The Cradle of Yoruba Culture. by: Chief Dayo Ologundudu

This book is an historical, theological, philosophical and anthropological account of the Yoruba people from Africa to the Americas. The book is intended to provide a brief but meaningful account of the cradle of Yorùbá culture and the evolution of the worship of Òrìṣà in the United States of America while showing how this evolution has affected worship in Nigeria. It also provides useful information concerning the nature of Yoruba Traditional Religion and how it functions. It is my deepest wish that this work will be useful to the present generation of the Yoruba descendants both here at home and in the New World. Having lived in the Americas and having worshiped with the Afro Cubans and African Americans for nearly 30 years, I have had a unique opportunity to observe the commonalities as well as the differences in practices around the world, and I can reliably state that our commonalities far outnumber our differences. Olódùmarè and the Òrìṣà have been generous to humanity by sending great teachers wherever African people have gone to help maintain the principles of our divinely inspired religion and to help those born in the Diaspora to adapt when necessary to changing environments and cultural and even political realities. To begin, I think this book can be a good source of information on contemporary Yorùbá culture and will answer some of the questions I have been asked many times by my friends and my ọmọ awo (students). We must make sure that the coming generation does not get disconnected from genuine traditional knowledge. There was a time when there were no alternatives to the traditional settings and the world was more peaceful.