Extending Ogundiran's Multidisciplinary Study of Yoruba History in The Yoruba: A New History
Questions of Method and Ethics
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
I believe I know what ideas to employ and how to weave them within the narrative of Akinwumi Ogundiran's The Yoruba: A New History, extending the actualisation of his project, writing Yoruba history as a confluence of economics, technology, politics, spirituality and philosophy, dramatising the material processes and reflective logic demonstrated by this history, as the writer understands it, this being my interpretation of that book.
I believe Ogundiran's project can and needs to be taken further, building on the splendidly evocative foundations he has created. I think his aspiration to make Yoruba philosophy and spirituality central to the project can be further advanced through an engagement with Yoruba conceptions of agency, of relationships between the human being and the environment of nature, persons and events that shape history.
This is a circle of possibility revolving ultimately around the sensitivity of human consciousness. This may be visualised in terms of the centralisation of the unity of the Yoruba ideas of ori, consciousness, and ase, life force and creative possibility. This conjunction is itself symbolised by the dynamism and unpredictability of the deity Eshu. Eshu's face or eyes, as representing the perceptual powers he represents, are imaged in the circular form that is the best known structure of opon ifa, the divination tray of the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge. This tray may be interpreted as a microcosmic representation of Yoruba thought, expansive possibilities suggested by the first chapter of Abiodun, Drewal, Pemberton and Wardwell's Yoruba : Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought and Awo Falokun Fatunmbi on opon ifa, perhaps in "Esu-Elegba: Ifa and The Divine Messenger."
I am of the view that the insights of Ogunduran's splendid early chapter on the emergence of religious thought in the proto-Yoruba's response to their environment can be more explicitly described as grounding further development in Yoruba thought, a progression emerging into a definitive form in the relationship between the institutions of Ogboni and Ifa, a progression erupting in the crystallisations of the conceptions of particular deities, such as Oshun, the section on Oshun in the book being one that, even though perceptive, I understand as encoding a dense matrix of Yoruba ideas about the feminine that needs to be further unpacked, ideas within the classical literature on Oshun the section draws upon.
I see Ogundiran's book in my mind's eye. I see those sections in the flow of his ideas where such interjections could belong, blending seamlessly with the narrative. I see where the insights of such an investigator of the roots of Yoruba thought as Wole Soyinka could amplify the story.
But I am not Ogundiran and its not my book, nor do I have the particular range of multidisciplinary knowledge he has brought to this book, evidencing marked depth of engagement, covering years.
How can I build on his work without plagiarizing him? His writing is so compelling, the sentential constructions and the total structure of his arguments spell binding, they may continue to resonate in one's mind in blocks of inspiring ideational sound, a song to Yoruba genius in its triumphs and struggles. How may one take advantage of this seductive beauty without crossing ethical boundaries?
Perhaps short essays experimenting with these ideas could help. That approach could facilitate achieving a balance between drawing from Ogundiran's scholarly identity in the book as one cultivates one's own in that context. Perhaps studying other accounts of Yoruba history could help broaden one's appreciation of various ways of approaching the subject and facilitate the development of one's own voice through selection and integration of perspectives and expressive styles.
I am interested in the extension of Ogundiran's project through a greater grounding in Yoruba thought as an interpretive matrix, not only the subject being interpreted, but the method of interpreting it, going beyond Ogundiran's interesting use of proverbs as complementing narrative and analysis in historical writing, an approach itself further interpretable in terms of theories of discourse in Yoruba thought as discussed by Rowland Abiodun in Yoruba Art and Language. I am also interested in working out a greater degree of continuity in the study of the development of Yoruba spirituality and philosophy as a river running through and feeding the multi-disciplinary narrative that is Yoruba history.
The intersection of myth and history, exploring situations and their possibilities within the matrix of space and time at the convergence of matter and spirit in terms of which Ifa may be understood, can't this be employed as a guide to historical writing, an aspiration taking further Ogundiran's vision of foregrounding Yoruba thought in a study of Yoruba history?
Engaging more intimately with hermeneutics in Yoruba thought, perhaps correlating it with studies in the hermeneutics of the culturally cognate Benin Oguega system of knowledge, as developed, for example, by Daryl Peavy in an article in Umẹwaẹn: Journal of Benin and Ẹdoid Studies and the Igbo Afa, as explored, for instance, by Angulu Onwuejeogwu in Afa Symbolism and Phenomenology and the contrastive approaches by John Anenechukwu Umeh in his 2 vol After God is Dibia: Igbo Cosmology, Divination and Sacred Science in Nigeria and Patrick Iroegbu, in his essays and books on Igbo medicine and by John McCall in his work on Afa and its Agwu deity, part of his work with the Ohafia Igbo.
Such a multicultural dialogue would amplify Ogundiran's argument that the construction of Yoruba identity as an ideological synthesis is fed by what later came to be known as diverse ethnic streams, an idea reinforced by the intimate relationships between various thought systems in Southern Nigeria, themselves resonating with the larger unity in diversity of African and non-African thought.
Such a multicultural dialogue would amplify Ogundiran's argument that the construction of Yoruba identity as an ideological synthesis is fed by what later came to be known as diverse ethnic streams, an idea reinforced by the intimate relationships between various thought systems in Southern Nigeria, themselves resonating with the larger unity in diversity of African and non-African thought.
Having asked such questions a number of times, it seems the next step could be to demonstrate how these aspirations could be fulfilled, beginning perhaps with an engagement with Ogundiran's preface and introduction where he masterfully lays out his ambitions for the history he writes, a particularly inspiring evocation of possibility calling for further developments along similar lines.
My ongoing exploration of Ogundiran's account of Yoruba history can be followed at Yoruba and African History as a Quest for Meaning : An Exploratory Journey with Akinwumi Ogundiran's The Yoruba : A New History.
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