The Yoruba are an ethnolinguistic group found primarily in Southwestern Nigeria and parts of Benin and northern Togo.
Historically, the Yoruba were skilled fishermen, farmers, and renowned craftspeople. Traditionally, Yoruba women control the culture's complex market system. Though linked through cultural and linguistic similarities, the Yoruba were never politically or organizationally united, splitting power between kings, called oba. The Yoruba were the most urbanized group in precolonial Africa. Their historic cities grew into modern metropolises such as Oyo, Ile-Ife, Ilesha, Ibadan, Ilorin, Ijebu-Ode, Ikere-Ekiti, among others. Ile-Ife, in Nigeria, is a holy city.
Though many modern Yoruba people are Christian or Muslim, there is still respect for traditional Yoruba cosmology and beliefs. Yoruba religion is referred to by the general term Ìṣẹ̀ṣẹ. Orisha (Òrìṣà) is a being that communes with humankind and the supernatural. Orishas have specific elemental powers.
The Ifa divination system comprises a large pantheon of gods and goddesses, such as Orunmila, the deity of wisdom and intellectual development. The Ifa divination system relies on many texts, mathematical formulas, and systems of signs. A diviner, called a babalawo, interprets these signs. Ifa has a large literary corpus, called odu, composed of 256 parts divided into ese, or verses.
