Noah Stommel<\/p>\n
After watching the film, Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler: \u201cO<\/em>\u1e63<\/em>un-O<\/em>\u1e63<\/em>ogbo,\u201d<\/em> it became apparent that there are many ways in which the religious practices of the Yoruba people of Nigeria have undergone mixing with non-African culture over the centuries. Of course, mixing of Ori\u1e63a religion began on a grand scale with the slave trade, beginning in the 15th<\/sup> century, as part of the larger African diaspora. With the forced immersion of Yoruba people into European-dominated cultures in the New World, Orisa religion obviously faced mixing with Christianity. Through this fusion of Yoruba religion and Christianity, the traditions of African-originating religion were often obscured and oppressed by that of domineering Europeans.<\/p>\n The piece \u201cOverture: The Concept \u2018Altar,\u2019\u201d by Robert Farris Thompson, showed how African practitioners of Ori\u1e63a religions were disallowed by Europeans to continue their rituals. According to legend, Cuban police on one occasion \u201cconfronted four men calmly seated with Panama hats in their hands. Other men were standing. Two European dolls, apparently for children, reclined against a wall. The police could do nothing. There were no \u2018pagan instruments\u2019 for them to seize and take away, no signs of a black religion for them to persecute, as they were wont to do in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries\u201d (Overture: The Concept \u2018Altar\u2019, page 21). As soon as the police left, the objects seemingly strewn around resumed their purpose in a ritual religious practice. The hats became drums, and the dolls became used again as spiritual icons. This example demonstrates aspects of transculturation, in which the process of integrating into the New World called for the adaptations of the Yoruba people\u2019s religious practices.<\/p>\n It was also mentioned in Sacred Journeys<\/em> that certain Catholic saints have parallel figures of significance in Yoruba culture. Certain valued religious aspects infused into Ori\u1e63a religion from Christianity clearly shows the syncretization, or simply the combination, of Old and New World religion that has taken place over the centuries. As elaborated upon in the film, slave traders did not destroy the Yoruba religion, but rather transplanted it into other corners of the world, allowing it to grow on its own, which ultimately resulted in these hybridized beliefs and practices, with Christianity especially, that we see today.<\/p>\n The film also highlighted the fact that there is mixing of Ori\u1e63a religion not just in the New World, but also still in parts of Nigeria, where Islam and Christianity clash with traditional Yoruba culture. The film mentions the fact that the presence of more globalized religion in Nigeria is threatening traditional Ori\u1e63a practices. The public is inundated with religious propaganda that argues the benefits of converting to Christianity. The youth of Nigeria are even proselytized in school, where mainstream Christianity tries to drown out the reverence for Ori\u1e63a.<\/p>\n Ultimately, this film broadened my insights into how Ori\u1e63a religion continues to be influenced by other religions, chiefly Christianity, on both sides of the Atlantic, and how, despite the fact that Christianity exists in force both in the New World and the Old, the Ori\u1e63a-oriented culture can be affected differently. Perhaps most importantly, this film helped to further my understanding of the resiliency of Yoruba culture throughout the recent centuries, and the lasting significance that preserved practices still have on people of all corners of the world touched by West-African influence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Noah Stommel After watching the film, Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler: \u201cO\u1e63un-O\u1e63ogbo,\u201d it became apparent that there are many ways in which the religious practices of the Yoruba people of Nigeria have undergone mixing with non-African culture over the centuries. Of course, mixing of Ori\u1e63a religion began on a grand scale with the slave trade, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4550,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}