Yoruba peoples of southwestern Nigeria conceive of rituals as journeys -- sometimes actual, sometimes virtual. Performed as a parade or a procession, a pilgrimage, a masking display, or possession trance, the journey evokes the reflexive, progressive, transformative experience of ritual participation. Yoruba Ritual is an original and provocative study of these practices. Using a performance paradigm, Margaret Thompson Drewal forges a new theoretical and methodological approach to the study of ritual that is thoroughly grounded in close analysis of the thoughts and actions of the participants. Challenging traditional notions of ritual as rigid, stereotypic, and invariant, Drewal reveals ritual to be progressive, transformative, generative, and reflexive and replete with simultaneity, multifocality, contingency, indeterminacy, and intertextuality.

Throughout the book prominence is given to the intentionality of actors as knowledgeable agents who transform ritual itself through play and improvisation. Integral to the narrative are interpolations about performances and their meanings by Kolawole Ositola, a scholar of Yoruba oral tradition, ritual practitioner, diviner, and master performer. Rich descriptions of rituals relating to birth, death, reincarnation, divination, and constructions of gender are rendered all the more vivid by a generous selection of field photos of actual performances.


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The play centers on two women: Adunni (sophomore Mariama Morray) and Folake (freshman Laeticia Jean Baptiste). Both are daughters of palm wine tappers, whose relationship turns antagonistic due to the actions of the Prince of Ife, who chooses to marry Folake despite professing his love to both her and Adunni.

In many ways, the play focused on the idea of the vicissitudes of life not being mediated by random chance but rather through specific social interactions and social structures, particularly through the Prince of Ife acting as the absent yet all-powerful patriarch. However, the way the play did this was through a uniquely captivating amalgam of humour and gravity, a testament to the strength of the actors and the script.

Another strength of the play lies in its painstaking attempts at ensuring cultural awareness and in expanding the genre to make space for dance and music. The play is bookended by dances in traditional Yoruba costume accompanied by bat drums, and the Yoruba language is interspersed throughout the play. Aluko spoke about these issues of demonstrating cultural and linguistic authenticity while making a play for a largely Western audience.

And to me, it truly was a celebration of culture; it proffered itself not just as a play, but as a means of cultural exchange, of understanding ideas of history and identity through the eyes of others.

Death and the King's Horseman is a play by Wole Soyinka based on a real incident that took place in Nigeria during the colonial era: the horseman of a Yoruba King was prevented from committing ritual suicide by the colonial authorities.[1][2] In addition to the intervention of the colonial authorities, Soyinka calls the horseman's own conviction toward suicide into question, posing a problem that throws off the community's balance.

Soyinka wrote the play in Cambridge, where he was a fellow at Churchill College during his political exile from Nigeria.[3] He has also written a preface to the play, explaining what he sees as the greatest misconceptions in understanding it. In particular, he says that the play should not be considered as "clash of cultures."[3] Rather, the play demonstrates the need for interaction between African and European cultures, as per Soyinka's post-Biafran cultural philosophy.[4]

Death and the King's Horseman builds upon the true story on which Soyinka based the play, to focus on the character of Elesin, the King's Horseman of the title. According to some Yoruba traditions, the death of the king must be followed by the ritual suicide of the king's horseman as well as the king's dog and horse, because the horseman's spirit is essential to helping the King's spirit ascend to the afterlife. Otherwise, the king's spirit will wander the earth and bring harm to his people. The first half of the play documents the process of this ritual, with the potent, life-loving figure Elesin living out his final day in celebration before the ritual process begins. At the last minute, the local colonial administrator, Simon Pilkings, intervenes, the suicide being viewed as illegal and unnecessary by the colonial authorities.

In the play, the result for the community is catastrophic, as the breaking of the ritual means the disruption of the cosmic order of the universe and thus the well-being and future of the collectivity is in doubt. The community blames Elesin as much as Pilkings, accusing him of being too attached to the earth to fulfil his spiritual obligations. Events lead to tragedy when Elesin's son, Olunde, who has returned to Nigeria from studying medicine in Europe, takes on the responsibility of his father and commits ritual suicide in his place so as to restore the honour of his family and the order of the universe. Consequently, Elesin kills himself, condemning his soul to a degraded existence in the next world. In addition, the dialogue of the native suggests that this may have been insufficient and that the world is now "adrift in the void".

Almost every character in Death and the King's Horseman at some point uses a traditional Yoruba proverb. Through his vast knowledge of Yoruba proverbs, Soyinka is able to endow his play with a strong Yoruba sentiment.

Written in five scenes, it is performed without interruption.[7] Soyinka himself has directed important American productions, in Chicago in 1976 and at Lincoln Center in New York in 1987, but according to Andrew Gumbel, the play "has been much more widely admired than performed".[3]

In 2021, the Crane Creations Theatre Company had led a Play Date event of Death and the King's Horseman. This monthly play reading is held by a group of professional theatre artists for the purpose of spreading and increasing appreciation of playwrights from around the world.

A film adaptation directed by playwright Biyi Bandele (with screenplay translated into Yorb by Nigerian linguist Kola Tubosun[15]) and co-produced by Netflix and Ebonylife TV titled Elesin Oba, The King's Horseman had its world premier at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022. The film stars Odunlade Adekola, Shaffy Bello, Brymo, Deyemi Okanlawon, Omowunmi Dada, Jide Kosoko, Kevin Ushi, Jenny Stead, Mark Elderkin, Langley Kirkwood, Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, and Joke Silva.[16]

When speaking of play as something known to all, and when trying to analyse or define the idea expressed in that word, we must always bear in mind that the idea as we know it is defined and perhaps limited by the word we use for it. Word and idea are not born of scientific or logical thinking but of creative language, which means of innumerable languages-for this act of "conception" has taken place over and over again. Nobody will expect that every language, in forming its idea (of) and expression for play, could have hit on the same idea or found a single word for it, in the way that every language has one definite word for "hand" or "foot". The matter is not as simple as that. We can only start from the play-concept that is common to us.17

It is therefore obvious from the fore that any meaningful designation of play should be considerate of the local content of the indigenous people. It is worthy of note that in traditional Yoruba society play is not just a pastime activity; it has the potential to serve as an important tool in numerous aspects of daily life.

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An assessment was made of the attitude of the Yoruba of Western Nigeria to visual, auditory and physical handicaps in children. The results indicate that although a good number of the Yoruba community exhibits positive attitudes to handicaps in children, significant differences were observed between the attitudes of the Western-educated lite and their illiterate counterparts living in traditional settings. The Western-educated group is less favourably disposed to handicaps in children than their counterparts in the traditional settings. Finally, there is a need for public education about the ascertainment of handicaps in children, their care and education. Nurses have a major role to play in this regard. 17dc91bb1f

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