MYTH AND REALISM IN SELECTED YORÙBÁ ORÍKÌ

Abstract

The aesthetic quality of man, especially Africans lies in the fact that they are a group of people who hold certain principles, opinions, beliefs and values, relating them to their environment. Overtime, this negroid race, Yorùbá, entrench their beliefs in their off-springs from generation to generation, in the form of folktales, myths, story-telling, and dance in primitive societies through modified oral system known as oríkì. Consequently, this study was motivated by the quest to access the extent to which myths and realism are embedded in Yorùbá oríkì. Hence, oríkì was collected orally and transcribed for possible analysis, through the theory of archetype, to investigate the relationship between the Yoruba worldview of oríkì, praise-poetry and the contemporary realities embedded therein, wherewith to advance the philosophical, psychological and sociological repertoire of man in relation to existence.