Abstract
The nineteenth century was a revolutionary period in Yorùbá history, producing great social changes that we are still trying to understand. The historical transformations that were to have this huge impact were documented by historian B. Agiri among others. They include:
First, the disintegration of the old Ọ̀yọ́ Empire and the emergence of a new political order; second, the collapse of the maritime slave trade and the growth of new exports,… the arrival of Christian missionaries and the establishment of the British at Lagos, followed by the spread of British influence inland. For the average Yorùbá citizen, it was a century of confusion and chaos when the old traditions were questioned. Some customs were modified, while others were reinforced or discarded.1
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Notes
B. Agiri, “Slavery in Yorùbá Society in the 19th Century,” in The Ideology of Slavery in Africa, Ed. Lovejoy Paul E., ed. Paul E. Lovejoy (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1981), 123.
Niyi F. Akinnaso, “The Sociolinguistic Basis of YorùBá Personal Names,” Anthropological Linguistics 22, no. 7 (1980): 279.
Samuel Johnson and Obadiah Johnson, The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate (Westport, CT: Negro University Press, 1921), 82.
Oyesope Oyelaran and Lawrence Adewole, Isenbaye Ati Ilo Ede Yorùbá (South Africa: Center for Advanced Studies of African Society, 2007), 144–145.
A. Akinyemi, “On the Meaning of Yorùbá Female Personal Oríkì (Oríkì Àbísọ)—A Literary Appraisal,” Research in Yorùbá Language and Literature 4 (1993): 82.
Ladele et al., Iwadii Ijinle Asa Yorùbá (Ibadan: Macmillan, 1986), 164–165.
Karin Barber, I Could Speak until Tomorrow: Oríkì, Women, and the Past in a Yorùbá Town (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), 17.
A nonauthoritative and disputed source claims Ayinla as the founder of Ilorin before the closing years of the eighteenth century. H. O. Danmole, “Samuel Johnson and the History of Ilorin,” in Pioneer, Patriot, and Patriarchy: Samuel Johnson and the Yorùbá People, ed. Toyin Falola (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1993), 140. Ayinla is an oríkì.
J. F. Ade Ajayi, A Patriot to the Core: Bishop Ajayi Crowther (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2001), 21. One of Crowther’s sisters is named Amosa, a name that resembles an oríkì linguistically. I cannot ascertain whether this is an oríkì because it is also not common today.
Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 88.
B. A. Oyetade, “Tones in the Yorùbá Personal Praise Names: Oríkì Àbísọ,” Research in Yorùbá Language and Literature 1 (1991): 55.
Ola Olanike Orie, “Yorùbá Names and Gender Marking,” Anthropological Linguistics 44, no. 2 (2002): 134.
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Oyěwùmí, O. (2016). Toward a Genealogy of Gender, Gendered Names, and Naming Practices. In: What Gender is Motherhood?. Gender and Cultural Studies in Africa and the Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137521255_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137521255_7
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