I was sitting on a bench mindlessly swatting flies away from my feet, waiting. I had already greeted all the people in the area and was just observing at this point, waiting for the tailor to finish sewing a dress. A mother was seated on the concrete porch leaning against the pillar eating and feeding her son. She took a piece of meat from the bowl and handed it to her son. He couldn’t have been more than 2 years old. He extended his little arm to grab the beef. His mom swatted it away but still held the meat in her hand for him to take. He reached again, again she swatted. Why can’t he take the meat? She grabbed his right arm and plopped the meat in his palm. Ooooh, he tried to take it with his left hand. Bad boy.
Yorubas have a complex about the left hand, owó osì. They believe it is the dirty hand used for dirty jobs like wiping after easing yourself. If you give someone a present with your left hand, especially an old person, he or she will give you an evil glare and refuse the gift. Accepting things with your left hand is taboo too. Always shake with your right hand. Yorubas have respect for the right hand as the hand you eat with and do other important jobs. The left hand gets no respect. Two of the students on our program are lefties and eating in public always brings many questions. This is not to say all Yorubas are right handed. Lefties exist, but they are not too common. In an effort to revive the use of the left hand and improve its reputation, Yorubas call it owó aláàfià, which means hand of peace. For the record, I am a righty.
North of Lagos 
[…] are still strong cultural traditons in many parts of the world, which deem the left-hand to be lesser or […]
I am not a believer of God,but,we should know this very well.God gave us two hands.Why,I don’t know,but since we were given two hands,we should make full use of it.Condemning the left-hand is no different from condemning what God gave us.Unless you are saying God only made half of us,while the other half is forced-feed by the Devil.Dirty work or what,soap and sanitizer are our friends.
Very true… that’s what I always say to my superstitious grandmother when she sees me eating with my left hand, and says
“Why can’t you eat with the right and be normal?””
Just because she can’t use her left and I can! I say to her we were given two hands!
I am an orthodox christian and I hate when they say if you use your left hand your worship the devil… WHAT??? Using the hand you feel moe comfortable with means you support the devil?
That is rubbish… use soap like you say haha
hey there just stumbled on your blog…. had to comment. I grew up in Lagos and I am a “leftie”, thankfully my parents (who met at UI and are still together by the way) never discouraged me from using it, but taking and giving things with my left hand was still a big no-no.
Till this day – I’m 26, an architect so you can imagine I use my hand quite a lot – my mom’s jaw drops when she sees plans from work and is AMAZED the left hand can do things even better than some right-handed people.
keep up the good work and nice video/blog!!
– Kayode
I was born a leftie but forced to write with my right in nursery… Later on, when i was about to start primary 1, i had a mini accident breaking my left elbow.. making me learn to use my right hand! but in little things like the hand i use when playing baseball/rounders you can tell i am a secret lefty! 😀
I’m a Yoruba leftie who was taught by my parents to pretty much always eat with both a fork and knife to disguise my left handedness when in public. It’s considered very rude to the cook/your host to eat with your left hand.
So interesting! These are the tiny little cultural details that I love reading about, it makes me feel so much closer to you. A huge hug and kiss
Growing up in Nigeria, my brother was a lefty and family friends would often tell my mother to change him and force him to use his right hand to write and eat.
Thankfully my parents didn’t think it was an issue but my brother was taught to eat with his right hand and wipe his butt with his left hand and he does everything else with his left hand.
There are probably more natural lefties than you’ve seen. What happens is that they – probably like the little boy you observed – get ‘rained’ to preferntially use their right hand from while they’re very young. I have a friend who’s sure that’s what happened to him. He’s a ‘lefty’ but he writes with his right!
I’m amazed by how you observe even the subtlest aspects of my culture. If I were asked to discuss fascinating things about my culture, I probably would not have thought of this as an interesting thing to talk about. I’m reading this and I’m going “oh yeaaahhhh, that’s true”.
I probably only met a couple lefties when I was growing up, of course that changed when I left Nigeria.
I applaud your keen sense of observation. Bravo!!!
Interesting. Wow, that would give a leftie a complex! Culture…so fascinating!
Loves,
Michele
Nice work!
Keep it up.
PS; Owo otun l’emi naa nlo.