long curved hat, and cowrie shells

Orisha

gods of Ife/Yoruba religion

• children of Obatala (head god)

Ogboni

advisor/councilman of the Oba

• 30 of them per Oba

Babalawo

priest of Ifa divination

• only one besides the Oba who gets beaded things

• gets questions about anything and everything

  • determines who the next Oba is (b/c it’s not determined by direct descent like Benin)

  • asked for advice on laws and such

Shango

• orisha of thunder

ase

Yoruba/Ife philosophy defined to represent the power that makes things happen and produces change; spiritual energy

Gelede masquerade

[insert info here]

Ifa divination

• tap board with divination tapper then cast kola nuts from their special container

• 256 possible combinations

  • for every combination, diviner needs 5-7 things to tell the person

Osanyin

orisha of forests, healing, & medicine

• wisest of animals

  • looking to Osanyin for wisdom