Discover Nigeria: The Yoruba Origin of Brazilian Culture

By Abiola Alabi The Yoruba people of West Africa constitute one of the largest ethnic groups in Sub-Saharan Africa at almost 40 million people in total. They are predominantly settled in Nigeria, where they comprise 21% of the population and the Yoruba language, which is also spoken in Togo and Benin, is still spoken here.  While their cultural influence in West Africa is obvious, this rich and ancient culture, the lifeblood of many millions of Africans, also fed into the bloodstream of Brazil via the legions of West Africans transported to that country during the dreadful times of the slave trade. The strength of the Yoruba influence is easy to see in the daily life of Brazil centuries later. There is a linguistic influence in Brazilian Portuguese, with such everyday words as ‘ase’ (‘axe’), ‘odun’ (‘festival’) and ‘akaraje’, a bean cake like the akara of Yoruba origin. This latter word also shows how the Yoruba culinary heritage has become part of the nation’s cuisine. Much of the architecture betrays the inspiration of the facades and brick roofs of the old buildings of Lagos Island, and the old religion too, with its belief in a creator god, Olorun, reincarnation and individual destiny, has merged with Catholicism to make the Afro-Brazilian religion called Umbanda. But the cultural traffic has not all been one-way. Brazil has influenced Itan, which is what African Yorubas call the totality of their culture – its oral traditions, music, worship, and so on. As members of the Yoruba diaspora have gone back to Africa they have carried with them Brazil’s traditions, technologies and know-how to Nigeria, Benin and Togo; and the descendants of those returning slaves are affecting contemporary Yoruba culture. According to Olusegun Akinruli, a Nigerian resident in Brazil who founded the Yoruba Institute of Art and Culture there in 2006, “Brazil and Nigeria are twin sisters who share the same interests, culture and challenges.” Yoruba culture is a profoundly important influence in Brazilian life, and there is a great deal of interest among the descendants of the slaves brought to that country in retracing their roots and learning their family histories. This has led to a new fascination with learning the Yoruba language, and the Brazilian Federal Government has established a programme to foster this interest. The Institute has succeeded in persuading one of Brazil’s leading university, Universidade Federale de Minas Gerais, to include courses on Yoruba culture and language in its curriculum, and it has also set up seminars, workshops, lectures and festivals to promote knowledge of Yoruba culture, and boasts a fifty-strong Yoruba choir and a theatre group exploring the oral traditions of the Yoruba people. For the last five years the Lagos State Government of Nigeria has funded The Lagos Black Heritage Festival, centring on nations outside Africa that have absorbed Nigerian culture during their participation in the slave trade. The Festival is a series of events throughout the year with a strong focus the arts and on education for the visitors, and this year the focus falls on Brazil. The festival, with its coordinator, Professor Wole Soyinka, the first African winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is promoting the theme of “Bring Back Brazil” and there are an array of traditional dances, art exhibitions, contemporary mixes and photo expansions, along with several symposiums and dramas on the schedule. During a conference at Freedom Park in Lagos at the beginning of the festival in December, Professor Soyinka briefly outlined the festival’s intentions, which is primarily to educate current youths on the importance of Nigerian cultures in Brazil. “Our children do not understand why we have people who practice Nigerian cultures in Brazil, all they know is that in Brazil they have blacks who are descendants of slaves from Nigeria” The festival is certainly well placed to do this but has had concerns about funding in recent years.  However, this has been alleviated by bringing a specialist financial advisory practice on board. Trico Capital International and it’s CEO, Austine Ometoruwa, are key supporters of the event and Trico was one of the sponsors for the inaugural event which was held in December last year. It is hoped that more private companies will follow this lead and take an active role in collaborating with the government in order to ensure the continued success of the carnival. The next part of the Lagos Black Heritage Festival, “The Black in the Mediterranean Blue: The African Colours of Brazil” runs from 23^rd March to the 1^st April 2013.   Abiola Alabi is a Nigerian blogger, journalist and writer.  He is particularly interested in infrastructure development and urban renewal in and around the burgeoning metropolis of Lagos.