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What is Ifá divination?
Ifá is a Yoruba divination system in which a babaláwo reads patterns of Odu signs to seek guidance from Orunmila, the deity of wisdom and destiny. Practitioners describe it as a sacred corpus of verses, not as guesswork or fortune-telling.
Facts checked on against 13 sources, 9 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| 1837 | Bascom reported that the first two Western studies of Ifa were carried out in this year.1 |
|---|---|
| Before the 19th century | Practitioners trace Ifá's origins to the sacred city of Ile-Ife, and oral tradition places the practice in a very long past.234 |
| 1921 | Samuel Johnson, a Yoruba Anglican priest, published The History of the Yorubas, which includes descriptions of Ifa and the role of the Babalawo.2 |
| 1969 | William R. Bascom published Ifa Divination: Communication Between Gods and Men in West Africa, analysing the divination process and the structure of the Odu Ifa.2 |
| 1976 | Wande Abimbola, a Yoruba scholar and Babalawo, published Ifa: An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus.2 |
| Late 20th century | The transcription of Ifa oral verses into written form began only towards the end of the twentieth century.1 |
| 2008 | The Ifa divination system was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, originally proclaimed in 2005.5 |
What the practice is
Among the Yoruba, divination is of great concern as a means to discover and influence changes in relationships with gods, ancestors and other spirits, in order to gain their aid in pursuing health and good fortune, according to Two Studies of Ifa Divination. Ifa is described in that work as the system of geomancy that yields the fullest information among the Yoruba divinatory techniques.6
Ifá divination works through the configurations called Odu: 256 in all, 16 principal and 240 minor. Practitioners draw the messages of a reading from a vast oral corpus known as the Odu Ifá.78
Ifá priests are described as representatives and mediums between humans and the Gods, and Ifá is described as the voice of Olodumare, the creator.9
Ifá is described as a body of knowledge and a system of social, emotional and pathological control, using historical and mythological precedents recited, chanted or sung by the babalawo.7
Diviners and training
Babalawo are trained Ifá priests and diviners in Yoruba communities of Nigeria, and their status is acquired through many years of rigorous training and experience rather than through lineage or honour.7
Babalawo training is an apprenticeship that often begins in childhood and extends into adulthood, and includes memorization, interpretation and practical application of the Ifa corpus. Bascom emphasized that the Babalawo's skill lies not just in memorization but in the nuanced interpretation and application of verses to the client's circumstances.2
Babalawo are the two most complex Ifa procedures users, a role described in the scholarly account of the practice; the most complex procedures are used by professional diviners called babalawo.6
Deciphering Ifa's messages to humans is described as requiring a person who is specially and carefully trained.10
Signs, tools and the reading
Ifá divination uses the ikin (16 palm nuts) or the opele (divining chain) to generate patterns that correspond to the Odu Ifa. A babalawo does not divine without either the opele divining chain or the ikin sacred palm nut.2117
Ifa geomancy uses a sign of Odu made of eight elements arranged in two columns of four, and there are sixteen principal Odu signs whose left and right columns are identical.6
Karade describes four steps in Ifa divination within the Yoruba context: divination, notation, interpretation and application.11
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Practitioners describe Orunmila as the deity of wisdom and destiny, and Ifa is often used for the name of the oracle that Orunmila animates. Ifa divination is described as a process of knowing God's will rather than speaking directly to God like a medium.631
Ifá's philosophy emphasizes balance, character (iwa pelé) and destiny (Oria). Ori is understood as the individual's personal destiny, chosen before birth in the presence of Olodumare, and Ifá's philosophy holds that human choices and ebo can shape how destiny unfolds.23
Chief Awódélé Ifáyẹmí states that Ifa Religion is balanced on three legs: Orunmila, Orisa and the Ancestors, and that Ifa practitioners do not regard their spirituality as a religion in the Western sense.4
Awo Fa'lokun Fatunmbi states that Ifa's cosmology holds that the microcosm is a reflection of the macrocosm, and describes Ifa divination as a way to identify how universal forces manifest in everyday life, using myth and symbols.12
Fatunmbi states that Ifa has no monasteries and no universities, and that the Ifa School of learning is the extended family, where everyone takes on the responsibility of being a mentor and teacher to younger generations.13
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
UNESCO states that, unlike some other regional divination forms that use spirit mediumship, Ifa does not depend on the diviner having oracular powers but on a system of signs interpreted by the diviner, the Ifa priest or babalawo. The Ifa divination system is applied whenever an important individual or collective decision has to be made.5
UNESCO states that the Ifa literary corpus, called odu, consists of 256 parts subdivided into verses called ese, and that the number of ese is not exactly known because it is constantly increasing. Each of the 256 odu has a specific divination signature, determined by the babalawo using sacred palm-nuts and a divination chain.52
Sophie B. Oluwolé states that the Ifa technique is one in which predictions are arrived at through the use of mathematical laws of probability, and that Ifa is conventionally treated as a Yoruba religious divination system.111
Sophie B. Oluwolé states that apprentices in the Ifa tradition have long been required to memorize a substantial number of Ifa texts to become professionals.1
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- Ifá is best understood as a learned, verse-based system of consultation whose authority rests on trained interpretation of signs, a point that the UNESCO account and the Bascom analysis both support.52
- Accounts of Ifá's history disagree on how much of its corpus was fixed in writing before recent decades, so the age of its texts remains unsettled.1113
Not yet confirmed
- How far back the Odu corpus can be traced in its present form, given that its verses were long transmitted orally?
- How did the sixteen principal Odu and their order come to be fixed across Yoruba-speaking regions?
- How were the Ifa traditions in the Americas shaped by enslaved Yoruba people and later by religious pressure in Africa?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- Internet Archive: Socrates and Ọ̀rúnmìlà : two patron saints of classical philosophy. Read on · Primary text
- Internet Archive: The Babalawo as Neural Network: Ifa Divination and Artificial Intelligence. Read on · Primary text
- Internet Archive: What is Ifa: The Living System of Wisdom, Divination, and Sacred Science of the Yoruba People. Read on · Primary text
- ileifa.org: Ifa Religion – An African Spiritual Tradition. Read on · Reference
- ich.unesco.org: Ifa divination system. Read on · Government
- cambridge.org: Two Studies of Ifa Divination | Africa | Cambridge Core. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- embracingspirituality.com: THE IFA DIVINATION PROCESS - EmbracingSpirituality. Read on · Reference
- asanee44.com: What Is Ifá Divination? A Beginner’s Guide to Sacred Insight | Asanee 44. Read on · Reference
- ifaglobalsite.com: What Is A Babalawo in IFA Yoruba Culture? | IFA Global Online. Read on · Reference
- sk.sagepub.com: Sage Reference - Encyclopedia of African Religion - Babalawo. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- Internet Archive: The Handbook Of Yoruba Religious Concepts. Read on · Primary text
- atla.libguides.com: African Traditional Religions: Ifa: Hermeneutics. Read on · Library
- research.auctr.edu: African Traditional Religions Textbook: Ifa: Hermeneutics. Read on · University