Ẹ̀SÌN IS NOT RELIGION: A CONCEPTUAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISTINCTION IN YORÙBÁ-NIGERIAN THOUGHT

Abstract

This paper challenges the routine translation of the Yorùbá word ẹ̀sìn as "religion," an equivalence that has become deeply entrenched in both scholarly and everyday usage. The English term "religion" carries the weight of a specifically Western intellectual lineage shaped by Latin Christendom, post-Reformation denominationalism, and the Enlightenment's rigid separation of sacred and secular spheres. By contrast, ẹ̀sìn arose from a Yorùbá worldview in which cosmology, ethics, ritual practice, and social structure were inseparably intertwined. The study maintains that the modern conflation of ẹ̀sìn with "religion" stems principally from nineteenth-century missionary translation projects and colonial knowledge systems, which imposed foreign assumptions about personal belief, institutional demarcation, and exclusive religious allegiance onto indigenous Yorùbá conceptual frameworks. In methodological terms, the research combines historical-linguistic investigation with close textual analysis of selected Ifá verses to retrieve the indigenous semantic strata of ẹ̀sìn. Theoretically, it draws upon decolonial critique and hermeneutical philosophy of religion. Special emphasis is placed on how ẹ̀sìn appears and functions within the Ifá corpus, examining its significance through its ritual and moral settings rather than through externally imposed doctrinal lenses. By situating the term within its original epistemic milieu, the paper shows that ẹ̀sìn denotes a lived ethical disposition and a structured way of communal existence rather than a circumscribed body of beliefs. Ultimately, the study urges scholars to exercise terminological care and to accord proper respect to indigenous conceptual categories when examining African religious thought.