POETICS OF THE YORUBA INCANTATIONS

Incantations are creative manipulations of words for specialized contexts and purposes. It is a functional form of usage to which some sacred properties are ascribed. Incantations constitute one of those oral sub-genres that generate controversies on the sameness of African oral literature and the West’s orthodox literary practices. Western critics think that many African oral traditions do not qualify for literature because of the sacredness of the African traditions. However, this paper explores the poetic features of Yoruba incantations that qualify this oral poetic sub-genre as authentic poetry despite their seemingly non-secular function. The argument of this paper is hinged on the internal qualities of incantatory usage, such as content, style, linguistic properties, physical features, and figurative expressions that share seamless similarities with elements of orthodox poetry. With illustrations from some types and forms of incantations, we conclude that despite their functional attributes, incantations qualify to be classified as poetry like others from other cultures of the world