Oyotunji African Village is a village located near Sheldon, Beaufort County, South Carolina that was founded by Oba Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Adefunmi I in 1970.
Oyotunji village is named after the Oyo empire, and the name literally means Oyo returns or Oyo rises again. Oyotunji village covers and has a Yoruba temple which was moved from Harlem, New York to its present location in 1960. During the 1970s, the era of greatest population growth at the village, the number of inhabitants grew from 5 to between 200 and 250. The population is rumored to fluctuate between 5 and 9 families as of the last 10 years. It was originally intended to be located in Savannah, Georgia, but was eventually settled into its current position after disputes with neighbors in Sheldon proper, over drumming and tourists.
Since Adefunmi's death in 2005, the village has been led by his son, Oba Adejuyigbe Adefunmi II. The village is constructed to be analogous to the villages of the traditional Yoruba city-states in modern-day Nigeria, although modernization of the village's public works have been carried out under Adefunmi II.
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An Oral History of the West African Village That Has Been in South Carolina for Four Decades Ile Ifa Jalumi - Oyotunji Outpost RoadsideAmerica.com article Òyötùnjí Village: Making Africans in America - Anthropology Master's Thesis by Antionette B. Brown-Waithe Welcome to the Kingdom Oyotunji African Village via Internet Archive About Oyotunji African Village "Against the Odds, A 40-Year Old West African Village in South Carolina Has Thrived"