Yoruba Indigenous Medical Knowledge: A Study of the Nature, Dynamisms, and Resilience of Yoruba Medicine

Abstract

The Yoruba people, whose major homeland is southwestern Nigeria, are one of the major ethnic groups in Africa. They have a long history of highly sophisticated sociocultural and political systems. Like other ethnic groups in Africa, the Yoruba have an impressive system of indigenous medicine. The Yoruba indigenous forms of medical practices are still in existence up until today in spite of the influence of colonization, westernization, and modernization. The Yoruba medicine has its distinct nature, forms, and methods, and it has been very resilient to the imposed western medical system since the colonial period. Against this background, this paper examines the nature, forms, and methods of the traditional Yoruba medicine. The paper discovers that the traditional Yoruba medicine is typified by the use of herbs, roots, concoction, verbal incantations, and so on. It is also found out that among the Yoruba, health and religion are intertwined and therefore, the efficacy of Yoruba medicine is dependent on the approval of the Yoruba gods and goddesses (Orisha). In other words, important aspects of Yoruba medicine are belief system and spirituality. The paper concludes that, in spite of the great influence of modern western medicine, the Yoruba indigenous medicine is very resilient and it continues to play a vital role in the health management system among the Yoruba in contemporary Nigeria.