Yoruba (Volume 3).

THE YORUBA (Continued from Volumes 1 and 2, Below).

Every Yoruba is born into a clan whose members are descended from a common ancestor. Descent is patrilineal-both sons and daughters are born into the clan of their father. Clan members live in a large residential area called a compound. 

The males are born, married, and buried in it. Females live in the compound of their birth until they marry. Then they go to live with their husbands. 

The eldest male, or Bale, is the head of the compound. A husband is responsible for settling quarrels within his own family. However, if he is unsuccessful or if an argument involves members of two different families, it is referred to the Bale. 

Within the compound, the immediate family consists of a man, his wives, and their children. 

The Yoruba practice polygyny (having more than one wife). Each wife and her children are considered a sub-family. They have a separate room within the husband's and they share possessions. Each mother cooks for her own children only. 

A man is expected to treat each wife equally. However, wives compete to gain additional favors for their own children. The father is strict and distant. Often, he sees little of his children. When they are young, children of co-wives play together. However, as they grow older, they usually grow apart because of quarrels over possessions. 

The Yoruba oral tradition includes praise poems, tongue twisters, hundreds of prose narratives and riddles, and thousands of proverbs.

Yoruba music includes songs of ridicule and praise, as well as lullabies, religious songs, war songs, and work songs. These usually follow a "call and response" pattern between a leader and chorus. 

Rhythm is provided by drums, iron gongs, cymbals, rattles, and hand clapping. Other instruments include long brass trumpets, ivory trumpets, whistles, stringed instruments, and metallophones. 

Perhaps the most interesting musical instrument is the "talking drum." The "talking drum" features an hourglass shape with laces that can be squeezed to tighten the goatskin head, altering the drum's pitch. 

Crafts include weaving, embroidering, pottery making, woodcarving, leather and bead working, and metalworking. 

Both men and women weave, using different types of looms. Cloth is woven from wild silk and from locally grown cotton. 

Men also do embroidery, particularly on men's gowns and caps, and work as tailors and dressmakers. Floor mats and mat storage bags are also made by men. 

Women are the potters. In addition to palm oil lamps, they make over twenty kinds of pots and dishes for cooking, eating, and carrying and storing liquids. 

Woodcarvers, all of whom are men, carve masks and figurines as well as mortars, pestles, and bowls. Some Yoruba woodcarvers also work in bone, ivory, and stone. 

Blacksmiths work both in iron and brass to create both useful and decorative objects.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Koslow, Philip. Yorubaland: The Flowering of Genius. Kingdoms of Africa. New York: Chelsea House, 1996.

Hetfield, Jamie. The Yoruba of West Africa. New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 1996.

Bascom, William. The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Wavel