Sex and the Empire That Is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in Oyo Yoruba Religion

Amid the diverse ideological currents of colonial and post-colonial Nigerian national society, few personae seem more ironic than the priestesses and transvestite priests of the Oyo-Yoruba gods. This detailed ethnography penetrates the social order and internal logic behind these figures and their roles. Combining historical investigation with observations of contemporary religion and politics, this book brings to light changing conceptions of gender and agency among the Oyo Yoruba, and reveals their significance in the shifting constitution of local political hierarchies. In so doing, the book gives a view of Oyo Yoruba culture that challenges conventional definitions of gender, accepted ideas about the expressive nature of metaphor, assumptions about ideological consensus in African cultures, and de-historicized readings of both Yoruba ritual in particular and African ritual in general. This work is a theoretical contribution to the comparative literature on metaphor, transvestism, spirit possession, religions of the oppressed and marginalized, minority religions in the Islamic world, and the politics of writing ethnography.