Governmentality, Modernity and the Historical Politics of Ọ̀yọ́-Hegemony in Yorùbá Transnational Revivalism

Abstract

Keywords: history, power, geotemporality, race, Yoruba, [Symbol Not Transcribed]Oy[Symbol Not Transcribed]otunji, African villageRed blood splattered throughout the oval-shaped room. Robed in his best African clothes and by pulling the trigger of a borrowed shotgun, one of [Symbol Not Transcribed]Oy[Symbol Not Transcribed]otunji's young men had fallen to his death. The news of the suicide rang throughout the community. His last words inscribed on paper expressed how much he tried and wanted them to be proud of him, how much he hurt and how much he could not deal with the addictions that haunted him, how much he continued to fail those who he loved the most. His solution saddened the residents as they scrambled to explain how it could have happened, wishing that they had only paid more attention to the signs; if only they had tried harder. The lack of experience dealing with death in [Symbol Not Transcribed]Oy[Symbol Not Transcribed]otunji, a three generation-old community, left residents with a numbing powerlessness and malevolent curiosity about how the leaders would deal with a life taken in this way.The emotional inclination of many, regardless of the cause of death, was to honour with a special ritual the life of their friend and brother in the religion. During the first few hours members of the [Symbol Not Transcribed]Oy[Symbol Not Transcribed]otunji community scurried in search of the appropriate ritual procedure. They called the city of Beauport authorities, consulted the ancestors through the use of divinatory rituals, telephoned knowledgeable practitioners outside of [Symbol Not Transcribed]Oy[Symbol Not Transcribed]otunji, and consulted various historical texts in which Yoruba were documented. Although in the midst of a crisis, they not only sought the advice of their ancestors by conducting divination readings to determine the course of action, but they conducted literary research in search of the protocol of traditional burial practices among the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria who committed suicide.Over the course of the development of the black cultural nationalist movement, as it moved from Harlem, New York to South Carolina, African Americans disillusioned with Christianity converted to Yoruba practices in an attempt to revive their African past. At the beginning of bi-weekly town meetings and other formal events, in an attempt to enact the social, religious and political life of Yoruba ancestors, [Symbol Not Transcribed]Oy[Symbol Not Transcribed]otunji revivalists have attempted to recreate their understanding of Yoruba cultural practices by educating themselves about Yoruba history and cultural practices. This has ranged from pursuing ritual apprenticeships, learning the divinatory corpus, attending workshops about Yoruba cultural practices and reading and studying texts about the history of African peoples. Most of the texts that document Yoruba traditional practices and are used in [Symbol Not Transcribed]Oy[Symbol Not Transcribed]otunji today were published prior to 1955. These include various early 20th century Yoruba revivalist classics such as Samuel Johnson's The History of the Yoruba and N.A. Fadipe's The Sociology of the Yoruba. These texts form the source of knowledge for African American ancestral history and despite the apparent stability of these written historical forms, Yoruba revivalists participate in shaping norms of acceptability by basing their terms of practice on renditions of those accounts.Despite the attempts of various leaders within the community to focus on historical customs and traditions documented in Yoruba history texts, the friends and relatives of the deceased who lived in [Symbol Not Transcribed]Oy[Symbol Not Transcribed]otunji mourned the loss of their compatriot. Disappointed in the traditionalist prohibitions against suicide, they disputed the actual relevance of applying Yoruba funeral rites in present day circumstances. …