When Yoruba Culture Becomes Everyone’s Fashion: Gẹ̀lẹ̀ Is Yoruba, and Its Origins Are Not Up for Reassignment
There is a growing tendency to adopt Yoruba cultural expressions, celebrate their beauty and then dispute their origins. The controversy surrounding the Yoruba gẹ̀lẹ̀ and attempts to associate it with Igbo cultural identity is one such development that deserves a direct response.
The argument that Igbo women and their grandmothers wore gẹ̀lẹ̀, and that it should therefore be recognised as an indigenous Igbo tradition, confuses cultural adoption with cultural origin. The distinction is straightforward: wearing another people’s cultural expression does not automatically make one the originator of it.
Gẹ̀lẹ̀ is a Yoruba cultural expression. It is an established element of Yoruba women’s traditional dressing, with a history that predates its popularity beyond Yorubaland. Its elaborate structure, styling and place within traditional Yoruba attire are not inventions of contemporary fashion designers. They are part of a cultural practice associated with Yoruba women across generations.
Yoruba dressing has long attracted admiration beyond Yorubaland. The combination of ìró, bùbá and gẹ̀lẹ̀ has become recognisable far beyond its place of origin. Igbo women have also embraced elements of Yoruba dressing, including the elaborate headwrap. That adoption is not a problem. It is evidence of cultural influence and the appeal of Yoruba fashion.
The problem begins when admiration becomes a claim of origin.
Since when did wearing another people’s traditional attire become evidence of having originated it? If generations of adoption are enough to establish cultural ownership, then the origins of cultural practices everywhere would be open to endless reassignment. A practice could be adopted, passed down and eventually claimed as indigenous, regardless of where it began.
That is not how cultural history should be understood.
Within Yoruba culture, gẹ̀lẹ̀ is more than an elaborate piece of fabric tied around a woman’s head. It is part of traditional dressing and a form of cultural presentation associated with femininity, social identity and heritage. Its significance extends beyond the beauty of the fabric or the skill involved in arranging it.
Historical scholarship provides an important starting point for understanding this cultural identity. Judith Byfield, in her 2000 academic work, Unwrapping Nationalism: Dress, Gender, and Nationalist Discourse in Colonial Lagos, examines Yoruba women’s dressing through colonial-era newspapers and historical records. Her research discusses the traditional combination of ìró, bùbá, gẹ̀lẹ̀ and ìbòrùn, demonstrating that these were established elements of Yoruba women’s dress long before today’s social media arguments.
Tunde M. Akinwumi’s 1990 research, The Commemorative Phenomenon of Textile Use Among the Yoruba: A Survey of Significance and Form, also offers an academic perspective on the cultural and social significance of textiles among the Yoruba.
These records matter because cultural identity should not be determined by contemporary popularity or the arguments of people who have adopted a particular practice. It should be examined through historical context, established cultural practices and documented evidence.
There is also the question of identity and nomenclature. Gẹ̀lẹ̀ is gẹ̀lẹ̀. It is a Yoruba cultural expression, not a generic name for every form of head covering. The Igbo have ìchàfụ̀, which, as distinguished in this discussion, is a simple chiffon headscarf, not the elaborate, carefully structured Yoruba gẹ̀lẹ̀. These are distinct forms of dressing and should not be presented as interchangeable.
Wearing gẹ̀lẹ̀ does not change its name, origin or cultural identity. Neither does passing the practice down through generations turn an adopted Yoruba cultural expression into an indigenous Igbo creation.
The argument that Igbo grandmothers wore gẹ̀lẹ̀ is not the historical proof some people appear to think it is. It establishes that the practice was embraced across generations. It does not, by itself, establish that the practice originated within Igbo culture. These are two entirely different claims.
There is a difference between celebrating another people’s culture and attempting to absorb its identity. Cultural exchange does not require historical revision. If Yoruba cultural expressions have become attractive to other communities, that should be acknowledged for what it is: the influence and reach of Yoruba culture.
Yoruba people should not have to negotiate the identity of their cultural expressions every time those expressions become popular elsewhere. A culture’s popularity does not make its origins public property, available for reassignment according to whoever has adopted it for the longest period.
Wear the gẹ̀lẹ̀. Admire its craftsmanship. Appreciate its beauty. But acknowledge its Yoruba cultural roots.
Passing an adopted practice from one generation to another does not rewrite where that practice originated.
Yoruba cultural identity is not up for reassignment.