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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Beyond diversity: women, scarification, and Yoruba identity |
| Author: | Ojo, Olatunji |
| Year: | 2008 |
| Periodical: | History in Africa (ISSN 1558-2744) |
| Volume: | 35 |
| Pages: | 347-374 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Nigeria |
| Subjects: | ethnic identity Yoruba women ethnic warfare tattooing political history |
| External link: | http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/history_in_africa/v035/35.ojo.pdf |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on how the activities of Yoruba shaped the process of ethnic identification in 19th-century Nigeria. In particular, it concentrates on the institution of marriage, foreign wives, and cicatrization during the turbulent ethnic wars of the 19th century. It shows that warfare and the attendant population mix induced interethnic marriages and the production of children with mixed ancestries. Population contact increased cultural adaptations such as the spread of certain religious rituals and scarification brands to places where they previously did not exist. Hence, through interethnic marriage and the redefinition of links between ethnicity and tattoos, new ideologies came into place that boosted the quest for a geocultural ethnic identity that became Yoruba in the period after 1860. First, the paper examines the political crisis that destroyed Yorubaland during the 19th century, desertion of turbulent frontiers and new residential patterns. Next, it presents an analysis of how these wars affected people differently, stressing the fate of women and their ritual practices. Then, it discusses Yoruba scarification patterns. It shows the ethnonational symbolism of body marks, yet argues that these were more spatially confined and less diverse than hitherto assumed. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
