Ogun Laye: The Yoruba Response To Ontological And Cosmological Warfare And The Use Of Violent Prayer

Abstract

In the traditional Yoruba, it is believed that immediately a child is conceived, he is plunged into primaeval darkness of war. The parents on his behalf start fighting the battle for him in the womb, and continue to fight immediately after birth till he gets to puberty stage and then adulthood when he will be able to fight for himself. The general belief is that the pregnancy could be incinerated or pulverised by the evil men of the world hence the unborn baby needs some violent prayers to ward off the evil that could befall him and thereafter takes up the challenge when he grows old. The aim of the paper, however, is to see how the Yoruba respond to spiritual and physical war using violent prayer. Available studies on the subject matter have focused mainly on how violent prayer is used by Christians thereby ignoring the role played by the former among the Yoruba. The methodology consisted of a critical analysis of data collected from the series of interviews conducted among the people who are proficient and versed in the Yoruba traditions. Negative and aggressive prayer by Elizabeth McAllister which states that most people associate prayer with moral good, yet in some cases, people deliberately pray against others in the form of “aggressive prayer” served as our theoretical framework. Some agents such as divinities, ancestors, spirits, magic and medicine were used as machineries for spiritual warfare. If the perceived enemies are throwing spiritual arrows that could lead to disequilibrium in society, using violent prayer to protect oneself is not a bad enterprise and the paper reached its abridged version that if the so called aggressive prayer is appropriately and properly employed to safeguard human existence then there is no need to efface it, it could be
rather sustained by a pantagruelian horde of some individuals in the society.