Abstract:
Prayer Mountain (PM), commonly referred to as Orí-Òkè, is a known phenomenon among the
Yorùbá Christians in Southwestern Nigeria. Yorùbá Christians consider PM as a site to aid
contact with the Divine with a view to attaining victory in spiritual warfare. Existing studies on
PM in Nigeria have focused largely on their historical, socio-religious and economic relevance.
However, musical engagements on these sacred locations have not received much scholarly
attention in spite of the vast musical activities on PMs. This study was, therefore, designed to
examine the dynamics of musical and cultural engagements in selected PMs in Osun State,
Nigeria.
The study was anchored to the Spatial and Ethnomusicological theories and adopted ethnography
design. Two famous prayer mountains, namely, Orí-Òkè Ìkòyi in Ìkòyi and Orí-Òkè Bàbá Ábìyè
in Ede, Osun State, were purposively selected, given their denominational affiliation, attachment
to spiritual personages and time-honoured existence. Key informant interviews were conducted
with two founders/presiding pastors, four mountain prophets and two administrative pastors. Indepth interviews were also conducted with 16 musicians and 20 worshippers/participants on the
mountains. Participant observation was used, during which audio-visual recording of prayer
sessions on the PMs were made. Data were subjected to content and musicological analyses.
Ancestral reverence and appropriation of relics, spatial sacredness and religious gender-spatial
segregation were strong cultural markers of the Yorùbá on the PMs. Music making, which was
initially based on volunteerism by amateur musicians, later witnessed the occasional engagement
of professional guest musicians, singers and instrumentalists. Song composition was often
spontaneous and hinged largely on divine inspiration and individual creative instinct. Two
distinct techniques, namely parodying new texts to existing Yorùbá folk melodies and new texts
set to existing popular Christian tunes characterised the style of composition. Hymns, choruses
and lyric airs were predominant music typologies on the PMs. Contemporary Western gospel
songs were new musical forms used on the PMs. Song texts contained religious narratives laced
with various socio-cultural themes, including praise and thanksgiving, prayer, faith and
testimonies, and religious satire. The tempi of songs and the performance practice were greatly
influenced by the notion of spiritual warfare among participants as evident in rigorous
handclapping, intensity of sound production and bodily gestures to highly danceable rhythms
accompanied by membranophonic, idiophonic, aerophonic and chordophonic musical
instruments. Melodies were largely based on pentatonic scale, with the use of call-and-response
form. The Yorùbá w-r= rhythmic pattern was the dominant music performance on the PMs. The
state-of-the-art musical facilities, technological innovations as well as diverse ethnic participants
on the mountains reflect various socio-dynamic responses which were largely hinged on the
academic, social and ministerial exposure of the founders and leaders of the PMs.
Musical engagements in Prayer Mountains in Osun State, Nigeria, were largely indigenised in
style and content, making them sacred sites for the sustenance of old Yorùbá musical forms
while negotiating new musical styles. Prayer mountain songs (orin orí-òkè) are increasingly
populating the repertory of Yorùbá Christian music.
