City of 201 Gods: Ilé-Ifè in Time, Space, and the Imagination

by Jacob Olupona

In a study that challenges familiar Western modes of thought, Jacob K. Olupona focuses on one of the most important religious centers in Africa and in the world: the Yorùbá city of Ilé-Ifè in southwest Nigeria. The spread of Yorùbá traditions in the African diaspora has come to define the cultural identity of millions of black and white people in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and the United States. Seen through the eyes of a native, this first comprehensive study of the spiritual and cultural center of the Yorùbá religion tells how the city went from great prominence to near obliteration and then rose again as a contemporary city of gods. Throughout, Olupona corroborates the indispensable linkages between religion, cosmology, migration, and kinship as espoused in the power of royal lineages, hegemonic state structure, gender, and the Yorùbá sense of place, offering the fullest portrait to date of this sacred African city.

Genres: Nonfiction, Religion, Africa

355 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2011

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sacred centre of Yoruba religious traditions!

Yoruba traditions have spread far beyond West Africa over the last few hundred years and are evident in the music, religion, language and practices of millions throughout the diaspora from Brazil to the United States! These traditions appear as the Orishas (deities) followed by many, the practitioners of Candomblé and Macumba in Brazil, Oyotunji in the USA, Santería , Vodun and Obeah throughout the Caribbean. In this scholarly work Jacob Olupona presents the city of Ile-Ife (West Africa) as the religious and spiritual centre of the Yoruba religion.

Divided into three parts, the book starts off with the historical background to the city and the myths surrounding its creation.
Next rituals and festivals are covered. Having witnessed these personally, the author provides an outline of each together with detailed analysis and meaning of each stage of the festival.
Finally the face to face interviews with the Ooni (the King and spiritual leader of the city at the time that the book was written) are presented, together with a look at how the Yoruba tradition has fared with the growth of Christianity, Islam and Secular Ideology.

Jacob Olupona covers much in this book. The detail and analysis, especially of the festivals, is very involved and the style may not appeal to everyone! Yoruba terms, words, practices, songs as well as the myths of the Orisha are used and described throughout. In addition the comprehensive notes, bibliography and index certainly make it an appropriate reference text.

It is very interesting to note that even today, communities who actively practice Yoruba traditions in the diaspora (Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, USA and elsewhere) have positioned themselves as part of a global tradition centred on the city of Ile-Ife, infusing new life into the tradition there even as local Yorubas have in recent years moved more and more away from it. Overall a worthwhile read which contains much about the core elements, its past and what the future might hold for this African tradition.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rome, Jerusalem, Tenochtitlan and Ile-Ife are, Olupona argues, of a particular kind. As homes to religious beliefs, they represent origins of different worlds. Ile-Ife, as a sacred city, orients its adherents not only in the city itself, but also in Nigeria and its diasporic communities, too. Olupona really seems to get a kick out of pushing ‘thick description’ to its limit, and I have to admit losing the thread of some of the myths and rituals he would be recounting at times. It felt like his approach was, well, I’ve collected all this interesting data, and if I’m trying to provide a complete accounting of this cosmology, I guess I’ve got to find a way to work it all in here somewhere. I understand the impulse, but as a reader, I felt like I was being asked not only to understand the practices or stories described, but also how to fit them in a larger mapping of Ile-Ife and the Yoruba people. More high-level organization of his thinking would have been helpful. Also, topic sentences.

[Andrew]

When we think of religious centres across the world, Jerusalem, Mecca, Varanasi, Shikharji and Bodh Gaya might be places which come to mind. Yet the Yoruba religion has had such a significant impact in the Western world and can be recognised in the Orishas, the practitioners of Candomblé and Macumba of Brazil, Santería of Cuba, Oyotunji in the USA, Vodun of Haiti and Obeah throughout the Caribbean.
Ile-Ife, the a city in West Africa, is considered to be the religious birth place of the Yoruba religion. In this scholarly work, Jacob Olupona places the city of Ile-Ife in its religious context and allows us to re-evaluate how we view African religion.