Kinship and Lineage among the Yoruba

Abstract

This paper presents an analytic description of the principles underlying the traditional kinship system of the Yoruba people of Western Nigeria in the community of Oshogbo. Aggregation into large-scale urban-like communities which are characterized by the close interdependence of their political constitution and their economic and religious systems is a striking feature of Yoruba social organization. In these communities we find that the behaviour of individuals to one another, in the past at least, was very largely regulated on the basis of kinship and it would be accurate, I think, to state that among the Yoruba kinship was the usual means of articulation between the various elements of the social organization. Today, under the influence of systematic and far-reaching contact with the West, new patterns of behaviour are beginning to or have already superseded the old. New values and attitudes have intruded and there is an increased fluidity in social norms. In the present generation the bonds of kinship have been greatly weakened as a foundation for social organization and as a mechanism for co-ordinating and regulating social behaviour. Yoruba society is indeed transitional in the sense that the old is in the process of disintegration and new forms are rapidly emerging. However, it is the internal and traditional patterns that determine the particular form and direction of the effects which the external alien forces of change exert. Consequently, in this paper, we shall place primary emphasis on the principles of kinship as they emerged as regulative factors in the traditional life of the Yoruba in the belief that, apart from purely ethnographic value, they will provide us with a better understanding of the manifold changes that have become apparent. LA PARENTÉ ET LE LIGNAGE CHEZ LES YORUBA Des communautés importantes du type urbain, dans lesquelles le comportement est en grande partie contrôlé en rapport avec la parenté, constituent une caractéristique remarquable de l'organisation sociale chez les Yoruba. La descendance suit la ligne agnatique et l'unité la plus importante est un patrilignage localisé, qui se nomme idile. Celui-ci est le groupe agnatique le plus étendu et comprend toutes les personnes susceptibles de faire remonter leur parenté, en ligne masculine, par une série d'échelons généalogiques admis à un ancêtre fondateur connu ou putatif et, théoriquement, de rechercher le lien de parenté entre eux. Un idile est caractérisé par des segmentations intérieures successives, dont la portée est subordonnée à l'individu qui est choisi comme point de départ pour déterminer l'ascendance. Deux causes principales provoquent la segmentation dans un lignage. La première est basée sur la reconnaissance d'une différence de générations et de descendance agnatique, lorsque les segments sont définis en se rapportant à un ancêtre masculin commun. La deuxième cause est d'avoir en commun des ancêtres par la...