Yoruba Religious Textiles: Essays in Honor of Cornelius Adepegba.

Yoruba Religious Textiles Essays in Honor of Cornelius Adepegba Edited by Elisha P. Renne and Babatunde Agbaje-Williams Ibadan: Book Builders. 259 pp., 16 color plates, 68 b/w illustrations. $16.95 paper

This is an important book dealing with a subject worthy of extensive research. Renne and Agbaje-Williams should be congratulated on compiling a group of essays, largely by Nigerian scholars, focusing upon an important aspect of Yoruba art and religious studies that has received little attention in past scholarship. In this festschrift to Yoruba art historian Cornelius Adepegba, the stated goal of the editors is to provide primary information on twentieth century Yoruba textile traditions and the role they play in religious contexts.

Nine studies, based on field research conducted throughout Yorubaland, focus on cloth and clothing used in "traditionalist," Christian, and Islamic settings to identify continuities and disjunctures in the use, formal qualities, and meaning of religious textiles over the past one hundred years. Each essay incorporates primary information from field-based research. In presenting these oral traditions, individual authors are to be commended for including the sometimes-conflicting histories provided by informants, which further demonstrate the complexity of their areas of research.

In the introductory chapter, the editors identify a number of aesthetic principles and practices in the Yoruba ritual use of cloth. Religious groups differentiate themselves and visually emphasize their beliefs through their choices of production behaviors, materials, colors, and motifs in the construction of ritual textiles and dress. A number of common dialectic juxtapositions in cloth construction and use are revealed. These include an "aesthetic of fanciness" versus an "aesthetic of plainness" in dress to honor deities; the "hidden" versus the "revealed" in the layering of dress; and the use of color contrasts such as white (healing) and red (danger) to signal dualities of belief. Other shared characteristics of the Yoruba traditions are belief in the potency of cloth to absorb religious power; the role of cloth in the display of wealth and power; the creation of ritual textiles and dress as a form of religious practice; and the use of dress to signal membership in and commitment to religious groups. One recurring practice--the use of white cloth--is given special attention as an example of continuities and disjunctures in traditionalist, Christian, and Islamic contexts.

In "A Semiotics of Clothing Insignia of Indigenous Secret Societies among the Ijebu Yoruba," Aderonke Adesola Adesanya offers a semiotic analysis of the complexities of ritual dress through an examination of two major religious societies, the Osugbo and the Osoosi. The Osugbo (Ogboni), composed of male and female elders, has vital political, judicial, and religious functions in the community. The female Osoosi society is dedicated to a water goddess. Adesanya focuses upon the use of textile ensembles as identifying insignia of membership and as signifiers of power and ritual secrets. Her analysis of the dress of Osugbo members, particularly the iconography of hand-woven itagbe cloth, is a significant addition to the existing literature, and her briefer description of the clothing worn by Osoosi cult members also makes an important contribution.

In two related essays, Tunde Akinwumi and Aretha Asakitikpi address ritual textile use in religious societies of the town of Owo and the interplay of gender roles in the production, commissioning and display of cloth. Akinwumi's "Ero: A Celebration of Eldership in the Indigo Cloths of Owo" describes how textiles enrich the rituals and ceremonies by which men move Into the status of elderhood. The Ero festival, held every eight years in Owo, involves a series of ritual events that celebrate the transition of men who have reached the requisite age of sixty to sixty-five. For the occasion, daughters of candidates commission special hand-woven, indigo-dyed cloth which is worn only by members of the Ero age-grade. The women who weave this broadloom cloth in the seven days preceding the commencement of the festival must observe taboos that ensure the production of ritually pure garments. This contribution is of particular interest for the insights it provides into the interdependence between genders and generations in the commissioning, production, and ownership of the cloth. The essay ends by describing the resilience of this distinctive Yoruba textile tradition despite modification of rituals to fit the beliefs of Christian and Muslim candidates.

"Women's Religious Textiles in Owo" by Aretha Asakitikpi makes a strong case for the social power of women in the male-dominated religious and political activities of Owo. She argues that women create, through activities and ritual practices revolving around cloth production and use, a "female essence" that generates female solidarity. Through these activities women define "areas of control" that Owo men recognize and respect, although they are excluded from participation. In addition to the textiles woven specifically for male elders described above, four other important ritual textiles subject to production taboos are woven and worn in women's rituals. Two types of white and blue striped cloth, created with intricate rituals, are worn as women's sashes, primarily as proprietary insignias of family at important burials. A more specialized ritual cloth is worn only by women who sequentially give birth to three living children of the same sex. Finally, the most expensive cloth produced in Owo, senwonsen, could be worn only by female elders, at least in the past. In her description of weaving and female rituals from which men are excluded, Asakitikpi has made a strong case for the "female essence" which is expressed in many ways throughout Yorubaland.

No book on the subject of Yoruba religious textiles would be complete without discussion of Egungun masqueraders. In "Socio-religious Realities of Yoruba Egungun Costumes," P.S.O. Aremu, who has written extensively on Egungun ritual, focuses upon the elder masquerades that represent ancestors in festivals in the Oyo and Ile-Ife area, with shorter descriptions of Egungun costuming in Ondo and Ekiti. Of particular value in this article are the meticulous descriptions of the costumes and symbolism of four named Egungun masquerades belonging to specific families that demonstrate the complexity of these accumulative ensembles of potent cloth and power objects.

In the essay "Iwa: Symbolism and Significance in Sango Ritual Textiles," Tola Olaoye provides a detailed analysis of Sango costuming and paraphernalia in the Oyo region. According to Olaoye, devotees of Sango distinguish between two major categories of ritual textiles used in shrines and performances to honor the deity. The first are those that are ritually empowered to embody the spirit of Sango and are consecrated during production and before each use. Only priests who channel the spirit of Sango can wear such cloth. The second category does not require ritual process preparation before or during use but is also employed by priests and devotees to signify and beautify Sango. Olaoye describes in detail four major and seven minor forms of dress used in public presentations of Sango ritual. The essay ends with a discussion of ritual apparel as it reflects Sango's personality or iwa. As punisher and healer, Sango's conflicting character and power are represented in the use of red and white colors (danger vs. peace) and in the perceived beauty of the cloth used in construction.

Babatunde Agbaje-Williams's "Clothed Ritual Trees: An Insight into Yoruba Religious Thought" deals with a subject that has received little attention in the literature: wrapping trees with cloth as a religious act with a stress on the importance of Ifa divination in the identification of sacred trees and their spirits. He collected data from forty different towns scattered throughout Yorubaland, documenting twenty tree species that are regarded as sacred and sixteen that are commonly ritually wrapped with cloth. Agbaje-Williams proposes three basic functions of clothing trees. As containment, humans are exercising control over spiritual essences which pass from the tree into the cloth wrap. In terms of territoriality, wrapped trees mark a division of the social environment into the sacred and the profane. In the function of historical consciousness, specific trees mark important places in local history, particularly the founding of a settlement. Agbaje-Williams's essay, with five summary tables listing the tree species, towns, and functions and a concluding section on the general trends he discovered, cannot be readily summarized. For anyone interested in this fascinating topic, this is the place to start.

In "Religious and Royal Uses of Sacred Textiles in Lagos," Emmanuel Olakunle Filani and Babasehinde A. Ademuleya provide a history of religious textile use in a context of dynamic change marked by Westernization, industrialization, and urbanization. Their focus is on the resilience of indigenous culture as marked by adaptation and continuity in Yoruba textile traditions. The authors focus on two contexts: traditional masquerades and shrines and the court of the Oba of Lagos. Of particular interest is the costuming of the Eyo ancestor masquerades, who dress in flowing white cloth in their performances to honor recently deceased persons of importance in the local scene. The authors suggest this unusual practice reflects spiritual "whiteness" or purity in a city surrounded by water. The dynamics of continuity and change are most clearly expressed in the dress of the Oba of Lagos and the sanctified clothing and paraphernalia that define him. Depending upon the context, the Oba switches between ensembles of traditionally sanctified hand-woven cloth and very contemporary and prestigious factory-produced textiles such as guinea brocade, lace, and damask. Perhaps most distinctive of Lagos is the degree of incorporation of factory-made textiles into religious contexts where, through use and ritual treatment, they acquire sacred qualities.

The final two essays focus on Yoruba Christianity and the role of textiles in worship and signifying doctrine. Elisha P. Renne's essay, "Visions of Sacred Textiles in a Yoruba Aladura Church," examines the garments worn by prophets of the Cherubim & Seraphim Church, a syncretic Christian church founded in Nigeria in the early twentieth century. Church followers are identified by their distinctive white garb of factory-made muslin based on one of the founding prophets' visions of angels. Stoles in different colors and motifs distinguish rank within the church. Male and female prophets take pride in designing the details of their attire as a result of divine inspiration through dreams, visions, and trance. The garments are made with ritual process and through use gain healing potency. This "divinely styled" dress marks the prophets as living symbols of divine authority, and as material manifestations of their special relationship with the spiritual, reinforce doctrinal beliefs of the Church.

Charles Getaloma's essay "Yoruba Indigenous Textiles and Catholic Liturgy" focuses upon the use of indigenous textiles (adire and aso-oke) in the context of the contemporary Catholic Church in Nigeria. As Getaloma points out, in contrast to other European missionaries, Catholic clergy have been open to incorporating indigenous arts into their liturgy and trappings. He discusses the incorporation of Yoruba indigenous woven and dyed cloth, as well as textile motifs and colors, into preexisting Catholic vestments. Getaloma pays particular attention to Anne Salubi, a leading designer and fabricator of church vestments and decorative altar cloths. Trained in the fine arts at Ahmadu Bello University, Salubi decorates church textiles combining indigenous adire techniques and contemporary batik.

This publication's only weakness is the poor quality of the pictures, which are often fuzzy and difficult to read. This is particularly true of the black-and-white plates. Minor frustrations for readers include a few errors in plate and figure identification, inconsistencies in the formatting of headings, and the lack of page references in citations in the text. The authors build on pre-existing studies, but the bibliographies reflect the frustration that our Nigerian colleagues must feel in their not-always-current library resource banks. At the same time, a careful perusal of these bibliographies alerts Western scholars to literature published in Nigeria by independent presses.

Yoruba Religious Textiles is an example of the kind of book that is coming out of Nigeria's better independent presses and that is now more readily available from Internet sources. With its richly detailed studies based on sound field research, this book should be in the library of anyone with a serious interest in Yoruba studies, as well as scholars of African textiles and religion and gender studies. One can only wish that other Yoruba cloth traditions will be covered with the detail provided here.

reviewed by Norma H. Wolff