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 always be taken from the members of one of two families, the succession in many cases passing from one to the other family alternately. Primogeniture is not necessarily considered.

Before the introduction of letters the Yoruba are said to have employed knotted strings for recording events. Their language, which has been reduced to writing and carefully studied, has penetrated as far E. as Kano in the Hausa country. The best known dialectic varieties are those of Egba, Jebu, Ondo, Ife, Illorin and Oyo (Yoruba proper, called also Nago); but the discrepancies are slight. The most marked feature, a strong tendency towards monosyllabism—produced by phonetic decay—has given rise to the principle of intonation, required to distinguish words originally different but reduced by corruption to the condition of homophones. Besides the tones, of which there are three—high, low and middle—Yoruba has also developed a degree of vocalic harmony, in which the vowels of the affixes are assimilated to that of the root. Inflexion, as in Bantu, is effected chiefly by prefixes; and there is a remarkable power of word-formation by the fusion of several relational elements in a single compound term. The Bible and several other books have been translated into Yoruba, which as a medium of general intercourse in West Africa ranks in importance next to Hausa and Mandingan. The Yoruba religion is that usually known as fetishism.

The Yoruba country extends from Benin on the E. to Dahomey on the W. (where it somewhat overlaps the French frontier), being bounded N. by Borgu and S. by the coast lands of Lagos. It covers about 25,000 sq. m. Most of it is included in the British protectorate of Southern Nigeria. The land is moderately elevated and a large part of it is densely forested. It is well watered; the rivers belong mainly to the coast systems, though some drain to the Niger. The history of Yorubaland, as known to Europeans, does not go back beyond the close of the 17th century. At that time it was a powerful empire, and had indirectly come—through its connexion with Benin and Dahomey—to some extent under European influence. There was also a much slighter Moslem influence. One tradition brought the founder of the nation from Bornu. The Yoruba appear to have inhabited their present country at least as early as 1000. In the 18th century the Yoruba were constantly engaged in warfare with their Dahomeyan neighbours, and in 1738 they captured Kana, the sacred city of the kings of Dahomey. From 1747 to the time of King Gezo (11818) the Dahomeyans paid tribute to Yoruba. It was not until the early years of the 19th century that the Yoruba came as far S. as the sea, when they founded a colony at Lagos. About 1825 the province of Illorin, already permeated by Moslem influences from the north, declared itself independent of the Yoruba, and shortly afterwards Yorubaland was overrun by Fula invaders. From this time (1830–35) the Yoruba empire—there had been six confederate kingdoms—was broken up into a number of comparatively weak states, who warred with one another, with the Dahomeyans and with their Moslem neighbours. The advent of the British at first led to further complications and fighting, but gradually the various tribes gained confidence in the colonial government and sought its services as peacemaker. A treaty placing their country under British protection was signed by the Egba in January 1893, and the subsequent extension of British control over the other portions of Yorubaland met with no opposition.

Though divided into semi-independent states, the Yoruba retain a feeble sense of common nationality. The direct representative of the old Yoruba power is the alafin or king of Oyo occupying the N. and central parts of the whole region. Round this central state, which has lost much of its importance, are grouped the kingdoms of Illorin, Ijesa, Ife and Ondo in the E., Mahin and Jebu in the S. and Egba in the W. The ruler of each of these states has a title characteristic of his office. Thus the chief of Ife bears the title of oni (a term indicating spiritual supremacy). To the oni of Ife or the alafin of Oyo all the other great chiefs announce their succession. The oni, says Sir William MacGregor, is regarded as the fountain of honour, and without his consent no chief can assume the privilege of wearing a crown. The most important of the Yoruba

states is Egba, the ruling chief of which is the alake of Abeokuta (see ).

Yorubaland is a country of comparatively large cities. The alafin resides at Oyo, on a head stream of the Oshun, a place which has succeeded the older capitals, Bohu and Katunga, lying farther N. and destroyed during the wars with the Fula. Oyo is exceeded in size by several other places in Yorubaland, where the inhabitants have grouped themselves together for mutual protection in walled towns. Thus have sprung up the important towns of Abeokuta on the Ogun, due N. of Lagos; Ibadan on a branch of the Omi, 30 m. S. of Oyo; and Illorin, capital of the Illorin state, besides several other towns with a population of some 40,000.

See A. Dalzell, The History of Dahomey (London, 1793); A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1894); R. E. Dennett, Nigerian Studies, or the Religions and Political System of the Yoruba (London, 1910); C. F. Harford-Battersby, Niger and Yoruba Routes (London,  1895–96); and and.  YŌSAI [Kikuchi] (1781–1878), Japanese painter, was the son of a samurai named Kawara, of Yedo. He was adopted by the Kikuchi family, who were old hereditary retainers of the Tokugawa clan. When eighteen, he became a pupil of Takata Enjō; but, after studying the principles of the Kanō, Shijō, and Maruyama schools—in the latter, perhaps, under Ozui, a son of Ōkyo—he developed an independent style, having some affinities with that of Tani Bunchō. He was one of the last great painters of Japan; and his illustrated history of Japanese heroes, the Zenken Kojitsu, is a remarkable specimen of his power as a draughtsman in black and white.  YOSEMITE, a famous valley on the W. slope of the Sierra Nevada of California, about 150 m. E. of San Francisco and 4000 ft. above the sea. It is 7 m. long, half a mile to a mile wide, and nearly a mile deep, eroded out of hard massive granite by glacial action. Its precipitous walls present a great variety of forms, and the bottom, a filled-up lake basin, is level and park-like. The most notable of the wall rocks are: El Capitan, 3300 ft. high, a sheer, plain mass of granite; the Three Brothers, North Dome, Glacier Point, the Sentinel, Cathedral, Sentinel Dome and Cloud's Rest, from 2800 to nearly 6000 ft. high; and Half Dome, the noblest of all, which rises at the head of the valley to the height of 4740 ft. These rocks illustrate on a grand scale the action of ice in mountain sculpture. For here five large glaciers united to form the grand trunk glacier that eroded the valley and occupied it as its channel. Its moraines, though mostly obscured by vegetation and weathering, may still be traced; while on the snowy peaks at the headwaters of the Merced a considerable number of small glaciers, once tributary to the main Yosemite glacier, still exist. The Bridal Veil Fall, 900 ft. high, is one of the most interesting features of the lower end of the valley. Towards the upper end the great Yosemite Fall pours from a height of 2600 ft. The valley divides at the head into three branches, the Tenaya, Merced and South Fork canyons. In the main (Merced) branch are the Vernal and Nevada Falls, 400 and 600 ft. high. The Nevada is usually ranked next to the Yosemite among the five main falls of the valley, and is the whitest of all the falls. The Vernal, about half a mile below the Nevada, is famous for its afternoon rainbows. At flood-time it is a nearly regular sheet about 80 ft. wide, changing as it descends from green to purplish-grey and white. In the S. branch, a mile from the head of the main valley, is the Ilhlouette Fall, 600 ft. high, one of the most beautiful of the Yosemite choir.

Considering the great height of the snowy mountains about the valley, the climate of the Yosemite is remarkably mild. The vegetation is rich and luxuriant. The tallest pines are over 200 ft. high; the trunks of some of the oaks are from 6 to 8 ft. in diameter; violets, lilies, golden-rods, ceanothus, manzanita, wild rose and azalea make broad beds and banks of bloom in the spring; and on the warmest parts of the walls flowers blossom in every month of the year. 