Par
Megan Powell
Dans la
ville d'Ife, le peuple dit toujours le conte d'Oduduwa, qui
descendit
du ciel et créa la terre ferme hors de la mer. Il fonda Ifè, la
première et plus grande ville, et y régna pendant plusieurs
décénies. Orunmila, qui pouvait lire l'avenir a régna sur le royaume du
Bénin
pendant un certain temps, mais repartit au ciel. Sans son règne,
le peuple du Bénin soufra énormément. Ils envoyèrent beaucoup de messagers
à Ife, priant Oduduwa à leur venir en aide.
Ainsi
Oduduwa alla au Bénin avec son fils, Oranmiyan, s'occuper du peuple
du Bénin. Après un moment, les messagers d'Ife revinrent, priant Oduduwa
pour plus d'attention à leur endroit. Oduduwa
consentît. Se sentant trop avancé en âge, il pria son fils Oranmiyan de
le remplacer.
"Je
souhaiterait que tu régnés sur Ife ," lui dit Oduduwa.. "elle est la
première ville, et la plus proche mon cœur. Je serais soulagé si
je savais qu'un gouverneur sage, qui est de mon sang, y prenne ma place."
Oranmiyan
accepta, et régna sur Ife après la mort de son père. Ife était la
plus grande ville des hommes, mais ce n'était pas la seule ville. Les
gouverneurs d'autres régions envièrent le nom et la fortune d'Ife, et
cherchèrent à la conquérir. Mais Oranmiyan était un guerrier
vaillant. A sa vue, sur le champ de bataille, ses ennemis étaient frappé
de terreur et de frayeur Il n'avait été jamais été défait, et Ife
prospérera sous son règne.
Mais,
comme son père, Oranmiyan ne vécu point éternellement. Avant sa mort,
il rassembla le peuple d'Ife. Il leur dit: "vous êtes un peuple
noble. Bien que je devrait bientôt m'en allé, restez et vivez comme des héros, de sorte que le nom d'Ife soit toujours
prononcé avec crainte."
Désespéré,
le peuple pria Oranmiyan de rester. "Nous souffrirons ton absence,
père" se lamentèrent-ils.
Orunmila is the God of Wisdom and Destiny.
Like
the other Deities, Orunmila existed before man and is the only Orisa to
witness creation. Orunmila therefore has the knowledge concerning the fate
of every man, woman and child. Orunmila is the youngest Deity out of all
the Deities created by God before the creation of the earth. This
circumvents the position for Orunmila to be the final manifestation of
virtue for man to follow.
Orunmila sojourned to earth on various occasions to assist man at the
crossroads. The crossroads I speak of are the moments we come to in life
that require major decisions or points we get to in life that will affect
the rest of our lives. Esu, the Deity that sits at the crossroad, is
forever indebted to Orunmila and has vowed to serve and assist Orunmila
like non other (Ogbe-Di).
Orunmila, through the sheer power of
wisdom, sacrifice and patience became the commander and prosper of all
Orisa (Irete-Wori).
The expansion of man all over the earth and the frequent needs for
Orunmila to sojourn to earth for the benefit of mankind became cumbersome
and frustrating for even Orunmila, this great God of Wisdom. So Olodumare
(God) endowed upon Orunmila a means for mankind to communicate with
Orunmila to reveal ones individual fate. This means is called Ifa. Ifa is
the embodiment of Orunmila and is also another name for Orunmila. Ifa is a
literary corpus that entails the fate of man and all of his
accomplishments and transgressions. Only priests of Orunmila have the
authority to sound the voice of Ifa. These priests are called Babalawo.
Orunmila vowed to serve man in spirit with his infinite wisdom and the
Babalawo hold the same secrets to creation and the fate of man that
Orunmila held through the medium of Ifa.
Orunmila the Deity represents the power of wisdom to overcome misfortune.
Orunmila the Deity represents the power of Divination to analyze our past,
reveal our present and forecast our future.
Orunmila the Deity represents the power of sacrifice to achieve what would
other wise be impossible.
Ase O!
How
Esu and Orunmila became best friends/why Esu is portrayed with the hair
that he has.
Orunmila wanted to see how many friends, true friends,
he had. so he told
his wife, Odù, to announce that he died. after she did so, lots of people
came by to pay their respects. Orunmila was in another room hiding, so he
could hear everything that was being said. after the first person came, Odù
asked if there were any unpaid debts Orunmila owed the visitor. seeing
this
as an opportunity, the man said Orunmila owed him. Odù excused herself
and
went to secretly ask Orunmila if this were true...it was not. Orunmila to
her to pay the man anyway. he was slowly finding out that this man was no
friend at all. one by one, each person who came to pay condolneces did the
very same thing. Orunmila sat and listened in shame to the people he
thought
to be true friends. half way across the village, Esu was shaving his head.
when he heard the news of Orunmila's death he left the house with a half
shaven head to see if there was anything he could do for Odù in her time
of
need. when Esu arrived, Odù thought he was there for the same reason
everyone else came...to take advantage of her. but Esu explained that he
wanted nothing from her. when Orunmila heard this, he got happy knowing
that
there was one true friend for him. he came out and explaine to Esu what
really was going on, and proclaimed that the two were to be as close as
brothers. so this is why Esu is the right hand of Orunmila, and why his
face
is carved on Opon Ifá. it's also why elaborate statues of Esu will
portray
him with a "high top fade" looking hair-do...because after this
ordeal,
Orunmila made Esu promise to keep his hair with that to be symbolic of
their
friendship. it's often common to see a Babalawo with this style too during
an initiation process.
one of the reasons why this story is so important is
because it shows Esu in
true light, and not as a devil. western scholars compare Orunmila to jesus
and Esu to the devil, and while it's all thought provoking i think anyone
who
knows, well, just knows. but, for the sake of argument...imagine the devil
running to the home of jesus to console his family after his "crucifiction."
see how making Esu the devil just don't work? i can't even think of any
legends that portray Esu as devilish.
Except for the day you are born and the day you are
supposed to die there is not a single event in one's life that cannot be
forecast and if necessary changed. You are born with a specific path,
divination serves as a road map to your path.
Divination
is defined as the faculty of foreseeing. Divination (Ifa) is an art and it
involves having insight into one's fortunes and misfortunes from birth to
death and beyond. Each person has a certain God given life potential. As a
person grows, the world challenges him/her with obstacles that tend to
throw him/her out of alignment with whom he/she has the potential to be.
Divination serves as a means to realign a person to their rightful path
that was decided upon in heaven before one's arrival to earth. If one
aligns himself with the forces of nature, which are within us all, one
will have a more fortunate outcome with one's endeavors . Divination is a
means for achieving one's endeavors (spiritual aspirations) and teaches us
to balance ourselves with our environment. This crucial element
(divination) is missing in the masses of the African descendants in the
New World and even in Africa itself.
Western
science is biased against the validity of divination as the source of
inspiration. Divination deals with the invisible/spiritual forces that
exist in our reality. Western science deals with these unseen influences,
but calls them "laws of physics". The methodology used by
Western science, in its futile attempt to understand unseen influences, is
to conjure up theories and create experiments that test their theory. If
the experiment produces the expected result, given static circumstances,
the theory is considered valid. This process is based on the belief that
the universe functions in a mechanistic and ordered manner and that the
spiritual (unseen) influences are non-existent. However, the spiritual
realm does exist and has an influence in our lives that parallels the
obvious (physical). Divination deals with these unseen influences that
play a life and death role throughout the duration of our lives on earth.
Africa is
the cradle of civilization. This cradle nurtured many different means for
man to communicate with God. Throughout the African Diaspora only one form
of communication, via divination and spiritual virtues, has reigned
supreme. Ifa. Through the Ifa apparatus, divination is performed and fate
is revealed. Ifa is expressed in all African countries in one form or
another by one name or another. The slave master had to eliminate this
ancient power that the African used in order to enslave the African in the
New World. However, through it all, Ifa survives. Ifa is still intact and
is as accurate and as relevant today, as it was 10,000 years ago.
There are
many forms of divination. You have the physic network, palm reading,
crystal balls, the I Ching, and so on. And of course we have Cleo! All
these methods are supposed to give the client insight into their unknown
future. The Ifa system of divination, due to the amount of information and
the number of possibilities is the most robust, ancient and the longest
standing of all forms of divination. In the African tradition it is
unthinkable to embark upon any major task without first consulting the
oracle (Ifa) to ascertain whether or not the proposed action is favorable
or not and to probe the probable outcome. To embark upon serious actions
like marriage, child conception, new business ventures or the treatment of
dis-ease without first seeking the guidance of Ifa is careless and
foolhardy. This is a major mistake for the masses of African descendants
in America that desperately need such guidance.
Ifa works
with the unseen forces of the universe through the inter-play of the
forces of expansion and the forces of contraction. The forces of expansion
are symbolized by a single vertical line (I). The forces of contraction
are symbolized by a double set of vertical lines (II). These forces are
seen as existing in eight dimensions which form two spheres, one inside
the other. This sphere is symbolized through the use of two vertical
columns. Each column is made up of four sets of either single or double
vertical lines. This system generates two hundred and fifty-six different
sets of quadragrams. Each quadragram is a representation of several
fundamental energy patterns that entail all of Creation. Each of these 256
energy patterns is born from sixteen major forces called Olodus. The
remaining 240 are combinations of the first sixteen and are called Odu.
Each Olodus/Odu is bought to life during a divination session and the
message contained is revealed via the intuitive association of the
Babalawo.
The
Babalawo's are priests of Orunmila that are specially trained, via years
of instruction from elders on the secrets of divination. Babalawo
literally means, Father of Secrets. Within the same verses that detail
your fate you have the appropriate sacrifice prescribed by the Babalawo to
assure a favorable outcome. This is similar to visiting a MD in the
western world. You visit the doctor; he reads you with his instruments and
prescribes some medicine. Your body will sacrifice something for the
betterment of the targeted problem if the prescription is followed.
Babalawo's are spiritual doctors that use the instruments of Ifa through
divination to heal and guide our spiritual being (prescription).
Divination can also be referred to as Managed Care.
Orunmila
Witness of
fate
Second to Oludumare (GOD)
Thou are far more efficacious than medicine,
Thou are the Immense Orbit that averts the day of Death.
My Lord, Almighty to save,
Mysterious Spirit that fought death.
To Thee salutation is first due in the morning,
Thou Equilibrium that adjusts World Forces,
Thou art the One whose exertion it is to reconstruct the creature of bad
lot,
Repairer of ill-luck,
He who knows thee becomes immortal.
Lord, the undeposable king,
Perfect in the House of Wisdom!
My Lord! Infinite in knowledge!
For not knowing thee in full, we are futile,
Oh, if we could but know thee in full,
all would be well with us !
Sacrifice
Sacrifice/Ebo guarantees success!
We all should know what sacrifice is. "The giving up or foregoing of
some valued thing for the sake of something of greater value or having a
more pressing claim". Whatever one desires in this life requires the
giving up of something. Life does not strive on taking alone. Life also
requires giving; hence life is a process of give and take. The simplest
form of sacrifice one can give is time. The most complex form of sacrifice
one can give is change. This subject of sacrifice takes on many facets.
This page will only touch on the fundamentals of sacrifice from an African/Ifa
worldview.
The
sacrifice of time is the most fundamental form of sacrifice. In America we
sacrifice most of our youth towards school. We then sacrifice our time
towards daily labor to acquire finances for daily living. On a deeper
level the sacrifice of time involves patience.
Time
sacrificed does not always bring about the desired result in our lives.
Nor does time spent on something guarantee you peace of mind. When these
disharmonies are prevalent we are taught to seek the spiritual realm and
pray to beg God for favors. Many of us are unaware and do not realize that
the spiritual realm like the physical one requires some sort of giving in
order to receive. Imagine walking into Human Resources at IBM and
demanding a paycheck knowing that you never (sacrificed) worked a day at
IBM. The Spiritual realm works the same way.
The Yoruba
believe in one supreme God called Olodumare. Olodumare is very remote to
the Yoruba by virtue of the duality that exists with Olodumare. In other
words God created both the "good" and "evil" forces at
play in the universe and he gave Ase (power) to both sides. "When
you speak about 'good', you have already presupposed 'evil'." One
cannot exist without the other. There are two sides to every story or
problem. Within Olodumare lay both sides to one story, so directing energy
to Olodumare directly can be vain. Within Ifa the cosmos is divided into
two halves. The right side is inhabited by the benevolent supernatural
powers and the left side is inhabited by the malevolent supernatural
powers. The benevolent powers are the Orisa and their helpful associations
with humans. The malevolent powers are evil and destructive energies like
Iku (death), Arun (sickness), Ofo (loss), Epe (curse) and so on. There is
no peaceful coexistence between these two powers, they are always in
conflict.
The
Africans believe that verbalization is not enough in one's relationship
with the supernatural. Ifa divination serves as a preamble to prayer. Via
Ifa divination we can ascertain how to pray, to whom to pray and for what.
For the Yoruba, divining (Ifa) serves as an approach to prayer and shows
one why they need to pray and shows one the best procedure for elevating
one's prayer via some form of sacrifice. In this world of many choices,
this complex and varied approach is still miraculously accurate and
effective. In this world of choices, this complex and varied approach is
necessary. The variety of sacrifice includes time, song, dance, money,
change and life force offerings.
Communication
with the sprit realm is what Ifa is all about. Sacrifice is an attempt to
rearrange the forces of the universe so that they can work for us,
resulting in peace and harmony for us in our environment. Within Ifa,
sacrifice (in Yoruba it is called ebo) is an attempt by human beings to
send a message to all these supernatural powers of the universe regarding
our own human affairs. When all the supernatural powers accept our
sacrifice/ebo, everybody is happy and are committed to work for us and we
can achieve peace.
All of
God's creations have some relationship with God and communicate with God
at some level beyond our comprehension. Within Ifa, animals are sometimes
used to communicate our message to the spiritual realm. Each animal
species have distinct properties that are beyond our comprehension. For
instance, most humans cannot smell sugar, however if we put sugar or honey
on the table, ants will flock there by morning because they have smelt it.
Their sense of smell is much higher than our own. The Ifa sacrificial
rituals use the unique communication abilities of animals to relay our
messages to the supernatural forces at play. The chicken is the first
animal inhabitant of the earth and she accompanied the divinities/Deities
from heaven to earth. The chicken is a favorite communicator of messages
to the spirit realm because of its close association to the Deities from
the very start. Life force offerings direct prayer via the animals' force
to a specific force in nature to elevate our prayers for our benefit and
to rearrange the universe to work in our favor.
For
example, if someone is sick and a sacrifice is prescribed by a diviner,
that sacrifice is meant too appease the left and right side divinities.
Humans do not give sacrifice directly to the supernatural powers on the
left, they give it to their own guardian divinity who is on the right. The
closest of these right hand divinities is Ori (head) and can include a
host of other Orisa and Eguns (ancestors). Esu, the divine messenger, who
is almost always supposed to get part of any blood sacrifice and who
shares elements of both the left and right side, will assure that the left
hand divinities get their due. Esu plays a very important part in
reordering universal events for the good of anyone that sacrifices in this
manner.
Sacrifice
is essential to human well being. Some people live happy lives sacrificing
their pride to beg from strangers. Some people sacrifice half of their
adult life in school earning PHD's. Meat eaters in our society directly
benefit from blood sacrifice to accommodate their daily meal. Most meat
eaters are disconnected from the total disregard of the poor animal's life
during its slaughter/sacrifice for their benefit. The Jews have their
kosher food, which is prayed over animals, sacrificed for consumption.
Within Ifa most sacrificed animals are consumed as to further their power
(Ase) for our cause and the animals are treated with respect. The
European sacrificed the lives of an estimated 100 million African men
women and children for their Gods of materialism, greed, lust and conquest.
The Christians celebrate the human sacrifice of Jesus Christ and to this
day still symbolize this via cannibalism with their communion ritual.
Within Ifa the holy Odu Irete-Meji and OturuponTura forbids human
sacrifice! Within the traditional African worldview you are for the most
part responsible for your own self-improvement. If you want to change your
condition you must make sacrifice. Sacrifice often times does not require
blood. Sacrifice sometimes requires one to look in a mirror and see beyond
what is reflected and to make some psychological change. This can be the
most difficult of sacrifices. However, we here at Cultural Expressions are
well aware of why the chicken crossed the road, and now you know.
History and origin of ORUNMILA
In
the Beginning, Olodumare (God) gave
the Orisa Orunmila a flawless method of communication between himself and
the Orisa called Ifa.
Ifa is
linked to destiny through the symbolism of the number sixteen. Sixteen is
the number of cosmos; it represents the primal order that issued from the
unity of Olodumare. (Sixteen is also a significant number in the world of
computers.) When the world was first created, it spread out from an
original palm tree that stood at the center of the world at Ile-Ife. The
palm tree had sixteen branches, which formed the four cardinal points and
the sixteen original quarters of Ile-Ife. In political terms, Odudua, the
first oni of Ife, fathered sixteen sons who founded the sixteen original
kingdoms of the Yoruba. On a deeper level still, Orunmila taught the art
of divination to his sixteen sons; they, in turn, passed it down to the
Babalawos who practice it today.
Through
the linked concepts of order, creation, and destiny, the number sixteen
represents the variables of the human condition, the sixteen possible
situations of human life. For the Yoruba, the sixteen principle signs are
called Odu or Olodu, from each of which are drawn sixteen subordinate
signs (omo-Odu, "children of the odu" or Odus). These represent
the sixteen essential life situations with sixteen possible variations
each. This means 256 possible combinations (Odu's) or two to the eighth
power. Each Odu is a recital of a set of poems called ese, that provide
clues for the resolution of the problem during a divination session. There
are at least, and by far not the most, 16 different ese's for each of the
256 Odu. This adds up to at least 4096 different scenarios. The goal of
the Babalawo is to arrive at the appropiate Odu for the situation of his
"querent".
Each of
the 256 Odu reveals an archetypal situation that was resolved in the
mythic past through sacrifice to an Orisa. In the thousands of Ifa poems,
the Orisa are organized into a community of spirits whose ase (power) can
can be brought to bear on the problems of individual men and women in need.
In this way, Ifa and the Babalawo priesthood are responsible for directing
the adherents of all the Orisa's by leading querents to them. Nearly all
the sacrifice/ebo of Ifa/Yoruba religion are offered to the Orisa's as a
result of divination. Ifa structures Orisa worship; the randomness of the
system ensures that all the Orisa's are duly venerated. Through Ifa, the
balance of the sacrificial relationship between heaven and earth is
maintained, for Ifa, through Odu (word of God), provides human beings with
information about their place in the world, their destiny, and what the
God's require of them. Ifa and the ceremonial life that it generates
constitute the organizing principle of the traditional Yoruba religious
vision. It is a view that finds human destiny "rooted in the breath
of God Almighty". Nothing happens by chance. There is a reason for
everything, and it is the duty of human beings to recognize this mystery.
Within the Odu lay the hidden messages of the unseen influences. These
messages are best interpreted by a well trained Babalawo during a
divination session.
This high
system of virtue held by hundreds of thousands of Yoruba men and women
survived the middle passage to the America's where they (we) were taken as
slaves. The deep-rooted virtues, expressed in each Odu, sustained the
African through one of history's darkest hours. Continue this cyber
journey if you must, as we shed light on the virtues and power (Ase) of
the
Odu.