What were yorubas called before the 19th century (or what did Yorubas call themselves?)

I read in a book, recently that the term Yoruba was only began to be used in the 19th century, to indentify the major ethnic group in South Western Nigeria. Yorubas are called Lucumi in S. America but I still have no idea of what Yorubas called themselves before foriegn occupation, or did they always call themselves Yoruba.

Yorubas were initially refered to by Europeans as "Aku", but what were they refered to even before that?
The terms Nago, Anago and Nana were also used by Europeans to indentify yourubas, but this doesn;t answer my question. Then during the nineteenth century the terms Yoruba and Yoruba(This terms originated from Hausa words) came into usage

What were they called prior

Were they called awontowanisale-osi
Or awontogbesumosidahomey
Or simply yorubas
Or awonomo-oduduwa
Or ??

Surely Yorubas didn't identify themselevs by Hausa names prior to the 19th century
I am so confused, I have being researching and I haven't found anything.

well the yoruba called themselves omo odua of course

very good question and one I think many have not asked. My take on this is that the Yoruba did not see themselves as one unified people until recently so there was no overall description for us as such. As you stated the word Yoruba was allegedly coined by the Hausa although some scholars would beg to differ on this matter. I will look into this further and get back to you with either an answer or a point of reference for you to continue your research.

Nay_Low is right--there was no common name for all Yorubas before the 19th century. As with most major ethnic groups in Nigeria, they would have considered themselves as belonging to a city-state or what we think of as sub-ethnicities today--Oyos, Ifes, Egbas, Ijebus and so on. There was no need to have a larger group name, since they were politically independent areas with their own identities. The term Yoruba originally referred only to the people of Oyo, but literate Yorubas (mostly returnees from Sierra Leone who were of Oyo ancestry) like Rev. Samuel Johnson started to use the term to refer to all the people who could understand each other's dialects. In Sierra Leone, they called themselves 'Aku' because the greeting 'Eku ishe" was common to all Yoruba-speakers, so it was a way to identify themselves as ethnically-related amongst all the other groups. Yorubas began to feel a need to identify themselves as a single ethnic nationality because of the 19th century wars against the Fulani, which forced many people into slavery or to take refuge with neighboring groups. After many of these enslaved people were able to make their way back to Nigeria, they wanted to promote the same type of group unity at home that they had abroad. Educated Yorubas like Bishop Ajayi Crowther and Rev. Samuel Johnson consulted with Hausa historians, who were literate in Arabic and had books by Muslim scholars like Ahmed Baba that mentioned Oyo/Yorubas etc. They popularized the word as a description of the whole group in books like "History of the Yorubas".

There has been speculation that the term Yoruba is originally Hausa, as you said. It's likely that it's a version of the name for a northern Yoruba-speaking groups (Yagba or Oyo) that was adopted by the Hausa, just as the term Nago/Nagot in French-speaking West Africa/Brazil/Haiti is used for all Yorubas and adapted for the group name from one Yoruba-speaking group, the Anago. These Anagos were (and still are) from modern-day Benin Republic, and they were among the first Yoruba-speaking people in Brazil, so their ethnic name was used to refer to all people that spoke the same language. However, people still specified where exactly they were from by adding their sub-group name; an Ijebu would call him or herself Nago-Jebu, while one from Ketu would be Nago-Ketu etc.

To give a parallel from another part of the world, Italians considered themselves as citizens of independent city-states--Venetians, Milanese, Romans and so on--until the 1800s, even though they acknowledged their cultural and linguistic ties. Groups of young Italians in the early 19th century started promoting Italian unification to get the country out of the grip of Austrians, Napoleonic France, and other larger nations that had come into their territory, which is how the modern country of Italy was born in the late 1800s after a series of wars. The same thing can be said for countries like Germany and Greece that were formerly independent provinces, cities etc. and went through the same process of unification and developing a group name in the 19th century.

I heard the yorubas are meant to be called "omoluabi" or "omoluwabi" there this "yoruba" proffessor on t.v last week or so
heard yourba is a dirty word- just like "Nigger"

You just said the "Y" word, shame on you

I never thought about this before but its an interesting research.
I cant doubt the Hausa connection because yoruba's and Hausa's have intertwined history. Both of them claimed to be descendant of powerful princes from the middle east Oduduwa and Bayajidda. Myth has it that when Yoruba's were coming from the Middle East, some of them stopped somewhere in Northern Nigeria around Bornu to form the Kanuri tribe that is why they have similar tribal marks.
Old Oyo (Katunga) was formerly located somewhere between the modern Niger and Kebbi state. The two tribes have always intertraded for ages that is why some words in the two landuages are similar; Alafia-Lafia( Good health), Wahala (trouble) e.t.c
Infact in Hausa folklore it was said that Bayajjida had 7 children from his wife Hausa Bokwais(Kano, Rano, Zazzau, Gobir e.t.c)- similar to Youba mythology) and seven children from concubines Banza bokwais( Kebbi, Zamfara, Yoruba etc)

The bottom line is that I dont think the states(Oyo, Ijesha, Ekiti, Owu,Ijaiye e.t.c) then regarded themselves as independent despite the fact that they speak the same language

@xtycod,
Brov, U need serious attention. I suggest you turn yourself to the nearest psychiatrist hospital for help. Yaba is a good option if you are in Lagos. People please don't bother to reply him, he wants attention and we should not give it to him. This guy is a lunatic, he recently joined Nairaland and 75% of his comments has been racial slur targetted at Yorubas. He deserves no attention

@topic,
i am challenged by this discourse, but i think the question has been answered. The yorubas were different nations of egba, ijebu, oyo etc before colonisation

this is a really seriuos question to which no answer has previously been given.though I'm not Yoruba, I still recommend this research for all oher ethnic groups in Nigeria in our bid for TOTAL EMANCIPATION.

negroes, me thinks!

from fulani islamic scholars, the "Yoruba" was used to describe the hard fighting, and much ungovernable gangs to the west.
An edition of headliners (now out of print) the word was used to describe the army lead by "kurumi" who was the aare ona kankanfo (field marshal).

the term 'Yoruba' or the bastardisation yoruba means 'thugs of the south'. it was the term used by the Hausa's of the north who felt culturally superior to the ancient yorubas. they had good reason to feel superior, their culture had significantly been influenced by Arabs who were millions of miles ahead of africans in terms of develoment. Also, islam sort of taught hausa's to look down on all non muslims as inferior infidels


the yorubas didnt regard themselves as a unit and so had no name to refer to themselves as a group. they recognised a common ancestor though; and refered to themselves as omo oduduwa or children of oduduwa.

Seun, are you there?

this is a very challenging topic,
it's worth researching into,
think i'll also go and search some history books,
although i learnt they were called "yoobas" before called Yorubas

but one thing is i believe that the language is what is used to identify the people
and not the geographical location
hence, the Ijesha, Egba, Oyo, Ibadan Ife etc,
had there different names but all knew
themselves as Yorubas owing to their language.

@xtycod, sorry,  u aint relevant, sorry

@walelead, nice response

I Guess its ANAGO.

Theres a fantastic write-up @ http://www.yorubanation.org/Yoruba.htm,

Cheers

Great question?

yeah man . kudos to you. i've been wanting to know more about my roots

The word Yoruba was coined by Ahmed Baba of the defunct Songhai empire but popularised by Hausa scholars. The ancient Oyo were the first to be referred to as Yoruba by the Fulani and the Hausa who regarded them as remnants of the children of canaan or Berbers. The other subgroups referred to the Oyo as Yoruba. For instance Ogedengbe Agbogungboro never considered himself as Yoruba. He was an Ijesha general at war with the Yoruba. This was thesame for the Ijebu and etc.

The whole group was however conscious of their common Ife heritage. They were all children of thesame ancestors but not all Yoruba.

history stuff

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The Yoruba and the States of Ife and Oyo

The Yoruba-speaking people of southwestern Nigeria are heirs both to an ancient and cultured civilization, and a tragic history. Yoruba culture is known for its artistic triumphs, extraordinary oral literature, complex pantheon of gods, and urban lifestyle. Yet, it is also a civilization which sent millions of its men, women and children to the Americas as slaves. Their numbers and cultural impact were so great that their religion and culture have remained important in modern Brazil and Cuba, and are found today in the cities of the eastern United States. This combination of cultural triumph and human tragedy makes the Yoruba experience one of the most fascinating subjects of historical study in Africa.

The world, say traditions of the Yoruba people, began at Ife, a city of great historical and religious significance in the heart of Yoruba country. The earth was completely covered with water, these traditions tell us, when the Creator, Olodumare, equipped a party of messengers with five pieces of iron, a lump of soil, and a chicken. The party found a site where they could set down the iron, place the soil on it, and allow the chicken to begin spreading the soil with its feet. From this beginning, farm land spread across the world. 

While the precise date of initial human settlement in Yoruba country remains unknown, many historians find in these traditions important aspects of early Yoruba history. First, Yoruba tradition can be forgiven for having seen the beginning of Yoruba culture as the creation of the world, for Yoruba culture is indeed old. The language of the Yoruba separated from that of some of their nearest neighbors at least 5000 years ago; from their linguistically most closely-related neighbors, the Igala, they separated 2000 years ago. (The relatively close linguistic relationship between Yoruba and Igala has led some scholars to suggest that Yoruba country may have been settled by migrants who came from the region where the Igala now live, near the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers.)

Yoruba traditions remind us that farmland was not merely discovered, but was created by agriculturists, and that iron-working must have played a crucial role in its creation. Surely the great achievement of early Yoruba-speaking communities was carving open spaces for farming out of the forests which dominate most of Yoruba country. Probably as long as 2000 years ago, Yoruba agriculturists were already using iron tools. Early farmers would have relied upon the varieties of yams and cocoyams indigenous to West Africa. By about 2000 years ago, farmers would have begun to adopt plantains (bananas) which, having been brought to East Africa from Malaysia, were spreading across the continent.

Just as the evidence available to historians allows them to say relatively little about when and how farming peoples occupied the forests of southwestern Nigeria, so too they are not certain about their early political development. Some historians have suggested that the oldest political communities were villages, and that villages consolidated together to form states. Yoruba traditions, however, speak about the diffusion of kingship from Ife not only throughout Yoruba country, but also to neighboring regions, including Benin (see below). They say that it was the sons of Oduduwa, the leader of the group sent by the Creator to establish land, who dispersed and created kingdoms.

These traditions have led historians to wonder whether they mean that Ife, the place where Oduduwa settled, was also the site of the first Yoruba kingdom. Scholars have long known that besides occupying a central place in Yoruba cosmology, Ife has had great symbolic importance in Yoruba politics. Even though Ife has not in recent centuries held political and military power, one of the ways in which a Yoruba leader won legitimacy in the eyes of subjects and fellow kings was by gaining recognition as a "son" of the king of Ife. Thus the king of Ife was considered the "father" of all legitimate Yoruba kings.

Yet, only in recent decades has archaeological research established the antiquity of Ife beyond doubt. Artifacts from Ife have shown that it has been occupied at least since the 6th century, and that from the 9th to 12th centuries it was "a settlement of substantial size," with houses featuring potsherd pavement. From this period date some of the terracotta sculptures and bronze castings which among students of African art are synonymous with Ife. The most famous Ife terracottas, which are believed to date from the 12th to the 14th centuries, along with the great bronze castings of the 14th and 15th centuries, mark the culmination of an artistic tradition at Ife which was several centuries old.

The study of Ife¹s famous Œbronze¹ castings has reminded historians about the importance of trade in Yoruba history. Finding that the so-called Œbronzes" are in fact composed of either brass or copper, scholars have been led to wonder about the source of the copper used by the artisans of Ife. They have speculated that copper may have reached Ife through trade routes extending to northwest Africa or central Europe. More recently, however, historians have realized that copper may have reached Ife from nearby deposits in southern Nigeria. If so, this would mean that copper was one of the many items, along with cloth, kola nuts, palm oil, fish, and many other goods, which were traded not only among the Yoruba themselves, but also between the Yoruba and their neighbors. 

Trade was also a crucial factor in one of the most important political developments in Yoruba history: the rise of the kingdom of Oyo. A settlement at Oyo, which is located in the far north of Yorubaland, already existed about 1100 A.D. It appears to have developed into a small kingdom in the late 14th or early 15th century. Some Yoruba traditions say that Oyo was founded by Oranyan, the son or grandson of Oduduwa; other traditions say that Oyo was founded by Sango, who became the Yoruba god of Thunder and Lightning. Whomever was responsible, its emergence as the dominant political power in Yorubaland occurred in the 17th century, and was hastened by Oyo¹s acquisition of horses. Undoubtedly the horses came to Oyo from savannah and Sahel regions to the north. Oyo traded various goods, including kola nuts and palm products, in return for horses and salt.

Using horses to create cavalry forces, the rulers of Oyo conquered much of Yorubaland in the 17th century, and expanded their empire to its greatest extent when, between 1730 and 1748, they forced the powerful state of Dahomey to the west of Yorubaland to become their tributary. Oyo also took control of the seacoast between Whydah and Badagry, and expanded trade with Europeans. Its merchants sold slaves to Europeans in return for cloth and other goods. Sadly, as exports of slaves from Oyo reached about 20,000 per year between 1680 and 1730, this portion of the West African coast became known as the "Slave Coast."

The empire of Oyo collapsed during the first two decades of the 19th century. The increase of slave-holding likely played an important role. Enslavement had undoubtedly increased as slave trading expanded to meet European demand, and slave-holding probably increased further as a result of the British decision in 1807 to outlaw slave trading, for the gradual decline of European demand reduced the price of slaves, bringing them within the means of local purchasers. The increasing importance of slavery may have helped cause a revolt by an important military commander named Afonja in 1823. Afonja won support by appealing to Oyo¹s enslaved population. A 19th-century history of the Yoruba described Alfonja¹s rebellion in this way: "All the Hausa slaves in the adjacent towns hitherto employed as barbers, rope-makers and cowherds, now deserted their masters and flocked to Ilorin under the standard of AfonjaŠ and were protected against their masters.

With the collapse of Oyo, Yorubaland plunged into protracted warfare, leaving a landscape of ruined towns and huge numbers of refugees and captives. Perhaps 500,000 people migrated from the savannahs of the north, formerly the most densely populated portion of Yorubaland, to the forests and coastal areas of the south, where they founded new towns such as Ibadan and Abeokuta. This catastrophe may have prompted interest in new faiths. Christianity became important during the 19th century, and Abeokuta became the center of Yoruba Christianity. Its spread was largely the work of formerly enslaved Yoruba who returned home from Brazil and Sierra Leone. Internal conflict, however, prevented resistance against European colonial conquest. The British established a protectorate over the port of Lagos in 1861, and forced Ibadan to accept a resident administrator in 1893. Colonialism began a process which eventually would integrate Yorubaland into the Nigerian nation. http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/history/giblinstate.html#yoruba

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offtopic: I just found out that yorubas "exhibit the highest twinning rate in the world." I'm not surprised. I was even starting to wonder why i know so many taiwos and kehindes

"After the Fulani Jihad and the fall of the empire of the city state of Oyo in 1818, there was a huge flight of refugees from the savannah regions of western Nigeria southward. Oyo, which had previously been the strongest Empire between Ghana and Cameroun, demanded tribute from neighboring vassal Kingdoms in items of western manufacture (guns, beads, cloth) which were mainly obtained by selling slaves to western traders. When Oyo fell, those vassals - particularly the Gbe speaking Fon of Dahomey - went to town selling Oyo refugees to the Portuguese. Those refugees were the key populations that founded the town of Abeokuta (which successfully turned back the Fulani/Hausa invasions) and swelled the small coastal town of Eko into the sprawling monster we now know as Lagos (which comes from the Yoruba "Ni Eko," where elided 'ni' becomes 'l') Christianity was adopted by many Yoruba at this time, and led to the rapid and widespread adoption of Yoruba as a written language, spreading the use of the term "Yoruba" to generically refer to the language of Oyo as the central "literary" dialect.

It was around that time (1815-1860) that people began referring to themselves generically as "Yoruba" whereas previously they would have reffered to themselves by the name of their kingdoms, such as Oyo, Ijebu, Ondo, Ife, etc. Brazilian and Spanish slaveships were intercepted by the British Navy, and their cargo of slaves were set ashore in Sierra Leone. The Yoruba speakers there referred to themselves as "Aku" which comes from the basic Yoruba greeting "E ku se?" (How's it going?)

Yorubas in the new world generally referred to themselves by their origin such as "Nagos" in Brazil and Haiti (Anago western Yoruba from Dahomey) and Ilesha (Ijesa) in Brazil, Ketu in Jamaica. In Cuba the term "Lucumi" derives from the Youruba for "my friend" "Oluko mi."

The British Navy - ever resourceful - did not offer the freed slaves in Sierra Leone passage back to Nigeria, but signed up thousands on twenty year indenturments to go to Trinidad, Guyana, and other Caribean colinies as labor, a practice that continued into the 1860s. Many of the communities which continued speaking Yoruba into the twentieth century descended from these indentured laborers, who already were referring to themsleves as "Yarriba" in Trinidad and Guyana."
http://www.languagehat.com/archives/002354.php

"the Ahmed Baba reference is the earliest to use the term "Yoruba" in print, but I have not heard any etymological comment on the possibility of its derivation from the Yagba and Yauri, two of the most northernmost groups that fall under the Yoruba ethnic identity. Baba's treatise referred to groups that Muslims were permitted to raid for enslavement in West Africa, and these northernmost groups would have been closest to Hausa and/or Fulani dealers. The ethnonym may have then been expanded to cover all speakers of a similiar language."

"A point of interest that is worth mentioning here is that the origin of the name ‘Yoruba’ has been traced to Arabic writers such as Ahmad Bābā (d. 1627) in his Mi'rāj al-su'ūd and Muhammad Bello (d. 1837) in his Infāq al-maysūr, both of whom were reportedly among the earliest to name this people ‘yarba’ or ‘yaruba’ or ‘Yoruba’ (y-r-b) at a time when they were still referring to themselves by their diverse ethnic identities. The earliest references to them by the British was as akus or eyeo."

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/002354.php

The Yorubas do not have a unified identity as at that time. I know d Ijebus were called Jebusites in the Bible and they were the leading light of the Yoruba nation.

the term 'Yoruba' or the bastardisation yoruba means 'thugs of the south'. it was the term used by the Hausa's of the north who felt culturally superior to the ancient yorubas. they had good reason to feel superior, their culture had significantly been influenced by Arabs who were millions of miles ahead of africans in terms of develoment. Also, islam sort of taught hausa's to look down on all non muslims as inferior infidels


the yorubas didnt regard themselves as a unit and so had no name to refer to themselves as a group. they recognised a common ancestor though; and refered to themselves as omo oduduwa or children of oduduwa.

The Arabs are not culturally superior to anyone, as no culture is superior to any other. The Arabs had the best medicine of the time, but that was basically one of the few things they boasted of at the time. Anyways I think if the Yoruba were indeed called Anago, prior to the 19th century then I would love eo refer to myself as an Anago.

But one thing that must be realised is that before foriegn occupation, the people that occupied present day Nigeria hated each other more than the do today, there was bloodshed everywhere, it didn't matter wether you spoke the same language or not if your village was far away then you were a stranger and the enemy. Yorubas probably didn't see themselves as an ethnic group, they were killing themselves as were other tribes in Nigeria. I think it will boil down to which name was used to indentify the people that occupied south western Nigeria initially. I don't think Yorubas saw each other as one people

This is so Interesting !
Nice topic and responses.

God Bless " YORUBA (S)"
Cheers

@dblock
i never said the hausas were superior,  i said they FELT superior, and the fact that they were more developed (due to arabic influence) reinforced the feelings of superiority and thts y they refered to the people in the south as 'Yoruba', thugs of the south, or 'our uncouth neighbours to the south',

@ wesleyan A

informative writeup, but your sourceascribed blame of the slave trade to the yorubas,  thats a classical case of the whiteman rewriting history. True, yoruba warlords sold off warcaptives to whitemen as slaves, they also could be quite cruel and inhuman in their feelings to their captives, but the yoruba concept of slavery was a million times more human than the western idea of slavery. most of these warlords had absolutely no idea what horrible fates lay in store for the slaves they sold,

the narrative is also a little simplistic, the writer obviously is unaware of the complex political intrigues that led to the war between afonja of ilorin and the alaafin. i suggest 'a history of the yorubas' by samuel johnson (an ex yoruba slave who live din the 19th century), its the last authority on yoruba history

Makes one proud to know ones history. i guess this is why the Yoruba have always been so philosophical and diplomatic. The fact that yoruba is also spoken worldwide not only in Africa, South America, Cuba and Porto Rico. history has it that the people now refered to as the untouchables in India were reported to have migrated from the West African area now populated by the Yoruba.
Great topic fellas, keep it up.
On a more serios note though, I am dismayed to find that most children now born in Nigeria to Yoruba speaking parents can hardly speak the language. In the name of education, advancement or whatever you call it, the parent prefer to converse with their children only in English. This brothers and sisters has a consequence in which our children relegate our culture and language to a second class citizen class and inferior to the English language. This has helped killed the Aztec and Incas of South America, where their descendants only speak Spanish now.
I cannot stress it enpough that we have to protest our culture and also expand and expound it among our children.
I have also discovered whenever I travel to Nigeria that one of the languages hardly spoken by the children (of which I am one) is Ijebu and therefore one of the languages I am afraid will die out. What a shame, a very sad one. We as Yoruba people and its many sub-cultures have to protect our rich heritage.

Bankole01:

I have also discovered whenever I travel to Nigeria that one of the languages hardly spoken by the children (of which I am one) is Ijebu and therefore one of the languages I am afraid will die out. What a shame, a very sad one.

that's very true. . i'm one too

Yoruba is claimed by some historians to be an Hausa word describing the Oyo people i.e a corrupted form of Oyo Eru Oba to describe the relationship between the people and the King.

Yoruba were a Migrating people and the question to ask next will be - Who are the Aborigines of the Yorubas .
It may possibly be the Igbos and Mitochodrial DNA research may actually be able to tell us that we are all related and then put a stop to ethnic bickerings.

The Masquerade that Moremi found the secret of is actually an Igbo Masquerade.

good one folem, 'Moremi' Igbo masqurade indeed!. What you have just told preposterous tale.

Yoruba History/ Yorubas in the Diaspora

The Yoruba People, of whom there are more than twenty-five million, occupy the southwestern corner of Nigeria along the Dahomey border and extends into Dahomey itself. To the east and north the Yoruba culture reaches its approximate limits in the region of the Niger River. However ancestral cultures directly related to the Yoruba once flourished well north of the Niger.

Portuguese explorers "discovered" the Yoruba cities and kingdoms in the fifteenth century, but cities such as Ife and Benin, among others, had been standing at their present sites for at least five hundred years before the European arrival. Archeological evidence indicates that a technologically and artistically advanced, proto-Yoruba (Nok), were living somewhat north of the Niger in the first millennium B.C., and they were then already working with iron.

Ifa theology states that the creation of humankind arose in the sacred city of Ile Ife where Oduduwa created dry land from water. Much later on an unknown number of Africans migrated from Mecca to Ile Ife. At this point the Eastern Africans and Western Africans synergized.

Ife was the first of all Yoruba cities. Oyo and Benin came later and grew and expanded as a consequence of their strategic locations at a time when trading became prosperous. Ife, unlike Benin and Oyo, never developed onto a true kingdom. But though it remained a city-state it had paramount importance to Yoruba's as the original sacred city and the dispenser of basic religious thought.

Until relatively recent times the Yoruba's did not consider themselves a single people, but rather as citizens of Oyo, Benin, Yagba and other cities, regions or kingdoms. These cities regarded Lagos and Owo, for example, as foreign neighboors, and the Yoruba kingdoms warred not only against the Dahomeans but also against each other. The name Yoruba was applied to all these linguistically and culturally related peoples by their northern neighbors, the Hausas.

The old Yoruba cities typically were urban centers with surrounding farmlands that extended outward as much as a dozen miles or more. Both Benin and Oyo are said to have been founded by Ife rulers or descendants of Ife rulers. Benin derived its knowledge of brass casting directly from Ife, and the religious system of divining called Ifa spread from Ife not only throughout the Yoruba country but to other West African cultures as well. A common Yoruba belief system dominated the region from the Niger, where it flows in an easterly direction, all the way to the Gulf of Guinea in the south.

It is no accident that the Yoruba cultural influence spread across the Atlantic to the Americas. European slave hunters violently captured and marched untold millions of Africans to their demise on over crowded slave ships bound for the Americas. Slave wars launched by the kingdom of Dahomey against some of the Yoruba kingdoms, and slave wars between the Yoruba's themselves made war casualty Africans available for transportation to the Americas. Yoruba slaves were sent to British, French, Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the New World, and in a number of these places Yourba traditions survived strongly. In Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, and Trinidad, Yoruba religious rites, beliefs, music and myths is evident even at this late day. In Haiti the Yoruba's were generally called Anagos. Afro-Haitian religious activities give Yoruba rites and beliefs an honored place, and the pantheon includes numerous deities of Yoruba origin. In Brazil, Yoruba religious activities are called Anago or Shango, and in Cuba they are designated Lucumi.

Slavery in the United States was quite different from other colonized regions. In the U.S. chattel type slavery was the means where the language and culture was whipped and beat out of the African captives. In the U.S. throughout the Diaspora, the African generally received the death penalty for practicing his or her birthright. Today the religion has undergone a phenomenal surge in popularity and interest. Santeria, the adaptation of Yoruba and Ifa with Catholicism, came to the states first with Puerto Ricans in the forties and fifties and then with the flood of Cuban refugees in the sixties. In all of these places mentioned above, the pantheon of major Yoruba deities has survived virtually intact, along with a complex of rites, beliefs, music, dances and myths of Yoruba origin.

In resent years, availability of attainable air travel has enabled African Americans to go back to the essence from which this great culture derived (Africa) and gather the information needed to teach and assist others. Places like Oyotunji village in Beaufort South Carolina, DOYA (Descendants of the Yoruba in America) foundation in Cleveland OH, Ile Ori Ifa Temple in Atlanta GA, and African Paridise in Grffin GA where Yoruba culture and religion is still practiced, are just a few of many locations that offer a place to reclaim the religion of self awarness, inner strength, inner peace and unlimited power for our evolution.

Fa'lofin

folem:

Yoruba is claimed by some historians to be an Hausa word describing the Oyo people i.e a corrupted form of Oyo Eru Oba to describe the relationship between the people and the King.

Yoruba were a Migrating people and the question to ask next will be - Who are the Aborigines of the Yorubas .
It may possibly be the Igbos and Mitochodrial DNA research may actually be able to tell us that we are all related and then put a stop to ethnic bickerings.

The Masquerade that Moremi found the secret of is actually an Igbo Masquerade.

This is too far fetched to be true. Is folem conttributing or disparaging? hmmm i wonder

simmy:

@dblock
i never said the hausas were superior, i said they FELT superior, and the fact that they were more developed (due to arabic influence) reinforced the feelings of superiority and thts y they refered to the people in the south as 'Yoruba', thugs of the south, or 'our uncouth neighbours to the south',

@ wesleyan A

informative writeup, but your sourceascribed blame of the slave trade to the yorubas, thats a classical case of the whiteman rewriting history. True, yoruba warlords sold off warcaptives to whitemen as slaves, they also could be quite cruel and inhuman in their feelings to their captives, but the yoruba concept of slavery was a million times more human than the western idea of slavery. most of these warlords had absolutely no idea what horrible fates lay in store for the slaves they sold,

Both of these are myths and what linguists call false etymologies (sometimes folk etymologies). That's when the original meaning of a word has been forgotten and people try to make sense of it through guesses. Why would a supposedly Hausa word meaning 'slaves of the king' be explained using a Yoruba translation (Oyo-eru-Oba)? I'm familiar with the Internet source of this story and t's not something that any legitimate historian would endorse.

Neither did Hausas arbitrarily name people, especially when Yoruba are not directly to the south of Hausa-speakers. Nupes, Baribas, and other Middle Belt groups are south of the Hausa, and fought long wars against the expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate. So did other Middle Belters like Idomas. Why weren't they also called 'thugs of the south'? Hausa mythology considered Oyo to be related to the Hausa states (specificially the city of Yauri) through the myth of the Hausa bakwai, as someone already mentioned. This was probably for economic reasons, since Oyo was a major trading city-state between the savannah land of the north and the forests of the south. There are similarities between some Oyo markings and some northern groups like the Kanuri, however.

I think the following theory explains the source of the word 'Yoruba' and why it became widely accepted in English-speaking West Africa. It's not the only possibility, but it makes a lot of sense. The similarity between the word 'Yoruba' and the ethnic name 'Oyo' are not coincidental. When Hausas want to describe the inhabitants of a place, they add the suffix 'wa' to the end of the place name. Hence, people from Bornu are Bornuwa, all Hausas are Hausawa etc. It's equivalent to adding the suffix "ian", i.e. Lagosians, Indians and so on. It's possible that the word "Yoruba" is an English version of the Hausa term "Oyo-wa" or "Yowa", i.e. 'people of Oyo'. The Oyo empire was the largest political entity in the Yoruba-speaking area and one of the largest in West Africa during its height, so it would have been the best known city-state to northerners. This origin has been forgotten in Hausa today, probably because the -wa ending was transcribed into English as 'ba'. Phonetic English transcription 'errors' like this are common in Nigerian history--Urhobo was written in English script as Sobo, Izon/Ijaw was spelled Ijo, Itsekiri was spelled Jekri, Igbo was Eboe or Ibo and so on. Oyo-wa or Yowa was likely to have been spelled as "Yoruba" using the English alphabet.

Where did the 19th century Yoruba historians find this compound Oyo-Hausa term? In history books by Muslim scholars like Ahmed Baba. Muslim written history on West Africa goes back to 1000 AD through the tarikhs al-Sudan, much further than European sources, which made them the best historical source for West Africa at that time. It was a conscious choice on the part of pioneering Oyo historians like Samuel Johnson and Ajayi Crowther (even though they were converted Christian missionaries) to adopt the term 'Yoruba' from these sources, which they learned from studying the histories of literate Hausas. The Oyo missionaries knew that the word 'Yoruba' was synonymous with 'Oyo, and it's likely that they thought it would be less offensive to other sub-groups like the Egba or Ijebu if they used a somewhat 'foreign' term to describe the whole group. It's the same rationale (good or bad) that prompted the use of the foreign language of English as the official 'Nigerian' language; it prevents the major or minor ethnic nationalities from feeling dominated by another one.

Through its use in books and by missionaries trained by Ajayi Crowther and co., the term spread to encompass all the other speakers of the same language. As the first group of Nigerians to embrace Western education in large numbers, they wanted to create a cohesive national identity that could be compared to the classical nations like ancient Greece, which were also made up of individual city-states. It took some time though, as Lawani mentioned. People like the Ijesa general Ogendenge and his Ekitiparapo army fighting the Ibadan army (mostly of Oyo ancestry) considered the terms 'Oyo' and 'Yoruba' interchangable even until the late 19th century, and would not have used the word to describe themselves. In the end though, the educated missionaries won out. Today, they are all described as 'Yoruba'.

folem:

Yoruba is claimed by some historians to be an Hausa word describing the Oyo people i.e a corrupted form of [b]Oyo Eru Oba to describe the relationship between the people and the King.
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Yoruba were a Migrating people and the question to ask next will be - Who are the Aborigines of the Yorubas .
It may possibly be the Igbos and Mitochodrial DNA research may actually be able to tell us that we are all related and then put a stop to ethnic bickerings.

The Masquerade that Moremi found the secret of is actually an Igbo Masquerade.

This is another case of folk etymology (see above) turning into internet myth. Yorubas and Igbos are certainly related (along with Edos, Efiks, Igalas etc.--don't think mDNA's really needed to show that), but not in the way you think. Yoruba and Igbo belong to the same language family along with most southern Nigerian languages. They are related in the same way French and Spanish or Portuguese and Italian are related to Latin, and many of the words have the same meaning. "Forest" in English is "foret" in French, "bush" in English is "bosque" in Spanish. In the same way, the word "Igbo" in Yoruba means "bushes" and/or "forest", and I believe "Ugbo" in Igbo means the same thing. The "Igbo" people described in the Moremi myth literally means "forest people", meaning people from outside the city of Ife who eventually intermarried into the city's population. It does not describe the modern ethnic group called "Igbo", the majority of whom did not use that word to describe themselves until the 19th century anyway. As with the Ijebu, Egba, Ketu etc., "Igbos" considered themselves citizens of Aro, Nri, Aboh, Nkwerre etc. according to their independent village/clan group network. There are studies on this subject too--if people are interested, we can talk about it in a new thread on Igbo origins.

In French-speaking West Africa (particularly Republic of Benin), the ethnic name for what we would call Yoruba speakers is 'Nago', and it developed through a similiar process. The Anago are a "Yoruba" subgroup in the region, and their ethnic name was expanded by the French and the Fon people (the ethnic majority in Benin Republic) to describe all people speaking the same language. It's also the term common in Brazil and Haiti to describe "Yoruba" culture and religion, probably because the earliest Yoruba people in those countries came from the area of this sub-group in Benin Republic and Togo.

Teracotta, your post is very detailed and quite true but what are your thoughts on the actual question;  What Were Yorubas Called Before The 19th Century.

To tell you the truth I strongly believe that there must have being a common name, though it would probably not have been used as an everyday term. A term such as Awaloduwa or ifenwa might have being used. Yorubas lived in different villages/cities but they shared a common religion(at least that's what it says in the books), and they all believed that they were descendant from Oduduwa, hence they might have refered to themselves; "descendants of oduduwa" or something similar. Most of Nigeria history isn't preserved in regular historic books or scrolls but in songs, poems and stories. These stories are still being told today. I think the secret to unravelling the answer to this mystery is in stories. The evidence found would not be pragmatic, but it couldn't be overlooked

Historians, Tell us more.