RE: Adieu Professor Olabiyi Yai
Oyeronke Oyewumi
Adieu Professor Olabiyi Yai
E KUSÉ O. ÀWA TI DI ELÉHA NIBI O. ÈDÙMÀRÈ Á SO WA O. ÀSE
Ojogbon, eku'jo meta. Awon enia mi nko? Eha tiwa ju ti yin lo o. K'Edumare so gbogbo wa. Ase!
The last time I heard from Professor Yai—the professor of professors-- he made me laugh. It was a post on my Facebook wall on April 9, 2020 written in Yoruba, lamenting the social isolation that had been mandated as a result of Covid 19: “we are in purdah here”, he wrote (my translation).The Ojogbon’s use of the noun Eleha calls forth a word that is used to describe Muslim women in purdah, whose movements have been restricted by their husbands. In that spirit, I replied that our purdah in New York City is greater than theirs in Cotonou, as if comparing husbands! A great multilinguist, the professor is a person of words: brilliant words, thought-provoking words, conceptual words, many words, carefully curated.
I acknowledged with great appreciation the Professor’s support for my work, and contribution to my intellectual growth in my book, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (1997). Although at the time, I had not met him in person, he was always available and ready to phone chat with me as I worked to make a Yoruba sense of one thing, or the other. For a young and emerging scholar like me, trapped and (academically) isolated in a Historically White College (Berkeley), his encouragement and engagement with my work were invaluable.
Ojogbon Yai’s writings proved to be a great methodological, theoretical and substantive resource for a student of Yoruba language who was just beginning to understand the epistemic wealth that the language encodes. Allow me mention one of his erudite conceptualizations. His brilliant elucidation of the concept of asa (tradition) proved to be what I needed as I grappled with questions of tradition and modernity in the Yoruba experience. Unshackling tradition from the frozen silo of anthropological thinking, he wrote dazzlingly:
Something cannot qualify as asa (tradition) which is not a result of deliberate choice (sa) based on discernment and awareness of historical practices and processes (itan) by individual or collective ori. And since choice presides over te birth of asa (tradition), the latter is permanently liable to metamorphoses (1994).
The implications of this theoretical intervention cannot be overstated!
The last time I saw Professor Yai was in January 2018, at
his home, Maison Yai, in Cotonou, Benin (see picture). After a wonderful Accra Christmas, in a spirit
of West African adventure, I took a bus from Accra through Togo, en route to
Cotonou, Benin. I was a guest of
Professor Elise and Maria Soumani, and their son Ogundiran. I enjoyed a few glorious days of their gracious hospitality. Professor
Yai invited us all to lunch one afternoon. The lunch was sumptuous in more ways
than one: the food and wine of course, the animated conversations, not to talk
of just being in the presence of great minds. It was a memorable time, but
little did I know that this was the last time I would be in his presence. We
are grateful for his life and the rich legacy he has bequeath us.
Ojogbon, sun re o!
Biko Agozino
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Oyeronke Oyewumi
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