Yoruba Cultural Influence

Yoruba Cultural Influences Affecting Health Care

Mariatou Betts

Hennepin Technical College

Author Note

This Paper was prepared for Writing for Health Care taught by instructor Teresa

Yoruba Cultural influence Affecting Western Health Care

There is a large population of the Yoruba culture living in Minnesota, and they have their own association, and church as well. It is very likely that health care workers in Minnesota and within the United States will run into a Yoruba person that strongly disagrees with western medicine; and that is the reason why it is very important for health care workers to be aware about the existence of this Yoruba people and their culture in Minnesota, and in the United States (Minnesota

Yoruba Cuba Association, 2014). The Yoruba culture has different religious groups, but does not have one group of culture associated with it. The Yoruba’s are a group of people that settled on the western part of Nigeria West Africa. They tend to be in the third place on population of Nigeria as a country. The Yoruba people believe in so many different things that have to do with medicine and traditional healings. The purpose of this report is to educate medical professionals about the views of the Yoruba people towards Western Medicine.
The Yoruba people are very religious. Religion is the top governing principle of their lives. The Yoruba people believe in one Supreme God known to them as Olorun Olodumare and many lesser gods like orishas, including Sango, the god of thunder and lightning, Ifa or Orunmila, the god of divination and knowledge, Ogun, the god of war and iron, and Oya, the goddess of the sea. The lesser gods act as intermediaries to the Supreme God. Orishas’ powers are saught after for protection and blessings. The Yoruba are tolerant and accommodative of other religions and live peacefully with them. Many Yoruba have converted to Islam or Christianity; yet they often fall back onto their orishas in difficult times (Yoruba, 2008). The Yoruba people exhibit a very strong sense of right and wrong. Good character and high moral standards are of paramount importance to them. Yoruba are proud of their culture, history, and arts, which have won international recognition (Yoruba, 2008).
Yoruba’s views on Illness
In Nigeria, Yoruba’s are known to be the most cultural medicinal people that live in Nigeria.

The rural Yoruba people believes that anyone that dies in their communities must have died at the hands of the evil spirit. The Yoruba’s have powerful spirits that they believe in. When a Yoruba woman is due for child birth, she would called a traditional high priest to come and perform some rituals to help the pregnant woman have a safe delivery. When a traditional Yoruba person falls sick, he or she always go to the spiritual priest to find out what is happening to that person. After they have gone to meet the spiritual priest, they would be given some answers or result on what the person was suffering from or the cause of the illness. Even though their maybe hospitals around them, the typical Yoruba traditional person would rather go to their ‘’Baba Lawo’’ which means the traditional doctor who they think has the power to heal the sick. The Traditional Yoruba’s don’t believe in western medicine. They sometimes think that the administration of western medicine would kill their sick family member or loved one instead of healing.

Yoruba’s History and Culture in Nigeria

The Yoruba people obtained numerous weapon from Portuguese traders (“Yoruba People,” 2010). Despite access to weapon, they were not able to defend their territory from the Fulani, and were displaced from their home (Yoruba People, 2010).

In the late 1800s, the Yoruba’s formed a treaty with the Fulani and in 1901 they

were colonized by the British. Because of their hatred to the Fulani who are the great Islam evangelists, most of the Yoruba people do not hold to Islam but instead worship many of the gods and spirits that the Yoruba hold to.
Economically, Yoruba people primarily engage in agriculture, with about 15% of the people employed as merchants or artists and craftsman (Yoruba People, 2010). One of the features that make Yoruba people unique is their tendency to form into large city groups instead of small village groups. The Yoruba’s are today one of the three main ethnic groups that make up Nigeria. (Yoruba People, 2010). They can also be found in neighboring countries. Yoruba people are a large ethno-linguistic group or ethnic nation in Africa, and the majority of them speak the Yoruba language. The Yoruba constitute approximately 21 percent of Nigeria’s total population, and around 40 million individuals throughout the region of West Africa (Yoruba People, 2010).
While the majority of the Yoruba live in western Nigeria, there are also substantial indigenous Yoruba communities in Benin, Ghana, Togo and the Caribbean (Yoruba People, 2010).
A significant percentage of Africans enslaved during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in the Americas managed to maintain the Yoruba spiritual religion known as Aborisha. Indeed, the initiation and practice of Aborisha spiritual religion offers a route to all people of African descent, who were victims of slave trade in the Americas or the Caribbean, to make claim to Yoruba heritage. (Yoruba People, 2010).
Ocha-Ifa, also known as Santeria, Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumi, or Lukumi, is a syncretic religion of West African origins developed by the African slaves in the Americas, most notably in Cuba and Brazil. The religion infuses elements of Catholicism with traditional African spirituality. Practice includes ancestor reverence and the worship of deities from the Yoruba pantheon coupled with idolization of Catholic saints. In some cases, Indigenous American spiritual practices were also incorporated into the religion (Minnesota Yoruba Cuba Association, 2014).
The Yoruba’s perception of western medicine
The Yoruba’s mostly believe in traditional medicine with a little percentage of their number having to be exposed to the western world.

Those Yoruba’s who have traveled out of their culture to different parts of the world happen to be the ones among them who believe in western medicine. Furthermore, they traditional Rural Yoruba’s do not actually trust the western medicine. In the rural parts of the Yoruba culture, western medicine is seen as a challenge to gods, and also a threat to their culture. The Traditional rural Yoruba’s don’t believe that any other medicine can cure any sickness that their traditional medicine could not cure. Which makes them to see the western medicine intimidating. The Yoruba’s are the main ethnic group in the states of Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo, which are subdivisions of Nigeria; they also constitute a sizable proportion of Kwara and Kogi States as well as Edo State (Yoruba People, 2010).

The historical relationship between the Yoruba’s and Western medicine

The Rural Yoruba’s, have this memory of the western medicine being the cause of unwanted or premature deaths of their people. The Yoruba’s have always believed that they lived longer and healthier before the western medicine came into use. And there after some of their people who started using this western medicine started dyeing and developing a lot of unknown diseases. As a result of that they rural Yoruba’s do not agree with western medicine.

How medical professionals are viewed

in Yoruba culture
Medical Professionals are respected because of the understanding of them being highly educated. But still they are not trusted when it comes down to serious medical issues. The rural traditional Yoruba’s see the medical professionals as trained and educated people who are trained to treat injured people and help in accident rescues, but when it comes down to chronic diseases and internal illness they are totally not trusted and are sent away or rejected when help is offered. Because of the believe the rural Yoruba culture has, they are seen to only trust the answers that come from the traditional voodoo priest who is taken in high standards and believes to be the key to cure any disease (Yoruba People, 2010).
The medical decision maker in the family of typical Yoruba’s
Yoruba’s believe in their males are good decision makers, this cultural believe started since the Yoruba people started existing and has been part of their way of life. A Yoruba woman would not want you as a medical worker to tell her the situation of her health, but would rather have you inform the oldest male in their family. It is very important you pay attention to a Yoruba person and ask for the head of the family which is always the male child or a husband.
The decision maker in the rural traditional Yoruba culture, is the husband, father or son. The females are seen to have less power when it comes to taking the responsibility of anything that happens to the family. In other words, making the male family members the decision makers. However its seen in their midst that the males go extra mile to help find out any cause of illness upon any family members and can also make the choice of accepting rituals in favor of their sick one.
The Yoruba culture should be identified and treated with respect in the western medical environment, to enable good response and positive attitude while admitted in the hospital, a health care worker should ask questions that would make him or her know what a Yoruba person would like to be talked about to, or who he or she would prefer to be informed about any situation that might have been the cause of his or her admission to the hospital or health care facility. Members of Yoruba cultural group in the western world are very much in number and would have to be respected as to what their wishes are and demands of their culture in relation to western medicine. With the knowledge of the culture of the Yoruba People to a health care worker in Minnesota or within the United States, would really make a great impact and easy communication with Health care workers and the Yoruba community.

References
Yoruba People. (2010). In Come to Nigeria. Retrieved November 15, 2015, from http://www.cometonigeria.com/about-nigeria/nigerian-people-culture/yoruba-people/
Minnesota Yoruba Cuba Association (2014). Osha-Ifa. In Minnesota Yoruba Cuba Association. Retrieved December 14, 2015, from https://mnyorubacubaassociation.wordpress.com/osha-ifa/
Yoruba. (2008). In R. Juang & N. Morrissette (Eds.), Africa and the Americas: Culture, politics, and history. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Retrieved from http://htcproxy.mnpals.net/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/abcafatrle/yoruba/0