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BYLINE:ZAKARIYAU HAJARAT TEMILADE
I still do not understand how or when we started hating Yoruba incantations. Most people hate the sound of it because they thought incantations is only used for evils. Civilized people will do anything to ban the use of incantations whether for good or bad use .
Incantations was a means of communication in the early days amongst the Yorubas. It is an oral poetic genre and combination of thoughtfully arranged words in a poetic form.
When one listen closely to the lyrics of incantation, you will come to understand incantations is also story telling, it can be used to tell the story of a great one, a good person, a god or evil person.
Furthermore, it is use to make things work miraculously as users wishes or words come to reality with immediate effect. It's magical effect when used by greedy man makes him want to control the world around him.
This aspect of Yoruba culture has positive and negative use (the negative use is widely known), it is used by traditional healers (onisegun) and priest of ifa (alawo) for either the betterment of someone or something or to ruin.
Yoruba incantations poetry is in forms we have ofo (phrase), ayajo (Precedents) and ogede (promises).
An example of Ofo;
Omi kii san
K’ o b’ oju w’eyin
An example of Ayajo;
L’ojo t’ opo ye n’lle Oyo
Ni gbogbo aye n de ‘be lo ki won
Ikele nikan l’o ku ti ko lo
Ikele ojo naa I’aso pupa
Eewo Orisa
Aso pupa ki l b ‘oku se saree
Eewo Orisa
An example of Ogede;
Ewe ti a ba ja si owo otun, otun n’ii gbe
Eyi ti a ba ja si owo osi, osi n’ii gbe
Oro ti okete b’a b’a Ile so, ni Ile n’gba
Bi i’gbin ba fa, ikarahun a’ tele
Lagbaja omo lagbaja, mo pe o loni o
Nitori bi a ba pe oku ni popo, Alaye ni dahun.
EDITED BY:LUQMAN SHUKURAH TEMITOPE
PUBLISHED BY:MONDIU SHERIFAT OLUWASEUN