Seeing through a Woman's Eye: Yoruba Religious Tradition and Gender Relations
Author(s): Oyeronke Olajubu
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring, 2004), pp. 41-60
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of FSR, Inc.
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roles in society.3
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religion.
Sudarkasa,
"Status ofWomen."
44
Therefore, among theYoruba, the question to ask about the state of the sexes
is not which sex is dominant but, rather,overwhich areas does each sex enjoy
prominence. Further, the prominence that one sex enjoys in a particulararea
of human activitydoes not make the people in that sexualcategory independ
ent of people in the other.
Previous Work on Yoruba Religion and Gender
Major pioneering works on Yoruba religionwere not concerned about
gender, because gender was not an importanttheoreticaland conceptual par
adigm for examining culture (at least inAfrica) at the time theywere written.7
These works, as a result,were male-centered. Nevertheless, some authorswho
have constructed suchmale-centered interpretationsof Yoruba religion often
emphasize the variabilityof Yoruba traditions and indeed show how certain
deities assumedifferent gender orientations invariousparts of Yoruba religion.
An example is J.LorandMatorywriting on the deity Sango among theYoruba.8
Another intriguingexample is E. Bolaji Idowu,who mentions that the deity
Oduduwa (who is an ancestor aswell as a divinity) in the easternYoruba region
is seen as female but assumes amale persona in thewestern and centralYor
uba regions.9Such a discovery,atminimum, indicates the possibilityof gender
flexibilityinYoruba religious traditions.In some recentworks, especially some
by female scholars, there has been a significant focus on the role of women in
Yoruba traditions. Interestingly,theseworks have also raised questions about
not onlywhat the nature of gender is but indeedwhether gender constitutes
an importantanalyticalcategory inYoruba culture and society.Efforts to fos
ter this conversationmay be discerned from an arrayof recent publications, to
which I now turn.
One recent major work is Diedre Badejo's Osun Seegesi: The Elegant
Deity ofWealth, Power,and Femininity,which focuses on the ritualdrama and
oratoryof the goddess Osun inOshogbo, Nigeria, the center of herworship.'1
Badejo brings into the core of Yoruba religious life the role of the goddess,
whose various capacities as diviner,medicine woman, ruler,aje (awoman of
deep spiritualpower), and entrepreneur dominatedOshogbo city life. Badejo
focuseson the enormous power and resources that traditionalandmodern Yor
uba cosmology and ritualperformance play in locatingOsun squarely in the
7 See E.
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Cosmology
The Yoruba narrativeof the origin of theworld ispresented inmany ver
sions, but the core of them all is the delegation of divine power and authority
16
Sexand theEmpire, 76.
17Matory, the
largestportion of Yoruba sacred textsexist only inoral form, some have been
Although
written down, beginning around 1975.Wande Abimbola has done substantialwork in this area; see
her "ImagesofWomen in the IfaLiteraryCorpus," inQueens, Queen Mothers, Priestesses, and
Power:Case Studies inAfrican Gender, ed. Flora Edouwaye S.Kaplan (NewYork:New YorkAcad
emy of Sciences, 1997). See other references cited in these notes for further informationonYoruba
culture.
49
todeities to control and rule theworld. These accountsof the origin of the uni
verse enumerate the composition of nature aswell as humans at the instance
of Olodumare (God,who is androgynous),who delegated some powers to the
Irunmole (primordialdivinities) in the process of making the earth habitable.
Two of these accountsmerit furtherattention.
One of the accounts states thatOlodumare delegated the power to create
the landscapeand the physical figures of humans toOrisanla, themost senior
divinity in the Yoruba pantheon. Olodumare gave Orisanla three elements to
achieve these objectives:earthenmud in a snail shell, a bird, and a hen.18Odu
duwawas asked to accompanyOrisanla on this importantmission. Oduduwa is
a figure in theYoruba thought systemwith dual classificationsas divinity and
ancestor.On theway to the earth,Orisanla got drunk andwas thus incapable
of carryingout the mission; Oduduwa then took the items and created the
earth. Sometime later,Orisanla came to himself and proceeded to create the
physical figuresof humans.The significanceof the story forour analysis is that
Oduduwa ispresented inmany versions as female (althoughthe central Ile-Ife
story seesOduduwa asmale).19 IfOduduwa was a female, how does this affect
the analysisof Yoruba cosmological accounts?First, itmeans that the progen
itorof theYoruba people is female. Further, it points to the creation exercise
as a joint venture between a male (Orisanla)and a female (Oduduwa):Odu
duwa created the land,valleys, andmountains with the itemsOlodumare had
supplied;Orisanla, after recoveringfromhis drunken stupor,created the phys
ical figuresof humans.Orisanla is said to have created some of them beautiful
and others ugly, some as albinos, and otherswith hunchbacks.Hence, disabled
people are regarded as special and sacred among theworshippers of Orisanla
inYoruba landeven today.That a female founded the earth and amale molded
the physical figureof humanswould tallywith theYorubaprescription forgen
der balance in all endeavors.This crucial principle is required at all levels of
interaction inYorubapolity and ethos. Hence, aYorubaproverb says,F'osiwe
otun,fotun we osi l'owofiimo, "Washingthe left and righthand eachwith the
other ensures clean hands."Another proverb says,Ajeje owo kan o gbe'rud'ori,
ohun a bajo wo gigun ni gun, "It is impossible to place a heavy load on your
headwith one hand;whatever we consider together isbound to be successful."
The cooperation of themale and female in theYoruba thought system thus re
inforces notions thatOduduwa, a female, and Orisanla, a male, carried out
Olodumare's injunctionstomake the earth habitable and tomold human phys
ical figures.
The second cosmological narrative relevant tomy analysis is found in the
18 Omosade Awolalu and P.Adelumo
J.
Dopamu, West African TraditionalReligion (Ibadan,
Nigeria:Onibonoje, 1979), 132.
19See IsolaOlomola, "Ifebefore Oduduwa," inThe Cradle of a Race: Ifefrom the
Beginning
to 1980, ed. I.A. Akinjogbin (PortHarcourt,Nigeria: Sunray,1992), 51-78.
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oral Ifa divination corpus called Odu Ose tura,which states thatOlodumare,
the Supreme Being, sent seventeen primordialdeities to occupy the earth, and
only one of them,Osun, was female.When they arrivedon earth, the sixteen
male deities operated as a teambut neglected the only female in all their func
tions;Osun was excluded from sacred knowledge, from covenants, and from
decision making.When Osun could bear it no longer, she congregated the
women on earth and formed the IyaMi group, a society of powerfulwomen.
With their hitherto unusual ase (life force), they interferedwith the plans of
the male deities. Consequently, there was chaos with humans and nature.
Nothing functioned as expected; famine, pestilence, and extreme discomfort
characterized thewhole earth.The sixteenmale deities rushed toOlodumare
for a solution to thisproblem.After they explained their situation,Olodumare
inquiredabout the seventeenth deity.They replied that,because shewas only
a female, they had excluded her from all proceedings. Olodumare charged
them to go back andmake peace with Osun, because itwas only then thatnor
malcy could return.The sixteen deities went back to plead forOsun's forgive
ness, which she granted after receiving the promise that no longerwould she
be excluded from all functions and proceedings on earth. Thereafter, peace
and normalcy returned to the earth.
This account brings to the fore two importantmotifs. First, Olodumare
recognizedand, by implication,endorsed the complementary rolesof male and
female humans, commanding that the male deities go back andmake peace
with Osun, even thoughOlodumare could have intervened and helped the
male deities without any reference to the authorityof the IyaMi group. This
suggestsOlodumare's strong preference formutual respect between the fe
male and themale. Second, Osun possesses the ability to affect and effect the
power that activates the life force, as is trueof the IyaMi group inYoruba land
today.
The central reason for discussing these narratives is that they are part of
an alternative traditionquite distinct from the normative narratives inYoruba
religious life,which is often not taken seriouslyor is even totally ignored.This
isusuallydue to subjective reasons that servepurelymale interestsand seek to
subsume the fact thatwomen played positive and importantroles in these ac
counts.There is no doubt that the cosmologicalmyth that is regarded as the
normative account falls short of thewhole truth.This normativemyth as pre
sented bymale scholarsclearly asserts that themale deities Orisanla andOdu
duwa carried out creation, but this is contrary to what obtains
in Yoruba com
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Oya. My second example isOya, the goddess ofwind and storms,who pos
sesses a human personality aswell as a spiritualexistence.As a human her full
name isOya Akanbi, and she is an indigeneof Ira,a town inKwara state,Nige
ria.As a goddess she can be benevolent ormalevolent, for she ishighly unpre
dictable. Oya gives children and wealth to her adherents and also protects
them from danger.Her qualities and attributes are contrary to those assumed
for females. She is a fierce fighter,who ismanifested in strongwinds and
storms.She fightswith thunderbolts,just likeher earthlyhusband, Sango.Rit
uals for her worship occur at a sacredbush (igboOya), unlike theworship of
other goddesses,which takesplace in the townships.Oya's characteristicspoint
to the fluidityof theYoruba gender construct and confirm thatmultiplicity is a
feature of Yoruba gender relations, reflected here in religion but permeating
every other sector of the people's lives aswell.
The two goddesses discussed here demonstrate that theYoruba traditions
show the prevalence and significantfunctionsof the female as being crucial to
anymeaningful enterprise among the people; and, further, that gender classi
ficationamong theYoruba is attended by constant reconfigurationsand fluid
ity.There is no clear-cut and unitary gender categorizationamong the people;
rather,the gender construct is culture- and, to some extent, context-bound.
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Abimbola,
"Images
ofWomen."
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After reachinghome
To disguisehimself
When Odu saw the eegun in the new guise she was afraid
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From thenon,women
Have studied Ifa
Women alsoprescribesacrifice
And women are initiated into Ifa tradition.24
Because
Osun
is assumed
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