The people of Ancient Nigeria and

Benin

Yoruba Empire

Religion and Art

Quick Facts

Country: Nigeria and BeninLanguage: Kwa

Obsessions: Devianation

Location

The Orishas were basically the Yoruba version of angels and they were the guardians of nature and the rainforests and they defended the Yorubas. There are over 1700 Orishas (Which Yoruba priests had to memorize completely) but the most popular were Babalu-Aye, Elegua, Obtala, Ochosi, Ogun,

Oya, Shango, Yemaya. The Orishas were sometimes part

human. The next few slides will tell you about the Orishas in

deatail.

What were Orishas?

Babalu Aye looks like an injured man with crutches. He wears purple because its his favorite colour because itsThe colour of bruises. He usually has dogs following him everywhere so that they could sniff out disease for him. He cures disease and heals people. Yorubas worshipped him by giving him presents of white wine and popcorn.

Elegua is a very fun loving and kindOrisha. He likes to gamble and isThe Orisha that gives second chances.He likes to deliver messages too.

This is Ochosa. The Orisha that created bannanas who isn’t very friendly and tried to poison Shokpona (a very dangerous God) Shokpona and this angel hate each other.

Pictures of the Orishas

Babalu-Aye Elegua

Here are 2 recreations of the highest Orishas.

The Yoruba's Believed that their Gods and Goddesses were always dissatisfied with what they had created and that’s why they always were creating things. Compared To other Gods in other civilizations, the Yoruba

belief of Gods is similar to the Christian belief even though they had more than 1 God. Why? Because they had ‘angels’ like you’ve learned and ‘demons’ too, like you will learn at the end. The Gods were humble and Optimistic. They rewarded and punished people as needed. In the next few slides, you will learn about the coolest Goddesses and Gods.

Believe it or not, Bayanni was the Yoruba Goddess of Hats and headwear. She was extremely important and very strongly worshipped because she lived inside the

Yoruba crown.

Bayanni’s brother was an Orisha named Shango.

Bayanni was pictured as a queen with a golden headdress. But this

headress wasn’t the Yoruba crown. The headress was

actually just a headress that looked like a crown. The real

crown is a white, beaded crown.

Yoruba crown >>>>>>>

MawuMawu was the Yoruba Goddess of the Moon. She made the first woman that ever existed who was called Gbadu. She protects travellers and women that are brave.

She created the moon so travellers would have a light, even at night time. Her personality is nice.

Was a very mean God. He was the God of plague and death. Here is something fail: Some Yorubas feared

this God so much that they were terrified to say his name, so instead they called him Asoropelurum which means ‘The One

whos name you shouldn’t say in the dry season’

Olokun ruled the sea. This Yoruba God Was highly respected and even feared. It was said that if the Yoruba empire failed to please Olokun, he would send floods. He looked like a mermaid

according to a Yoruba description, but I couldn’t find a picture so here is a fail drawing:

Very briefly, this slide will tell you about the Abiku who were black wolf-like monsters that liked to eat kids at night. They were basically the Yoruba equivelent of a demon and their eyes were on the bottom of their feet.

Imagine me with eyes on

my feet.

How did their art look like?

Did it change over time?

What Material did they

use?

How did they create it?

The Yorubas were amazing carvers and sculpturs. They sculpted for religeous purposes because they usually sculpted Gods. After sclupting, they would decorate the God sculpture with feathers, precious

stones, or shells. Certain sculptures were so precious that lower class people would be fined or killed if caught looking at them.

Yoruba art had evolved and changed

a lot over time.

700 ADTiny terra-cotta

clay figures were made to

recreate stories.

760 ADLarger,

decorative figures of Gods were

being created

780 AD Shells and wood were starting to be used

800 ADBronze began to

be used on sculptures

instead of jewelry

The Yorubas made really realistic bronze statues using a long process.

First a basic shape would be created out of clay

Then the sculpture would be heated over a fire until the

middle layer of beeswax melted. The fase would usually be carved

onto the sculpture now

After that they would cover it with more clay until they would have a

brown moldy thingy.

Then they would cover it with random

beeswax

Then the artist would pour bronze onto the thing and finish it

Head of a Yoruba ruler and his wife Bronze

figure

Duplicate of a

sculpure of Shango

What country did they live in? What language did they speak? What is the difference between an Abiku

and and an Orisha?

The Sources that made this

and

Yoruba show

Possible were:http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/yoruba.htmlhttp://wysinger.homestead.com/yoruba.htmlhttp://www.godchecker.com/http://www.postcolonialweb.org/nigeria/yorubarel.htmlhttp://yorupedia.com/http://www.tribalartasia.com/Tribal%20Art%20Asia%20African%20Yoruba/African_Art_Yoruba_Ibeji.htmlhttp://www.reference.com/browse/Yoruba?s=thttp://yorubalight.wordpress.com/tag/yoruba-light-project/

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