Segla D. Aimé

Yoruba Cosmological incorporations ‘here and there’ in Fon Culture (West Africa)

Abstract

The Yoruba and the Fon are neighbouring peoples. The archaeology of the ways both peoples materialize the cosmos as well as the cosmological incorporations into the rationalization of their real life allude to Yoruba main metaphor of original creation. The Yoruba believe ‘Olorun’ is /Sky owner/ and communicate with through secondary intermediaries deities sent to Earth by the Supreme God. These are Orisha. But Orisha of the Yoruba are also ‘Vodun’, as appropriated and named by the Fon in Benin Republic. Both Orisha in Yoruba language and Vodun in Fon language having the same meaning: ‘what you can not access easily’. However, the Yoruba and Fon have linguistically different languages (Capo 1989; Stewart 1989). And their ancient and more recent histories are also deeply different. Starting from there, we question literature, arts, religion and traditional philosophy: symbolisms, mythologies, rituals, concepts, architectures, calendars and time cycles of both peoples. Arguments are brought from interviews in convents with people whose knowledge and practices remain immune and survived western post colonial hegemony. Data addressed earlier mental constructions, share a lot of claims of aboriginal status with clusters of ancient cults or give evidence of archaic ritual language forms, echoing earlier spoken dialects. As the result, we try to make clearer whether the Fon are proto-Yoruba, or whether they are distinguished differentiated people and, thus, how could this be?

Key words: Cosmology: human culture; Yoruba-Fon; Orisha-Vodun; Concepts: history and logic.

Biography

Segla D. Aimé is a former predoctoral researcher at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). After his doctoral degree in Epistemology-History of Science and Technology, he held a fellowship at the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and joined the Martin-Luther University (Germany). Currently at the Université d’Abomey-Calavi in Benin Republic (West Africa) where he teaches ‘Culture, science, technology and innovation studies’, his interests in non-western oral culture include ‘concepts, belief and knowledge in language and cognition, scientific theory, technologies and embodied tacit/implicit knowledge in mathematics, biology, traditional food industry and medicine’. He has published articles in Springer, SSI Sage Publications, Cahier d’Etudes Africaines, Alliage, ASP (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), the Max-Planck Institute for History of Science Report (Berlin) and is author of books and chapters of books (Springer 201).