The Yoruba People: Culture, History and Daily Life

The Yoruba People of Nigeria Among the many tribes found in Africa, the Yoruba People of Nigeria are among the most popular and well known. The Yoruba are the tribe that many Africans confess that their family roots started from and therefore follow the religion and culture of the Yoruba. These people are indigenous to the Southwestern parts of Nigeria and Benin. They may not be the only tribe in Africa, but they certainty have an interesting culture along with one of the oldest ancestry lines. The Yoruba have a culture and history that is unique in its own way and meaning. According to the oral history of the Yoruba, it is described as a myth. As the tale goes, the first kings of the land were the offspring of the creator, Oduduwa. The crown wore by the kings identifies those individuals as powerful and able to communicate with the spiritual world in a way to benefit the people of the land. As the story continues, the sky god, Olorun, lowered a rope from the heavens in which climbed down Oduduwa. Upon reaching Earth, he brought along with him a five-toed chicken, a palm seed and a handful of dirt. These items he used to create the Ife kingdom, and in that kingdom grew a magnificent tree with sixteen branches. These sixteen branches symbolized his sixteen sons and grandsons. Even though Oduduwa was the first ruler of these kingdoms, he would later on send of his sixteen sons and grandsons to create their own great kingdoms. As history shows, the majority of Yoruba people were farmers, growing such crops as yams and cocoa beans that brought them most of their profit. However, they grew in a three-year rotational period to be able to grow other crops for their people such as corn, peanuts and beans. The people made sure to grow enough to live off of for several seasons, as after the rotation is done the land is left alone from any sort of planting for almost seven years. This allows the land to become fertile again to promise a good growing season