Yoruba Cultural Influence

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Recommended: Chinese Medicine vs Western Medicine

Yoruba Cultural Influences Affecting Health Care
Mariatou Betts
Hennepin Technical College

Author Note
This Paper was prepared for Writing for Health Care taught by instructor Teresa

Yoruba Cultural influence Affecting Western Health Care
There is a large population of the Yoruba culture living in Minnesota, and they have their own association, and church as well. It is very likely that health care workers in Minnesota and within the United States will run into a Yoruba person that strongly disagrees with western medicine; and that is the reason why it is very important for health care workers to be aware about the existence of this Yoruba people and their culture in Minnesota, and in the United States (Minnesota …show more content…

The rural Yoruba people believes that anyone that dies in their communities must have died at the hands of the evil spirit. The Yoruba’s have powerful spirits that they believe in. When a Yoruba woman is due for child birth, she would called a traditional high priest to come and perform some rituals to help the pregnant woman have a safe delivery. When a traditional Yoruba person falls sick, he or she always go to the spiritual priest to find out what is happening to that person. After they have gone to meet the spiritual priest, they would be given some answers or result on what the person was suffering from or the cause of the illness. Even though their maybe hospitals around them, the typical Yoruba traditional person would rather go to their ‘’Baba Lawo’’ which means the traditional doctor who they think has the power to heal the sick. The Traditional Yoruba’s don’t believe in western medicine. They sometimes think that the administration of western medicine would kill their sick family member or loved one instead of healing.
Yoruba’s History and Culture in Nigeria
The Yoruba people obtained numerous weapon from Portuguese traders (“Yoruba People,” 2010). Despite access to weapon, they were not able to defend their territory from the Fulani, and were displaced from their home (Yoruba People, 2010).
In the late 1800s, the Yoruba’s formed a treaty with the Fulani and in 1901 they …show more content…

Those Yoruba’s who have traveled out of their culture to different parts of the world happen to be the ones among them who believe in western medicine. Furthermore, they traditional Rural Yoruba’s do not actually trust the western medicine. In the rural parts of the Yoruba culture, western medicine is seen as a challenge to gods, and also a threat to their culture. The Traditional rural Yoruba’s don’t believe that any other medicine can cure any sickness that their traditional medicine could not cure. Which makes them to see the western medicine intimidating. The Yoruba’s are the main ethnic group in the states of Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo, which are subdivisions of Nigeria; they also constitute a sizable proportion of Kwara and Kogi States as well as Edo State (Yoruba People, 2010).
The historical relationship between the Yoruba’s and Western medicine
The Rural Yoruba’s, have this memory of the western medicine being the cause of unwanted or premature deaths of their people. The Yoruba’s have always believed that they lived longer and healthier before the western medicine came into use. And there after some of their people who started using this western medicine started dyeing and developing a lot of unknown diseases. As a result of that they rural Yoruba’s do not agree with western medicine.
How medical professionals are viewed

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