Reimagining Yorùbá Oral Tradition: An Exploratory Study of AI-Generated Storytelling

Abstract

This study explores the cultural authenticity, narrative fidelity, and epistemological implications of AI-generated stories reimagining Yorùbá oral traditions and mythology. With the rising adoption of artificial intelligence in creative domains, questions of cultural ownership, representation, and accuracy have become increasingly urgent, particularly for indigenous traditions grounded in spirituality, performance, and oral transmission. Employing an exploratory qualitative approach, the study conducts a comparative textual analysis of AI-generated stories against canonical Yorùbá myths, focusing on key narrative elements such as deities, cosmology, motifs, linguistic features, and thematic structure. The research interrogates how AI models interpret and reconstruct culturally significant symbols, characters, and settings, such as Ọ̀ṣun’s sacred grove, Ṣàngó’s axe, and Ọbàtálá’s staff, and examines the extent to which they preserve or distort the epistemic foundations of Yorùbá cosmology. Findings reveal that while AI storytelling exhibits creative potential and narrative coherence, it often fails to incorporate key cultural markers, religious structures, tonal language complexity, and indigenous knowledge systems. The absence of community-led input and culturally competent frameworks results in narrative outputs that, although engaging, risk cultural dilution, misrepresentation, and appropriation. Furthermore, the study highlights the ethical and educational implications of promoting such narratives as representative of Yorùbá mythology. This research contributes to broader debates on the intersection of AI, heritage preservation, and decolonial knowledge practices. It offers recommendations for integrating indigenous expertise into AI training processes and for developing culturally responsive evaluation models that honour the integrity of traditional African storytelling systems.