| hide details 02/08/2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chief Fama,
I am just seeing this.
I hope you will respond to what I am writing now.
I am ready to appreciate misrepresentation of the Orisa tradition by myself if it can be proven.
1.You state there are errors in my summation of classical Yoruba/Orisa epistemology and cosmology. Please state what those errors are.
I have taken pains to make an exposition of key terms in this tradition. These terms are "Awo", "Ase", "Orí Inú and Ojú Inú", "Ille, Odu, Aje and Awon Iya Wa Osoronga".
I want to know how what you know is different from what I have presented and why you think your perspective is accurate while mine is not, in those instances where you think I have presented errors
We need to avoid the old cover of esoteric knowledge people use to avoid discussing these concepts
2.You describe my posts as copied.
I insist that you state the sources my work is copied from. I insist that you make a distinction between scholarly interpretation and copying. If you cannot make that distinction and prove that I copied what I wrote here I demand an apology from you. afis on the Nigerian online groups has made a similar claim but I have not taken him seriously because I get the impression he is not serious beceause he also claims to admire my work. As from now on, anyone who states that my work is copied has to prove it or apologise to me. If they dont apologise that will be taken as proof that they can not prove their claim.
3.On what grounds do you claim that this essay on the Orisa tradition is damaging to the tradition? The only rationale you provide is that I have used scholarship by people of Euro-American descent( I dont use the racial category "white" because nobody has "white" skin).Does not being Black mean that one cannot have authoritative knowledge on Black spiritualities? I disagree totally with that perspective.
There is nothing in any knowledge system or practice that cannot be learnt adequately by anyone from any race. All human practices represent variations on practices cultivated by various human groups across space and time.Ifa cosmology and epistemology, for example, can be fruitfully shown to correlate with, though it is not identical with, other practices in Asia and the West. In fact aspects of the global variations of the Orisa tradition are better understood through such intercultural comparisons. One area of that benefits from such inter-cultural comparison is the understanding of the feminine principle, in which the information from Nigeria suggests that its current level of development does not demonstrate the full blooded elaboration developed in Hinduism and Buddhism. The development of the feminine principle might be more pronounced in the African Diaspora but I wonder if it has an intellectual, philosophical tradition at the same level as the role of the feminine principle demonstrated in the relationship between Hinduism, Buddhism and Indian and related philosophies.
No spirituality in the history of the world has ever achieved a presence outside its country of origin without the wholehearted contributions of people from outside that country. In the process of such geographical spread through which that religion underwent adaptation Buddhism is much richer for going beyond India into China, Japan and Tibet and there undergoing variations that
The huge influence of Christianity on the world could not have been achieved if it had remained locked in Palestine and within the basic parameters represented by the example, of Jesus Christ, seminal as that remains. Examples can be given from Hinduism but I think the examples I have given are enough.
It can also be argued that no system of knowledge ever actualised its potential by localising itself within a particular paradigm and geography. What is evident as mathematics today is the ultimate result of mathematical developments from ancient civilisations, refined and further developed in the Arab world and given prominence and further development in Europe. The same for science as a development of ideas that can ultimately be traced to Egypt.
To insist that only Black people are qualified to speak authoritatively on Africana religions and systems of thought is not only ahistorical-since some of the best contributors to this field are Euro-American but represents backwardness for anyone who nurtures that view.The world will not wait for such a person but leave the person behind.
As it is, in my view, any comprehensive study of the Orisa tradition that excludes the monumental achievement of Susanne Wenger,whose work derives from 50 years living in Yorubaland,is incomplete. Yet Wenger is Austrian and her ideas a composite of Orisa cosmology,Buddhism, Taoism, Jungian psychology and her personal experience.
In my reading so far,I find Wenger,David Wilson also known as Awo Falokun Fatumbi and Wole Soyinka the most insightful in terms of the need to reinterpret the Orisa tradition in terms of an individual and modern consciousness. I am beginning to discover something similar with Judith Gleason.
Of these writers I have mentioned only Soyinka is black. He is also Yoruba.Soyinka's works based as they are on Orisa cosmology, could not be so powerful without his immersion in a global traditions of thought and expression the vitality of which is very visible in all his work.
You dont seem to have taken note that good number of the sources I quoted are Yoruba,including Babatunde Lawal and Rowland Abidoun.One can on and name other classical Yoruba writers in the field.Yet they and all others on this filed are writing about tradition that was created by people who did not have a dynamic and widespread writing system so they have had to learn these people’s language and writing technology to explain their own traditions. You who write this rejoinder to my essay are doing so in English.Without the presence of western civilisation,how would the Yoruba orthography you use in your brief strechj of Yoruba in that post have been constructed?
4.You state that I am writing from a Euro-American(my translation of the term "white" which you characterise as "funfun". What gives you that impression? If I want to present the perspective of a Euro--American on the Orisa tradition such as David Wilson,Falokun Fatumnbi,whose work I consider sublime, then it would be legitimate effort as every one has a right to an opinion that is available for study as the Orisa tradition is to everyone.
This perspective here is my point of view developed through practice and study. No one can build a city alone. Not to talk of a universe.Bimsbergen might be correct that Ifa is a development from Arabic sources elaborated upon by Yoruba people. The key here is the idea of building on what inspires one.The Orisa tradition represents a universe of possibilities that no race on its own or people limited to a geographical focus can develop to its full possibilities.
5.Your condemnation reminds me of a regrettably inconclusive debate I had on an online group in which some people condemned evetything but the perspectives on the Orisa tradition developed by pure babalawo,untouched by Western education if I understood well their perspectives. Yet they could not make any comparison of such insights in contrast to those they are condemning because they had not encountered this mythic pure knowledge. Your claims remind me of that.
I want to know what wonderful knowledge you have that leads you to condemn my summation of classical Yoruba/Orisa epistemology and metaphysics. I have taken pains to make a summary of key terms in this tradition.These terms are "Awo", "Ase", "Orí Inú and Ojú Inú", "Ille, Odu, Aje and Awon Iya Wa Osoronga"
I urgently await your revelations about the inadequacy of my summations. I will not accept the old idea of the cover of esoteric knowledge people use to avoid discussing these concepts
Thanks
Eagerly waiting
Toyin Adepoju
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