Between Cultural Reportage, Analysis and Philosophising in Classical African Thought: Rowland Abiodun's Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

                                           

                                                                                          

                                                                   

                  Between Cultural Reportage, Analysis and Philosophising in Classical African Thought

                       Rowland Abiodun's  Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art

                                                                             

                                                                 

                                                                Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                                                             Compcros

                                                 Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

                                     "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

Did Africans engage in critical reflection before the colonial encounter?

They did.

How is such reflection to be found?

Through studying their various expressive forms.

In pursuing this goal, to what degree is one a reporter of what already exists, a recreator of what exists or a shaper of something new?

This question is vital because the cultures being studied are often oral cultures, in which ideas were not recorded in writing or when that was done, as with the NIgerian Cross-River Nsibidi script, such recording was not extensive. Orality implies challenges with specificity of information as coming from various sources, and with issues of temporal mapping of the development of ideas. 

The best answer I know to this question is represented by Chinua Achebe's essay on the nature of the self in classical Igbo thought, ''Chi in Igbo Cosmology'', published, among other sources, in his essay collection Morning Yet on Creation Day.  

Achebe makes clear the tentative and recreative manner of his investigations in his efforts to establish the nature of classical Igbo thought on the self, reconstructing the fragments constituting a body of ideas expressed through imagery, mythology and conceptual expression.

The question of the creative status of such efforts challenges me at this time on account of my ongoing work on Rowland Abiodun and Babatunde Lawal, two of my favourite scholars in classical African thought, in relation to their work in aesthetics, the exploration of beauty and art, in Yoruba culture. 

The more specific challenge is represented in   questions provoked by Abiodun's summative work on his research, Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art, 2014. 

Is there such a phenomenon as Yoruba aesthetics? Do there exist aesthetic ideas that are pervasive across Yoruba culture?

Yes. Abiodun  demonstrates that admirably with reference to Yoruba discourse as realized in its oral literatures, clothing, dance and other forms as these intersect with ideas about ultimate value, philosophical ideas of religious significance.

Is that all that Abiodun does?

He goes beyond that by developing new terms in Yoruba aesthetics meant to better represent the reality of Yoruba art and its associated thought. 

He also develops new ideas  beyond that though,  even though I wonder if he is sufficiently explicit about the implications of this further  expansion of his project.

Abiodun  presents and takes further the ideas of particular philosophers in the Yoruba thought world. The names of some of these thinkers are given. 

Its vital for appreciation of the creativity demonstrated by this book to point out where it advances beyond general knowledge in the culture it discusses, entering into a rethinking of the body of ideas it engages with, making the book both a report on pervasive ideas in Yoruba culture as well as a development of these ideas in directions that are likely to be beyond conventional understanding in Yoruba culture.

I am of the impression that the fundamental premise of the book is not an idea known to most Yoruba people, even its cultural adepts. 

This premise is the notion that Yoruba discourse, carefully structured forms of expression in Yoruba culture, may be understood as forms of  oríkì , a multi-ontological expressive form, ranging across the verbal, visual and performative arts,  mapping the dramatisation of the being of an entity within the nexus of time and space against the framework of eternity. That is my own description of this idea, as I understand its formulation in Abiodun's book. 

I am also of the view that the definition of  oríkì  presented above, not explicitly stated in the book but implied by the manner in which the idea is used, as well as the sources through which the idea is grounded, particularly the work of Olabiyi Yai, is not likely to be understood by most Yoruba people in terms of such conceptual scope. 

I also think  that such an interpretation of  oríkì   as developed by Abiodun, in its relationship to Yai's ideas, is vital to grasping the implications of Abiodun's reworking of  oríkì  in Yoruba Art and Language, even though Abiodun might not have defined oríkì  in terms of this galaxy of ideas drawn from his work. 

The difference between such formulations as Abiodun develops in his book and ideas pervasive in Yoruba society may be understood as that between the general identifiers with a world view and a philosopher or theologian within that world view, as between the general Christian populace  in medieval Europe and a throughgoing Christian theologian reflecting on the implications of ideas taken for granted by others within that thought community.

Abiodun's book sets out   to describe Yoruba aesthetics, which could mean two related but different things.

 It could mean aesthetic ideas developed within Yoruba culture and shared by a good number  of Yoruba people. 

It could also mean aesthetic ideas developed within Yoruba culture and distilled from the specialised knowledge of Yoruba cultural experts in various disciplines.

The latter may imply a pyramid of knowledge, it's base consisting of ideas generally known by those Yoruba who are informed about the culture, a base on which more subtle and less widely dispersed ideas are developed by elite thinkers, such as the creators of those magnificent ese ifa, literature of the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge,  Abiodun  quotes, particularly in chapter one.

The ideas of  ọ̀rọ̀, oríkì  and òwe , for example, are concepts pervasive in Yoruba culture and known to most who have some information on that culture. 

 Abiodun's  book, however,  is based on innovative developments of those ideas that I would be surprised if most Yoruba people know about. I also suspect that most Yoruba cultural specialists do not know of some of these ideas

 Why so?

Those  ideas represent subtle rethinkings of the foundations of ideas developed among Yoruba people and widely known to them, rethinkings representing unconventional reshaping of commonly known perceptions.

The understanding of ọ̀rọ̀ developed in chapter 1, for example,  is a sophisticated and subtle reflection on  ọ̀rọ̀, commonly understood as a general term for a subject of discourse.

 The chapter, however, goes further in  developing conceptions I expect most Yoruba  are not acquainted with. 

It explores the idea of  ọ̀rọ̀  as expressive of human reflective and expressive capacity, described  as mobile and naked, dangerously radiating divine force from which it originates, and therefore  best approached through  òwe, metaphorical expression.

The book's exposition of oríkì  as multi-ontological, ranging from the verbal to the visual and performative, is also likely to be new to most  people significantly  informed about Yoruba thought.

 I understand  Yoruba Art and Language   as an individualistic exercise in Yoruba philosophy by Abiodun, in dialogue with ideas pervasive in Yoruba culture and with the reworking of those ideas by specialists within the culture, a reworking he takes  further in the book. 

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