₦airaland Forum

The thingy in front looks like a lighthouse.

It is, but of a different kind!

ileke, quite a while, I will try. .

Gele aso oke adorned with red flowers
Yeti (earring) and ileke orun (necklace, not ileke idi o )
Buba lace (top)
ipele (shoulder cloth)
Abebe (fan)
oruka (ring)
iro aso oke (wrapper)

O ya score me.

Oludashmi, I tip my hat to you, don't mind Ileke, u get it all. In fact she owed you some credit points for future test.

I will add the following: apon b'epo re, el'eyinju ege, aya wunmi, ibadi aran. If she had a gapped tooth like Ileke then we ca say "eji wunmi", but she's not as gorgeous as ileke so she's missing that attribute.

ileke. . .

Israelites are fighting Palestinians suicide bomber on a different manner, it will be more easy to fight terrorist when you are in a separate country,then I.D checks and border control will come in effective.
Living in the same country with terrorist makes it very difficult to handle.Look at Pakistan,Iraq, Afghanistan even with NATO and US marines terrorist still kill people in thousand in Kabul

BS!!  AK47, it's time you lead the way and show your Yoruba how to be brave!!  We are cowards, you are brave. . . . give us a demonstration of bravery!

Tell BH not to touch the women and their babies or Oduduwa will descend from the sky again, this time bringing Shango and Ogun with him to their rescue and to annihilate anything that has goro stained teeth or gum.  Leave the women and their babies untouched!

Maroc,

Thanks for your effort, but NL does not have medical insurance to cover for audience neck injuries.

Great coverage but make it easy on our necks next time. There are certain views I will break my neck to catch a glance of, railtracks is never one of them.

Igbo/Ibo, which one is correct? I heard someone suggested a while back that it was a adulteration of Hebrew. So which is correct, Igbo/Ibo/Hebrew?

On the statistics question, everything conected with Igbo population is always in millions. So how many millions are fleeing or are attacked? The higher the number the better in case a letter need to be written after the fact to tell UN about atrocities and genocide.

Anonymous,

That's a beautiful piece. I wonder how many of these arts are held in museums and private collections by people who have no clue of their values or the meaning in them. Europeans should stop whining about 419 scammers that empty their banks. . . . . they looted our arts ad cultural artifacts and are still adamant on holding onto it.

That means they will one day hold office as governor.

After they shed the blood of Oduduwa enemies, Yes!

Expand your reasonig my friend. Ile-Ife could have been the recreation in Nigeria of a pre-existed one in the East.

Birmingham, Alabama is a recreation for the one in England. Cambridge, Massachussetts is a recreation, Kentucky is a recreation.

In fact, Lagos in Nigeria is a recreation for the one in Portugal.

Eze, the ones in Lagos are already conditioned to see West as their surrogate home and political shelter. It's an incremental psychological re-orientation. In few more years their naturalized children ad grand children will spit at you if you dare call them Igbo.

Good point Malstrom.

Some of us are conditioned to automatically equate the AfroAsia of Yoruba civilization to the AfroAsia of today ad its demography. So when they hear Yoruba is from AfroAsia, they cannot accept that AfroAsia in those ages were populated ad ruled by Negros. Some automatically think you are saying Yoruba is from moder day Arabs or even Jews. When you put Yoruba arts up and ask them to explain why the image has an ephod or a breastplate or a sun disk, they keep silent.

Our forefathers passed on information down the line in oral instruction, in arts and as well in rituals. Our oral history, our arts ad our rituals, all speak in harmony and point only in one direction as our origin. That origin is AfroAsia and is proto semitic - Egypt/Canaan/Yemen/Saba/Sudan.

Ile-Ife is very important to our history and is mentioned in Odu Ifa but has anyone thought about Ile-Ife in Nigeria being a rename? Ife could have very well existed as a name or place in the East and when they settled in tropical Africa the Yorubas once again recreated the name and sanctified the land we now call Ile-Ife in Nigeria.

In fact how does one explain the match between the following places and its correspondence with the progeny of Abraham: Ketu, Offa, Ife, Nok, Bida ?

Keturah was Abraham's third wife and bore him Midian who fathered five children - Epha, Epher, Enoch, Abida and Eldaah.

Hausa and Yoruba haven't always worn flowing robes like Agbada

That's not true. You don't know the history so dont go into that alley.

I've watched the argument back and forth on this topic.  I don't even think I need to come in annd give backgroud on Yoruba traditional garments and its origin.

It's true Igbo have the right to wear what they want, that freedom of choice does not in any way invalidate the point here; the style, craft and custom of agbada and its accustomed hat for men and gele and pakaja for women are Yoruba cultural identity.  If Igbo dress in these same attire then it's copied from Yoruba.

Beaf, you are into war affairs these days, eh? Have you lost your trust and confidence in GEJ's ability to govern, what's going on bro?

Beside that's a patrol boat! What doesNigeria need a war boat for, who is our enemy?

Amor4ce,

Oh trust me, I know! I wasn't cutting back in my response to you, I piggybacked on your comment. You said the right thing!

Yoruba women are exotic!

Two-storey high gele,
rose-petalled gele,
phantom-stacked gele,
the black one,
the pink one,
the fuscia,
the brown,
the yellow,
the blue one,
the indigo,
the purple gele,
the red one,
the gold labalaba-winged gele,

Oh my God, ileke, no one does it like una!

Hey, Kasiem, I still dey. . . i dey hop here and there depending where grapevine tell me there is palava.

How have u been?

I realize this a Ghanaian perspective and as it says about the “black race”. What I dislike is this notion that being African is synonymous with being black. Africa is a geographical location. It’s not a race or ethnic group. There are Arabs, Berbers and whites amongst others. When someone talks about “black Africans”, then they are referring to the black people of Africa. When they say “Africans” that means all of us. Not recognizing this only leads to further division when we should be striving for unity.

sa lassie,

It is very easy for you to just throw that out here. It is insultive1 I find it very demeaning and insultive that you will be asking Black Africans to yield and accomodate everyone as all Africans. In North Africa, and even in East Africa, people of light skin are quick to identify themselves as separate and different from the black skinned African.

Africa, from Egypt to Morrocc, all down to South Africa, are all Black land. The light skinned Africans should be desirous and agitating for our acceptance and approval, they should be rolling and stepping over one aother to be identified as Black. . . they should be striving to mix blood with the Negro and black out the blank coloration of their skin. We don't have to yield. . . we don't have to see them as Africans if they wish not to be associated as BLACKS!! If its your desire to see a united people on this continent then thats a good ideal; go and preach to them to direct their gaze inward to the continent, and ot outward to Europe.

@op,

The reason is partly what everyone has mentioned but there is a factor that we all should equally attend to.

First, the industrialization of Europe was subsisted on resources exploited in places outside of Europe. Without iron ore the steel industry of Europe will have no meaning; without rubber sap, there will be no tires to mount on automobiles; without gum arabic, there will be o preservatives to prolong shelf life of canned and bottled goods; without cocoa there will be no cocoa beverage and chocolates, . . . so the need to produce and market these finished products generated plants and production lines and storage and retailing, massive outlets for job creations in Europe and America.

As industries grew, corporations exploded and became greedy. The world was a market and to maximize profit efficiency was introduced. Time studies were done to calibrate productivity and output levels. . .technology was introduced and the mechanization of work process and task activities led to improved outputs.

Technological blueprints were scalable and reproducible. Then political intervention in market deregulation and trade treaties installed anti-trust laws to control monopoly in global trading. Aggressive tariffs by these countries that were traditional suppliers of iron ore, cocoa, rubber, coffee, copper and other stuffs to the European industries opened doors for them to enter into local production and competition. India, Brazil, China, Thailand, and so on . . . .entered these markets and reduced Europe's monopoly.

Now we see same countries coming to Africa to continue the same exploitation where England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain left
off.

Africa has failed to use trade regulations to curtail exploitation. This is part reason why these countries donate moneyand aid funds - as a way to keep us out of competing with them. If we did, their access to our resources will be severely diminished and our entry into global market will be noticed acutely.

It's nothing but a frea-king propaganda!! Im waiting on Beaf to respond.

Beaf,

Please clarify this highlight: "Islam reigns supreme, and Sharia replaces the Constitution; all women are degraded; all ties with the Western World are severed".

This is not unusual actually. The problem of co-location and co-habitation is with people, not with the structures. In a case where this co-location is found in Lagos, it speaks volume of the mindset of Yoruba Muslims and Christians and should not be a surprise. It will be a surprise if this was discovered in the North.

In a country where articulate college graduates cannot get jobs, articulate professionals are loosing their jobs, citizens are hungry and homeless and the government is upside down. . . . you worry about articulation in government! hhmm. . .

Here is a very good figure to show that Yoruba was a powerful civilization in AfroAsia. Compare to Biblical customs instructing High Priests to dress in exact same manner as shown in this figure.

Contrary to the label in Andrea Jemolo's site that places this figure, found in Jebba,  as an archer, he was in fact a priest as indicated by the adornment of his robe, breastplate, sash and ornamental bells in fron of him and the peyot attached to his hair, covered by the headgear. 

Note:   From a mystical perspective, peyot separate between the front part of the brain which is used for abstract thought that can be used for holiness, and the back part of the brain that governs the body.

TC,

The broken head art from the book, did they say in what age that art was done? I tip my hat to the sculptor, the detail is too powerful I almost mistook it for the real thing!

I love those potsherds pavement. How elaborate were they and does anyone know if they were used on main boulevards or just in the King's palace?


Amor4ce,

Quantun physics is just beginning to arrive on conclusions that mystics have known for ages but which science back then denied as invalid conjectures. Sometime in future we will all be on the same page on this Yoruba origin topic. I am glad though that this forum is educational and respectful of opposing views.

TC, If you do not understand the concept of mystical message does not in any way invalidate its visibility in these figures.  Remember that they are not just aesthetic forms for visual arts, they are many things. . . primary among their many functions is to communicate the message of the hidden and coded knowledge buried in them. 

The TADA figure is working with awakening of the thrid eye for enlightenement and the Egyptian figure is working with curbing the sacral chakra for appetite.  This is indicated by the indent in the respective points of their body. 

Amujale, Yoruba was a civilization that predated Ife.   Many of you are thinking Yoruba started in Ife. No, Yoruba settled in Ife!  It's civilization became an old world order that had to yield for a new one to begin, the clash resulted in the exodus out of AfroAsia.  Ifa could not have lasted as long it has in the course of human timeline in which it could easily have been wiped out with everything else that were successfully erased from our consciousness unless there was some divine intervention to preserve it for humanity.  It is not an act of Yoruba prowess or know-how that Ifa has remained a world knowledge.  Similarly, all these antiques of our past glory will find their own voice to re-establish the severed connection.  It will take a white man telling it before you all come into agreement and nod your heads to these truths.

Why use them as an example at all? They don't exemplify the 'Igbo situation' in any way, other than the fact that we are apparently lodged here in this construct called Nigeria. A better example would have been the Ibibio groups, and even the Ijo sef, but never Yoruba and Hausa.

Why even look for a reference to begin with? Can people's points not stand in their own right?

Thank you o Chinenye! Preach brother, preach and teach them to look inward to the richness of their own culture instead of worrying about what Yoruba or Hausa is doing.

Thanks for the response. I think your examples--the DNA tests and autopsies--are a good example of where we differ on our approach and I'll leave it at that.

TC,

My brother, make sure I am not given an autopsy in case I die in the act of making more babies.

Despite what you might believe, I agree that we have to interpret art and culture through a spiritual lens. There's no way to be knowledgeable about Yoruba culture without being conversant in the indigenous religious beliefs of its makers. It's actually another point of emphasis for the uniqueness of Yoruba art. For example, in many of the most naturalistic Ife bronzes and terracottas, the size of the head is exaggerated to reflect the concept of 'ori inu' to about one-quarter of the size of the body. This is a deliberate portrayal of the importance of 'ori inu' for a people who were skillful enough to make sculptures of any lifelike proportion. As Ifa verses record to and the various ibori and iponri shrines verify, the head has been considered the spiritual seat in Yoruba culture for a long time and each individual is believed to have their own ori to worship along with whatever deities they choose (or that chooses them). This is not a feature we find in Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian or (as far as I know) Atlantean cultures. If the concept is found in those other cultures, it doesn't seem to be as revered and emphasized as it for Ife and other cognate cultures. This, for me, is far more potent proof of an indigenous Yoruba concept than the possible resemblance of Bes and the deformed person depicted in the terracotta.

Hmmm, well, may God Almighty open our Ori to the Glory of his wisdom. You know, I read these segment once, stepped away, came back and read it again, stepped away a second time. I returned and read it a third time and sat and contemplated for about 15mins.

Let us reflect on something very significant - origin of civilization and root of a race.

What is civilization? To me, civilization is the creation and projection of a new world order. Civilization spring up when an old order dies off and a new one begins. Yorubas had a civilization but Ife did not. What world order did Ife create?

As it applies to humans, what is a race? To me, race is a rhythym. Different race of people have different rhythymic response to nature elements. The elements being the causation, the people are forced to adapt an effective behavioral and characteristic patterns in response for safeguarding and assuring continuity of their specie. The Yoruba has adapted in the savannah and the forest but it has still, remnants in its consciousness of an existence outside of its current home.

You talked about the head being considered the spiritual seat of power in Yorubaland and also that Oramiyan was a title. You have not heard this from me yet because we set objective not to stray outside of physical realms in our evaluations. I agree, Oramiyan is a title. I do not agree that Resh, Yod is not etched into the staff. Culturally what is Resh? It means head or sovereign. Yod is an attribute of the mightiness of YHWH. Resh and yod together means a mighty sovereignty. In the grounding of the stone the ritual act was to invoke a divine beginning for the supremacy of this settling race. It is also sometimes referred to as "Opa Ashe". It was a divine grounding rod in Egyptian culture. Ashe itself is derived from root word Arsh, which stands for the Divine Throne, because anything uttered in its name is assured to manifest. I have said many times here that our language is cryptic. Look at this. . . .in Yoruba, bere (begin) is derived from ere (mud) which is what God used when he commanded the earth to issue forth mist from the ground and with that he mixed earth from which he created the human form. In Old Hebrew, bere stands for beginning. They are all from root letter Resh denoting in that context, head or first.

There are so much to say about head but I will stop here.

As Oduduwa, the male warrior, gained the upper hand in the dynastic conflict, why is he associated with the bottom/female half of the calabash and not the top? Or does the bottom half represent the temporal powers of Oduduwa, the first divine king of Ile-Ife? (6) I have been unable yet to elicit a categorical answer to these questions from field informants. Suffice it to say that the alleged conflict between the two orisa may very well explain why Oduduwa now has a double identity, being worshipped as a male deity in much of eastern Yorubaland, but as another aspect of Ile, female Earth, in the western part. Oddly enough, those who regard Oduduwa as a male orisa still occasionally address him as Iya Imole ('Mother of the Divinities'; Idowu 1994:22-5).

Divinity is a paired opposite. This is the theme in Ifa. If you are Christian go and read Genesis in the part where Noah is instructed on how to embark the Ark and you will see evidence of this. The psalms of David are particularly heavy with these attributes. If you are Muslim go to chapter 57, Surah Rahman - my favorite chapter - and in there you will see the same signature of paired opposites in this poetic message. In fact the poetry of this surah, in recitation, sound like a verse out of an odu of Ifa.

As for the seated Tada figure, I'm interested in hearing your interpretation of the pose. There are many postures and poses in Yoruba (and generally West African) culture with specific meanings and art historians have written some interesting work on this (see Suzanne Preston Blier for more). You might throw light on some new directions for them here. Keep in mind that the Tada figure was actually found in a Nupe village and has several unique properties, even though it's clearly related to the Ife style.

We are not into the mystical interpretation yet. I am not interested in art history but mystical revelations. The sitting position is the elemental pose - earth, water, fire and air. It is used for bringing about a metaphysical aspect to manifest in the physical. The crown chakra is ususally covered but the base chakra has to be grounded. As far as the image or art being surplus and distributed amongst different people, yes that's true but the knowledge is also common only amongst certain peoples who are already civilized and evolved in that mystic cult. Why doesn't the Hausas or the Igbos have it? Its because the cult does not belong in savannah Africa, it belongs in AfroAsia. Any race of people in subsahara that has that knowledge has roots in AfroAsia.

See below pic.

[img][/img]

You are back in Igbo threads again after Chinenye gave you some extra-moral lessons not long ago.

I often return when grapevine whispers in my ears that you guys are locked in a dispute and can't find a compromise. In these moments you need a Yoruba to mediate and guide your thoughts along 'fore you choke one another.

Think about it, language is an important part of your culture; any culture! Language is primarily an exchange for mutual awareness and understanding. If you were deaf and can't speak or hear Igbo will you loose your identity as an Igbo? NO. Therefore, what makes a person Igbo? Whatever that answer is , then a creed has to be formulated around that.

Giving you example, anywhere in the world you say Allahu Akbar! Every muslim understand that creed and know how to respond, given the context of the situation. Its spoken in Arabic language but it invokes a spirit that is completely global. So Andre, find a global creed that awakens Igbo spirit, language is not doing it, you monkey!

Bear in mind that no people in this world are homogenous and still as large as we are. Yorubas aren't. Ekiti man speaker Ekiti dialect which an Oyo man wouldn't understand. Ijebu man speaks his own dialect which is a unique form of Yoruba. All of these people have their distinctness but at the end of the dag they are still Yoruba.
Hausas also aren't. An Hausa man from Mali wouldn't understand the dialect of Hausa
Spoken in Kano or the one in Sokoto, but they are still Hausa as a group. I hope you get my point

Do you know why?   Because you are using language as a creed of unification.  Yoruba nor Hausa, not even Fulani uses language as a creed of unity.  

You need to find a creed, other than language, that binds your people, regardless of where they are physically located.