Aesthetics of Cultures: The Yoruba Culture in Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame
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Date
2023
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ETKI: Journal of Literature, Theatre and Culture Studies
Abstract
Abstract
In the face of world power tussle, many cultures today are endangered
and threatened. As some have been widely encroached by foreign and
imposing nations, some are on the track of extinction. Annexation
ideologies and appropriation programs are developed by ambitious countries and under different shrouds to possess other national territories. A notable culprit is the western cultural hegemony and self
sought imperialism which is otherwise sugar-coated as civilization. While
many independent nations have assimilated foreign cultures in guises of
education, migration, and foreign interventions, many nations still nurse
the brunt of colonialism. Unfortunately, cultural etiolation continues
today with many unsuspecting nations falling victims. The causations for
the decline in the traditional gamut of these societies are often hinged
upon various instances. A notable mention is the lost Harappan
civilization. Once one of the oldest civilisations and often classified with
the Mesopotamian, Chinese and Egyptian civilization, the Harappan
civilisation has now plunged into a site of research and excavational
discoveries. Also, Ajawa, a formal language of the people of Bauchi state
in Nigeria has become extinct. Thus, there is no gainsaying that these
extinction of cultural values and traditions portend detrimental
consequences for our futures than benefits. This is the more reason
efforts must be made towards documentation in as many forms as
possible. Such preservation mission could help to save cultural values
like that of the Yoruba people of western Nigeria and others which may
be endangered soon. Playwriting is a way to keep the flag hoisted.
Writers such as Ola Rotimi, Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, Ahmed
Yerima, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ama Ata Aidoo, Efua T. Sutherland,
Tawfiq al-Hakim, among many others must be reckoned with for their
efforts on African literature. These literary works are archival of African
cultures. It is in this light that this paper considers the Yoruba cultural
aesthetics in Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame. Using literary
analysis method, this paper categorises Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not
to Blame as a play that documents the Yoruba indigenous culture and it
examines Yoruba cultural elements like, oral tradition, dance, song,
language, proverbs and wise-sayings, etc., in the play. This paper
establishes the importance of documentation in cultural preservation.
Some of the existing and endangered Yoruba cultural values are among
those discussed in this paper. Imperatively therefore, to sustain African
cultural values like that of the Yorubas, and keep them from extinction
or obsolescence, efforts must be channelled towards writing plays and
literature that document and celebrate African histories and cultures.
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Ogunmekan, Damilare. “Aesthetics of Cultures: The Yoruba Culture in Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame.” ETKI: Journal of Literature, Theatre and Culture Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, 2023, pp. 21-47.