Distinctive cultural norms prevail in Yorubaland and among the Yoruba people.
Religion (Ẹsìn)
The Yoruba are said to be religious people, but they are also pragmatic and tolerant about their religious differences. Whilst many profess the Yoruba school of thought; many more profess other faiths e.g. Christianity (Ẹsìn Ìgbàgbọ́), Islam (Ẹsìn Ìmàle) etc.
Law
Yoruba law is the legal system of Yorubaland. It is quite intricate, each group and subgroup having a system that varies, but in general, government begins within the immediate family. The next level is the clan, or extended family, with its own head known as a Baálé. This chief will be subject to town chiefs, and these chiefs are usually themselves subject to their Oba, who may or may not be subject to another Oba himself.
Most of what survived of this legal code has been assimilated into the customary laws of the sovereign nations that the Yoruba inhabit.
Language (Èdè)
Yoruba people traditionally speak the Yorùbá language, a member of the Niger–Congo language family. Apart from referring to the aggregate of dialects and their speakers, the term Yoruba is also used for the standard, written form of the language.
Linguistics
Yoruba written literature begins with the formation of its grammar published in 1843. The standard language incorporates several features from other dialects.
Philosophy
Yoruba culture consists of the folk/cultural philosophy, the autochthonous religion and folktales. They are embodied in Ifa-Ife Divination, known as the tripartite Book of Enlightenment or the Body of Knowledge in Yorubaland and in its diaspora. Other components of the Book of Knowledge or the Book of Enlightenment are psychology, sociology, mathematics, cosmogony, cosmology, and other areas of human interests.
Yoruba cultural thought is a witness of two epochs. The first epoch is an epoch-making history in mythology and cosmology. This is also an epoch-making history in the oral culture during which time the divine philosopher Orunmila was the head and a pre-eminent diviner. He pondered the visible and invisible worlds, reminiscing about cosmogony, cosmology, and the mythological creatures in the visible and invisible worlds. This philosopher, Orunmila, epitomizes wisdom and idealism. He has been said to be more of a psychologist than a philosopher. He is the cultivator of ambitions and desires, and the interpreter of ori (head) and its destiny. The non-literate world, compelled by the need to survive, impelled by the need to unravel the mysteries of the days and nights, made Orunmila to cultivate the idea of Divination.
The second epoch is the epoch of metaphysical discourse. This commenced in the 19th century when the land became a literate land through the diligence and pragmatism of Dr. Ajayi Crowther, the first African Anglican Bishop. He is regarded as the cultivator of modern Yoruba idealism.
The uniqueness of Yoruba thought is that it is mainly narrative in form, explicating and pointing to the knowledge of the causes and nature of things, affecting the corporeal and the spiritual universe and its wellness. Yoruba people have hundreds of aphorisms, folktales, and lores, and they believe that any lore that widens people's horizons and presents food for thought is the beginning of a philosophy.
As it was in the ancient times, Yoruba people always attach philosophical and religious connotations to whatever they produced or created. Hence some of them are referred to as artist-philosophers. This is an accretion to the fact that one can find a sculptor, a weaver, a carver or a potter in every household in Yoruba land.
Despite the fact that the Yoruba cannot detail all their long pedigrees, such as Oduduwa, Obatala, Orunmila, Sango, Ogun, Osun (one of the three wives of Sango), Olokun, Oya (one of the three wives of Sango), Esu, Ososi, Yemoja, Sopona etc., nonetheless it is a fact of truth that they had all impacted the Yoruba people and contributed to the wellness and well-being of the Yoruba society. Without their various contributions, Yoruba land could have been lost in a hay of confusion.
Although religion is often first in Yoruba culture, nonetheless, it is the thought of man that actually leads spiritual consciousness (ori) to the creation and the practice of religion. Thus thought/philosophy is antecedent to religion.