On Òyìnbó Yorùbá Religion, Resistance, and Polyepistemic Knowledge

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Michelle Ajisebo McElwaine Abimbola

Abstract

This interdisciplinary paper introduces the term “polyepistemic” to articulate a rigorous and ceaseless process of becoming fluent in multiple ways of knowing and being in the world that privilege African and Africana epistemologies. Non-African devotees, and practitioners of Yorùbá and other Indigenous Africana religious traditions who were not born into them, have a unique responsibility to consciously and deliberately resist the thought patterns of white supremacy and put their spiritual and physical energy towards the elimination of coloniality and systematic racism. The paper addresses the globalization of Yorùbá religion and incorporates the sacred literature of Ifá as evidentiary text in an exploration of the role of white practitioners. Two verses of Ogbèyẹ̀kú, the 17th Odù, inform this analysis. One illuminates the ancient relationship between the Òrìṣà Olókun and òyìnbó, or white people. The other highlights the dangers of forsaking Indigenous products and beliefs.

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