The shrine (ojubo) for worshipping the deity Elegba still exists by the right side of the the junction of the express way connecting Surulete to Eko bridge and Ojuelegba Road. Mascurades of devotees of Elegba still perform rituals there at regular intervals.
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----- Reply message -----
From: "Ademola Dasylva" <dasylvaus@gmail.com>
To: "Salimonu Kadiri" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>, <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "Toyin Falola" <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>, "Yoruba Affairs" <yorubaaffairs@googlegroups.com>, "Adeshina Afolayan" <shina73_1999@yahoo.com>, <ebomobowale@yahoo.com>, "Victor Adetimirin Prof" <votimirin@yahoo.com>, "Mark Ighile Broda" <mighile@gmail.com>, <muyiwaking@yahoo.com>, "Toyin Jegede" <toyinjegede2010@gmail.com>, "Ofure Aito" <ofureaito@gmail.com>, <bolaudegbe@yahoo.com>, "DOYIN AGUORU" <doyinaguoru77@gmail.com>, "Dele Olayiwola" <delelayiwola@yahoo.com>, "Olutayo Adesina" <olutayo27@gmail.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
Date: Tue, Jul 5, 2016 01:57
From: "Ademola Dasylva" <dasylvaus@gmail.com>
To: "Salimonu Kadiri" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>, <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "Toyin Falola" <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>, "Yoruba Affairs" <yorubaaffairs@googlegroups.com>, "Adeshina Afolayan" <shina73_1999@yahoo.com>, <ebomobowale@yahoo.com>, "Victor Adetimirin Prof" <votimirin@yahoo.com>, "Mark Ighile Broda" <mighile@gmail.com>, <muyiwaking@yahoo.com>, "Toyin Jegede" <toyinjegede2010@gmail.com>, "Ofure Aito" <ofureaito@gmail.com>, <bolaudegbe@yahoo.com>, "DOYIN AGUORU" <doyinaguoru77@gmail.com>, "Dele Olayiwola" <delelayiwola@yahoo.com>, "Olutayo Adesina" <olutayo27@gmail.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
Date: Tue, Jul 5, 2016 01:57
The Toyin Falola Annual International Conference on Africa and the African Diaspora (TOFAC) is currently going on at Redeemer's University, Ede, the State of Osun. As the conference convener I sincerely need time to concentrate on the conference, but I found the contributions of Bukky Oladeji and Ogbeni Salimonu Kadiri very interesting and my response to their submissions irresistible. Both of them appeared to have gotten their separate facts half correct. Had the former Bukky, simply identified the appropriate name of the Yoruba deity as Èsù, he would have gotten his facts right.
I must confess that I enjoyed Ogbeni Kadiri's illuminating piece, too. It demonstrates his usual dexterity on matters of details, and apparent grounding in Yoruba culture, tradition, as well as local and national history. Unfortunately, I found the concluding part of his argumentation rather specious and a bit worrisome. The name in contention is "Ojù Elégba". The late Professor Joel Adedeji, also pioneer African Head of Theatre Arts Department, University of Ibadan, and Professor Bode Osanyin, another Theatre guru were in total agreement in their separate extensive works on Adámú (Adímú) Òrìsà or Èyò festival in Lagos, on what Ojú Elégba is: the Ojúbo Elégba (the shrine of Elégbára). The spot or shrine so named Ojú Elégba is one of the seven places that the Èyò masquerades must, by tradition, visit and stop to perform their cleansing rituals with the symbolic "sweeping away" of all evil in the land. The dance and cleansing rituals at the location are in recognition of the significant role the Èsù deity plays in the affairs of indigenous Yoruba society. Elégbára is another name for Èsù. Often the two names are combined into a compound name, Èsù-Elègbára. As for Ogbeni Kadiri's historical antecedents on mendicants/beggars (Elégbà) milling around the place, this is far-fetched, and could only have been a sheer coincidence, if at all. Besides, Elégbà and Elégba certainly do not sound the same, that is, going by the tone marks, nor do they have the same meaning.
Let me briefly give another example of misrepresentation and misinterpretation of some places in Lagos: Amukoko (an area in Ajegunle). The area is popularly called Amùkòkò (one who smokes a pipe), whereas the original name and which the Chieftain of the area bears is Amúkokò. In the mid 1960s to 1980s, there used to be by the entrance to the compound of the Chieftain, a drawn picture of a hunter being accompanied by a hyena like a hunting dog. A line in the praise chant of the chieftain states, "Amúkokò bi ení ma'ja" (the rough meaning is suggestive of a great hunter who captured live, or tamed, the wild hyena, like a domestic dog). In other words, he was a great hunter who demonstrated his bravery, and the potency of his charms by bringing home a wild hyena like a tamed dog. Today what do we have? Amùkòkò, instead of Amúkokò. How time changes everything, including names!
Permit me to return to my assignment.
Cheers,
Ademola O. Dasylva, Ph.D
Professor of African & Oral Literature.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
Professor of African & Oral Literature.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
| From: Salimonu Kadiri Sent: Monday, 4 July 2016 23:18 To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Reply To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors |
I had intended taking vacation a while from the forum but I cannot resist reacting to this Ojuelegba story. According to Bukky Oladeji, "Ojuelegba has two meanings. It is a busy suburb in Lagos that is a transportation hub which connects the Mainland to Victoria Island.... Ojuelegba's literal meaning is the Eyes of Elegba. Elegba is the Yoruba deity of roads and doors in the world and stands at the cross-roads of the human and the divine realm."
Reading the above meanings of the word "OJÚELÉGBA" as insinuated by Bukky Oladeji reminds me of a father in Nigeria who once followed his truant son to the school to report him to the teacher. Assuming himself to be speaking English to the teacher, the father pointed finger at his son and said, "This boy won go school; A don know waiting i de head; you de look in mouth." The perplexed teacher politely asked the father to repeat his complaint in Yoruba whereby he said, "E séun jàré, omódé yì kò fé lo sí iléìwé, miò mó nkan tí onsé orí rè, àbí erí enu rè gbòtìà-gbòtìa." It became obvious that what he assumed to be telling the teacher in English was, "This boy does not want to go to school; I don't know what is wrong with his head; Look at his big mouth." It is dangerous to pretend to know what one does not know.
Bearing a Yoruba name is not enough to lay claim to the understanding of Yoruba language, tradition and culture. That became obvious when Western Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation wanted to recruit persons to its Yoruba Division in 1956. One of the candidates was asked to translate the Yoruba words ÒGÚFE and ÕGÙN ÌFE into English. His translations were "twenty cups and Ife medicine respectively," whereas ÒGÚFE is a bearded goat with the characteristics of antelope and ÕGÙN ÌFE is love charm or medicine for love. A thorough Yoruba person should know the differences between Ògúfe, a goat and ogún Ife, twenty cups; as well as the differences between õgùn Ìfe, love charm and Ifè medicine.
Ojúelegba is a compound word which nowadays is wrongly pronounced and assigned a different meaning from what it was originally. The word OJÚ in Yoruba can mean eye, aperture, face or look. But when it is used together with another word in a compound word the meaning varies significantly. Examples are: Ojú-aiyé (eye-service), Ojú-ibodè (border or boundary gate), Ojúbo (a spot used for the worship of ancestors or household gods), Ojúbo-Bàbá or Ìyá (a cenotaph for ancestral worship), Ojú-efin (chimney), Ojú-fèrèsé (window), Ojúgbàeni (an age mate, of the same age), Ojúkòkòrò (avarice or covetousness), Ojúìkù (touch hole of the gun), Ojúlaféni (insincere friend), Ojú-àgbàrá (gutter path), Ojúta-Oba (King's main entrance) etc. Oju-ele-egba is a compound word consisting of three words with each word having its own meaning. As it is spelled and pronounced nowadays, Ojúelegba is translatably to 'Whip procurement place,' and not the 'eyes of Elegba' as claimed by Bukky Oladeji. Elegba ordinarily will translate to 'whip seller or creator' as in Eléfo - vegetable seller, Eléran - butcher or cattle dealer, Eléda - creator, Elégàn - despiser or slanderer. Since whips were never created or sold at OJUELEGBA, the name of that particular area in Lagos mainland could not have evolved from such business. There is no such Yoruba deity of roads and doors known as 'Elegba' as it is being touted by Bukky Oladeji. Paralytic disease in Yoruba language is called ÀRÙN ÈGBÀ and the person afflicted is called ELÉGBÀ. In the late 50s when Surùlérè part of Lagos mainland was developing, there were large concentration of paralysed people, crawling and creeping around the evolving motor park to beg for alms. Due to the fact that the main habitats of this particular area of Surùlérè were paralytics, the place was named in Yoruba after them as OJÚELÉGBÀ, but with time the pronunciation has changed to convey a different meaning entirely. I repeat, Yoruba has no deity of roads and doors known as ELEGBA but people who are afflicted with PARALYTIC are known as or called ELÉGBÁ in Yoruba language.
S. Kadiri
From: oluwakaidara1@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 22:11:25 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Oju Elegba by Victor Ekpuk
Victor Ekpuk's Oju Elegba as Intercultural Epistemic Unifier
Ojuelegba has two meanings. It is a busy suburb in Lagos that is a transportation hub which connects the Mainland to Victoria Island. It is also the area that Wizkid grew up.
Ojuelegba's literal meaning is The Eyes of Elegba. Elegba is the Yoruba diety of roads and doors in the world and stands at the crossroads of the human and the divine realm.
The song Ojuelegba by Wizkid is in itself a long metaphor about his journey from living in Mainland Lagos (the human realm) which is considered the poorer side of Lagos as a
child and a struggling musician to his rise to stardom where he now lives in Victoria Island (the divine realm) which is considered the most affluent and developed region of Lagos
and Nigeria as a whole.
Bukky Oladeji
in
in
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