Ifá

Ifá is a Yorùbá system for reaching a decision by casting a signature, retrieving the memorised verses filed under it, and reasoning from the precedents they contain.

Each Odù is two columns of four marks, every mark single or double, giving four bits per column, eight bits in total, and exactly 256 possible signatures.

All 256 Odù listed with signatures, the 16 principal Odù in the competing ranking orders, and an honest account of where the sources disagree.

The verses filed under each Odù are case reports in verse, built to a described eight-part structure, held collectively across practitioners rather than by any one person.

What the instruments are, how a consultation runs from the client's whispered question to the prescribed offering, and which decisions belong to the diviner and which do not.

The decade or more of memorisation before initiation, the stages of entry, how knowledge is checked between practitioners, and the real disagreement about women in Ifá.

The mathematics of the system, the mnemonic architecture that makes a corpus this large holdable, and a careful separation of the documented claims from the popular ones.

How the sixteen-cowrie system, kola divination, and the Fon, Ewe, Cuban and Brazilian relatives relate to Ifá, and why formal similarity is weaker evidence than it looks.

How the corpus carries pharmacology, ethical reasoning and historical precedent, and how far the comparison between ẹsẹ Ifá and case law actually holds.

The 2005 proclamation and 2008 inscription, the state of practice in Nigeria and the diaspora, commercialisation and the online problem, and what a curious outsider should and should not do.

Which books matter, which editions to get, what is legitimately available online, what to read in what order, and how to judge the sources you will meet.