Oyotunji African Village is a village located near Sheldon, Beaufort County, South Carolina that was founded by Oba Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Adefunmi I in 1970.
Oyotunji village is named after the Oyo empire, and the name literally means "Oyo returns" or "Oyo rises again". Oyotunji village covers 27 acres (11Â ha) and has a Yoruba temple which was moved from Harlem, New York to its present location in 1960. During the 1970s, the era of greatest population growth at the village, the number of inhabitants grew from 5 to between 200 and 250. (Goldstein, Hunt, and McCray) The population is rumored to fluctuate between 5 and 9 families as of the last 10 years. It was originally intended to be located in Savannah, Georgia, but was eventually settled into its current position after disputes with neighbors in Sheldon proper, over drumming and tourists.
Since Adefunmi's death in 2005, the village has been led by his son, Oba Adejuyigbe Adefunmi II. The village is constructed to be analogous to the villages of the traditional Yoruba city-states in modern-day Nigeria, although modernization of the village's public works have been carried out under Adefunmi II.
References
Notes
- Capone, Stefania. Les Yoruba du Nouveau Monde: religion, ethnicité et nationalisme noir aux Etats-Unis. Karthala, 2005.
- Clarke, Kamari. Mapping Yorùbá Networks. Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities. Duke University Press, 2004
- Davis, Rod. American Voudou: Journey into a Hidden World. Denton: University of North Texas, 1998.
- Goldstein, Joshua. “A King in South Carolina.†The New Republic, 27 May 1978, 18.
- Hunt, C.M. (1977). 'Oyotunji Village: Yoruba Movement in America.', PhD Dissertation, West Virginia University.
- LeFever, Harry G. “Leaving the United States: The Black Nationalist Themes of Orisha-Vodu.†Journal of Black Studies 31, no. 2 (2000): 175-195.
- McCray, Kenja. "Black Gods, Black Power: Life at Oyotunji Village, 1970-1990." M.A. Thesis, Clark Atlanta University, 2002.
- Yemi D. Ogunyemi (Yemi D. Prince). Oyotunji African Kingdom: "Literatures of the African Diaspora". 2004.
External links
- An Oral History of the West African Village That Has Been in South Carolina for Four Decades
- Ile Ifa Jalumi - Oyotunji Outpost
- RoadsideAmerica.com article
- Ã'yötùnjà Village: Making Africans in America - Anthropology Master's Thesis by Antionette B. Brown-Waithe
- Welcome to the Kingdom Oyotunji African Village via Internet Archive
- About Oyotunji African Village
