Yoruba Mythology

Stories of the Orisa from West Africa and the Diaspora

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

AvAyodeji Ogunnaike,Data Oruwari,Oludamini Ogunnaike

599 kr

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The first major work of Yoruba mythology retells hundreds of traditional tales from West Africa, Cuba, and Brazil. Beautifully illustrated throughout. Yoruba mythology is sacred to the traditional Yoruba religion and culture of the Yoruba people of West Africa found primarily in Nigeria, Bénin Republic, and Togo. It is a community of more than 100 million practitioners, who can be found on every continent. An oral tradition, many of the stories revolve around Olodumare, a Supreme Being, and the source of all creation and a number of divinities, or Orisa, who control the elements of nature, events, and human behavior including Obatala (creation), Oduduwa (the warrior), Sango (lightning, fire, dance, and drumming), Oya (wind, storms, and thunder), Esu (chaos and trickery), Yamoja (motherhood and protection), and Iku (death), to name just a few. Yoruba Mythology is the first-ever full-scale collection of more than 300 myths of this ancient, profound, and beautiful storytelling tradition. Authors Ayodeji Ogunnaike and Oludamini Ogunnaike have spent decades learning and collecting these myths and are uniquely qualified to write this book. Many of the stories they include are recalled from their own childhood where Yoruba myths are traditionally told to young children, while many more are the result a years-long research and encounters with Yoruba practitioners in Nigeria, Cuba, and Brazil. A gift to both those familiar to Yoruba culture and tradition and those who are encountering it for the first time,Yoruba Mythology is an important and long-awaited contribution to the mythological canon.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2026-11-05
Mått178 x 235 x 46 mm
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor632
FörlagRunning Press,U.S.
IllustratörData Oruwari
ISBN9780762485475

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Ayodeji Ogunnaike, Ph.D. is the Assistant Professor of African Religions at McGill University. His research focuses mostly on Yoruba oriṣa worship in Nigeria, but also addresses Islam in Africa, Christianity in Africa, and diaspora religions—Brazilian Candomblé in particular. Having studied Ifa divination with a high priest and diviner in Nigeria, he has a keen interest in indigenous African intellectual traditions and mythology. He is the author of the forthcoming How Worship Becomes Religion (forthcoming with Duke university Press) and is currently developing and curating an online library of Ifa orature. He lives in Montreal, Canada.Oludamini Ogunnaike, Ph.D. is the Associate Professor of African Religious Thought and Democracy at The University of Virginia. His research examines the philosophical and artistic dimensions of postcolonial, colonial, and pre-colonial Islamic and indigenous religious traditions of West and North Africa, especially Sufism and Ifa. He is the author of Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions (Penn State University Press, 2020), winner of the Outstanding First Book Prize of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD) and Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: West African Madīḥ Poetry and its Precedents (Islamic Texts Society, 2020). He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.Data Oruwari, also known as 'The Ancestors' Scribe,' is a Nigerian-born, Virginia-based visionary artist whose work channels divine intelligence and ancestral wisdom. Working primarily in pen & ink, and gold leaf, her iconographic style, marked by meticulous detail and symbolic depth, explores Afro-spiritual cosmology and the interconnectedness of the spiritual and material realms. She lives in Virginia.