 Okay, so welcome everyone. Again, good morning, good afternoon, good evening depending on where you are logging from. And I am very pleased today to be here to welcome our AG Leventis fellow at SOAS Center of African Studies. My name is Angelica Baskiera and I'm the manager of the Center of African Studies at SOAS and I manage the AG Leventis postdoctoral fellowship program. And today we are very pleased to welcome here our fellow Dr. Oluwa Bunmi Tope Bernard, who is coming from the University of Bafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. And Dr. Bernard today will present a paper based on the research and the title of the presentation is It is neither a rat nor a bird, taboos and eco-resilience in Yoruba sacred orature. A brilliant title, very engaging and then the sort of, I won't go into too much detail because we already have enough time here and I will pass on to Dr. Bernard. Just in a few words to say that she's looking at eco-justice and environmental issues. But the perspective she's using is very interesting because she's using an ethnographic lens for the study to examine how strict taboos are used as a tool for environmental sustainability in Yoruba sacred orature. So this perspective is much to contribute to the core claim of Yoruba vision of eco-justice. And so very interesting and you know we are very very pleased to welcome Dr. Bernard here. I will just say a few words about our discussion and we are very pleased and very grateful to Professor George Osola Agibade who is here with us today. He's also from the University of Bafemia Wallover University and he is going to be discussing after Dr. Bernard's presentation. So the format is I will now pass on to Dr. Bernard to give a talk. She has PowerPoints and she will give a presentation. We're going to have Dr. Agibade coming in to make some point of comments and discussion. And then because we have a very light audience, we really want to hear from the audience question and comments. And the audience please put your questions in the Q&A chat, in the Q&A box and we will pick as many questions as we can within the time that we have available. Now without further ado, I am passing on to Dr. Oluwabunmi Tope Bernard. Thank you so much. The floor is yours. Thank you very much Angelica. I want to share my screen. Thank you very much for that very kind introduction. So hello everyone. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to you wherever you're joining this seminar for. My name is Oluwabunmi Tope Bernard and I want to thank you for coming. I want to start by thanking the AG 11th Fellowship through the Center of African Studies for giving me the opportunity to be here at the School of Wuyenta and African Studies University of London as a visiting scholar. This fellowship has given me the opportunity to access relevant materials at SOAS in UCL and the British libraries. I also want to thank again Miss Angelica Baskera for facilitating my stay at SOAS and this seminar. And to my baby, I am Miku, happy birthday baby. Mommy loves you so much. So the title of my presentation is, it is neither a rat, nor a bird, taboos and eco-residents in Europe as a curator. Let me share an experience with you that will help build the context of this research. I have lived in the staff quarters of Obafini Aodo University since 2018. The university campus has a well-preserved ecosystem filled with rare trees, exotic plants, birds and animals. The house I lived in at that time was a boys' quarter. The boys' quarter was built strategically to back the main building. There were no high-world fences between buildings. Only trees and plants were used to mark boundaries of each compound. I was returning from office one day when I saw a black cat standing by the side of my house, not far from my plantation and banana orchard. In my compound, as I was pulling into the driveway, I marched my car break to observe the cat who was looking directly at me. I froze in my car and almost started panicking. Why was I panicking at the sight of the cat? You may wonder. I panicked because churches, mosques and mollywood, Nigerian movie industry have always presented animals, birds and insects such as cats, birds and bats, bush rats, vultures, hounds and even beings as bad women. We are made to believe that when you see any of these animals, someone in the village or colleague at work is trying to get you. Simply put, they are witches. The numerous testimonies of people whose problem disappeared after killing one of these animals are celebrated in churches and mosques. Even social media is not a safe place. There are videos flaming cats or owl were transformed into human while returning from COVID meetings after they had been struck by daylight. Even though we've never seen any of this transformation in these videos, we believe them to be so true. So that was why my first reaction to a black cat in my driveway was that of a fear. My engine, my car engine must have been running for a while because I, before I remember it was just a cat. My maternal and paternal grandmothers owned a field and they never attacked me while I spent my school breaks with them. I drove in and parked my car, took my back into the house and came around the house to see the cat clearly but it had left. I stared into the plantation and banana orchard to see if I could see the cat, but I did not. So I concluded that I slipped back through the bushes to where it came from. I didn't think much of it about the cat until I saw it again the next day while I was parking my car at the same place. I took my bags inside the house and brought water in the boat to where the cat was. The cat ran away as I was approaching with the bowl of water, but I left the water there anyway. When I came back to check, when I came to check back later, the cat, the water was gone. So I assumed the cat came back and drank it. I decided to start with filling the bowl with water when there were not the cat inside. I stopped for about a week before I saw the cat again. This time, it did not run away when I came towards it. I'm assuming it's a thumb cat. By the end of the third week, meeting the cat waiting for me in my driveway at the coming home, and during the same week, I was able to actually get close after several failed attempts. Then one night after that I was walking by a loud scream coming from the house opposite my in the middle of the night. I was shocked, but I did not pay it any mind until I started hearing people praying. I heard a shrieking meow, but I went back to sleep because I had a long day. I had a long day and I was going back to work the next day. So on my way out, my neighbor chatted me up and was surprised that I slept through the all-round call really night. I confess that I heard the noise, but I was too sleepy to investigate it. She told me an evil cat that had been distressed in her for weeks was finally caught by the Holy Ghost while it was locked in the night to perpetrate God knows what evil. She told me she was praying in the night when her spirit told her that God had granted her way through her enemies, and at that point she started hearing the cat meowing. She called the pastor immediately and he put her through Bible verses to read before killing the cause of her problems. She did not stop there, she went ahead and point the cat to make sure it stayed there. When I asked her to describe the evil cat, my heart summed because a description marked that of my Tom cat friend. I cannot say for sure if my cat friend, if my cat friend was what was the evil cat, but I can say that I never saw the cat again after that. Thousands of innocent animals and birds are being killed yearly because what people do not understand, they fear and what they fear, they destroy. This brings me to the term mysticism, which is what most religions are based on. There is no religion that does not have an aspect of it shrouded in misery. Unfortunately for African traditional religion, colonialism and neocolonialism continue to demonize its misery while promoting that of other religions. Cards are associated with witches in Yoruba society, especially after the motion was popularized by Ibar Tegundi in the movie Diocese released in 1981. In the movie, it described cats as agent of death, destruction and darkness. Why do Yoruba dread and kill cats? We make cute interjections when we see cats presented as witches in western movies, like Harry Potter, where Professor McGonagall, an aged woman, is a witch that shape shifts into a cat. And, admirably, one of the beloved characters in the series is a witch who actually owns a cat named Cook Shank. Why are we not scared of your cat or associations with cats, but we think Yoruba cats are evil? Why are we not scared of cats in western fiction, but Yoruba fiction are one of the leading causes of cat deaths and no adoption possibilities. It is because of movies with titles like Ologo Meji, Ologo Yagemi, Ologo Udu, that has to share cats with evil spirits. In SFR, if a divination point, which is a compendium of Yoruba words, cats are associated with clarity, resilience, protection and longevity. One SFR that associates cats with clarity says, When a cat climbs the roof of the house, it sees with greater clarity. Cats are nocturnal and therefore their eyes are designed to clearly see in the darkest places. Like other members of the cat family, domestic cats can climb high, can climb easily to get a clearer view of their surroundings. And the higher decline, the clearer the view, also Yoruba believe that malevolent spirit attacks targeted victims at night. So the piercing eyes of the cats can see them and protect the families from attacks. The cat's power and misery are in its eyes. So mysticism is generally featured in Yoruba culture and particularly its tradition, which is passed down orally for many generations. And according to Sri Lanka, it is densely mythological. For anyone here who is not familiar with Yoruba, allow me to introduce Yoruba to you. They are a confederation of people with common heritage, numbering close to 50 million. They inhabit parts of Benet, Ghana and Togo, but most of that population is domiciled in West, Southwest Nigeria, the most densely populated country in West Africa. Aspect of the culture so that such as oral tradition, political systems, legal systems, healthcare and religion have been antifraudia, which means they have been able to provide the pressure and stress that is associated with colonization and also benefit from it. Their beliefs and practices have had worldwide impact and are shaping religions in the diaspora, particularly in Brazil and Cuba, from in form of Santeria and traditional traditions. Traditional religion and sacred orature are an intrinsic part of Yoruba culture and worldview, which gives an insight into why they relate to the environment the way they do. An important thing in Yoruba oral tradition is the connection between all living things, which is what informs the basis of the interconnectedness between Yoruba, Yoruba deities and the environment. Yoruba oral tradition distills the essence of human experience, performers of these forms take ancient images and shape them into spoken texts that influence audience in contemporary society. As one of my mentors would say, if Yoruba culture was not antifraudia, it would have been wiped out by colonialism and Western influence. It has strived against odds of Westernization. It's oral tradition being the responsibility of indigenous knowledge helps to understand Yoruba dialects on and on it in the effort to solve problems of environmental degradation, echo resilience or echo antifragility. Antropogenic destruction of flora and fauna is one of the biggest triggers of worldwide environmental degradation. The destruction has led to flooding, the certification, the certification in Sissatrefo, forest fires due to a rise in temperature, extinction and near extinction of wildlife and other harsh realities that come with environmental change. This, I mean with climate change. These studies examine how street tables by the Yoruba are tools for environmental sustainability. This perspective as much to contribute to the core claim of Yoruba vision of eco justice that the imperative of economic development should not obscure communities, moral responsibility for conservation and sustainable environment. People and environmentally has to stress in form of informed in any form determines its resilience. Eco resilience is a term used to describe the ability of an ecosystem to recover from human human partitions. The concept of ecology to resilience was first introduced by Holland in 1973 to portray the past to pass to portray the persistence of natural structures in the presence of environmental stresses, due to natural or anthropogenic triggers. There resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to absorb the students and reorganize while undergoing a change. So it's still, it's still, it still retains essentially the same function structure, identity and feedback. But it is not enough for a system to be able to, for a system to just bounce back after stress, how it holds up after stress is just as important. Will it become fragile, robust or will it become, will it be improved by the benefiting from the pressure. Antifragility characterizes something that does not break under stress or pressure, but actually benefits from and grows under pressure. American essayist and philosopher the same. Okay, inverted this concept in 2012, because since that anti fragility loves uncertainty and volatility, that allows a system to grow and thrive. Antifragility goes beyond resilience or robustness. The concept, which was, which originated as mathematical theory was given a humanities approach by Minowari book in 2014 where described anti fragility as not the opposite of further on the capability of a system to withstand stress, disorder, uncertainty and volatility and also be able to benefit from that. A fragile system breaks under stress, disorder or instability systems, however, are not anti fragile all the way beyond a certain level of stress they begin to hurt. It goes beyond resilience to anti fragility, but how things do not break or spoil from attack or event, but also gain from this adversity. Resilience and yours or survives the anti fragility and fragile and yours survives and gains from that adversity. Ecosystems are being constantly threatened by anthropogenic and natural events. It is not enough that the environment in some instances able to recover from it. It must also be able to benefit from these stresses. So anti fragility is characterized by how the environment recovers from degradation and benefits from it. In the Yoruba sacred orature, the new how environment benefit from anti fragility of the Yoruba traditional religious practices. In the Yoruba cosmology, there are numerous deities, scores of Yoruba traditional religion have numbered this data to be over a thousand and seven hundred. This is mostly because some of these deities have different names in the thousands of Yoruba towns all over Southwest Nigeria. Still, one cannot dispute the presence of numerous deities in the Yoruba pantheon and that some of them are more popularly worshiped than others. Some of these are Ifa, Divination and Wisdom Deity, Ocean Facility and River Deity, Shangotan and Lightning Deity, and Oya, Strong Wing and River Deity. Apart from the fact that Yoruba deities manifest as natural elements, the Yoruba also worship any natural element that is perceived as supernatural or that is believed to be occupied by spirit, such as the mountains, hills, rivers, streams and some specific trees. Each one of these natural elements and deities has an orature that is specifically attached to them. For Ifa, there is Saffa, Yerefa and Ifa Kiki, simply called Ifa Domination plans. Oshu has Oshu Pipe, Oshu chance, Shungo has Shungo Pipe, Shungo chance, and Oya also has Epe Pipe, Oya chance. This orature contains thousands of verses in which everything pertaining to these deities can be found, also through which one can learn much about how they view the Yoruba, including myths and taboos. Myths about Yoruba deities are many, but in the end there are those who argue that deities are people who lived on earth when they are created, when it was created and from who present day folks are descended. And those who argue that deities are people who are defied after departing from earth and are worshipped by followers who may or may not be conceived as descendants. These myths have no record of deities dying. The devotees claim the deities departed. These deities have massive contribution to how their work, these departures have massively contributed to how they are worshipped and how this relates to environmental sustainability as presented in their orature. When they were departed, they ascended directly into the sky. Oshu became Odu Oshu, Shungo entered the earth according to some myths, while Oya disappeared into thin hair, entered the earth or became Odu Oya according to some myths. The presentation of deities as elemental phenomenon is not limited to Yoruba myths, it's not limited to Yoruba myths. The culture such as Greek also present their deities in that matter. Greek deity namely Zeus, Hera, Aydonis and Nestis are presented as fire, hair, water and earth. According to pre-socretic philosophers, particularly NPDOTES, earth, hair, fire and water, which you refer to as classical elements have had great influence on Greek mysticism. Cosmology and religion just as Ifa, Oshu, Shungo and Oya in Yoruba religion. The interaction between earth, hair, sky, fire and water and natural, even though they may never, they may sometimes be catastrophic, they are also needed in achieving a sustainable environment. And because these deities are part of nature, the Yoruba trip to nature and the environment as a living entity, it also underscores the belief of Yoruba in the mutualistic relationship between physical world and the invisible world. These Yoruba deities are in the environment such as, they see Yoruba deities in the environment such as palm trees where Ifa, sacred nuts are found, thunder and lightning which presents Oshu, Shungo in action, in strong winds, river and wildlife which represent Oshu and Oya. Growing up in the Yoruba community has had stories about sacred forests that were well-precept for religious purposes only. No one was allowed to go into these forests for famine, hunting, cutting off trees or any form of action that is not linked to traditional religion or rituals. These forests were called Igbo, sacred groups. It was forbidden for an unauthorized person to enter into these forests to talk of hunting for animals or even cutting trees there. It would be regarded as an act of defyment. The consequences for a flouting that rule was far too there, such as the Yoruba saying, a child was cutting a tree in the sacred group when he was asked to identify himself. He said, I am the one who would never be able to do this again. Even the name of the culprit is deliberately made to be informative to give anyone who hears it an idea how dead it is, how dead the consequences of desecrating sacred groups are. The saying may also be used to want anyone who intends to flout any taboo because they believe that any tobangs you don't tell any culture, or you don't see, or you don't tell any community, whoever chooses to do what no one has done before will suffer its consequences. Saying like this helped create necessary fear in members of communities to jointly preserve the forest and wildlife. They were in Yoruba, is Yoruba a word for taboo? It will mean something that is not word by law. It is something inspired by fear, the source of which is traced to beliefs in horrible disasters which overtake those who inadvertently cross the forbidden line. For the sake of this research, I have categorized them to three, personal, religious and communal taboos. That's not taboos or taboos that are meant for a single person. In the olden days, when children are born, parents take them to Ifa Priests to remove the baby's future. A practice which is still common to date when children are born into the family that worships Ifa. They call it Akosetari, looking into the future. If a nation is performed for a child and the priest will tell the parents what Ifa for tells about the child's future. There may also be warnings in there that manifest as taboo for the child. If the child flouts any of this Ifa, it may have an immediate or a future effect on him. Which is one of the reasons for the same. A child that insults the Yoruba tree should not expect an immediate retaliation. There are also Ifa's that are communal. This Ifa can be for a whole lineage or an entire town. If an individual breaks this Ifa. The person and everyone in the village or town face the consequences. Thus, the reason the Yoruba would say, If our neighbor hits bad insects and we did not want him, his labored breathing would not allow us to have peaceful and restful nights. Yoruba deities are manifested in natural objects such as landscape, meteorological phenomena, material substances and some wide animals and birds. Therefore, some of them play street troops on street taboos on their devotees to ensure the continuous interconnectedness between the deities and devotees and by extension the community. This is because an ammonia relationship between humans and deities will help facilitate a sustainable environment. Therefore, religious taboos are put in place to in order to maintain an ammonia relationship between the three. The diagram above, this diagram depicts the circle of life as an important to deploy by the Yoruba to promote sustainability. The concept of the invisible world in the Yoruba cosmology state. Yoruba believe that Yoruba with their bold updates is where humans live. The relationship between these two worlds is mutualistic. I'm going to scratch my back and I will scratch yours. Just as, just like bees, nests pollines from flowers, flowers needs to be pollinated by bees, humans depend on deities for blessings to live a good life and deities benefit from the worship of humans. Deities give instruction that can aid environmental sustainability to their adherents. Some of these instructions are presented in form of taboos. As I have noted earlier, these taboos can be both, I mean, can be personal, familiar, communal and religious. At the same time, a person can combine all these taboos. What this means is if one is one, not eating them, the same person can be from the Oluje lineage where it is tabo to kill or eat the Yoruba bird. And our family deity may also be Oya, which for this are from eating the sheep. This ideal order of society is guided by dangers which threaten transgressors. Personalization is one of the ways through which natural world is presented with human traits in Yoruba origin. The technique is not used to assert childish understanding of non-human nature, but consciously to account for interrelationships, humans and otherwise. In Yoruba sacred origin, it gives humanness to nature and in so doing establish a living, establish it as a living entity, which makes it more difficult to flout taboos that are put in place to preserve this life and non-life forms. It is their way of protecting wildlife rights, which even though not as efficient as it was in the past, escape pushing for environmental sustainability and preservation in the present world. If humans see animal that is equal, they will extend the same level of respect to them along with them. Along with personification, there is also crema morphism, which is comparing person in this or in this case, to an object in some way. This literary technique is also common in Yoruba sacred origin where dates, especially those that were human before the departed, are presented as natural objects and animals. One of such animals is the Columbus monkey, which represents twins, twin spirits among the Yoruba. Children are important to the Yoruba because they represent the continuity of bloodlines and a chance at reincarnation. However, multiple births, especially twins, are even more regarded because the figure two represents balance in Yoruba philosophy. To them, a twin is never truly dead. When a twin departs, a little wooden figure is made and added to the family shrine. That adds the fives between. Twins are likened to the Columbus monkey partly because they are cheeky and playful, and partly because hunters say they never find dead Columbus in the forest. That's according to Ogunwai Ogundele, 2001. Because of this, of the dating status of twins and likeness to Columbus monkey, this is taboo to harm the Columbus, to kill the Columbus. And if I also, SFR also places a strip taboo on killing the Columbus because he is an offspring of Osho. To be able to do this, the Yoruba is very important to the Yoruba people. They are not only important to the Yoruba, but also to the Yoruba community. They are also very important to the Yoruba community. We are connected to each other. We are connected to each other. had to run on the ground. It could not run very well. If our divination was performed for Edwin, who is the same mother, who is of the same mother as Aya, but one day, Edwin and Aya committed a lot of theft on the farm. E, the farmer captured Edwin and tied him up with a rope. Then, when he took him to the quarters of Oguni, it was discovered that he was a male of Oshun. The farmer was told that the person you have brought to us, they must not kill because he is an offspring of Oshun. It is very easy to see why Oshun is protective of Columbus monkey. She is a deity of fertility and male ghosts and Columbus is tied to multiple births in humans. Medical statistics show that Yoruba people have the highest rate of twinning in the world. To protect this, to protect the Columbus is to protect this phenomenon. Oshun River keeps the environment properly irrigated and lush and human encroachment in the resolved forest, which is the habitat of Columbus monkeys. The reason for the conflict reported in the SFR, if any humans respected ecological structures, there will be sustainability. Currently, in Oshun Grove, in Oshun State, Nigeria, Columbus monkey are protected by this taboo and the room free. If a priest has confirmed that if a divination performed for clients, whether good or bad is also always accompanied by prescription of appropriate sacrifice, this idea is corroborated by Yoruba emphorism, that a good thing, a good and not so good thing, require offering sacrifice. The acceptance of sacrifice by deity is even more important than the offering. Yoruba believe that the sacrifice consumed by Yoruba is the most acceptable by the deities. Evidence of that resonate in the SFR below. Shaga Shala Gerege Waagebo, Igun Waagebo, Kebou Leba Afin, Etie Waagebo, Kebou Leba Ada, Igun Etie, Aralode, Acheba Oigun, Akiyo Shebo, Akiyo Le Shebo, Translators Shala Gerege was the if a priest that performed divination for the vulture offspring of Olobo, Oloro Shala Gerege, come and eat sacrifice, vulture come and eat sacrifice so that the sacrifice may be accepted by the gods Etie. Come and eat sacrifice so that the sacrifice may be taken away by the gods or vulture nicknamed Etie, offspring of Ilode, one who does not realize, one does not always realize that without vulture, one cannot perform sacrifice. I have argued in the, I have argued the appearance of vulture and their connection to the promotion environmental sustainability elsewhere. They are, appear asians, aboard and have in goodness. Since sacredness in terms of having more than one power is being clothed, having more power and being closer to the ancestors as one goes who that is recognized, this bird tends to revel in this symbolic connection. It is impossible to see a young vulture rummaging through that. He walks agagely even when it is old, vultures live to be incredibly old. The vultures always feast on dead bodies and thus appear to defy death and remain unclean. They are both sacred and unclean at the same time. The coincidence of opposites and in this consideration, excuse me, they fit into, they fit the road of auto's definition of the holy. So their power is also, they also have power of sight and smell. They can smell when an animal is about to, is dead or killed. They even smell death before it occurs. They are known to follow animals or people about to die. This association with death and ability to smell death is considered very potent, a very potent sacred power, which is why it is a taboo for anyone to harm them. Iroko 3 falls under the category of natural objects that are seen as extraordinary because of the belief that spirit possesses them. Spirit possession is what makes them sacred. The spirit that inhabits an Iroko tree is called, is, is argued to be called really agadangba Oshimari. The giant rainbow performed divination for Iroko of the city of Ibo when he was living and means enemies. Enemies were threatening Iroko of Ibo. They, when they got to the foot of Iroko, it should command them that they should spare it because it, it is a special tree. In the essence, it should forbid the cutting of trees to avoid the danger that we resort from the destruction of Illuminati's house. It should protect, protection, protection is not the issue, it's protecting not just the environment, but also the interests of the community through this move. This only defies my argument earlier about the mutualistic relationship between deities, humans and humans for the promotion of sustainability in both sin and unseen words. So this study actually, this study is, he liams that there are resources within African tradition that contribute to environmental sustainability through sustainability, through the mind of the wisdom in African tradition. We can understand the problems and procure, procure lasting solutions. Practices such as the imposition of taboos, on killing or eating certain insects, reptiles, birds, mammals, and cutting of certain trees and the consequences of flouting them are contained in the selected secret or which, as contained in the selected secret or which can hate the survivor of the fauna within this ecological niche. This is where I stop, and I want to really take a moment before I completely leave to thank, to, for my commitments. So I want to thank the Edge 11th Fellowship again for the opportunity to be here and for, and I want to thank so as the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London for giving me all this, for giving me access to all these resources that I have. And to Miss Angelica Mastiora, thank you for helping me with everything, everything. Your darling, thank you so much. Thank you. I also want to thank my university in Nigeria, Abaf Niawolo University and my department, Department of Languages and African Languages for giving me the space to, I mean to perform, to do my research and for giving me, approving my leave to come and do this fellowship here in London. Also I want to thank the Friends of Advanced Studies for introducing me to the act of critical thinking and other metallurgies I'm grateful for to the convener. And I want to take this moment to thank Stephen Adruang, who were fellows at University of Michigan. He helped design this PowerPoint. I didn't do anything. I just put the words in. Thank you so much Stephen. And also fine, I want to thank my set from Secondary School, everyone. Thank you so much for the support and they are here. And I want to thank my mom for taking the boys and giving me the space to actually concentrate on my research here. And these pictures are when I met Marie and Amelia during the launch that was supervised by Angelika. Thank you so much. And finally, again, I want to thank my son who made me a mother seven years ago on this day. Happy birthday. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you so much. And it was a really, really interesting presentation. Thank you for all your thanks to all of us. And you know, it's been really fantastic to have you at SOAS. You brought so much interesting and fresh ideas. And we've been really, really pleased to have you here. And we only have a few couple of weeks left before you actually return to Nigeria. But we hope to stay in touch and to keep connecting through our Leventis program. So thank you so much for your presentation. I would now like to bring in Professor George Agibade, if I pronounced it correctly. And yes, it would be great if Professor, you could come in, make some comments about the presentation before we open to the Q&A. There are quite a lot of questions in the Q&A and the chat. So it will be good to be able to go over them. But for now, we welcome Professor Sohla Agibade to come in and say a few words. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Well, I'm glad to be here this evening once again. People have been passing comments. I want to thank Dr. Bernard for this wonderful presentation. Very lucid, highly informative, and culturally and literally presented. That's very topical. It is neither we are not for both taboos and eco resilience in Yoruba secret. The presenter has done a wonderful job by going through various segments of presentation of a paper, beginning from various definitions of secret Uricho and giving us some types, talking about theoretical framework, theoretical framework and definition of various keywords, even in the theory that she has used. And she has shown how we can use various taboos for environmental sustainability. That is using secret Uricho of the Yoruba people as tools to talk about justice, eco justice, environmental justice, and talking about the interplay between so-called animas and human beings. I use the so-called because we are all animas anyway. But it is believed that one anima is higher than the other. I mean, it's a kind of a general view of the people. Yeah, the paper is well structured, sincerely well structured. And giving us information about Yoruba people, their location, their figures, their belief system, and talking about the Uricho tradition among the Yoruba people and making us to realize that this Uricho, that is the deities, they are of different types and that it is from this very Uricho tradition that the tradition of the deities among the Yoruba people orchestrated the oral literature that we are using for them, either in their worship or as a kind of supplication of what have we, when we are talking about Yoruba deities. Yeah, yes, she has given us some examples of some animas that Yoruba people, I want to use, I don't want to fall into an error, that Yoruba people attach another meaning to their activities within their cosmography. So she has mentioned some animas, the form of cats in the forms of bats, rats, and some other animas, chameleons, virtual, and even some, I mean, some small creatures, I don't, they are not animas anyway, when we are talking about ants, they are not really animas anyway. I'm talking about trees, the belief of Yoruba people about some trees, about some kinds of trees and their relationship with some unseen spirit and the relationship between these trees, the unseen spirit and the animas within the cosmology and the cosmography, she has explained all these things very well I want to use Swartz analysis that is talking about the strength of the paper, the paper is very, very lucid, like I said, informative, and it's one that I'm sure that is going to promote both literary tradition and cultural tradition, the paper was well presented. However, in a minute or two, I want to make some suggestions that the presenter might be able to take a look at the sacred oral literature that she has made use, to mean, I think she dwells so much on the Ifa literature, Ifa oral tradition, so that is nothing but if she can mention that one at the beginning of the paper, to let us know that actually the major or secret or that she has used is Ifa secret or, then on the issue of referring to cats or animas as witches, that might sound very somehow, maybe she can say, I mean, the presenter can look at it by saying that the animas, the Yoruba believe that they are witches impersonated, it is not that those animas are really witches, but that they have the kind of spirit in them that we believe that yes, it is a kind of witchcraft that are manifesting in those kinds of animal like cats. Yes, and there is another important aspect, though she mentioned it in the listings, as touching the role of cats as some other animas in the healing system of the Yoruba people. I want her to see that even though many people may believe that cats symbolize the presence of witches, at the same time, she needs to let us know that cats occupies an enviable space when we are talking about indigenous healing system. It is very, very important and they don't even see cats all in the negative sense. For example, when Yoruba people are talking to you say a Yolong book, that the bark of the cat, we never touch the ground, it has many. It is talking about the power of cats as an animal, that is naturally it possesses some characteristics that Yoruba people are employing in their indigenous healing system. So I just use that one as an example, it is very, very important. Yeah, it is neither Ratnobot, it is not Adon that they talk about, they refer to as animas that is neither a Ratnobot, it is Ajao. Ajao is different from Adon, Adon is bad. Ajao, I can't remember the English word right now, but they are two different animas, so you can make that correction as well. Yeah, then lastly, sorry, there is a need for you to look at the interrelationship between phonology, that is the names of all these animas. Look at the Yoruba perception and belief system about all these animas and the way they deploy all these characteristics in their cosmology and cosmography for sustainable development. So that is where you can bring eco-justice, why they should not tamper with certain animas just like that. And the idea of lineage or yeah, lineage of some people, their relationship with animas whereby the issue of taboos come in. Because for example, in my home family now in my own lineage, there are animas that we can eat and there are animas that we cannot eat based on a kind of mythological narratives that has to do with the origin of my lineage. But that does not mean that another lineage must not eat the animas that are forbidden in my own lineage. All these things should be taken into cognizance and I believe that all these things will enhance the beauty and the quality of this wonderful paper. Once again, I want to say congratulations for this well-presented paper. Thank you. Thank you very much. Perhaps Dr. Vera, do you want to respond before we open to Q&A? Well, I want to maybe appreciate Professor Agibade for taking his time to give me these insightful feedbacks because he was listening in as I was presenting, like he doesn't have any former or prior knowledge to this research apart from the title and the abstract. I want to say that I appreciate everything you said and this is, I, some things you're saying I know and I'm aware of and they are, yes, I also struggle to look for the English term name but I could not find this one, like I would just leave it be for now until I can actually maybe find an English name for that particular, not a brother or not an animal. It has an effect computation. Yes, I know I will solve that and I also want to say that this is, it's a part of a broader research. So it's a chapter in a book and so it's a lot of things I can't actually put into the 45 minutes Angelika's graciously bestowed on me. So I had to, I mean, squeeze, I thought what I would be able to give that would actually give an insight into my research, although I was able to squeeze into this very magnanimous time given to me by Angelika. So I will take note of the things you said. I'm very grateful for everything. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, professor, for your comments. And now we are, we do have a lot of comments in the chat. People are very grateful to the presentation. And they're asking also if you could share the PowerPoints presentation. But just so you know, this event is recorded and it's going to be available on the SOA's YouTube channel from next week. Therefore, you can also go back on the event in that way by going to the SOA's YouTube and typing in the title of this talks and you will receive it. So as I said, yes, a lot of things and people have been very inspired by your presentation. And there are three main questions in the Q&A box. And I will now take them one by one and pass them to you, Dr. Bernal. The first question comes from Professor Marie Last. I'm not sure if I did mention it at the beginning, but Professor Marie Last is actually the main sort of director of the program. He has been part of the Leventis Fellowship program for many, many, many years. He's an expert on religion and sociology and anthropology in Northern Nigeria in particular, but he has a great understanding of Nigeria as a whole and the region as a whole. So Marie's question is, given that the Prophet Muhammad much preferred cats to dogs, do the many Yoruba Muslims share this demonization of cats? Dr. Bernal? Do you want to answer each question or do you want to ask the questions in the item, like in batches? Apologies. I think we can go one by one because there are three, so we can do one by one. Okay, so I thank you Professor Last. I would say that most scholars would say that you are first and foremost a human before the culture always comes through. You are a human in the culture then the religion comes in. So because Yoruba is the first and foremost Yoruba people before the events of world religions like Christianity and Islam, there is this, Christianity and Islam, yes, there is still this part of the culture. So like Professor Adibadi has noted and like I said while I was presenting, cats are not, it's not that people actually have seen any cat transforming into witches or something like that. It's just the notion that the people just, I think it's like I said popularized by the movie industry that they are possessed by witches. So it's assumed that witches actually transform into them or they are transformed into witches or something but people just think that cats are evil by nature or whatever, not that they've actually done anything. So I would say that Muslims, if they are preference to any of these animals would be a personal thing. I don't think it may not actually not be religious. If a Muslim choose to own a cat, it may be because of its personal preference, not because it is somewhere in the Quran that it has to own a cat or that it must not have to own a cat. What I do know that is that they don't eat pigs because that is laid down in the Quran. They can't eat pigs but I don't know if they have to or they do not have to actually own cats. I think that would be a personal preference for a Muslim. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much Dr Bernard. Perhaps if Marie has other comments, you can raise his hand and I can allow him to talk. Marie, if you want to let me know, you can raise your hand. Now moving to the following question, which is also very interesting, Adeolu Oyekan is asking, first of all, he said very interesting presentation. Congratulations. He says, I would like that you talk a bit more about witchcraft and animal representation in Yoruba orature. You have talked briefly about the cat and the olubo, Iyajé narrative, but what about the place of birds? Iyajé is also a very familiar folk team in Yoruba culture. Thank you, Adeolu. Yes, those are very valuable questions and points. There is representation of birds as which is or as which incarnated animal and animals. I will use animal now. It is yes, that's why we find Yoruba culture, but I mean which is referred to as Iyajé, birds because they are manifested as birds. And yes, they have, that's why I mentioned owl, I mentioned how people, I mean, I've always identified owl as a which possessed bird. So yes, there is that place in Yoruba folk team on folklore that actually recognizes the place of birds or witchcraft animal representation. I'm sorry, I represent, that puts birds as a spirit, I mean, which possessed life forms, I would say. So yes, they are, like I said, there is so much that I could not put into this presentation. So that's why I actually, I mean, remove those parts of it. But there are, yes, presentation of them, witchcraft presented as birds in Yoruba folklore. Yes, there are. So thank you perhaps, Professor Agribati, you want to come in on this one, given your expertise in folklore? Yes, very much. Actually, before you even called me and I had it on mind that even the main appellation for the witches is bird. A cat is just by the side, is just by the side. Whenever you are talking about witches, you are talking about birds. Whenever you are talking about birds, you are talking about witches. In fact, that is the general knowledge of the Yoruba people, that's the way they are, they are, they are, they are, they are, they are, they are, you know, referring to witches as birds in many sacred literatures, especially that of Ifa. So the person who has raised that question has raised it well because it is even good to make reference to witches, to, to use both, to make reference to, to the witches. When we call somebody a layer in Yoruba, they are saying that the person is a witch, is a witch. So the person is correct, that understanding is, is perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay. Yeah, there are more questions now coming in. I can see the audience is getting very excited. So I'm going to the next question because there are actually quite a few now. The next question is from Wazir Wazir. He's saying that he's, I'm interested in the ideas around Igborro. The question I have is, was, was the protection of the sacred groove and, and direct consequences of secret occultic practices, or was it directly constructed to protect the environment? Well, thank you. Wazir, Wazir. Well, the idea of Igborro, like a most world religion, they have places of worship. Okay. If you are going to, if you are Christian, you're going to the church. It's a building. If you're a mosque, you're going to a mosque. It's a building. Yes, Yoruba, Yoruba tradition, tradition and traditional religion has deities as well, and they have places of worship for this day. So this Igborro was sacred. They are, they are, they are set apart to actually to be used for the worship of these deities. And well, as much as the, because like I said in my presentation, Yorubas believe that everything around them has life. It's living, it's a life. The earth, the ground is a life. The sky is a life. If the wind blows satin with Yorubas, especially the wind, after February, they, they, everything, they believe there is life in everything. So layers, like I've said that when deities were going to depart, according to the myths, they became natural elements. Okay. Some of them became, some of them where you were alive with fire and all that. These are the things that actually combine to form the way they are worshiped. And this, so when you feel that these deities are life forms around you, or you are in some myths became manifest as Bufalio. Okay. In my town, I come from Yorujii in those days. And one of the Yorukis, Yorujii in Jefa, we don't eat Bufalio. Well, if you can find one, well, we don't. So how do they come about the fact that they, how do they come about that? It's because they, they went the, in the myth of the creation of the town, when they were lost in the bush, it was the Bufalio that actually showed them the way out of it. So in their, the myth of the town is in connection to Oya, who manifests as the Bufalio. See, you find them in this rare forest, in this precept forest. So if you are going into these kinds of forests, you hunt, then you are hunting the deities. You are hunting the life forms that represent, that these deities manifest as. That is why, if you go into the river Oshun, in Oshubo, in the Oshubo Gulf, and you are hunting for, you are fishing for fish, you are not fishing in the belief system of Yoruba, you are actually fishing the children of Oshun. So in a way, these places are just precept to make sure that the environment, when you, when, yeah, let me say, when those places, those kinds of places are actually precept that way, you find that most of these, the felling of trees, the boiling of bush, don't get there. So when you go to Oshun, we like, very, very easy for you to spot fish, because we could go and try to fish in there. So they keep this environment lush and very afflorishing. That is the, so in the beginning, it may not necessarily be to preserve the environment. I mean, that may not necessarily be the reason why these forests are created, were set apart. But it turns out that putting them apart and preserving the life forms in there has contributed to environmental sustainability. The Yorubas, that means Yoruba can actually see into the future, they see the importance of preserving all life forms because everything that surrounds them has life and needs to be protected. So that is why they actually preserve Igbo. So it may not necessarily mean that they preserve it in the beginning so that they can have, they hope that in the future, there will be push for environmental sustainability. They do that because they do that to reference or to revert, sorry, to revert the deities that they believe are actually life forms all around them. So that's why Igbo, I think, I mean, from the things I've read, are preserved. They are not like preserved, preserved just so they are preserved for preservation purposes. But because there are places of worship for deities and because everything in there is actually attached or linked to a particular deity. I hope I will know too. So I'm still here a lot, but I hope I'm able to, yeah. Professor Igbo, did you want to comment? Yeah, because yeah, I think there is one part of the question from that person that she's missing. She needs to talk about how the UNESCO has waded into the preservation of secret groups among the Yoruba people in Africa, all over the world, but especially among the Yoruba people. She mentioned Osho group. In fact, they have carved, they have built a wall around the sacred group of Osho deity. Nobody can just go there now without taking permission. That is a form of modern preservation that has enhanced the perception of the people by demarcating that place as a sacred group. That is one. And then she said that they don't go to worship, they don't really go to worship in sacred groups. No, not all sacred groups. There are sacred groups that they go there to worship. They go there for empowerment. In fact, when you look at the meaning of Igbo Oru, that is the bush for ritual. That's a literal translation of that very, of those two words, Igbo Oru, bush or forest for rituals. Oru is rituals. For example, the Igbo Festival, Igbo, we go to Igbo Oru. They call it Igbo Igbale in Igbo Court. That is where Igbo will start before moving into the communities. When the Ifa priests, whenever they want to wrap up the initiation right, it is done in their Igbodu. They call it their own Igbodu. That is the sacred group for Ifa worshipers. That is where they compartmentalize the issue of initiation, of a young initiate into the Ifa court. So they do so many things. They use both sin and unsame powers to preserve those sacred groups in Yoruba land until today, until today. So therefore the Yoruba device means to protect those sacred groups and thank God for the modernization, for civilization that has given the body like UNESCO to take over some of these sacred groups and protecting people from bastardizing and encroaching. For example, that of Yoruba, somebody went into part of the group to build a house. They fought and fought and UNESCO asked to wade into it and they won for the traditional worshipers. And that is why they were able to take over some part of the places that have been encroached. So this is modern. That's why I said that we have physical and non-physical means of protecting those sacred groups today. Thank you. Thank you. You are welcome. Thank you very much. Now I'll move to some other question or you want to comment again? No, no, no, I'm reading. Yes, I was going to pick a question from Gozika Obyani who is actually our co-fellow of this year's event. She came to us last time and she was supposed to come at the same time as Dr. Bernard, but then because of the situation they were, but it's sort of like ours. So I will actually give the chance to ask a question that is very interesting. She's asking, are there good witches in Yoruba sacred orature? How is the rise of Pentecostalism in Yoruba land affecting the sacred animals, totems and the rest? This is very in mind the preponderance of mega churches in Yoruba land. Very interesting question, Gozika. Thank you. Thank you, Gozika. Thank you so much. Well, let me start from, I will not start from the witches, but I'll start from the how Pentecostalism in Yoruba land is affecting sacred animals, totems and the rest. So part of this research is also spoke about, I was at the British Library a couple of weeks ago and I asked to go through the map section. What was I looking for? I wanted to see how Lagos Ibadu express way. If they had an aerial view with it, I'm sorry if I'm speaking wrongly about maps as in the aerial view is how you see the landscape view of the had. They are still going through the map, they are still looking for it. And what I wanted to do was to compare how Lagos Ibadu express way used to be before it became a space for mega churches in Nigeria. Every mega church is in Nigeria. I mean if you have a church in Nigeria or in Moscow and you don't have a net quarters at Lagos Ibadu express way, you ask my people will say you are Elena, you are just asking that you don't even know what's happening to you. At the same time, if you look, if you Google landscape and you focus on Osho sacred grove, you will see the difference between these two locations. Osho grove remains green and lush while Lagos Ibadu express ways or all sorts of colors, roofs, buildings and all that, that tells you that physically you can even tell the difference between how the Yoruba traditional religion influences the environment. Yoruba traditional religion is created in a way that is actually embraced. It takes the environment, it takes itself into the environment and it takes the environment itself. So it doesn't do much to take from the environment it puts back in. That is one of the things that actually we are looking at in other sections of the research. How is pentacostalism, what part is pentacostalism doing in environmental degradation and all that. So just looking at the map, the landscape map, you can actually see the difference between these landscapes and then she asked about and the witches. I mean, when I, in the beginning, like I said, I'm about the cats. Yes, we, there are a lot of this fright for cats stem from all these, from Christians, from Muslims, the things they say, the amount of people that have transformed from cats into humans, which I have never seen and I don't know anyone who has actually seen any, have filled the fear that people have for this pets, for these animals who we normally have as pets. When my, I mean, when I was younger and my grandparents were around, they were common, but as we keep growing, it's like they are reducing, people don't keep them as cats and pets anymore. And then talking about if there are white witches. Good. Good, okay, good and bad witches. Well, I'm Washington would say that to say in which is good or is bad depends on how it affects you. Okay. And I'll put that into perspective. So if I'm saying a prayer and I want my enemies to die, it is a good prayer to me. It is a bad prayer to my enemies. Okay. So I'm still the same prayer. It just depends on which side of the diva you are standing on. I'm the one saying the prayer, so it's good to me. It's, if it, if it's rough, if he wraps you the bad way, then it's good, it's bad to you. So how do you say a witch is good or bad? I do not know. But if I, versus, I mean, if I, I mean, perception of the LA who are the witches in Europe, cosmology is that of the presents them as predators. They are pediatrics. They are pediatrics. Okay. So they were good. They sought a favor from ifa to come to earth because they were naked and allowed them in. And they would never live again. They stopped. They just like stayed there. They decided they were not coming up because they found the place very, very cozy. It was, it was hell. Get out already if you, I mean he helped you get out of him. But they did not until he had to make definitions and deep things to force that out of him. Ifa in that space, I mean presents them. And before they asked them to help them come to earth, they've asked other people. They've asked the Google said, Nope, I'm not doing it. I'm too scared of you. I am not giving you that help. So if they were good people or ifa presents them as good women or good birds, it would not have been that hard for them to get a ride from the unseen world to the physical world. So ifa does not present them as really, really nice birds. That's all I would say. But I don't like the notion of weight of them, of good or bad. I think it's maybe too many Hollywood movies. I think so. All right. Thank you. I think it was anybody wants to come. Yeah. I want to add to what you have said. In Yoruba, philosophy and worldview, there is one theory that is called theory of binary complementarities. Theory of binary complementarities. That is, you will not appreciate light without having darkness. So it is when you have light or when you have darkness that you appreciate the power of light and the space occupied by light. You know, let us take that one to the idea of the witches as well. As a person, I believe that there are good witches and there are bad witches. Like you said at the beginning of answering this question that it depends on the side of the coin. However, there are many Yoruba literatures that attest to the fact that there are good witches and there are bad witches. For example, during the Yoruba festival in Yoruba, one of the songs they usually sing during that period, young ladies who are witches, they are both enough to come out openly that they are witches and they will be singing different kinds of songs. One of their songs is that is our group is a group of prosperous people. Our own witches, they are the kind of witches that their children and not the children. If you really want to have good children, you want to have children that will protect, follow us, join our group. This is one of the songs they sing openly. People will be hearing, are recorded so much of these different kinds of these songs. Which means that they are both because they know that what they are doing is good. Therefore, you cannot say that what they are doing is bad. Just like you said that when somebody is praying against enemies, the prayer to the person who is praying, the prayer is good. But the recipient of the effect of the prayer, that kind of prayer is bad. Therefore, I say it emphatically that there are good witches and there are bad witches. I'm not one anyway, but that is the truth. Okay, so we got maybe five minutes left. There are still actually quite a lot of questions. Unfortunately, I apologize to the audience, but I don't think we'll be able to go to all of them. Dr. Bernard, I know you can see the Q&A as well. I mean, you're welcome to pick one if you prefer. I thought that the last one, perhaps, about the intersection between the reference to the role of witches in Yoruba folklore as holder of the seat of political power and preserves of the cosmos. How has these references evolved over the years and what significance does it have on the Yoruba end-day environment from Ogunue Oladimeji? Shall we take this one and maybe ask our last question so that we can also have a little bit of time for comments, some final remarks. I'm really sorry because there are other questions I know. There are some questions surrounding the role of the forest, the grove. Someone is asking about what sort of place it is in terms of is the grove sort of linked to evil and yeah, so that's also interesting. So yeah, so I leave this up. We can run out of time. So I leave these two questions for Dr. Bernard and then she can make some final comment and also Professor Agibade want to make some final comments before unfortunately we have to close this very interesting discussion. Thank you again Angelica. So to start with Mr. Wu is a question about this witches thing. Yes, see during the presentation I said something about the figure two and which Professor Agibade has mentioned last time about binary complementarity. So the Yorubas believe that there are checks and balances. Okay, there is also the fact that if you have not experienced sickness, you will not appreciate health. If you have not been hungry, you will not appreciate it when you have food. If you have not been cold, if you have one, you will not appreciate. So these things actually help to make you appreciate the little things of life. The same way in Yoruba folklore that the political system like you are asking about. Yes, till now I think in most cultures they would say that man is the head but women are the mix and you know it's the head just stays in the place it is the neck that actually turns it. So that is how I think witches work in the political system. So they are not there in front, they are not the king, they are not the chiefs but they are the ones who actually check the power, the use of power in these instances. They serve just like Yorubuni there are courts in Yoruba, we have Yorubuni courts, we have the courts of AK and we have other courts as well. So these courts actually serve as checks and balances so you can misuse power and you can't just, yes one person had asked me before, if the witches actually check people, who is checking them? Well, I don't know who is checking them but they actually do help to have the control of power, to make sure that power is not heavily abused by anyone sitting in a strong political space. So that is how they are presented in the Yoruba philosophy. So how are these references involved in this? Well, I would say that like Professor Aguady has said, Justin, for example, in Osho festival, you understand that Osho is very, very, it is placed because in the myth of the creation of Osho, Osho is very, very germane. Osho is the main actor and like he said that I don't remember that I said, yes there are people who actually claim to be witches and Osho even has been claimed to be a witch and let me go back to the myth of creation. So when the deities were descended, some of the many versions of myths that we have in Yoruba are coming mythology, many myths that we have in the cosmology. We have the story about and the myth about how when they were descending, they were about 16 males who descended, only Osho was the female and because she was the female, they didn't really regard her. So they did a lot of things and they would not just involve her in the planning processes on this showmaking because she is a woman, she's a female deity until they could not, everything they did was not working. They could not do anything and whatever they did was not really the results that they were expecting. They had to go back to Ludmire who told them that they had to go and invite and seek counsel with Osho who was the only female in that company. So that tells you how much power women wield in the political structure of Yoruba. So I think that how that is still now, I still think it is still the same because you know Osho, you know Osho but like I said when there is Osho and during Osho festival, the Aoja, sorry, the Aoja who is the king of Osho, who is the king of Osho, he had, I mean he played a very, I mean a very primary role during Osho, because of the place of Osho in the myth of creation of that particular term. So politically women and witches hold a very strong seat in Yoruba philosophy. I hope that has, yeah and maybe now they do it more, a little bit, they don't come at us, they don't say witches and you need progress or anybody say I'm not a witch just then, you have to like quickly like say but I think most, if you have some feminists they will say wherever you call and answers you is a witch. Can you say abatto to Wajie and Jenny, wherever you call and answer that if the person responds to you, that person is a witch. So that tells you that there are still witches in the culture who actually answer you when you call them. Yeah, I think that that is all I can say for now. Thank you, thank you so much. I think we're sort of running out a bit of time. I would like to bring back Professor Cubade for a few final comments if that's okay and yeah thank you. Yeah, you are welcome. Yeah, as she has said, let me just see finally that in Yoruba cosmology and political structure as we have male factor we also have female factors and these factors are just for checks and balances because without female factor, male factor cannot stand, honestly speaking and I want to say, ah me man, however, I want to say it categorically that many people have not really studied the power of women in cosmology. Women, to me as a person, women are more powerful than men even though Yoruba we say this is a patriarchal society, patriarchal for nothing, not patriarchal for essence. Women are more powerful than men in Yoruba cosmology and there are many truths. In fact, there are many scientific and spiritual truths to say that women are more powerful than women. So when we are talking about powers of witches, honestly speaking, it is very real and working in every sphere of life. Thank you very much for the opportunity given to me to be a discussant. Thank you. Thank you so much, Professor Cubade. Thank you so much, Dr. Bernard. It was a fantastic presentation. Final discussion. Yes, yes, of course. That's one word. Yeah, no, no, more than one, more than one. You left the final words now. Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't want you to rando before I say allow me just a few words. Again, I want to thank Professor Cubade for coming. I want to really appreciate his input and his comment and I want to thank my mom. She came in and I saw her like, hey, mom, she was there for, yeah, and then she ran away. I think she has to go to church, church. So and then my sister, I saw her, too. My sister, she's my mom's postpone. I saw her. She was there. Thank you very much. And I had, okay, so when I was in primary school, I was the head girl. So I had the head boy, who, yeah, went to the same primary school, went to the same secondary school, and then he's at Yale and he came. So yeah, my head boy is right there. Like he came, I saw him. And I want to thank really everyone. The titles, everybody. I know, I can't mention, I see people, I see names. I know people that I know. I see a lot of names and I won't tell you how grateful I am for the support. I see my friends from secondary school, a lot of them who have actually said they will come and they did. Most of them are very busy. They still come. And I see my colleagues from work as well at Soba Femelo University. And my fellows from University of Michigan, they came. Yeah, they did. The support is overwhelming. Thank you so much, guys. And thank you, Angelica. You know, I never say it enough. I, yeah, you are a gem. And everyone, I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful to everyone. And if I forgot to mention anything, I'm sorry. Yeah, and finally, I'm sorry, I have to say that I want to thank Professor Nini Wariwoko because, yeah, I have to do a more presentation. And I was, I was sweating bricks. Yeah, so that prepared me for this. And I want to say thank you very much. He came and then I think he had to go. So thank you, everyone. Everybody, thank you. I see you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Angelica. Thank you. No, thank you. Thank you so much. She was really, really inspiring. And I'm so pleased to hear exactly that so many people close to you came. And, you know, I know some of them. I saw some Leventis, past Leventis actually as well in there. And which is really nice to, to stay connected through the Leventis, the Leventis program. And thank you so much, everyone. We have to close, unfortunately, but there will be more Leventis seminar. Let's stay in touch. Connect with us at SOAS and let's keep talking about this very interesting research. Thank you. Thank you again to everybody involved, the Leventis. And thank you, Mari, for being in the audience. Thank you. And goodbye for now. Bye. Bye, bye, bye. Bye, everyone. Thank you. Bye, bye, everyone. Bye, bye. Thank you. Bye.