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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Ethnicity and the Slave Trade: Lucumi and Nago as Ethnonyms in West Africa
Author:Law, Robin R.ISNI
Year:1997
Periodical:History in Africa
Volume:24
Pages:205-219
Language:English
Geographic term:West Africa
Subjects:Yoruba
slave trade
ethnological names
Ethnic and Race Relations
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
History and Exploration
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172026
Abstract:The term 'Yoruba' very seldom occurs in the original records of the slave trade because, as is generally agreed, the peoples who now refer to themselves as 'Yoruba' were not so called before the 19th century. According to the conventional view, moreover, these peoples did not call themselves by any other collective name either. This view has been challenged by Biodun Adediran (1984), who cites the fact that at least two other terms are known to have been applied to the Yoruba in general, namely, 'Lucumi' and 'Nago'. These terms are best attested, as terms for the Yoruba, in the diaspora, but Adediran argues that diaspora usage must have been based on conventions already current in the Yoruba homeland. This paper seeks to clarify the meanings of the terms 'Lucumi' and 'Nago' by looking at West African usage as reflected in contemporary European accounts. It shows that 'Lucumi' was current in West Africa during the 17th and early 18th century, but disappeared after the 1720s; the use of the term in Cuba in the 19th century must represent a survival of this usage within the diaspora. 'Nago', on the other hand, appeared for the first time in the 1720s, and remained common thereafter. Neither term is unambiguously documented in West Africa as a generic term for all Yoruba speakers, and their application in the diaspora therefore seems to reflect transformations in ethnic identities consequent on the displacement of slaves across the Atlantic. Notes, ref.
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