Yoruba / Ifa

public and permission-safe material only

Use respectful public summaries; avoid initiatory material.

Internet Archive / Wellcome item marks the 1894 scan Public Domain Mark; colonial framing required.

Best immediate public-domain source for Yoruba religion, manners, customs, laws, language, and related West African comparison. Import only with source framing and outdated-language handling; do not treat Ellis as a living-tradition authority.

1921 publication; likely public-domain in the United States by age, but verify scan/source before full import.

Useful historical backbone for Yoruba kingship, origins, and religious background. Import/reuse should avoid presenting history as ritual instruction or as the only Yoruba perspective.

Needs rights confirmation before full display; Sacred Texts mirror is not sufficient commercial-use evidence.

Useful lead for Yoruba legend coverage. Do not import from a mirror alone; verify original publication date, country, and US/commercial status or locate a clean public-domain source.

Rights need review for US/commercial display; Commons/Nigeria-PD claim is not enough by itself for this site posture.

Potentially important for Yoruba-Egypt comparison claims, but the rights position and edition history need a focused review before display or import.

Copyrighted modern Indiana University Press/JSTOR book; do not import or segment full text.

Major Ifa source, but it is copyrighted. Keep as bibliographic/source-context metadata unless permission is obtained.

Copyrighted modern Indiana University Press book; do not import scans or file-sharing copies.

Important for Ifa and African diaspora comparison, but permission is required for display beyond citation metadata.

COPYRIGHTED — NOT safe for commercial full-display; EXCLUDE pending explicit permission. Original: J. Olumide Lucas, 'The Religion of the Yorubas', publisher A. Brown and Sons, England (NLN record date 1942; also cited 1948, CMS Bookshop, Lagos). Under US law (publication+95) copyright runs to rough

Do NOT import or full-display. The 1942-vs-1948 date discrepancy does not change the outcome — both are mid-20th-century and still under US copyright. Author J. Olumide Lucas died 1957 (life+70 PD ~2028 in life-based jurisdictions), but US protection is publication-based and still active. Content is a scholarly description of Orisa worship/priesthood; the blocker here is COPYRIGHT, not initiatory secrecy. If this specific work is wanted, seek written permission from the rights holder/publisher; otherwise rely on the PD Ogumefu folklore + older PD ethnographies (Ellis 1894, Johnson 1921) already inventoried by Codex (source-inventory:47ca8bec) with appropriate colonial-source framing.

PUBLIC DOMAIN (US) — SAFE for commercial full-display. Original publication: M. I. Ogumefu, B.A., 'Yoruba Legends', The Sheldon Press, London (title page verified; standard catalog date 1929). US term is publication+95, so 1929 and 1930 imprints are public domain in the US as of 2025/2026. The Inter

ORIGINAL vs MIRROR: PD status derives from the ORIGINAL ~1929 Sheldon Press publication, not from the sacred-texts.com mirror (which merely hosts it). ETHICAL FRAMING (for any future display/import): this is a 1920s outsider-curated collection of Yoruba LEGENDS/FOLKLORE — NOT initiatory Ifa divination verses or restricted ceremonial material — so it is display-safe, but present it with collector/period context (a colonial-era, missionary-press framing of Yoruba oral tradition). If later imported (separate task; not done here), suggest tradition yoruba-ifa, evidence_label 'Legend / Folk / Oral Tradition', topics such as trickster / gods-pantheons / creation where they fit.