Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:37:49.621Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Discourse and its disclosures: Yoruba women and the sanctity of abuse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Andrew Apter
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

If ritual songs of obscenity and abuse have become a familiar topic in Africanist ethnography since Evans-Pritchard's first discussion of their ‘canalising’ functions in 1929, few studies have paid sufficient attention to the socio-political and discursive contexts of the song texts themselves. The present article moves in that direction by relocating abusive songs of the Oroyeye festival in an Ekiti Yoruba town within the local forms of history and knowledge that motivate their interpretation and performative power. After reviewing the cult's historical interventions in local political affairs, the article examines the repressed historical memory of a displaced ruling dynasty and its associated line of civil chiefs as invoked by the song texts in two festival contexts. In the first—the Àjàkadì wrestling match—which occurs at night, male age mates from different ‘sides’ of the town fight to stand their ground and topple their opponents while young women praise the winners and abuse the losers with sexual obscenities. In the second festival context, during the day, the elder ‘grandmothers’ of Oroyeye target malefactors and scoundrels by highlighting their misdeeds against a discursive background of homage and praise. In this fashion the female custodians of a displaced ruling line bring repressed sexual and political sub-texts to bear on male power competition, lineage fission, and antisocial behaviour. More generally, they mobilise the fertility and witchcraft of all Yoruba women to disclose hidden crimes and speak out with impunity.

Résumé

Si les chants rituels d'obscénités et d'insultes sont devenus un sujet populaire dans le domaine de l'ethnographie africaniste depuis le premier débat de Evans-Pritchard sur leur rôle de “canalisateurs” en 1929, peu d'études se sont suffisamment penchées sur les contextes sociopolitiques et discursifs des textes de ces chants. Cet article va dans ce sens en replaçant les chants injurieux du festival d'Oroyeye, ville Ekiti Yoruba, dans les formes locales d'histoire et de connaissance qui motivent leur interprétation et leur pouvoir performatif. Après avoir passé en revue les interventions historiques de ce culte dans les affaires politiques locales, l'article examine la mémoire historique réprimée d'une dynastie dirigeante destitutée et sa lignée de chefs civils, comme l'évoquent les textes de chants dans deux contextes du festival. Dans le premier, à savoir le match de lutte nocturne Ajakadi, les hommes jeunes de la même classe d'âge et originaires de différents quartiers. de la ville se battent pour faire tomber leur adversaire et rester debout pendant que de jeunes femmes font l'éloge des vainqueurs et insultent les perdants à grand renfort d'obscénités sexuelles. Dans le second contexte du festival, pendant la journée, les “grand-mères” d'Oroyeye prennent pour cible les malfaiteurs et les gredins en mettant en lumière leurs méfaits sur fond discursif d'hommage et d'éloge. De cette façon, les gardiennes d'une ligneé dirigeante destitutée infligent des sous-textes politiques et sexuels réprimés sur la lutte pour le pouvoir que se livrent les hommes, la fission de la lignée et le comportement antisocial. De manière plus générale, elles mobilisent la fertilité et la sorcellerie de toutes les femmes Yoruba pour dévoiler des crimes cachés et s'exprimer franchement en toute impunité.

Type
Decoding cults in contemporary Yorubaland
Information
Africa , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 68 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abraham, R. C. 1962. Dictionary of Modern Yoruba. London: Hodder & Stoughton.Google Scholar
Apter, A. 1983a. ‘In praise of high office: the politics of panegyric in three southern Bantu tribes’, Anthropos 78, 149–68.Google Scholar
Apter, A. 1983b. ‘In dispraise of the king: rituals “against” rebellion in south-east Africa’, Man (new series) 18 (3), 521–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Apter, A. 1987. ‘Rituals of power: the politics oiorisa worship in Yoruba society’. Ph.D. thesis, New Haven: Yale University.Google Scholar
Apter, A. 1992. Black Critics and Kings: the hermeneutics of power in Yoruba society. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Apter, A. 1993. ‘Atinga revisited: Yoruba witchcraft and the cocoa economy, 1950–51’, in , J. and Comaroff, J. (eds), Modernity and its Malcontents: ritual and power in postcolonial Africa, pp. 111–28. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Apter, A. 1995. ‘Notes on orisha cults in the Ekiti Yoruba Highlands’, Cahiers d'études africaines, 138–9, XXXV–2–3, 369–401.Google Scholar
Asiwaju, A. I. 1975. ‘Efe poetry as a source for western Yoruba history’, in W., Abimbola (ed.), Yoruba Oral Tradition: poetry in music, dance and drama, pp. 199–266. Ife: University of Ife, Department of African Languages and Literatures.Google Scholar
Barber, K. 1989. ‘Interpreting oriki as history and as literature’, in K., Barber and P.F., de Moraes Farias (eds), Discourse and its Disguises: the interpretation of African oral texts, pp. 13–23. African Studies Series 1, Birmingham: University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Barber, K. 1990. ‘Oríkì, women and the proliferation and merging of the orisa’, Africa 60 (3), 313–37.Google Scholar
Barber, K. 1991a. I Could Speak until Tomorrow: oríkì, women and the past in a Yoruba town. International African Library 7, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, and Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Barber, K. 1991b. ‘Multiple discourses in Yoruba oral literature’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 73 (3), 11–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barber, K., and de Moraes Farias, P. F. 1989. ‘Introduction’, in Barber, K. and Farias, P. F. de Moraes (eds), Discourse and its Disguises: the interpretation of African oral texts, pp. 1–10. African Studies Series 1, Birmingham: University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Bastian, M. 1993. ‘“Bloodhounds who have no friends”: witchcraft and locality in the Nigerian popular press’, in , J. and Comaroff, J. (eds), Modernity and its Malcontents: ritual and power in postcolonial Africa, pp. 129–66. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Beier, U. 1958. ‘Gelede masks’, Odu 6, 5–23.Google Scholar
Belasco, B. 1980. The Entrepreneur as Culture Hero. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Carr, F. B. 1934. ‘The Ata of Ayede: allegations against’. O.P. 626/1, Communication from the Resident, Ondo Province, to the District Officer, Ekiti Division, Ado-Ekiti, 1 November. Nigerian National Archives, University of Ibadan.Google Scholar
Drewal, H., and Drewal, M. 1983. Gelede: art and female power among the Yoruba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Drewal, H., and Drewal, M. 1987. ‘Composing time and space in Yoruba art’, Word and Image 3 (3), 225–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duranti, A., and Goodwin, C. (eds), 1992. Rethinking Context: language as an interactive phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1965. ‘Some collective expressions of obscenity in Africa’ in The Position of Women in Primitive Societies and other Essays in Social Anthropology, pp. 76–101. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Fernandez, J. W. 1986. Persuasions and Performances: the play of tropes in culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Flynn, D. 1997. ‘Borders and Boundaries: gender, ideology and exchange along the Benin-Nigeria border’. Ph.D. thesis, Evanston, III.: Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Forde, D. 1951. The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of South-western Nigeria. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Gal, S. 1991. ‘Beneath speech and silence: the problematics of research on language and gender’, in M., di Leonardo (ed.), Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge, pp. 175–203. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gluckman, M. 1954. Rituals of Rebellion in South-east Africa. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Goody, J. 1970. ‘Sideways or downwards? Lateral and vertical succession, inheritance and descent in Africa and Eurasia’, Man (new series) 5 (4), 627–38.Google Scholar
Griaule, M. 1948. ‘L'alliance cathartique’, Africa 18 (4), 242–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanks, W. 1992. ‘The indexical ground of deictic reference’, in A., Duranti and C., Goodwin (eds), Rethinking Context: language as an interactive phenomenon, pp. 46–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harper, P. 1970. ‘The role of dance in the Gelede ceremonies of the village of Ijio’, Odu 4, 67–91.Google Scholar
Harris, G. 1978. Casting out Anger: religion among the Taita of Kenya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heald, S. 1982. ‘The making of men: the relevance of vernacular psychology to the interpretation of a Gisu ritual’, Africa 52 (1), 15–36.Google Scholar
Heald, S. 1989. Controlling Anger: the sociology of Gisu violence. Manchester: Manchester University Press and Bloomington: Indiana University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Hoch-Smith, J. 1978. ‘Radical female sexuality: the witch and the prostitute’, in J., Hoch-Smith and A., Spring (eds), pp. 245–67. Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Idowu, B. 1970. ‘The challenge of witchcraft’, Orita 4 (1), 3–16.Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith. 1993. ‘Insult and responsibility: verbal abuse in a Wolof village’, in Jane, Hill and Judith, Irvine (eds), Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse, pp. 104–34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith. 1996. ‘Shadow conversations: the indeterminacy of participant roles’, in M., Silverstein and G., Urban (eds), The Natural Histories of Discourse, pp. 131–59. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. 1921. The History of the Yorubas. Lagos: CMS Bookshops.Google Scholar
Junod, H. 1927. The Life of a South African Tribe. Second edition, two volumes, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Krapf-Askari, E. 1966. ‘Time and classifications—an ethnographic and historical case study’, Odu 2 (2), 3–18.Google Scholar
Labouret, H. 1929. ‘La parenté à plaisanteries en Afrique Occidentale’, Africa 2 (3), 244–54.Google Scholar
Leach, E. 1958. ‘Concerning Trobriand clans and the kinship category “tabu”’, in J., Goody (ed.), The Developmental Cycle of Domestic Groups, pp. 120–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, P. C. 1955. ‘The Yoruba lineage’, Africa 25 (3), 235–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, P. C. 1962. Yoruba Land Law. London: Oxford University Press for the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research.Google Scholar
Makinde, M. 1988. African Philosophy, Culture and Traditional Medicine. Ohio University Monographs in International Studies, Africa Series 53, Athens, Oh.: Center for International Studies, University of Ohio.Google Scholar
Matory, J. 1994. Sex and the Empire that is no more: gender and the politics of metaphor in Oyo Yoruba religion. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Morton-Williams, P. 1956. ‘The Atinga cult among the south-western Yoruba: a sociological analysis of a witch-finding movement’, Bulletin de l'IFAN 18 (3–4), 315–34.Google Scholar
Morton-Williams, P. 1960a. ‘Yoruba responses to the fear of death’, Africa 30 (1), 34–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton-Williams, P. 1960b. ‘The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo’, Africa 30 (4), 362–74.Google Scholar
Norbeck, E. 1963. ‘African rituals of conflict’, American Anthropologist 65, 1254–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Obayemi, A. 1971. ‘The Yoruba and Edo-speaking peoples and their neighbours before 1600’, in J., Ajayi and M., Crowder (eds), History of West Africa I, pp. 196–263. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Ogunba, O. 1982. ‘Yoruba occasional festival songs’, in A., Afolayan (ed.), Yoruba Language and Literature, pp. 36–56. Ife: University of Ife Press.Google Scholar
Olabimtan, A. 1970. ‘An introduction to Efe poems of the Egbado Yoruba’, in Staff Seminar Papers and Subsequent Discussions, pp. 192–216. Lagos: School of African and Asian Studies, University of Lagos.Google Scholar
Olatunji, O. 1984. Features of Yoruba Poetry. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.Google Scholar
Olupona, J. K. 1991. Kingship, Religion, and Rituals in a Nigerian Community: a phenomenological study of Ondo Yoruba festivals. Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion 28, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Parkin., D. 1980. ‘The creativity of abuse’, Man (new series) 15, 45–64.Google Scholar
Paulme, D. 1939. ‘Parenté à plaisanteries et alliance par le sang en Afrique Occidentale’, Africa 12 (4), 433–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prince, R. 1961. ‘The Yoruba image of the witch’, Journal of Mental Science 107, 795–805.Google Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1952. ‘On joking relationships’, in Structure and Function in Primitive Society, pp. 90–104. London: Cohen & West. (First published 1940 in Africa 13, 195–210.)Google Scholar
Reay, M. 1959. ‘Two kinds of ritual conflict’, Oceania 29, 290–6.Google Scholar
Schwab, W. 1955. ‘Kinship and lineage among the Yoruba’, Africa 25 (4), 352–74.Google Scholar
Silverstein, M. 1976. ‘Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description’, in K., Basso and H., Selby (eds), Meaning in Anthropology, pp. 11–56. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Silverstein, M. 1993. ‘Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function’, in J., Lucy (ed.), Reflexive Language, pp. 33–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, M., and Urban, G. (eds), 1996. Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Smith, M. G. 1957. ‘The social function and meaning of Hausa praise-singing’, Africa 27 (1), 26–45.Google Scholar
Thieme, D. 1969. ‘A Descriptive Catalogue of Yoruba Musical Instruments’. Studies in Music 37, Ph.D. thesis, Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. F. 1976. Black Gods and Kings. Reprinted. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, V. 1967. ‘Betwixt and between: the liminal period in rites de passage’, in The Forest of Symbols: aspects of Ndembu ritual, pp. 93–112. Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Van den Berghe, P. 1963. ‘Institutionalized licence and normative stability’, Cahiers d'études africaines 3, 413–23.Google Scholar
Yai, O. 1989. ‘Issues in oral poetry: criticism, teaching and translation’, in Barber, K. and Farias, P. F.de Moraes (eds), Discourse and its Disguises: the interpretation of African oral texts, pp. 59–69. African Studies Series 1, Birmingham: University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Yai, O. n.d. ‘Nana versus Ogun: affirming the female voice in Yoruba oral literature’. Unpublished MS.Google Scholar