By Bode Durojaiye
" As things move at the present time, it will be disastrous if we fold our arms allowing our traditions to dwindle into oblivion in the face of permissiveness""
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| Alaafin |
Since values are an integral part of culture and culture is what defines a people's identity, then the values that a people hold are what differentiate them from other people.
It does appear that cultures always try to maintain those values that are necessary for the survival of their people. For the Yoruba's, for instance, we see that close kinship relations are held at a high premium. The synergetic nature of the society that allows people to build houses and work on farms together is directly opposite to the Western individualistic model.
In those "good old days" as some would say it was usual to see a neighbour, friend or relative correcting an erring child whose parents he knows. This was based on the true belief that the churning out of a well-behaved child would be to the benefit of not only the immediate parents, but also the society. In the same vein, it was believed that if the child turned out to be a failure, it is not only the immediate family that would bear the brunt: neighbours, friends and acquaintances could also fall victim of his nuisance.
But today, we see people adopting more and more nuclear family patterns and the individualistic life style of the West. A friend or neighbour who tries to correct an erring child will in no time, to his embarrassment, be confronted with the question: "What is your business?"
Kinship ties and love are what characterised the traditional Yoruba culture. It is only love that would make a community, for instance, to tax themselves through the sale of the products of cash crops like oil palm and use the proceeds to educationally support a child who is brilliant. In this respect, the synergetic nature of Yoruba culture is what made the society very amiable.
However, His Imperial Majesty, Iku Baba Yeye, the Alaafin of Oyo Kingdom and Titan of Yorubaland, Oba Engineer Abimbola Akeem Owoade 1, is disturbed at the gradual extinction of Yoruba Customs and traditions, and how modernisation has been allowed to bombard Yoruba traditions.
Speaking at the grand finale of Pepe War Celebration held at the Old Oyo National Park event ground in Oyo town, Oba Owoade said as things move at the present time, it will be disastrous if we fold our arms allowing our traditions to dwindle into oblivion in the face of permissiveness.
According to him, ""how many Yoruba sons and daughters can brilliantly articulate their local language? It is frightening that our own language is dangling on the pit of extinction while preference is acco at Old Oyo National Park event ground in Oyo townrded foreign language, which is English.
"" Languages often hold the only record of a people’s history, including their songs, stories, praise poetry and ancient traditions. In particular, many indigenous cultures contain a wealth of information about the local environment and its floral and faunal
resources, based upon thousands of years of close interaction, experience, and problem-solving.
"" With the extinction of a language, therefore, mankind also loses access to local understanding of plants, animals, and ecosystems, some of which have important medicinal value, and many of which remain undocumented by science"".
Thus, the survival of threatened languages, and the indigenous knowledge contained within, the Paramount Ruler noted, is an important aspect of maintaining
biological diversity. Languages are now becoming extinct faster than birds, mammals, fish or plants.
"" Of the estimated 7,000 unique languages spoken in the world today, nearly half are likely to disappear this century, with an average of one lost every two weeks.
It is most likely that in less than 50 years from now, even some major Nigerian languages, if not encouraged, can become extinct, and lecturers in our Universities would have cause to excite their students with great lectures in a course on, say, ‘ancient’ Igbo or "ancient” Yoruba languages, and of which they would speak thus, with nostalgia,
""‘They once flourished in the distant past but have now become extinct’. This is a disheartening possibility for anyone who cares about our indigenous languages, the history and unrecorded knowledge they carry within them"".
Oba Owoade explained that Yoruba traditional religion clearly plays a distinctive role as the ultimate source of supernatural power and authority that sanction and
reinforce public morality, adding that it is pressed into full service to maintain
social order, peace and harmony.
Said he, ""traditional Yoruba's believe that success in life; including the gift of offspring, wealth and prosperity, are all blessings from the gods and ancestors. They accrue to people who work hard, and who strictly adhere to the customs, and
traditional norms of morality of the community, people who strictly
uphold the community ideal of harmonious living.
""Only such people could entertain a real hope of achieving the highly esteemed status of ancestor-hood in the hereafter. The vast majority of norms, taboos and
prohibitions is directed towards protecting the community and promoting peace and harmony. Communal farmland, economic interests like the market-place, stream, or shrine are generally surrounded with taboos, including who may or may not enter, and when and under what circumstances people are permitted or not to enter such places.
"" Stealing is abhorred. It is in fact, an abomination to steal things relating to people’s vital life-interests and occupation. Religion may be distinct and separate from morality, as many scholars have rightly argued. For traditional Yorubas however, the line dividing the two is very thin indeed. Yoruba traditional religion plays a crucial role in the ethical dynamics of the different groups. In the traditional Yoruba background, ‘gods serve as police men’. Yoruba traditional world-views invariably outline a vision of reality that is, at once ethical in content and orientation. Human beings and their world are the focal centre of a highly integrated universe. Human conduct is seen as key in upholding the delicate balance believed to exist
between the visible world and the invisible one"", Alaafin asserted.
Bode Durojaiye is the Director of Media and Publicity to the Alaafin, Paramount Ruler of Oyo, and the Titan of Yorubaland.
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