Political Organization and Religious Belief Among the Yoruba People of Nigeria

Richard Edward Dennett was born in Valparaiso, Chile in 1857. He was the son of Reverend R. Dennett MA DCL (1829 to 1908), who was a rector and private patron of Ashton Church near Chudleigh, Devon, for sixteen years from 1881 to 1897. Dennett worked for Thomas Wilson, Sons & Co., a shipping company based in Kingston-upon-Hull, from 1875 until 1879. He left the UK for Africa in the employment of Hatton & Cookson in 1879. This trading company was responsible for bringing resources such as ivory into the country.However, he began to notice the harsh treatment given to the people of the Congo and in 1886 he drew attention to these irregularities through his letters to the Manchester Guardian. However, he also edited a manuscript newspaper called "Congo Mirror" and accused the Congo officials of the murders and atrocities being committed. He was to become an active member of the Congo Reform Association.Dennett left the Congo when he joined the Nigerian Forest Service in 1902, but felt that he did not understand the Nigerian people as he had understood the Congolese. Between 1886 and 1906, Dennett wrote and published three books and numerous articles in Britain about life in the Congo. Much of this material is ethnographic but other articles discuss trade. Between 1903 and 1916 he published a number of ethnographic articles on Nigerian language and ethnography. During this time he became friends with Mary Kingsley, a writer, explorer and advocate of African culture.Dennett retired to Britain on a pension in 1918 and died in 1921, when he must have been 63 or 64 years old. Letters addressed to his publisher, George Macmillan, and held at the Reading University archives, demonstrate that he was still writing and planning further publications at the time of his death. His later letters are written on the headed notepaper of the Mary Kingsley Society. A letter dated 6th January 1921 demonstrates the more esoteric side of his work. It reads 'I enclose a Ms. "The Soul in Sound" which I should like you to publish - it is an attempt to reconcile the order in Creation (Genesis) with the order of the colours in the spectrum, production, propagation and personal pronouns, in the form of an alphabet with the letters in their natural groups...'. His final letter, dated April 23rd 1921, is addressed from a London nursing home and reads, 'as you can see from the above address, I am in a nursing home and with very little chance of living any length of time. I have written a little book called 'Self and Universal Order'.This book is a detailed account written by a sympathetic European observer who spent many years studying West African folklore, culture, and religion. It is useful because it goes into much greater detail than any other previous books from this period about Bantu and Yoruba spiritual practices and philosophy. This work was originally published by Richard Edward Dennett in 1910 by Mac Millan and Company, London and New York under the title of: Nigerian Studies. For the readers and specially for those interested in the Caribbean African culture, this book is a primary source of information and a usefull tool for understanding the Yoruba folklore, culture, religion, and its legacy in the Americas. Despite the fact that we have attempted to accurately maintain the integrity of the original work, the present reproduction may have minor errors beyond our control like: missing and blurred pages, poor pictures and markings. Because this book is culturally important, we have made available as part of our commitment to protect, preserve and promote knowledge in the world.YOU CAN SEARCH FOR OUR BOOKS AT: https: //ediitorialnuevomundo.blogspot.com/