Did you know that long before Isaac Newton stumbled on the idea of using mathematics to construct scientific cosmology Yoruba thought did the same through Ifá divinatory system?
So in relation to the Ifá system the Newtonian effort represents a refinement rather than a radical transformation and that is why your categorisation is not really clearcut in a definitive way.
Are you aware of the centuries old dialogic Yoruba ' Socratic' system called Ęlå lòrò?
I'm puzzled. I thought scientific cosmology deals with the large scale physical properties that constitute the material cosmos, using instruments of precise quantitative measurement, generating results verifiable by anyone using the same methods.
Does Ifa do that?
Ęlå lòrò", which may be translated as "Ela, owner or embodiment of the Word or of discourse" may be related to the understanding of Ela as a spiritual personality embodying the creative word through which the world came into being, as described in Rowland Abiodun's "Visual and Verbal Metaphors in Yoruba Ritualistic Art of Ori" and Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art and Susanne Wenger's A Life with the Gods.
I would to learn of a Socratic use of the Ela concept, perhaps understood in a manner sharing similarities with what I know of it or completely different.
Also your example of witchcraft demonstrates your ambivalence toward the subject which needs to be reconciled. In one breath it is an example of superstitious beliefs and folk tales. In another attitude to it ( by the West) marks a transformative process of self critical investigation. This demonstrates to me that you have all along been involved in a self serving process of on going myth making in the Barthesian sense.
As is evident from the linked Wikipedia essay on witchcraft, there is of course a world of difference between the current character of African witchcraft beliefs and those of the contemporary West.
The African situation is represented by the demonization, ostracism and perhaps killing of children and old women, the most vulnerable members of society, on charges of being witches, the mode of identification being unverifiable by any empirical means.
This is correlative with the even more horrific pre-modern European context, in which large numbers of women were executed for being witches, again based on nebulous and ridiculous claims, a period known in Britain as the Witch Trials of the Early Modern Period, a highpoint from 1580 to 1630 … when an estimated 50,000" people were burned at the stake, , of which roughly 80% were women,and most often over the age ofg 40"according to the linked very rich Wikiedea article on the subject.
This barbarism was stopped in Great Britain by the 1735 Witchcraft Act, which "made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. With this, the law abolished the hunting and executions of witches in Great Britain" as the linked Wikipedia article states.
After it was repealed in 1951, Gerald Gardner in England initiated Wicca, also known as modern Pagan witchcraft, with its beliefs, ethics, practices, history and main figures clearly spelt out in published texts, written by witches and by non-witches, texts that have become an industry, allied also to vigorous scholarly discourse and its academic representation.
The difference is clear.
Are you aware that the concept of ' Ìyá mi àjé' as a technical phrase by the indigenous learned Yorùbá community is not the same as 'àjé' as understood by Yorùbá common folks even within the same synchronic time frame?
Are you aware that one is a Christian Western inspired bastardization of an indigenous system they were desperate to supplant with their own negative version of witchcraft ( as it existed in their own society in the same way the Yorùbá concept of Èsù was violently changed to the Western Biblical concept of Satan)) as part of the colonisation project?
On the Iyami aje example, I wonder how you will substantiate your argument.
Who composed those ese ifa, canonical texts of Yoruba spirituality, which depict aje as irrationally bloodthirsty creatures, feeding on human flesh, human internal organs and human life, as in when Orunmila gave then a lift in his stomach on the journey from orun, the world of ultimate origins to Earth and they rewarded him by feeding on his intestines during the trip?
Who created the ese ifa that declare all women are aje and Osun is aje ( Rowland Abiodun, "Hidden Power: Osun, the Seventeenth Odu," ) a honorific, since Osun is a most honoured female orisa or deity and yet belpongs oinm the same artistic family as those ese ifa composers composed ese ifa the majority of which project aje as irremediably destructive, irrationally bloodthirsty and evil?
Who composed the song of Gelede, another central Yoruba institution, that depicts Iya Nla, the mother of the aje, as killing her husband even as she pities him, with no account of why the poor man is being killed? (Drewal, ''Art and the Perception of Women in Yoruba Culture'' or one of his articles on Gelede)?
The classical Yoruba construction of the feminine is paradoxical and contradictory. Women were understood as particularly spiritually powerful and thus played a central role in strategic social contexts but they were also seen as potentially particularly evil, open to assuming the identities of the dreaded aje.
Practically all studies on the Yoruba construction of the feminine, of written by both men and women, Yoruba and non Yoruba, African and non-African demonstrate this paradox-
Karin Barber, Oriki; Oyerunke Olajubu, Women in the Yorùbá Religious Sphere; Babatunde Lawal, The Gelede Spectacle, etc
I'm trying to understand Teresa Washington's Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts: Manifestations of Aje in Africana Literature , and hopefully move on to her The Architects of Existence: Aje in Yoruba Cosmology, Ontology, and Orature.
My memory of Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts: Manifestations of Aje in Africana Literature , emerging from her PhD at then University of Ife, is that she records much of horrible depictions of aje from Yoruba oral lore but rationalizes these horrors as exemplifying the creative role of aje in the cosmic order as agents of harsh justice, stories I see as examples of sheer misogyny.
Why should the only Yoruba spirituality centered in human women be characterized by horrible, destructive characters whose bloodthirsty and irrational behavior people could try to rationalize?
Why is the creative feminine presence in ese ifa so muted?
Equating the aje with such potentially devastating but revered Hindu Goddesses as Kali, as could be done, is not sustainable bcs the Hindu tradition is one of the richest, if not the richest in the world, in terms of Goddesses and the association of human women with sacred feminine power, both cosmic and expressed by various Goddesses, with even the characterizations of Kali in particular reaching a depth of characterization, conceptual range, scope of literary mythic representation, visual artistic depiction and philosophical interpretation that takes her into a different level from the iyami aje conception, a level that conception could hopefully reach one day, after due refinement, although women may have been more respected and valued in classical Yoruba culture than in Hindu culture of a comparable historical period.
When I stated that your comparison with the US Congress is far fetched you retort that you have been in conversations with Ògbóni members. Only that you would not clearly include which Ògbóni member and from which Ìlédi as the Americans cited by Professor Akin Ògúndìran did. This makes your claims suspect and demonstrates that you are the one being secretive to reinforce your prejudice and not the Ògbóni.
On the US Congress you earlier argued that I an not an official Ogboni historian. I responded that I never made such a claim. So, what point are you making on this?
On naming Ogboni members I am in contact with, I am not presenting at this time any info i have got from them so i dont need to name them.
When you refer to philosophy as being self critical many societies have been self critical for thousands of years. Even Western philosophy that you implicitly lean on as a walking crutch has been self critical since the Classical period of Aristotelian times. Your implied self critical period of the 17th century does not apply globally, is arbitrary and is only a convenient point for Western thought.
...
Toyin Adepoju has to realize that knowledge and all its manifestations did not start with the West nor does he constantly need the West for approval and validation.
It is quite true that the 17th century that Eurocentrics stuff into their accounts of world history / the history of science is an exaggerated, arbitrary date, particularly as we know now that the so-called European enlightenment and after, marked a descent into bigotry, racism and non-science. Tarikhu Farrah(2020) really does a great job on this in his chapter on the Origins of Modern Race Theory in the European enlightenment ie 17th century. BTW Chimakonam shocked me when on pages 7 and 8 of Ezumezu, he slipped into this kind of Eurocentric propaganda mode - but I soon realized that the rest of the work soared exceedingly high above it. (My Choice review of the work was positive because of that realization). Getting out of the clutches of Eurocentric hyperboles, lies and deceit about the past is a tedious, lifelong project.
I was also unhappy about the term "folk"because it is laden with prejudice when used in reference to Africana Knowledge. My suggestion is that TA should quickly read Sefa Dei, Bewaji (Beauty and Culture),Feyerabend, Chilisa etc. to decolonize perceptions and methodology.
I discussed bodies of knowledge and disciplines, not societies. I referenced uncritical beliefs both in Africa and the West.
I used the emergence of modern science in the 17th century, exemplified by Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler's transitions from theological cosmology and astrology, respectively, to modern science, beceause those examples are particularly striking as demonstrations of people who em,bodied two different epistemological and metaphysical cultures and were particularly strategic ion the development of one of those cultures into what is now known as modern scientific cosmology.
I am interested in other examples outside the West of such embodiment of contrary epistemes that have achieved at the fundamental levels of Newton and Kepler and thereby shaped science as strategically.
On the particularly strategic role of the 17th Century Scientific Revolution in the history of science, I am also interested in efforts to decentre the Scientific Revolution in the global history of science.
I would be particularly interested in summations giving a description/s of a similar cluster of achievement in science represented by the achievements of the scope of that of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and others in the development of science and its global impact.
I would be particularly interested in reading summaries, with names and descriptions of their achievements and impact in their fields, rather than being directed to books which would take me more time to go through.
In always happy for suggestions of things to read or do but its much better when the validity of what drives those suggestions is proven.
Along similar lines, I would also be interested in efforts to decentre the nexus of Germany( Einstein, Planck, Schrodinger etc) Denmark (Bohr) Frances ( the Curies etc) and Britain( Eddington, Crick and Watson etc ) in the efflorescence of 20th century science that created relativity theory and quantum theory.
I would also be interested in efforts to decentre the role of Europe ( Tim Berner's Leet at CERN and the creation of http) and the US ( Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo etc) in the development of the ongoing Information Revolution.
I would also be interested in efforts to decentre Europe and the US in the development of rocketry and space travel after the early development of rocketry in China ( Germany and the V2 rocket, NASA and now Elon Musk and Space X).
Modern science and technology since the 17th century is a primarily Western achievement, even when, it has been fed by advances from other cultures, and as with the Information Age, by immigrants to the West.
Any effort to retell this obvious narrative, in my view, needs to go beyond ethnic affiliation to addressing concrete history.
Whatever limitations the West demonstrates does not obscure the fact that it has been the crucible for global direction in modern science. The challenge is to learn from this example and creatively adapt it, not to deny unassailable facts.
--GE.
You are right about the duty that faces us as a life long project. That is why Professor Wole Soyinka ( and Henry Louis Gates Jr) refer to this process as ' a process of uncovering' to recover the past.
What the Yoruba Christian priesthood ( and their other Nigerian and African counterparts)have done as they stepped into the shoes of the departing colonial missionary priesthood after receiving their thirty silvers of shekels in form of their clerical pay is to continue their Judasaic demonisation of their own culture as work of the devil till today.
As a graduate of Cultural Studies this process of uncovering is what African Cultural Studies means to me. Not the transplantation of Foucault onto African soil.
We invite Toyin Adepoju to John us in this noble work of uncovering of the past to recover the gems of African meanings twisted out of focus.
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@ccsu.edu>Date: 25/06/2020 17:18 (GMT+00:00)To: OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>, usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies:Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of Ogboni
I agree with many of OA's criticisms here.I didn't know about "Ela Loro" and would appreciate other references to it.
Comparison with the US Congress is really irrelevant and somewhat awkward. I agree with that, criticism, too.
Toyin Adepoju has to realize that knowledge and all its manifestations did not start with the West nor does he constantly need the West for approval and validation.
It is quite true that the 17th century that Eurocentrics stuff into their accounts of world history / the history of science is an exaggerated, arbitrary date, particularly as we know now that the so-called European enlightenment and after, marked a descent into bigotry, racism and non-science. Tarikhu Farrah(2020) really does a great job on this in his chapter on the Origins of Modern Race Theory in the European enlightenment ie 17th century. BTW Chimakonam shocked me when on pages 7 and 8 of Ezumezu, he slipped into this kind of Eurocentric propaganda mode - but I soon realized that the rest of the work soared exceedingly high above it. (MyChoice review of the work was positive because of that realization). Getting out of the clutches of Eurocentric hyperboles, lies and deceit about the past is a tedious, lifelong project.
But to get back to OA on TA's work, I was also unhappy about the term "folk"because it is laden with prejudice when used in reference to Africana Knowledge. My suggestion is that TA shouldquickly read Sefa Dei, Bewaji (Beauty and Culture),Feyerabend, Chilisa etc. to decolonize perceptions and methodology.
A Eurocentric genius is our nightmare - but a decolonial/ decolonized genius would be a priceless gem.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2020 7:10 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies:Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of OgboniPlease be cautious: **External Email**
Toyin Adepoju.
When you refer to philosophy as being self critical many societies have been self critical for thousands of years. Even Western philosophy that you implicitly lean on as a walking crutch has been self critical since the Classical period of Aristotelian times. Your implied self critical period of the 17th century does not apply globally, is arbitrary and is only a convenient point for Western thought.
You have yourself in part answered why your categories of conceptual refinements versus transformations is not clearcut in the paragraphs dealing with raciocinative methods needing explicit alignment with subjective methods.
Did you know that long before Isaac Newton stumbled on the idea of using mathematics to construct scientific cosmology Yoruba thought did the same through Ifá divinatory system? So in relation to the Ifá system the Newtonian effort represents a refinement rather than a radical transformation and that is why your categorisation is not really clearcut in a definitive way. Are you aware of the centuries old dialogic Yoruba ' Socratic' system called Ęlå lòrò?
Also your example of witchcraft demonstrates your ambivalence toward the subject which needs to be reconciled. In one breath it is an example of superstitious beliefs and folk tales. In another attitude to it ( by the West) marks a transformative process of self critical investigation. This demonstrates to me that you have all along been involved in a self serving process of on going myth making in the Barthesian sense.
Are you aware that the concept of ' Ìyá mi àjé' as a technical phrase by the indigenous learned Yorùbá community is not the same as 'àjé' as understood by Yorùbá common folks even within the same synchronic time frame? Are you aware that one is a Christian Western inspired bastardization of an indigenous system they were desperate to supplant with their own negative version of witchcraft ( as it existed in their own society in the same way the Yorùbá concept of Èsù was violently changed to the Western Biblical concept of Satan)) as part of the colonisation project?
When I stated that your comparison with the US Congress is far fetched you retort that you have been in conversations with Ògbóni members. Only that you would not clearly include which Ògbóni member and from which Ìlédi as the Americans cited by Professor Akin Ògúndìran did. This makes your claims suspect and demonstrates that you are the one being secretive to reinforce your prejudice and not the Ògbóni.
Thank you.
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>Date: 24/06/2020 18:37 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies:Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of Ogboni
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OAA,
Thanks.
On Reworking Bodies and Systems of Knowledge
Could you explain why my 'general categories of conceptual refinements versus transformations are not as clearcut as [ I] present them here'?
On your statement that I ''seem to imply that philosophy is absent in folk knowledge and belief and that there is now an epistemic transformation from one to the other. This is inaccurate dichotomy'' I referenced the movement from the social foregrounding of ''folk knowledge and general belief to philosophy'' as an example of disciplinary transformation, in which bodies of knowledge undergo fundamental change in their epistemic premises, metaphysical foundations, investigative procedures and ultimate orientation.
By philosophy, I mean the practice of being self critical, the process of critically examining the validity of one's opinions, in the spirit championed by Socrates.
I understand folk knowledge as represented by various beliefs passed across generations in a society but often not subject to critical investigation. Many, if not most ideas about witchcraft in Nigerian societies fall into that category.
When those beliefs are subjected to scrutiny as to their logical validity, the terms of observation and analysis in which they may be adequately examined and the range of coherence they may demonstrate in terms of what may or may not be real, we have philosophy.
I do not include herbal knowledge, known through experience, to be effective, in that category of uncritical belief . I also do not include in that category methods of healing or any other knowledge, also known, through experience, to be effective.
'The world is flat' was an example of general belief in many societies until the efforts of experimental natural philosophers, as they were known in 17th century Europe and sea voyagers proved otherwise.
''The Earth is the centre of the universe' is another example of such a belief in Europe until the experimental natural philosophers such as Copernicus and Galileo proved otherwise.
The movement from accepting opinions without critical examination to insisting on examining them according to the full system of investigative tools required for such an examination, is a fundamental transformation in the development of human knowledge, perhaps as significant as being able to walk upright and create physical tools.
In developing these investigative tools and the epistemic and metaphysical frameworks shaping them, scholarly disciplines, as different from general bodies of belief, are created.
That description may be described as a counsel of perfection, because disciplines are often formed, not from the full system of investigative tools required for such an examination but from the selection of those tools chosen favoured by the investigating intelligentsia of the time.
Thus, while divinatory systems may be understood as demonstrating their own validity, astrology is not considered an aspect of astronomy and scientific cosmology bcs its premises, methods and goals are not in alignment with the completely ratiocincative stance in terms of which astronomy and scientific cosmology were developed.
This is so even though an astrologer, Johannes Kepler was involved in this process. Also involved was a theological cosmologist, Isaac Newton, but they both ultimately came to to the conclusion that the new discipline needed to be separated from their more subjective pursuits along related lines, hence they focused on the use of mathematics in creating what is now known as scientific cosmology.
Newton has a magnificent summation along such lines, relating his religious beliefs with his scientific work, in the 'General Scholium', the conclusion of his greatest work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.
The vision of examining phenomena according to the full system of investigative tools required for such an examination may be understood as a work in process, constantly unfolding as the limitations of dominant epistemological and metaphysical frameworks, of social formations of knowledge, are appreciated.
Perhaps the ratiocinactive methods particularly influential in the Western academy may be seen as needing an explicit alignment with more subjective methods for the full fulfillment of human potential.
Comparing the Historiography of the US Congress and Ogboni Historiography
On the historiography of the US Congress in relation to Ogboni historiography I suggest you read again my comparison between them and confirm if I arrogated to myself the role of official Ogboni historian, a role performed for the US Congress by its official historian.
I did a stark portrayal of the immensity of our epistemic deficit as a people, a people possessed of huge archives and possibilities of knowledge.
I compared those systems to those of others who are using all means available to record, build upon and apply their own knowledge, thereby creating a Mecca of knowledge that has made them a global knowledge hub.
How are we to adequately respond to the crisis indicated by that portrayal?
My own self chosen goal is that of foregrounding the character of Ogboni philosophy and spirituality as I understand them, and developing them in terms of their contemporary and timeless significance in their intersection with global bodies and systems of knowledge.
I am employing textual study,interaction with Ogboni members and visits to dedicated Ogboni spaces, such as the iledi, the sacred Ogboni meeting house.
This textual study covers both scholarly publications and social media statements. My interactions with Ogboni members have been through online and phone discussions and I shall be extending them to face to face conversations.
Thanks
toyin
--On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 at 10:10, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
--Toyin Adepoju.
You seem to imply that philosoohy is absent in folk knowledge and belief and that there is now an epistemic transformation from one to the other. This is inaccurate dichotomy. Your general categories of conceptual refinements versus transformations are not as clearcut as you present them here.
2. Your comparison between the US Congress preserving its history and activities and your project on Ògbóni is inaccurate. You are not a member of the Ògboni and have not been appointed to this project by any ÌIédiì Ògbóni.
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>Date: 24/06/2020 03:40 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies :Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of Ogboni
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--Great thanks, Akin.
On Texts to Read on Ogboni
Thanks for the clarification on Doris' book and its Ogboni discussions. All the more reason why I must study it. I have already reached out to him.
If you have any published work that discusses Ogboni I would be pleased to be directed to it. I have not found any yet through Googling 'Akin Ogundiran Ogboni'. If you can share ongoing research that would also be good. I am also interested in course outlines and readings relevant to the subject.
My Vision in Ogboni Studies Intersecting Yoruba, African, Asian, Western and Other Systems of Knowledge
My vision is the expansion of scholarship on Ogboni and of the further development of Ogboni philosophy and spirituality.
This scholarship begins at the level of textual analysis.
It continues at the level of embodied investigation represented by personal experimentation, dialogical interaction and the investigation of relevant spaces, such as shrines.
It also includes developing and applying theory inspired by these investigations.
I am using this scholarship as a means of constructing an openly accessible Ogboni philosophical and spiritual system that people may study and practice.
In the process I would demonstrate correlations between the Yoruba knowledge systems Ogboni, Ifa and Gelede, constructing a unified system of theory and practice.
From Unifying Ogboni, Ifa and Gelede to Developing Modern African Witchcraft
In relation to Gelede this would involve contributing to developing a form of modern African witchcraft, witchcraft being a term whose historical development in Western history I understand as broadly correlative with the Yoruba Iyami and aje concepts.
This would proceed by harnessing constructions of feminine power in relation to nature central to Gelede and rooted in the unification of Ifa and Ogboni.
These unifications emerge through conceptions of the Earth grounded and yet cosmic feminine identities represented by Odu, in Ifa and Ile, Earth, in Ogboni and correlative with Iyami, Our Mothers, in Gelede.
These unifications are already extant in the tradition and made explicit at different levels by various interpreters.
It is vital however, to foreground them, making them explicit and systematizing the scope of human female centred spirituality in Yoruba thought, developing these possibilities into a definitive philosophical and spiritual practice with guidance on how it may be practiced.
These efforts will contribute to taking Iyami and aje conceptions from the superstition that often defines them to philosophical clarity, from theory represented by a significant degree of scholarship on them, to a system of spiritual practice, with its own epistemology, metaphysics, investigative methods and ethics.
Beyond the Yoruba Context to African and Global Correlations
The Yoruba systems would be further integrated with other African and non-African cognitive systems, creating a unified whole.
On Ogboni Esotericism in Relation to African and Western Esotericisms
I am puzzled by your continued disparagement of the idea of esotericism in relation to Ogboni.
I am puzzled because your stance is at variance with the empirical reality of Ogboni as observable by anyone and as doggedly pursued by Ogboni members in Nigeria and the Americas and as carefully described by decades of scholarship on Ogboni.
Are you suggesting that Ogboni is not esoteric or its form of esotericism is different from that described by some?
One aspect of esotericism is secrecy.
Ogboni secrecy is demonstrated through the questions I asked in my last post about the scope of Ogboni knowledge in public contexts, an exclusion of information made starker in comparison with the other comparatively venerable Yoruba institution, Ifa,as I also pointed out in that post.
Perhaps you have other information that contradicts these observations?
You may have had "the opportunity and privilege of speaking with Ogboni members, and visiting Ogboni houses in the course of [ your] research" but what is the scope of information made available to you and to what degree are you allowed to publicly share wjat ypou have learnt?
If you were educated on Ogboni initiation, are you allowed to inform the world about the details of this initiation beyond such general outlines provided by Dennis Williams in 'The Iconology of the Yoruba Edan Ogboni'?
If you were you initiated, are you permitted to share your initiatory experience and subjective impressions as John McCall does of his initiation into Igbo dibia in "Making Peace with Agwu"?
Were you granted an edan ogboni of your own after initiation and allowed to share with the world your subjective experience of relating with this intimate spiritual form, central to Ogboni, as attested by scholarship and as confirmed by contemporary Ogboni?
The issue here is not so much "the opportunity and privilege of speaking with Ogboni members, and visiting Ogboni houses in the course of [ your] research" but of the scope of knowledge made available to such an investigator and what they are allowed to share with the world of what they have learnt.
Jordan Fenton's PhD on the Cross River Ekpe/Mgbe esoteric order, Take it to the Streets: Performing Ekpe/Mgbe Power in Contemporary Calabar, Nigeria, enabled by his initiation into the order, is fantastic, but, as he told me in conversation, he published only what he was allowed to. No more. A significant amount of material in his archives, he can't publish, he states.
My essay "Developing an Nsibidi Philosophy and Mysticism 2 : Entry into the Forest Cosmographic 1" and "Developing an Nsibidi Philosophy and Mysticism 2: Entry into the Forest Cosmographic 2" part of my "Nsibidi/Ekpuk Philosophy and Mysticism : Research and Publication Project" makes clear the amazing visual and perfomative achievement represented by Ekpe Nsibidi symbolism, in its alignment with Ekpe thought, but all that visual splendour is carefully managed to provide the peripheries of knowledge about the system, with strategic interpretive keys of the symbolic physical gestures and graphic art withheld, and with an entire section of the multiple signification systems kept from public view-the use of symbolic object placement of which I am yet to find any image and only one description, this being the situation when I worked on Nsibidi in 2016.
"Everyone in a community [ may know] the members of the Ogboni [the representatives of the offices of ] Apena, Olurin, Erelu, etc' like its well known that Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Amadeus Mozart, Wolfgang von Goethe and many of the greatest and the most influential figures in Western history till the present time were/are Freemasons, yet Freemasonry has a long history of tension between secrecy and disclosure, with the current edition of the Encyclopedia Britannia describing the order as the world's largest secret society and a 2018 Guardian UK article stating "The secret society is still pretty secret, and recent claims have reawakened long-held suspicions over its influence in public life", describing the orders' efforts to publicize themselves-
'After closely guarding their secrets for centuries, Britain's Freemasons have spent the last decade trying to open up their organisation, and some of its rituals, to outside scrutiny. Public relations consultants have been hired, some doors at Freemasons' Hall in central London have been unbolted for the public, and documentary makers have been allowed into lodge meetings. There are even Freemasons' Twitter feeds – and a hashtag, #ASK12B1.'
Yet, even with whatever secrecy they maintained before this point, Ronald Hutton is able to testify in The Triumph of the Moon: the Rise of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, to their incalculable influence in Western esotericism, largely through those Masons who transposed Masonic ritual knowledge in building the Golden Dawn, the most influential modern Western esoteric school.
Secret societies, such as Ogboni, Ekpe, Poro (Beryl L. Bellman, 'The Language of Secrecy: Symbols and Metaphors in Poro Ritual') the Bumbudye (John D. Studstill, " Education in a Luba Secret Society") etc are integral to African social history.
Their Western counterparts, such as the Freemasons, are also integral to Western history, both of these integralities well established by decades of scholarship. So, the recognition of the existence of secret societies in Africa does not necessarily stem from colonialist slandering.
Is it not more realistic, in line with evident reality and established facts in the field of Ogboni Studies, to acknowledge the fact of Ogboni as a secret society, a society whose workings and even most of the details of their beliefs and expressive activities are kept away from public gaze, and examine the intrinsic character, history, purposes and significance of Ogboni secrecy, in relation to secrecy in Yoruba spirituality and philosophy, in the African and global contexts, secrecy in religious and secular contexts being itself a well established field of study, in African Studies and beyond, the questions I asked about kinds and levels of secrecy being a pointer in that direction?
Within these contexts, one could integrate the concept of secret societies into the broader context of esotericism, which secret societies exemplify, and examine what I would describe as the social, epistemic and metaphysical character of Ogboni esotericism, considerations without which Ogboni cannot be adequately understood, from its politics to its art, considerations suggested in the questions I asked in my last comment, considerations grounded in central Yoruba concepts I pointed out- awo, eewo, asiri, oju inu and ori inu, ideas relating to a nexus between concealment and revelation, as demonstrated both by the boundaries and scope of being human in relation to the character of reality beyond the human and the social controls through which reality is managed.
Ogboni Spirituality in Intersection with Ogboni Political and Judicial Functions
Ogboni has been, in the course of its history, a civic institution, an arm of government, a judicial body and a religious institution, these functions intertwining.
Without understanding Ogboni's relationship with Ile, Earth, how is one to adequately understand the foundations of their authority?
Without appreciating the implications of their relationship with Earth as a sentient entity with whom they relate as universal mother, how is one to understand their use of that relationship as an instrument of power, power communicated through the belief that they could invoke the presence of Earth and her varied expressions into such instruments as the edan ogboni, metal art thus becoming repositories of the presence of sentient agents whose activity extends beyond the physical properties of their form, that being one understanding of spirit, thus enabling them to use edan ogboni as means of healing, means of protection and guidance for members, as emblems of office, as means of symbolically communicating messages?
On Studying Classical African Cognitive Systems
I'm also puzzled by your declaration that "What I said about the disciplines and African Studies is such common knowledge. Mudimbe may have popularized it for the West, but those ideas were expressed in Africa by Africa-based scholars many years before Mudimbe" thereby reinforcing your earlier claim that "One problem with many of our studies is that when we approach African institutions from the narrow view of a discipline, we reduce them to the limitation of that discipline (whether it's art history or physics). "Ogboni aesthetics" is one example of this reductionist tendency."
Disciplinary Refinement and Expansions and Disciplinary Transformations
In relation to your claim on 'Ogboni Aesthetics', I wonder if you are not conflating what I would describe as ongoing conceptual, procedural, epistemic and metaphysical refinements and expansions within disciplines with disciplinary transformations. Or conflating ongoing disciplinary explorations with definitive developments.
The research programs in action within African Studies as known to me may be described as operating more within the scope of conceptual, procedural, epistemic and metaphysical refinements and expansions than of disciplinary transformations.
Refining and expanding a discipline or a system of disciplines involves reworking and/or expanding its concepts, its scope of reference and its epistemic and metaphysical possibilities while maintaining the ultimate orientation of the epistemic and metaphysical foundations and direction of its investigative procedures.
Disciplinary transformation involves fundamentally reworking/changing the epistemic and metaphysical foundations and goals of a discipline or of the system of disciplines to which it belongs.
I'm not sure into which of these groups or what intermediate group I would place your earlier statements on the idea of 'Ogboni aesthetics' as reductionist, but the following examples drawn from the generation of scholarship you reference could help.
Akinsola Akiwowo, at the then University of Ife, in his seminal "Contributions to the Sociology of Knowledge from an African Oral Poetry" and his constellation of associated publications, did not argue, for example, that the idea of a "Yoruba Sociology" is reductionist as you seem to be arguing for the idea of an Ogboni Aesthetics.
He did not claim that the discipline of sociology could not subsume classical Yoruba conceptions of social understanding and management. He simply argued for what he described as an indigenous sociology fed by Yoruba concepts such as `asuwada', `ajobi', `ajogbe' and `ifogbontayese', and such interlocutors of his as Lawuyi and Taiwo who sought to refine his conceptions remained within the epistemic and metaphysical framework of sociology as conventionally understood, a position similar to that taken by the decades growing current orientation in studies in Yoruba art.
Even initiatives like that suggested by Toyin Falola in 'Ritual Archives', in which he seems to be arguing for the correlation of mythic/ritual and contemplative means of knowledge with the ratiocinative procedures currently dominant in the globally pervasive Western origin knowledge system, represent an expansion of the existing disciplinary systems, rather than a fundamental reworking of those systems.
This approach includes theorists such as Moyo Okediji and Henry John Drewal arguing for terminology indicating sensitivity to a broader perceptual range in studying the arts, particularly African arts.
Like Falola, they are not arguing for changes in disciplinary nomenclature or for transformative changes within disciplinary epistemologies and investigative methods but for an expansion of the exploratory procedures that shape disciplines.
The processes that constructed the current epistemic and metaphysical foundations of the Western knowledge system and the varied but ultimately correlative investigative procedures of the disciplines constituting this systems, from the arts, to the social sciences to the sciences, are examples of disciplinary transformation.
These transformations are represented by the movement from astrology to astronomy, from astrological and religious cosmology to scientific cosmology and astro-physics, from alchemy to chemistry and physics, from faith based, dogmatic Biblical interpretation to hermeneutics, from folk knowledge and general belief to philosophy, these being some of the most prominent examples.
I would be pleased to read arguments for the inadequacy of Western derived names of scholarly disciplines, as different from suggestions about introducing non-Western terms into the same disciplines, or emphasizing investigative approaches different from those dominant in the Western academy, whether or not those arguments validate your claim about Ogboni Aesthetics. I would also be pleased to read any argument from you describing why the concept of Ogboni Aesthetics is reductionist, as you claim.
I would also be interested in arguments for disciplinary transformations.
It is possible to derive new names for various academic disciplines, on the grounds perhaps, that such names, such as the range of German terms for forms of knowledge represented by variations on the term 'wissenschaft', evoke more clearly the scope of that discipline.
That approach, however, would need to struggle against the fact that the current disciplinary names are mainstays of the English language, the most pervasive in the world.
Religious/Secular Conjunctions and Divergences
I also wonder if African Studies has not gone beyond this stage- 'The secular versus religious dichotomies that Western epistemology imposes on African Studies '''.
I thought African Studies and those who respond to it are generally sensitive to the specificities of African cultures at various stages of their development.
I would also like to better understand why you state''In their own Western traditions, such dichotomies do not exist'' because I understand the history of Western thought could be written in relation to the convergence and divergence of secular and spiritual orientations.
Between Recording and Not Recording History in the US Senate and Ogboni
On recording US Senate history, individual senators are known to record their experiences as Senators, thereby providing insights into Senate history from the perspective of intimate participants, as demonstrated by the Wikipedia articles "U.S. Senator Bibliography (Congressional Memoirs)" and "U.S. Representative Bibliography (Congressional Memoirs)".
Along with these personal initiatives, the US Senate has an official historian, as demonstrated by the Wikipedia article on this office along with the official website of the office, which, interestingly, has a section titled "Oral History Project":
"Since 1976 the Senate Historical Office has conducted interviews with senators and staff. The mission of this project is to document and preserve the individual histories of a diverse group of personalities who witnessed events first-hand and offer a unique perspective on Senate history, many of whom may otherwise be missed by biographers, historians, and other scholars.
These interviews cover the breadth of the 20th century and now the 21st century. The recording and preservation of these individual oral histories will lead to a fuller and richer understanding of the history of the Senate and of its role in governing the nation."
Can you see the meaning of this in relation to Ogboni Studies?
This relates to the question I asked earlier, emphases added-
"Ogboni were once the acme of Yoruba political and judicial authority, potent in spirituality and art, like the US Congress and the US Supreme Court are central political and judicial institutions of those nations.
In the centuries of existence of Ogboni, across the Ijebu, Egba, in Oyo and among other Yoruba peoples, states and communities, are you aware of any tradition of collating knowledge of government, of statecraft, of the law, of spirituality and art, passing it across generations in a form that can be readily presented, even in an oral tradition, something like what the Yoruba origin Ifa tradition did with ese ifa, one of the largest bodies of literature in existence, with its meticulous and elaborate cataloging system, the Odu Ifa, and which the industry of writings by members of the US Congress and the US Supreme Court and scholarship on these institutions has been doing for centuries?
Can you reference texts by Ogboni members describing their personal experience of these systems or even such texts by non-Ogboni members composed from encounters with Ogboni members, descriptions of personal experience existing as an industry in discourse on various Western institutions, not least being the public organs of governance represented by the US Congress and Supreme Court?
Yoruba have long been prominent in Western literacy and Yoruba history and culture is one of the most researched and published on in African Studies.
What is the scope of Ogboni Studies in this efflorescence and how much of writings on it is due to Ogboni members, particularly as different from scholars like Margaret Thompson Drewal who joined Ogboni most likely to conduct their research?"
Is this juxtaposition with the determined efforts of the US Senate and individual Senators to record their personal and group experience of this historic institution not a great challenge in relation to the also old Ogboni institution?
Frontiers in Ogboni Studies
I bow to those scholars in African and Western institutions who have brought us this far in Ogboni Studies.
The scholars who have provided the little known and yet rich information about Ogboni, the scope as known to me which I outlined in my previous comment, clearly invested heavily, in time and cultivation of confidence, in the effort to get that information. Some, like Margaret Thompson Drewal become Ogboni initiates.
Even then they have given us the foundations, at best, of Ogboni. So much is unknown, either bcs it is restricted information, as with Ogboni spirituality and ritual or scholars need to expend more effort into investigating those aspects, such as Ogboni dance, musical instruments and music.
Constructing Scholarly/Academic Courses on Ogboni
I acknowledge the following situation, if its so, needs to be speedily redressed-
'The multidimensional aspects of Ogboni that you have identified should make us wonder why no university in southwest Nigeria (the ancestral home of the Ogboni) has a single course in the history or political science department on this ancient institution.'
particularly since the two scholars whose work is known to me who have focused on Ogboni history and their role in politics are Nigeria based scholars - Olaide Ismail Aro ( Legal Practitioner and Consultant in Nigeria ) "The Ogboni of Egbaland and Constitutional Controversy" ( International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 4, Issue 7, July 2014) and J. A. Atanda (Dept of History, Univ. of Ibadan ) "The Yoruba Ogboni Cult: Did it Exist in Old Oyọ?" (Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. vi, No. 4 June 1973) .
Regrettably, Joseph Adebowale Atanda has passed away. Olaide Aro's contact details are at his academia.edu page and his professional profile at the conclusion of his "Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria : Its Implication and Way Forwards toward Avoidance of Future Insurgency"
The level of knowledge demonstrated by the Atanda and Aro essays is fantastic. Chatting with Aro on the phone yesyerday, he states he gained that knowledge as an Egba person who not only lives in Abeokuta, the capital of Egbaland, but through his father's role as a chief and his own contacts in Egbaland, in the context of Ogboni being the central political authority, perhaps outside the state/fed govt, in my view, in Egbaland.
In developing courses in Ogboni, such scholars would be priceless. He has published significantly in academic journals in various aspects of contemporary Nigerian history, economics and education. Such a person could be employed at the very least at the level of a senior lecturer, working out with him a research program that would facilitate developing more knowledge in this field, research that perhaps begins with undergraduates being guided in investigating this subject through interpersonal research/field work, all the way to post-graduate and faculty research, thereby building up a solid knowledge base, shared with the world through online repositories, a departmental library, articles and books.
Ogboni Culture and History as a Multidisciplinary Body of Knowledge
Even then, Ogboni Studies needs to go beyond courses in various departments. Ogboni itself constitutes a disciplinary system, a complex of epistemic and metaphysical orientations that need to be both understood on its own terms, in its intersections with other bodies of thought as well as being open to development, in harmony with other epistemic orientations, as a method of seeking knowledge.
thanks
toyin
On Mon, 22 Jun 2020 at 01:41, Akin Ogundiran <ogundiran@gmail.com> wrote:
--Toyin,
You have raised excellent questions, and you have also answered most of them. I may have misunderstood what Chika was saying about Doris's work on Ogboni, but his first book has extensive sections on the Ogboni. He has a lengthy transcript of his interview with at least one Ogboni member. You should read the book when you have the chance. And, there is nothing in the book that displaces the important work of Farris Thompson on the cool aesthetics. If Ogboni is the primary subject of his second book project, I can't speak to that.
Ogboni developed about a thousand years ago to address issues of social order, rights and privileges, and checks and balances, in a world of competing interests and diversity such as you will find in ancient Yoruba cities and towns. It is primarily a civic institution. The multidimensional aspects of Ogboni that you have identified should make us wonder why no university in southwest Nigeria (the ancestral home of the Ogboni) has a single course in the history or political science department on this ancient institution. Ogboni exists beyond the Yoruba-speaking area. In Edo, Esan, and Urhobo areas, you will come across the Ogboni houses (not the Reformed ones). Of course, the purpose of the Ogboni has changed since the colonial rule because the meaning of "community" has also drastically changed.This is what gave birth to the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity.
The secular versus religious dichotomies that Western epistemology imposes on African Studies are useless for Africans. In their own Western traditions, such dichotomies do not exist. I encourage you to think more about this. American students like Doris encountered Ogboni in the US, in the classes taught by the Abioduns, Lawals, Drewals, and Ogundirans of this world, and they bravely travel to Nigeria to study the institution. They gain some access because they are humble (at least when they are there). Yet, the Nigerian students of the humanities living there know nothing about the institution and instead parrot colonial narratives of esotericism. By the way, Senators don't usually write the history of the US Senate. Scholars do.
Gloria has already responded to Ken about Mudimbe. What I said about the disciplines and African Studies is such common knowledge. Mudimbe may have popularized it for the West, but those ideas were expressed in Africa by Africa-based scholars many years before Mudimbe.
Akin Ogundiran
UNC Charlotte
On Friday, June 19, 2020 at 1:11:31 PM UTC-4, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju wrote:
Classics in Ogboni StudiesBabatunde LawalPhilosopher of Ogboni
Babatunde Lawal surrounded by great works of Yoruba art, his field of study
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Abstract
An exploration of the insights of the work of art historian, art critic and art theorist Babatunde Lawal on the Yoruba origin Ogboni esoteric order in relation to developing a comprehensive grasp of its philosophy, as intrinsic to the order and in its integration within Yoruba thought.
Philosopher of Ogboni
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