Abstract
This paper investigated science as a systematic knowledge used for discovery of the world, observation, test and presentation that entails validated facts, and how technology, which is adjudged to be using scientific knowledge for excecution of things at factory or industry with the use of tools is evidently ingrained in certain Yoruba cultural practices like farming, blacksmithing, sculpting and African power in Yoruba Egungun (masquerade). Several scholarly works abound on culture, science and technology, but little or nothing is established to address insuniation that lack of scientific or technological knowledge in Yoruba culture is responsible for economic and political backwardness of the people. Effort to ascertain that scientific and technological knowledge is present and real in Yoruba culture is what the paper out to proove. Cultural theory and theory of the sociology of literature in which Hyppolite and his disciples are one of the proponents is adopted for its capability to offer explicit information on culture as product of the society whose main function is to reflect the same society in the same way literature does. Secondary data were collected from books, journals, social media and unstructured interview with four resourceful elders at Ogbomoso on certain scientific/technological knowledge observed in some Egungun masquerades. Findings revealed that scientific/technological knowledge is well ingrained in Yoruba culture before the advent of the Europeans. It was revealed also that the secreet behind the entrenchment of scientific/technological knowledge in Yoruba culture is hidden and known only to very few individuals, hence, the reason for negative insinuation in some quarters that there is no iota of scientific/technological presence in the culture and the assumption that there is economic and political backwardness is not tenable. It was recommended that scientific/technological power ingrained in the culture should be codified and shared because ‘a knowledge shared is a knowledge retained’. Government should provide financial supports for the traditional practitioners to discover and promote more scientific/technological knowledge embedded in the cultural practices of the people.
Keywords: Scientific/Technological Knowledge, Yoruba Culture, Secreet, Backwardness, Ingrained, Codified
DOI: www.doi.org/10.36349/sojolics.2025.v01i02.031
author/Akanmu, D., & Abbass, K.
journal/Sokoto JOLICS 1(2) | November 2025 |
