My cultural identity is a blend of the distinctively Yoruba with the distinctly Christian myths that have often taken the tribal marks of one of its host languages in this part of the world. Every African influenced by Christianity has to make this into a synthesis sooner or later. Whether that synthesis is stable or not depends on a lot of things, most of which I probably do not know. For me, this involves encountering the Yoruba deities, in whatever way I can at this moment. I do not explicitly worship any. I might be leaning towards syncretisms, but nothing is definite, yet.
In view of a future, fuller synthesis, I want to put down thoughts on the Yoruba Cosmoi as I see it sketched out in the things I have read (inconsistently) over the past few years, particularly centering on Olodumare, Orunmila, and Obatala, although Osun is not far behind (and I consider her the breath animating this piece).
“Obatala approached the gods one by one.”
I would like to refrain from postulating or expounding on “the” Yoruba cosmos. I would rather say there are many open-ended Yoruba cosmoi. The notion of a unified homogenous tribe is a colonial and colonializing invention. There were many nations who can be called “Yoruba”, but the calcification of that “tribal” classification is partly due to the shock of colonial categorical violence, an attempted crashing diversity into a barren rock of homogeneity1. The repeating attempts in the historically “Yoruba” Nigerian states that seek a “national” identity based on a homogeneity of language, “culture”, and “tribe” simply reproduce this dynamic and further the lineage of its violence. Much has changed in the past few centuries, and even the past was not ideal. To move forward, to “raise the sky” again2, we need to see that such raising is supposed to give space, and not foreclose the possibility of radical difference, and even disagreement. We cannot move forward as Yorubas without the Igbos, the Hausas, the Tiv, the Ijaw, etc. We did not develop in isolation and we won’t be able to move forward without each other. Whatever political form this takes is irrelevant as long as it can ensure our justice, and our mercy, to one another. So, in speaking of the Yoruba Cosmoi, I would like to focus on particular myths, and their incompleteness, their limits that leave space for the other, and the radical multiplicity even within the myth.
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