Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies : Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of Ogboni

Follow up 

 Toyin Adepoju,

 I want to add to the list of texts mentioned, Chimakonam's EZUMEZU. As I pointed out 

  in a Choice Review:

 Ezumezu, the philosophical system of ideas expounded, is aimed at decentering and replacing 

"the Aristotelian Greco-European logocentric view of reason" with a system of logic that is inspired by

 African ontological realities and dynamism, thus providing "a foundation for African philosophy."

 The final chapter focuses on "epistemicide" and the destruction of African

 epistemologies as well as Christian missionary collaboration with the colonialists to achieve this end.

 The text shines a brilliant spotlight on African knowledge, philosophy, and

 intellectual endogeneity from one of Africa's leading philosophers. (Modified Abstract)

But you have to decenter the eurocentric approach from various disciplines and perspectives

simultaneously. I appreciate the way Feyerabend does this from within the belly of the beast 

and  from within the history of science. That is why I make reference to his works.

George Sefa Dei does it from within Indigenous  Knowledge epistemology and  education, 

Bewaji from philosophy, Biko does it from criminology and law, Bangura from mathematics; Van Sertima, 

Molefi Asante,  Chilisa and Diop got us to rethink methodology;Joseph Inikori from economics.

George James in Stolen Legacy points to the real foundation of Greek philosophy.  It is a long list.

I have tried to do it from history and AIK along with several historians of Africa, none the least

Toyin Falola, our distinguished moderator.

The Western world did not singlehandedly build the modern technologies you cited and I shall 

certainly revisit that issue, so this  is not the last of my responses to your brilliant rejoinder.

 

Gloria Emeagwali

On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 9:05 AM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

dear michael

you glossed over my use of the term "contemporary." african studies goes back to the period you cite, though you are emphasizing history and my own interest would focus more on literary studies. i;d look at those who initiated work on negritude say, like kesteloot, and later anglophone writers like irele. all that work on structuralist, sociological, cultural studies that early critics relied on created the first wave of african studies, that generated the scholarship of the 1960s and 1970s. mudimbe changed the terrain with his first two books in french, and then the Invention of Africa, which, as i said, was foundational for postcolonial african studies. we saw gikandi and after him mbembe rely on mudimbe's work in integrating poststructural thinking into africanist scholarship.

Invention came out in 1988. those who followed were radically different in their approaches to text from their predecessors. during those years, the 1990s, all serious scholarship on african literature, cinema, arts, had to take the work of mudimbe and those who followed, whose names i mentioned, seriously. that influence and impact lasted twenty years or more.

we are in a new phase where the shape of postcolonial studies has shifted dramatically, and the major thinkers of that period, including bhabha and spivak, are no longer leading the direction of scholars. and that includes mudimbe as well.

my initial mention had to do with his work on disciplines, deriving much from foucault.

what happens to all the scholarship of the past as the trends change?  i believe the stronger scholars attempt to grapple with the work of the past, but take new directions. i do not believe they lose value,but, as russian formalists once put it, pass to the back burners.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2020 10:38 PM

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies : Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of Ogboni

 

"the field of contemporary african studies was built on (Mudumbe)'s work . . ." (kh)

Really? First of all, I duff my hat in the direction of all of you who have read and fully understood Mudumbe's work(s). I have failed miserably in that area but it probably has nothing to do with the great philosopher. I still hail the depth of his intellect. Indeed, Parables & Fables is one of the most prominent classics in my library in Nigeria. But if I may ask, Ken, why would V.Y. Mudumbe be the "father of African Studies", just to paraphrase you? Where does that live the likes of Jan Vansina, M.J. Herskovits, D.P. Kunene, Philip Curtin, A.C. Jordan, L. Harries, and the list goes on and on . . .? But that is not the issue. . .

I think the counsel that Dr. Ogundiran offered Toyin in his first critique of Toyin's work is quite solid and critical in terms of the need to reach out to practicing Ogboni members with humility so as to gain a phenomenological insight into the meaning of their practice so he would not be misconstrued as an armed-chair investigator and he would be able to provide an organic analysis because the "mother's milk is sweet", the anthem of the Ogbonis is no gimmick. As the Yorba say, "No one can know the mother of Ošo,  the child, more than the child itself." If Toyin would adhere to that counsel, his work on the Ogbonis could be as ground-breaking as Marcel Griaule's Conversation with Ogotemmeli, that was the single counsel the Griaule's team followed and broke the ground for the world's knowledge of the much-acclaimed Dongon cosmology today. I happen to know a member of his team at Yale, the late John Middleton, and he would be the first to tell you that you cannot truly grasp, let alone interpret, the meaning of a culture and the phenomenal nuances that surround it when you only read about it, and your analysis or interpretation would always be warped if it fails to align with what the practitioners of that culture consider as its meaning/s!

Keep it up, Oluwatoyin!

Michael

On Sunday, June 21, 2020, 5:13:26 PM EDT, Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

toyin is correct; it has to do wiith the place of disciplines within discourse. i doon't know if i have to will to refute gloria's denigration of mudimbe. i don't think you get him.  not sure what good it would do to defend him.. as far as i am concerned, th field of contemporary african studies was built on his work, with that of others who were foundational to postcoloniialism at the time--bhabha and spivak, then mudimbe, then mbembe -- the trajectory is clear.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2020 4:55 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies : Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of Ogboni

 

Well by the time you are done with

 Mudimbe, you may start to question

 the great project you are embarking 

on, and abandon it. He is a master 

of spin.   For focusing

on Ogboni Studies he may label you 

an ethnocentric - and shame you 

into silence. 

He dismisses Blyden, Diop, Obenga

and all the great pan Africanists, with

arguments that cater for a 

particular demographic - with a

questionable agenda. Blyden 

is his punching bag.

The Eurocentrics

actually love Mudimbe 

because he creates 

a vacuum for them to fill.

This is somewhat speculative but

I won't be surprised if 

to the Black Lives Matter movement

he  retorted "all lives matter"-

in total distortion of the gravity

and organizational necessities

of the here and now, in this

moment of resistance against 

police brutality. He would probably 

reject the logical construct:

 All Lives Matter

Black people have Lives

Therefore Black Lives Matter

Don't get me wrong. I recognize 

Mudimbe's profound understanding 

of colonialist historiography.He 

even critiques  some Eurocentric works

that  only a master of the French 

and Belgian archives 

would come across,

and provides unforgettable,

illuminating, intellectual insights 

and contributions to epistemology-

but his frequent  dismissal

of Black identity, indirectly or

otherwise, is suspect.

With intentional or

accidental sleight of 

hand, this erudite philosopher

of Romance Languages and 

Literature, often undermines

the Black people who speak for 

themselves. 

Professor Gloria Emeagwali 

emeagwali@ccsu.edu

africahistory.net

Vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali

On Jun 21, 2020, at 2:42 PM, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com> wrote:



i get the impression that ken is addressing mudimbe's general idea of  the construction of africa as a field of study in western discourse, an orientation  he perhaps sees akin's post as projecting in terms of seeking to let african discourses speak for and define themselves

toyin  

On Sun, 21 Jun 2020 at 18:44, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com> wrote:

Mudimbe's texts are largely 

historiographical/methodological

and focus very peripherally on 

Yoruba culture, if at all, in my view,

but correct me if I am missing out 

something specific.

Symbols and the interpretation 

of the African past; 

Which idea of Africa;The power of the 

Greek paradigm; and Domestication 

and the Conflict of memories -

constitute the agenda for "The idea

Of Africa."

 In "The Invention  of Africa"

he begins with: Discourse of Power

and Knowledge; Questions of Method;

The Power of Speech; Blyden's 

legacy and questions; and the

 patience of philosophy.

His West African bibliographic 

references are scanty and so, too,

overall content- heavily inspired

by Central African realities.

GE

On Jun 21, 2020, at 11:59 AM, Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:



well, the key key key text, The Invention of Africa. changed the field, as far as i am concerned. then the sequel, The Idea of Africa.

k

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2020 11:53 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies : Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of Ogboni

 

Which of Mudimbe's books 

are you referring to, Ken?

GE

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 21, 2020, at 5:09 AM, Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:



dear akin, i love your answer. surprised, when you got to the limiits of the discipline, that you didn't cite mudimbe, the sage on this topic.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Akin Ogundiran <ogundiran@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2020 9:06 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies : Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of Ogboni

 

Hello Chika, Thank you for the reference. I reread David Doris's book not too long ago and I didn't see anything he said about the Ogboni that is troubling or that goes against Thompson's cool aesthetics. The latter is a metatheory that Thompson applied to both the African and African Diaspora art (not just the Yoruba). Toyin should indeed read Vigilant Things so that he can reach his own conclusion on this.

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. 

Toyin, I admire your efforts in seeking knowledge about the Ogboni but I encourage you to make efforts to visit the Ogboni members and their iledi. Doing so might show you that this is not as exotic as you are making it to be. But for you to gain that access, you must be ready to practice what a colleague of mine called "epistemic humility." I have had the opportunity and privilege of speaking with Ogboni members, and visiting Ogboni houses in the course of my research. I've also been to the US Congress for closed door meetings, and visited some of the most admirable but highly restricted institutions in the Western world. I don't see the difference between them and the Ogboni. Everyone in a community knows the members of the Ogboni. They know Apena, Olurin, Erelu, etc. It is lack of knowledge that would make anyone think that Ogboni is an exotic institution, the unknowable, the Other. This is what the British colonial institution taught us to believe. You know why? Because the Ogboni was an underground resistance to colonialism, the same way that the Ogboni resisted "foreign" domination in their communities for centuries. For example, the Egba resistance against the Oyo Empire in the late eighteenth century would not have been possible and successful without the Ogboni. It is sad that our colonizers (White Nationalists) succeeded in their war of mental dislocation which then leads to ignorance. And many of us are still perpetuating that ignorance.  There is nothing more secretive about the Ogboni than any other institution anywhere, committed to governance, indigenous rights, and self determination. If it is that secretive, how come Babatunde Lawal, Henry Drewal, Rowland Abiodun, and David Doris (all art historians-Caucasian and Black), among others, know so much (and share so much) about the Ogboni? 

Akin Ogundiran

UNC Charlotte

 

On Friday, June 19, 2020 at 7:09:05 PM UTC-4, Chika Okeke-Agulu wrote:

On current Ogboni research, you might want to check the ongoing work of David T. Doris at Michigan. His Vigilant Things: On Thieves, Yoruba Anti-Aesthetics, and the Strange Fates of Ordinary Objects in Nigeria (2011) compellingly challenged Robert Farris Thompson's dominant "cool" aesthetic that for decades served as the primary code for understanding Yoruba Aesthetic; and I suspect that his research on Ogboni, based on years of understudying leading members of the Ogboni Society--from the little I have seen--will vigorously trouble current scholarly on the subject.

Chika

On Friday, June 19, 2020 at 1:11:31 PM UTC-4, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju wrote:

                             

                     

      

            Classics in Ogboni Studies 

                      Babatunde Lawal

                  Philosopher of Ogboni

                              

                                            

   

                      Babatunde Lawal surrounded by great works of Yoruba art, his field of study

                                                                        Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                                                                          Compcros

                                                        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

Babatunde Lawal may be described as a philosopher of Ogboni on account of his dramatization of Ogboni vision, through poetry of expression, analytical depth, ideational range and artistic sensitivity, projecting a passion that lifts to the mind's eye the glory of his subject.

Representative examples of his scholarly work may also be seen as demonstrating an inter-relationality, a coherence of subjects and of perspectives on those subjects, suggesting an Ogboni vision, even though he is not known as an Ogboni initiate.

Lawal's "À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó" 's Compelling Exposition of the Unity of Ogboni Philosophy, Spirituality and Art

Lawal's "À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó: New Perspectives on Edan Ògbóni," was published in African Arts, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1995, 36-49+98-100.

This essay is the most comprehensive on Ogboni known to me, surveying the fundamentals of Ogboni thought and its relationship with Ogboni art in the context of Ogboni history.

Lawal is magnificent on Ogboni philosophy, in terms of its conceptual exposition and the unraveling of the projection of these ideas through Ogboni art.

The poetry, imaginative range and lofty moral vision demonstrated by Ogboni in what might be described as its most mature form at the acme of Yoruba political, judicial, philosophical and spiritual synthesis is magnificently demonstrated by Lawal in an essay enriched with superb images of the art whose harmony of expressive power and ideational projection he explores.

He masterfully projects the character of Ogboni as a spirituality and philosophy centred in the feminine, as it foregrounds the masculine and feminine polarities that define human existence as a manifestation of the feminine principle represented by Earth as universally nurturing mother.

The Unity of Representative Examples of Babatunde Lawal's Scholarly Work as Suggesting an Ogboni Vision

"À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó" is correlative with Lawal's book on Yoruba female centred spirituality, The Gelede Spectacle: Art, Gender and Social Harmony in an African Culture, where he argues for the correlation of all female deities in Yoruba origin Orisa cosmology as expressions of Earth.

These conjunctions further resonate with another remarkable essay of his, "Èjìwàpò: The Dialectics of Twoness in Yoruba Art and Culture", where the centrality of the binary principle and its manifestation in a unifying triad is developed at length, with superb pictures.

This essay may be seen as microcosmic of Yoruba philosophy and spirituality as a whole, binary and triadic concepts being also central to Ogboni, that being one of the examples he gives in this essay, while demonstrating the ramification of these ideas in other centres of Yoruba thought, as in the Ifa system of knowledge.

"Orilonise : The Hermeneutics of the Head and Hairstyles Among the Yoruba" is another essay in which Lawal can be seen as exploring Yoruba philosophy and spirituality's grounding in the intersection between the material and spiritual universes, an intersection that defines Ogboni, although Ogboni does not feature explicitly in this essay, from what I recall.

Another priceless essay by Lawal, conjunctive with Ogboni thought, though Ogboni is not discussed in it, is "Àwòrán: Representing the Self and Its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art," where he explores ideas of imaginative fashioning in Yoruba thought, with reference to the transformation of what is seen by the eyes and recreated by the artist into art, a creative form further reworked by the perception of the viewer.

He presents the scope of sensory and particularly visual perception in Yoruba thought, ranging from corporeal perception, immediate sensory apprehension, to the reworking of sense data through critical reflection and imagination, among other conventional cognitive processes, to unconventional modes of perception.

He thus depicts Yoruba epistemology as developing the idea of penetration beyond the conventionally perceptible to unconventional awareness, the unconventional ranging from extra sensory perception to trance and witchcraft, although he does not elaborate on these tantalizing epistemic categories, nor explain the controversial conception of witchcraft in Yoruba thought.

"Àwòrán" aligns superbly with the Earth centred, materially grounded but extra-material orientation of Ogboni thought in dramatizing the emphasis in Yoruba thought of a dynamic between the material world and possibilities of being beyond the material, between Earth and its biological enablements and possibilities beyond these.

These oscillations are emblematised by the recurrent motif in Yoruba Ifa literature of a journey between orun, the world of ultimate origins and the material universe represented by aye, Earth, a journey described by Ogboni elder Kolawole Ositola in Margaret Thompson Drewal's Yoruba Ritual: Performers, Play Agency, as central to Ogboni lifestyle as an inter-generational quest for knowledge, truth and justice, a journey between orun and aye that may be perceived in metaphorical terms as an oscillation between the ultimate and the contingent, between the material and the spiritual.

In "Divinity, Creativity and Humanity in Yoruba Aesthetics," Lawal explores the dialectic of divine and human creativity in Yoruba thought emblematised by myths of divine shaping of the human being in Yoruba cosmology in contrast to the belief co-existing in this cosmology, that deities are shaped by humans, represented in the expression "Bi eniyan ko si, orisa ko si", "No humanity, no orisa [deities]" thereby incidentally evoking the Ogboni expression, "Earth existed before the orisa and the Ogboni cult before kingship," as quoted by Peter Morton-Williams in "The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in Oyo."

Lawal concludes, in keeping with Wole Soyinka's summation on the same expression in The Credo of Being and Nothingness, Soyinka's response being that "Orisa reveals destiny as-Self destination."

Lawal states that, in this context, the human creation of deity is an "act of self-reflexion [that] not only constitutes the orisa into a sort of superhuman Other, an extension of the metaphysical self, but also provides a basis for involving them in the ethics, aesthetics, poetics and politics of human existence".

This perspective may be fruitfully compared with the Ogboni projection of human creativity within a symbol matrix where human creativity is placed within a network of symbols including Olodumare, the ultimate creator and Ile, Earth, as described in Dennis Williams' "The Iconology of the Yoruba Edan Ogboni".

Within this configuration, the human being is symbolized by charcoal from cooking fires, suggesting human discovery of fire in transforming food from a raw to an edible state, representing the adaptation and transformation of nature that defines human civilization, a recreative process that may be extended to humanity's relationship with ideas of spirit and deity.

In "Orí: The Significance of the Head in Yoruba Sculpture", Lawal explores the recreative activity of art as representative of the dialogue between the self, as a biologically and socially shaped entity, and the self as an entity that transcends biology, society and mortality, as understood in Yoruba thought.

He examines the scope of the idea of the human person as shaper of being at the nexus of contrastive but complementary aspects of the self, a perspective resonant with Morton-Williams' description of Ogboni thought as centred in the shaping capacity of humanity even within the cosmos of deities:

The senior grade of Ogboni will collectively know all that pertains to the orisa cults. They will also have been active participants in them and many will have gone deeply into their esoterica. The ritual of the orisa ceases to captivate the most thoughtful of them … through their experience, age, and closeness to death they have transcended the ordinary orisa 'truth '-the conceptions expressed through the cults-leaving only Earth as the absolute certainty in their future.

In discussions of Yoruba religion, contemplative Ogboni men will often introduce such phrases as ' I know that everything must have its cause ', meaning that whatever the orisa do for mankind is a consequence of human action; implicit is a denial of the ordinary man's conviction that there is an element of irresponsibility or of chance in events; implicit also is the awareness that Elegbara, the Trickster deity, cannot lead a man into misfortune unless he himself or an enemy provokes the event.

(Peter Morton-Williams, "The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in Oyo, " Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 30, No. 4.1960. 362-374.373).

To what degree is such a perception an aspect of Ogboni ethos in general and in relation to changes in Ogboni since the decades when this article was published?

Whatever might be the response to this question, this style of thinking suggests an approach to the nexus of humanity, Earth and deity generated by Ogboni thought.

Links to Download Some of Lawal's Works

"Àwòrán: Representing the Self and Its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art,"

"À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó New Perspectives on Edan Ògbóni"

"Orilonise : The Hermeneutics of the Head and Hairstyles Among the Yoruba"

"Orí: The Significance of the Head in Yoruba Sculpture"

"Divinity, Creativity and Humanity in Yoruba Aesthetics"

"Embodying the Sacred in Yoruba Art"

Babatunde Lawal Page on Semantic Scholar Document Archive Site

An Invitation to Donate to this Project

You can contribute materially to this project, facilitating research and publication in Ogboni Studies, consolidating the subject and providing foundations for the unified study of African esoteric systems, bodies of thought and action defined by secrecy in the exploration of knowledge.

Click here to donate at Ogboni Explorations blog.

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