CONCEPTION OF ‘ORI’ (HEAD) IN THE YORUBA BELIEF SYSTEM N ETHICAL APPRAISAL

Abstract

This paper attempts an ethical appraisal of the Conception of ‘Ori’ (head) in the Yoruba belief system in a bid to confront the inconsistencies the various meanings the concept has generated and suggests panacea to the absurdities. Considering the stimulating debate about the nature of Africa philosophy, both academia in Africa and Nigeria origin generally focused more on the exercise of critical analysis and conceptual clarifications. One of such exercises that attracted the attention of philosophers in this regard is the Yoruba concept of ‘Ori’ (inner head). This study was informed by many ambiguous interpretations of the concept of ‘Ori’ (inner head) in which ‘Ori’ was referred to as ‘Personality Soul’, ‘Guardian Angel’, ‘Destiny’, ‘Character’, and ‘An Entity’ which sounds so confused. This research sets to demystify and unburden this confusion. Consequent on this, employing the analytic and conversational methods, this research looked at the Yoruba concept of ‘Ori’ from comparative study of different individual’s interpretations. This paper submits that until African philosophers especially scholars from Yoruba speaking area of Nigeria agree on a particular and coherent meaning of ‘Ori’, or admits that ‘Ori’ can be used to refer to different things depending on the context of use, the concept will continue to lead to contradictions and absurdities