The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in Oyo

Abstract

Opening Paragraph The Yoruba Ogboni cult has been referred to as a typical ‘secret society’ for over fifty years, yet it has never been described in any detail, or analysed in accurate general terms. Frobenius discovered its controlling importance in Yoruba religious organization in 1910 and promptly became initiated into the Ibadan Ogboni, but only to get information from the priests of other Yoruba cults. He made no attempt to study the beliefs of Ogboni members, whom he dismissed as ‘mystery-mongering greybeards’. Two anthropologists have been initiated into the cult in the course of the last twenty-five years, but have declared themselves bound by its oath of secrecy, and so have published nothing about it.

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