Death and The King's Horseman - Yoruba Perception of The World Around Them

Yoruba Perception of The World Around Them

The way in which the Yoruba peoples view the world must be understood before Death and the King’s Horseman can be accurately interpreted. Yoruba culture has several key ideas that are presented using language, imagery, and different behaviors. Thinking like a Yoruba individual requires that these three mediums be experienced, internalized and visualized within the “mind’s eye”. When one experiences any one of these methods of expression, what is perceived within the mind, namely the iran (“mental image”) becomes closely linked to the perceiver's oju inu (“inner eye” or “insight”). Experiencing words, images, and behaviors, the Yoruba believe, results in the interaction of two key Yoruba concepts, that of the iran and of the oju inu, the interaction of which is like a fusion—when the iran is perceived by the oju inu, it is as if that image remains with its perceiver. To put it into more Western terminology, it would be like saying, each event one experiences teaches a small lesson that will remain forever within the soul of the one who learned it.