Yorùbá Traditional Religious Wood-Carvings

ABSTRACT

The Yorùbá -Yorùbá N O - - Yorùbá traditional religion and its attendant practice of wood-carving. Existing studies on Yorùbá wood-carving have concen -Yorùbá existed independently for a long time. This study, therefore, identified extant Yorùbá examined areas of divergence in the artistic production of the people.

- wood-carvers, priests and adherents of some Yorùbá traditional religion who use wooden paraphernalia in their worship. Direct observation was used to collect data on iconographic features of wooden religious paraphernalia such as ọpón-Ifá (divination board), agere-Ifá (palm-nut bowl), ìróké-Ifá (divination board-tapper), osé-Ṣà Ṣà ‟ ère-ìbejì (twin figurines), and egúngún and gèlèdé masks. The interviews were content-analysed, while the paraphernalia were subjected to iconographic, semiotic and comparative analyses.

Opón-Ifá, agere-Ifá, ìróké-Ifá, osé-Ṣà and ère-ìbejì Gèlèdé ìróké-Ifá, agere-Ifá and osé-Ṣà shared similar iconographic fe by the top, middle and base sections. Their middle sections bore a variety of

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images, while the top and base sections were fixed. In all the three communities, the face of Èsù, usually represented on ọpón-Ifá, was the only constant feature on divination trays. Other depictions on the tray varied from zoomorphic and anthropomorphic to abstract motifs. The gèlèdé had two sections: the lower section had the image of a human head and the superstructures bore a myriad of images. The kneeling nude female figure, commonly depicted in ìróké-Ifá, agere-Ifá, osé-Ṣà and Èsù figures, symbolised the pain and travails of the woman during childbirth, an important moment associated with destiny. The face of Èsù on ọpón-Ifá was indicative of the mythical relationship between Èsù and Ifá, while the representations on gèlèdé masks demonstrated the extraordinary powers believed to be possessed by women. Points of divergence included the painting of ọpón-Ifá and gèlèdé

The Yorùbá religio iconographic features and had similar semiotic connotations. They have long been represented with fixed graphical symbols and have thus attained the status of icons.