ORÍKÌ ÒRÌSÃ: the Yoruba Prayer of Praise

Abstract

A recent article on prayer in traditional religion of Yoruba people of West Africa quotes with approval complaint made by Shorter in 1975 that insufficient attention has been given to prayers of African traditional religion generally. The writer goes on to treat of Yoruba petitionary prayer which he describes as the totality of Yoruba traditional prayer par excellence. 1 Prayer, of course, can be understood in narrow sense of requesting favours from beings belonging to suprasensible world. In its wider sense, however, it includes such sentiments as praise and thanksgiving. The purpose of present paper is to make a further contribution to study of Yoruba traditional prayer by considering in particular Yoruba prayer of praise. Yoruba praise-prayer is found at its most elaborate in communal worship of orisa. The orisa are deified remote ancestors and/or natural forces.2 These divinities have inspired lengthy hymns of praise which are among finest religious and literary products of Yoruba culture. The scale of this form of prayer can be judged from description of a ceremony for Sango, god of thunder, in Oyo Town, Nigeria. For whole duration of a procession in his honour a priestess chants his praises and continues to do so for some twenty minutes after it reaches palace of king.3 In this essay, basic concept, form and content of Yoruba praise hymns are first examined, then some attributes in hymns which are shared by many orisa are identified and, finally, complete text of one praise hymn is presented by way of illustration.