What the forest told me: Yoruba hunter, culture and narrative performance

by Ayo Adeduntan

Overview

Studies of Yoruba culture and performance tend to focus mainly on standardised forms of performance, and ignore the more prevalent performance culture which is central to everyday life. What the Forest Told Me conveys the elastic nature of African cultural expression through narratives of the Yoruba hunters' exploits. Hunters' narratives provide a window on the Yoruba understanding and explanation of their world; a cosmology that negates the anthropocentric view of creation. In a very literal sense, man, in this peculiar world, is an equal actor with animal and nature spirits with whom he constantly contests and negotiates space.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781920033439
Publisher:	NISC (Pty) Ltd
Publication date:	04/12/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	156
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Ayo Adeduntan was educated at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and University of Ibadan. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Literature from Obafemi Awolowo University, and Master of Arts in the same discipline from University of Ibadan. He completed his PhD in Cultural and Performance Studies at the Institute of African Studies, University of lbadan. Since 2010, he has been teaching at the Institute of African Studies, Ibadan, in such areas as method and theory of field investigation; gender, ideology and performance; performance theory; prospects and problem of performance research, and indigenous approach to conflict resolution. His works have appeared in journals such as African Notes and Text and Performance Quarterly, and other edited volumes.

Table of Contents

List of Plates & Tables

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1: Hunter, hunting and a Yoruba world

Chapter 2: Art, the hunter’s world and the death of fixity

Chapter 3: The hunter and the other

Chapter 4: Negotiating the formidable

Chapter 5: The hunter on the airwaves

Conclusion

Appendix A: The narrative of Músílíù Àlàgbé Fìríàáríkú

Appendix B: The narrative of Rábíù Òjó

Appendix C: The narrative of Jọ́ògún Àlàdé

Appendix D: The narrative of Ògúnkúnlé Òjó

Appendix E: The narrative of Ọláníyì Ọládèj̣ọ Yáwóọ̣ ré ̣

Appendix F: The narrative of Kọ̀bọmọjẹ́ Àlàdé

References

Index

Editorial Reviews

"I have been very much enlightened by this book. Adeduntan has a magisterial command of his primary materials, and his critical and theoretical explorations are wide, deep, and sophisticated. There is no doubt about it: this is an exemplary model for a new Yoruba studies. It is, like the composite image of the hunter, a muscular herald of a new conceptually capacious direction in the study of African oral tradition, performance, and narrative, and in African cultural studies in general." - Tejumola Olaniyan, Louise Durham Mead Professor, University of Wisconsin­ Madison, USA

From the Publisher