The Yorubas in Nigeria have a saying: DUDU DUN!!(How sweet it is to be BLACK-skinned!)
Dudu is the final color category for the yoruban cromatic groups.
It consists of down to earth colors like brown, green, and moss green. Dudu colors are earthly tones. The Yoruba culture is well known for the beautiful bead work that is created. They use these color categories to create very spiritual works that also have very useful purposes. For example: would be slippers, bags, crowns, flasks, and even king's thrones created or decorated with these elaborate bead creations.
Assembled by African art scholars Henry John Drewal and John Mason, the body of work pivots on Yoruban color theory, which is seen as a key means of communication with Yoruban deities, known collectively as orisas. Any Yoruban bead worker knows the meaning of funfun, the “cool” colors of white, silver and gray, which represent wisdom; pupa, the “hot” colors–red, yellow, orange–evoking passion and impulsiveness; and dudu, black and the dark colors, which signify restraint and mystery.
Book places ethnic heritage in glowing, revealing ‘black’ light
NEW YORK—“Dudu” means “black” in the largest original African language, Yoruba, but it is derogated to mean “s—t” in the U.S.A., where also “Akata,” the Yoruba name for African Americans is derogated to mean wild, since it means fox—the “cat” not domesticated (in Africa).
AFRICAN OSE DUDU / BLACK SOAP
Black soap is known in West Africa by several names, but the most common is Ose Dudu (doudoun), which is derived from the Yoruba or Anago languages of Nigeria, Benin and Togo. Ose Dudu means literally Soap (ose) Black (dudu). The oils used to make African black soap vary by region and include palm oil, palm kernel oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, and Shea butter.
