DRAMATIZATION OF YORUBA COSMOLOGY IN OSUN 0SOGBO AND OLOJO FESTIVALS

political part of the country inhabited by the Yoruba is significantly regard. Quite arguably, these primordial practices are yet to be fully understood especially within the domain of literary or creative enterprise generally. They have for long remained suppressed by colonial and post-colonial cultural changes. Yet they have resisted the pressure of total domination by the global assault of modernization, or rather westernization (often erroneously equated with civilization), and Christianization —cum - Islamization. They remain essential aspects of rich cultures, which once existed in dignified forms in traditional Nigerian societies. Culture, being a transformable human phenomenon in time process, is now a vast arena for the exchange of heritages all over the world. Technological innovations as well as intellectual and academic studies, enquiries and evaluations that have turned the entire world into a global village have been helpful in this regard. In spite of all the changes brought about by colonialism and neocolonialism, Nigeria continues to witness the power of invincibility of ritual practices generally and ritual festivals in particular. The ritual festivals to be considered in the present study are the annual O/16j6 festival in Ilé-Ifé and the annual Osun Osogbo festival in Osogbo both in Osun State of Nigeria. These two festivals offer good bases for a discussion of ritual drama, especially the semiotic content of the ritual drama in Yoruba culture and sub-culture. Beyond this, in many places they still occupy an important position in the societal collective consciousness as a form of contemporary dramatic presentation. The contemporary Yoruba society is characterized by the gradual sweeping away of the sacred essence of many Yoruba ritual festivals. The extent of the secularization is such that strangers and academics, for purposes of cultural promotion, now participate in the events. Most times a ritual festival is seized upon as an opportunity f | or merrymaking. Such merry making is not extraneous to its pristine procedure ; 1 _ ‘ tified In the remote past, when ritual festivals were rigidly and ess--entially sanc ; , ' aveint “4 histori ses. ways of life, their elaboration, ubiquitous spread and status had certain historical ba That is, a god or goddess became elaborately celebrated because he oF she had functioned significantly at the historical epoch of a people, or that he or she could constantly answer the question of their cosmic bewilderment’. The two festivals are good analogies. O16jo festival in llé-Ifé is said, in some quarters, to have been instituted to commemorate Oduduwa (the acclaimed progenitor of the Yoruba). The more popular position is that it is in commemoration of Ogun (the