Yoruba Mythology - by Ayodeji Ogunnaike (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The first major work of Yoruba mythology, retelling hundreds of traditional tales of the Orisa, Yoruba Heroes, and Ijapa from West Africa, Cuba, and Brazil.

Yoruba mythology is sacred to the religion and culture of the Yoruba people. A primarily oral tradition, its stories revolve around Olodumare, the Supreme Being, and a vast number of divinities or orisa, who govern all aspects of human life and nature.

Yoruba Mythology is, to date, the most comprehensive published collection of more than 300 myths of this ancient, profound, and beautiful storytelling tradition. Authors Ayodeji Ogunnaike and Oludamini Ogunnaike are uniquely qualified to impart these stories, having spent decades learning, collecting, and studying them. Many are remembered from their own childhood, while many more are the result of yearslong research and encounters with practitioners and elders in and from Nigeria, Cuba, and Brazil.

Alongside the myths of the orisa, the Ogunnaikes also include dozens of mythos of more cultural significant, such as the founding of Yoruba kingdoms, stories of heroes and other powerful beings, and classic fables. The final section is dedicated to the beloved Ijapa, the Yoruba trickster tortoise whose cunning and greed always land him trouble, but whose stories impart valuable lessons about honesty, perseverance, and character.

The book is made complete with stunning art by Data Oruwari, whose work brings the myths and characters to life in a manner that evokes traditional depictions of the orisa in West Africa and the diaspora.

A gift to both those familiar with Yoruba culture and religion and those who are encountering them for the first time, Yoruba Mythology is an important and long-awaited contribution to the mythological canon.

Review Quotes

"A treasure trove of myths from Yorubaland and its diasporas collected by true African religionists. Preciously guarded and assiduously compiled by the Ogunnaike brothers, this valuable archive has been thoughtfully curated and historically contextualized by skilled researchers of Yoruba descent. A stunning set of illustrations, rooted in traditional styles of Nigerian wood carving, recalls the storied past with a dazzling twenty-first century flourish. This foundational volume ultimately offers an ancestral gift to all future generations."--Kyrah Malika Daniels, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, Emory University

"My understanding of Yoruba has always been fragmented; a spectrum of information pulled in from a multitude of sources: Babalawos, the I Ching, online research, and my own intuition. This text affirms the validity of those experiences, and expands it greatly, forming a space that culls oral and written storytelling into a powerful anthology. I will be revisiting this work for years to come, and believe that it has an invaluable significance for all across the diaspora."--Shaka King, writer and director of Judas and the Black Messiah

"This remarkable volume stands as one of the most important contemporary contributions to the preservation and transmission of Yorùbá sacred knowledge, mythology, and oral tradition. Yoruba Mythology: Stories of the Oriṣa from West Africa and the Diaspora succeeds not only as a collection of stories, but as a living bridge between ancestral memory, spiritual philosophy, history, and the evolving global consciousness of the Yoruba tradition."--Baba Oloye Jean-Jérôme C. Baudry

About the Author

Ayodeji Ogunnaike, PhD is the Assistant Professor or African Religions and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in the Globalization of African Religion and Yoruba Mythology at McGill University. His research focuses on Yoruba orisa worship in Nigeria but also Islam in African, Christianity in Africa, and diaspora religions--Brazilian Candomblé in particular. He studied Ifa divination with a high priest in Nigeria and is the author of Forms of Worship: How Orisa Worship Became Religion in Nigeria and Brazil (2026). He lives in Montreal, Canada.

Oludamini Ogunnaike, PhD is the Associate Professor of African Religious Thought and Democracy at the University of Virginia. His research examines the philosophical and artistic dimensions of Islamic and Indigenous religious traditions of West and North Africa, especially Sufism and Ifa. He is the author of Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions (2020), winner of the Outstanding First Book Prize of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD), and Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: A Study of West African Madīḥ Poetry and Its Precedents (2020). He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Data Oruwari is a Nigerian visionary artist and spiritual guide know as "the Ancestors' Scribe." Her work draws on Indigenous African cosmologies, using richly detailed, symbolic imagery to translate ancestral knowledge into visual form. Through her practice, she preserves cultural memory and offers pathways for deeper connection to identity and the spiritual realm.