Notes

• [1]
  Theater Departement, University of Kansas, Lawrence.
• [2]
  Cabral, Amilcar: from a lecture he delivered on February 20, 1970 as part of the Eduardo Mondlane Memorial Lecture Series at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, under the auspices of The Program of Eastern African Studies. Translated from French by Maureen Webster. Eduardo Mondlane, the first leader of the Mozambique Liberation Movement Front (FRELIMO) was assassinated in February, 1960, by agents suspected to be working for the Portuguese colonial power ( http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/cabralnlac.html).
• [3]
  Clark, Ebun, Hubert Ogunde: The Making of Nigerian Theatre, London, Oxford University Press, 1979, p. ix.
• [4]
  This paper grew out of a seminar presented at the Performance Seminar sponsored by the Hall Centre for the Humanities, University of Kansas. My gratitude also to members of the seminar for their thoughtful comments.
• [5]
  Clark, op. cit., p. 5.
• [6]
  Quoted in Clark, op. cit., p. 5. Ebun Clark explains, moreover, that « A.R. Mus C » is an honorary diploma Ogunde awards himself, apparently a common practice at that time to gain respectability among the public.
• [7]
  Ibid., p. 7.
• [8]
  Ibid.
• [9]
  Kuyinu indeed becomes a victim of this prudish notion and is accused of conduct unbecoming a civil servant.
• [10]
  Letter to the Daily Service, 29 June 1944, quoted in Clark, op. cit., p. 9.
• [11]
  Before colonialism, these towns were cosmopolitan in their own times. Oyo is the political capital of Oyo Empire, Ilorin, famous for its iron industry (which gives it its name), Ijebu, a renowned trading centre, etc.
• [12]
  In the colonial signification system, the term « native » is a code for primitive and uncivilized. Many colonized people use it in that sense, too, but mainly to distinguish themselves from those who are still « living in the past ». At the same time, however, they recognize that the « primitive native » is a colonial construction that seeks to define the colonized as less than human and who has no self-will; they, members of the elite, know this is not true. Their dilemma is to reclaim and reconcile the real native with the person emerging in these colonial-induced and accelerated changing times.
• [13]
  Adedeji, J. A., « The Alarinjo Theatre: The Study of a Yoruba Theatrical Art from its Earliest Beginnings to the Present Times », unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Ibadan, 1969, p. 219.
• [14]
  Between 1944 and 1950, Ogunde writes a total of five religious operas, including Israel in Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar’s Reign, and King Solomon, in addition to the two already mentioned.
• [15]
  Clark, op. cit., p. 112.
• [16]
  Johnson, Samuel, The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate, Lagos, Nigeria, C.M.S., 1966, p. 623-624 [1^st ed. 1921].
• [17]
  The Roman Catholic missions in the region that had prospered between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in the area had by then folded (see: Ajayi, J. F. Ade, 1965, below).
• [18]
  Ayandele, E.A., The Church Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria, 1842-1914, London, Longman, 1965, p. 175-280, and Wright, Cheetham, CA1/25 (e), Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) of England, May 16, 1879 (quoted in Ayandele, p. 196). On the question of Christian missions and colonialism see: Ajayi, J. F. Ade, Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891: the making of a new élite, Longmans, 1965; Hanciles, Jehu, Euthanasia of a Mission: African church autonomy in a colonial context, Westport, Conn., Praeger, 2002; and Oduyoye, M.A., Hearing and Knowing: Theological Reflections on Christianity in Africa, New York, Orbis, 1986.
• [19]
  Article from Lagos Weekly Record, November 28, 1891, quoted in Ayandele, op. cit., p. 264.
• [20]
  Of course not all Christian-converted Nigerians go along with this revolution at the time, but in certain cases, it catches up with the next immediate generation, and parents with English and biblical names will only give Nigerian names to their children. This writer’s family offers a good example.
• [21]
  Indigenous religious sects in Nigeria have both male and female deities, served by priestesses and priests, and unlike the Christian God who is male, the Yoruba Supreme One is gender neutral. The then rigidly patriarchal church barred women from official leadership positions.
• [22]
  This C & S sect owes its founding to a 17-year-old girl, Christiana Abiodun Akinsown (1907-1994), later Mrs. Emmanuel, who had a vision in 1925 to found a new church with specific instructions on the style, structure and format of worship. Collaborating with Moses Orimolade Tunolase, an established evangelist, the C & S church is formed with both of them as leaders. Interestingly, at the website of the church ( http://csmovementchurchusa.org) there is a parade of male leaders of the church since 1925 and an acknowledgement of Orimolade as the founder but there is total silence on Akinsowon, the woman. The Britannica Encyclopedia online ( http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9005331/Aladura), however, acknowledges her, in spite of a few inaccuracies.
• [23]
  The group includes Nnamdi Azikwe and Obafemi Awolowo of Nigeria, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Léopold Senghor of Senegal, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, among many others.
• [24]
  Such works include Ajiṣafẹ, Ajayi Kọlawọlẹ, The Laws and Customs of the Yoruba People, London, G. Routledge, 1924, and Danquah, Joseph Boakye, Gold Coast: Akan Laws and Customs and the Akim Abuakwa Constitution, London, G. Routledge, 1928.
• [25]
  Anthropologists like Basil Davidson (The Lost Cities of Africa, Boston, Little Brown, 1959) and Marcel Griaule (Conversations with Ogotemmeli, an Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1965 [English translation of Dieu d’eau: conversations avec Ogotemmêli, 1948].
• [26]
  Clark, op. cit., p. 10.
• [27]
  Ibid., p. 11.
• [28]
  Daily Service, 27 March 1945, quoted in Clark, op. cit., p. 12. Another reviewer, Fidelis A. Ogunsheye, is more critical, above all questioning Ogunde’s use of English rather than Yoruba titles. Ogunsheye’s review of another Ogunde opera, Israel and Egypt, costs him his job as a teacher at the Breadfruit School, Lagos, a Catholic mission school. He resigns after the Reverend Father accuses him of impertinence for expressing his pride in « things African » (Clark, op. cit., p. 17). Kuyinu’s family also conspired with the colonial authority to transfer him to Port Harcourt, away from Lagos, the performing stage, and especially Ogunde, whom they feel is a bad influence on him. The family believe that by appearing in a commercial theatre, Kuyinu is disrespecting his position as a civil servant and as an elite.