S ocial S tatus , W ealth and I ndividual D ifferences A mong the Y oruba 1

SOCIAL STATUS, WEALTH AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AMONG THE YORUBA 1 By WILLIAM R. BASCOM VIEW the sociological and I Nproblems of of culture current personality, it should anthropological to concern with and be of interest consider the manner in which individual differences, particularly those associated with status, are viewed in another culture, in this case that of the Yoruba of the kingdom of Ife. Intentionally, no attempt has been made to reconcile the categories in terms of which the West African Yoruba classify individuals with the current concepts of psycho-ethnography, which were still unrefined in 1937-38 1 when these data were collected. The Yoruba categories, rather, are presented as they were recorded in the belief that it may be profitable to examine a different point of view, in this case that of the Yoruba themselves toward members of their own society. Secondly, this paper concerns the effect of wealth on social position in a pecuniary African society. As will be seen, the classifications of individual differences reflect social and economic status as much as, or perhaps even more than, differences in individual personality. The analysis of these cate­ gories leads immediately to a consideration of the important factor of wealth, as well as that of hereditary or ascribed status. Birth into one of the patrilineal clans (idile)2 in itself gives an individual a certain status, while it may also make him eligible to hold one of the hereditary political or religious offices. Hereditary offices, as the term applies among the Yoruba, do not pass directly from father to son, but are generally open to any member of the clan, at least in theory, since there may be requirements as to sex, age or seniority, wealth, character, or other qualifications. Individual differences and wealth are only two of many factors which effect social position; that of seniority has been considered elsewhere,3 while others require a more complete discussion than can be devoted to them here. The major objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship of individual differences and wealth to social status ascribed on the basis of birth. The Yoruba people number some 3,500,000 and inhabit the southwestern 1 Field work in He and Igana, Nigeria, in 1937-38, was made possible by a fellowship from the Social Science Research Council of New York City, under the sponsorship of the Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University. Acknowledgement is also made to The Viking Fund of New York City and the Committee on Research of the Graduate School of Northwestern Uni­ versity for assistance in the preparation of this manuscript. S In the established orthography of Yoruba, used in this paper, ~ represents f, Q represents J, 1 represents sh or S, p represents kp and n represents nazalization except where it occurs between I Bascom, 1942a. two vowels.