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Erin ti wó, kò le dìde The elephant fell, unable to stand on its feet
Erin ti wó, kò le dìde The elephant fell, unable to stand on its feet
Àjànàkú sùn bí òkè The humongous mammal is down
Erin ti wó kò le dìde. The elephant fell, unable to stand on its feet.
On 2 November 2015, sociologist John David Yeadon Peel's illustrious career came to an end, marking the end of an era. Now, the discipline of sociology will miss the service of a pioneer who single-handedly gave a new dimension to the studies of Yoruba culture and religion. For those of us who have been influenced and inspired for years by his profound insight, John's demise has created a vacuum of unparalleled scale. However, John left with us an oeuvre that stands as a vast repository of knowledge waiting to be rediscovered in the future. His mastery of many disciplines is impressive, from the very core of sociology and anthropology to that of history and literature. His knowledge of group behaviour and social institutions is profound. His patience and ability to collect empirical data are phenomenal. His writings are never geared towards policy or advocacy - he does not belong to that tradition - but rather to a large set of coordinated knowledge on the fragmentation of society into its sociological fragments of social change, and the disturbing but crucial issues of social disorder and order. I think about how he first proceeded with the study of a new order organized by the Aladura movement of the colonial and postcolonial era before moving backward in time to the disorder of the nineteenth century, and how the social processes of the chaotic period enable us to understand one sub-ethnic community, the Ijesa.
As we commemorate J. D. Y. Peel's magnificent presence in the academy we must go back to the early 1960s, when he...