City of 201 Gods

by Olupona, Jacob K.

• ISBN13: 9780520265554
• ISBN10: 0520265556
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-12-13
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

In a study that challenges familiar Western modes of thought, Jacob K. Olupona focuses on one of the most important religious centers in Africa and in the world: the Yorugrave;baacute; city of Ileacute;-Ifegrave; in southwest Nigeria. The spread of Yorugrave;baacute; traditions in the African diaspora has come to define the cultural identity of millions of black and white people in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and the United States. Seen through the eyes of a native, this first comprehensive study of the spiritual and cultural center of the Yorugrave;baacute; religion tells how the city went from great prominence to near obliteration and then rose again as a contemporary city of gods. Throughout, Olupona corroborates the indispensable linkages between religion, cosmology, migration, and kinship as espoused in the power of royal lineages, hegemonic state structure, gender, and the Yorugrave;baacute; sense of place, offering the fullest portrait to date of this sacred African city.

Author Biography

Jacob K. Olpn is Professor of African Religious Traditions, African, and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of Kingship, Religion, and Rituals in a Nigerian Community: A Phenomenological Study of Ond Yorb Festivals and has edited several books, including Beyond Primitivism: Indigenous Religious Traditions and Modernity.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Ilé-Ifè in Time and Space	p. 21
The Imagined Sacred City: Ilé-Ifè in the History of Exploration and Discovery	p. 51
The Sacred Cosmos and Ilé-Ifè Religion: Divination, Kingship, and Social Identity	p. 86
Myth and Ritual of Sacred Kingship: The Olójó Festival of Ogún	p. 111
Itàpá: Identity, Ritual, and Power in the Festival of Obàtálá and Yemòó	p. 144
Ifá: Divination Rituals and the New Yam Festival	p. 174
The Goddess Morèmi in the Festival of Edi: Gender, Sacrifice, and the Expulsion of Evil	p. 203
Odùduwà, the God-King	p. 224
The Changing Face of the City: Royal Narratives and Contested Space in the Palace	p. 251
Conclusion: Ancient Orìsà and New Evangelicals Vie for the City of 201 Gods	p. 282
Notes	p. 299
Bibliography	p. 315
Index	p. 325
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