"Matory's ethnography commands serious respect. His centralthesis concerning the gendering of power relations in the Oyo Empire, and its continuing expression in the cult of Sango, is brilliant and original. The symbolic analysis of contemporary initiation to the Sango cult ... shows real virtuosity ... Also] of great value is his account of the state of religious heterogeneity in Oyo North. This book should make a significant mark outside the field of Yoruba studies, in the anthropology of gender at large." - J.D.Y. Peel, FBA, University of London

"An exemplary exercise in historical...