Songs of the King’s Wives: Women, Power and Performance in the Yoruba Public Sphere

Indigenous festivals, which rely significantly on music and dance, oftenconstitute the village public sphere and the social arena withinwhich the structures of power are performed and negotiated in traditionalAfrican communities. This article discusses two unique musicaltraditions which feature prominently at annual traditional festivals inEmure-Ekiti, a Yoruba town in Western Nigeria. The musical traditionsare orin olori (songs of the king’s wives) and a related ensemble, orinairegbe, a musical tradition associated with female chiefs. Exploring anethnomusicological approach, this article argues that the complementaryrelationship between these two all-female musical traditions andthe scope of their performance practices draw attention to the ways inwhich public performance speaks to the status and agency of women intraditional Yoruba societies