History and Consolation: Royal Yoruba Bards Comment on Their Craft

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Periodical article

Title:	History and Consolation: Royal Yoruba Bards Comment on Their Craft
Author:	Moraes Farias, P.F. de
Year:	1992
Periodical:	History in Africa
Volume:	19
Pages:	263-297
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Nigeria
Subjects:	Yoruba griots Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172001
Abstract:	As court musicians and specialists of the past, the 'Ar'.okin' of '.Oy'.o, in southwestern Nigeria, have been used as a source for Yorùbá history, but their own views on the uses of historical information have not been investigated. A sample of these views is published here. It comes from an interview conducted in 1988 with a group of 'Ar'.okin', in which they offered descriptions and other representations of the nature of their expertise. This evidence sheds light on how the 'Ar'.okin' have traditionally deployed historical precedent and accounted for historical innovation. They ground the resort to the past primarily on the social need to offer consolation to the ruler, i.e. to cool down his personal grief. It is from this that they derive the need to relate and assimilate events, so as to explain the meaning of present happenings. They emphasize, above the supplying of etiology and legitimation, the restoration of equanimity against grief and anger. Notes, ref.