Study Guide: How to Read the Ifá Literature
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.
Di serious literature on Ifá small pass wetin di plenty things wey people write about Ifá dey show, and na three or four people write most of di ones wey really matter. Dis guide list di books, explain wetin each one dey do, tell you which ones dey legit to read online, and give di order wey person fit follow read dem. E still give criteria to judge di boku unreliable materials wey you go first see if you use search engine find am.
Di two main authors wey person no fit do without
Wándé Abímbọ́lá
Abimbola na di central figure inside Ifá scholarship: na Yorùbá scholar, trained babaláwo, former Vice-Chancellor of di University of Ifẹ̀, and di person wey do pass to make people see di corpus as literature wey deserve academic treatment. E dey write from inside di tradition and inside di university at di same time, na why e get authority and na still di reason why person need small caution about am.
Ifá: An Exposition of Ifá Literary Corpus (Ibadan: Oxford University Press, 1976). Di foundational analytical work. Part one cover cultural background and di divination process; part two analyze di form of Ifá texts and di stylistic features of di poetic language. Na dis book person go read if you want di literary and structural analysis. Dem reprint am; Athelia Henrietta Press still publish am (1997), ISBN 1890157007.
Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá (UNESCO, 1975). Sixteen long poems inside Yorùbá with English translation side-by-side, plus proper introduction wey cover di cult, di instruments, di divination process, sacrifice, training, and di literary and philosophical system, and appendix wey give di traditional interpretation wey Ifá priests demsef give for each poem. Na dis book useful pass for person wey just dey start, because di introduction na di best short explanation of how di whole system dey work and di poems go make you see wetin ẹsẹ Ifá really be. E dey available complete for Internet Archive .
Ifá Divination Poetry (New York: NOK Publishers, 1977), ISBN 9780883570470. Sixty-four poems inside Yorùbá with annotated English translation, after structural, stylistic and thematic analysis. Na inside dis book dem arrange di eight-part structure of ẹsẹ Ifá full. E hard to get pass di other two.
Ifá Will Mend Our Broken World (Roxbury, MA: Aim Books, 1997). E short pass, e easy to read pass, and e openly support di tradition pass. E useful, but read am with di understanding say di way e write am different from di 1976 and 1977 books.
Di caution. Abimbola na practitioner and scholar join, and e no pretend otherwise. For matters wey people dey drag, especially di ranking of di sixteen Odù, where e present im own list say e get "universal validity and acceptability" whereas Bascom survey of 86 lists find am for only half of dem, im writing fit make wetin people still dey debate look like say e don settle. Read am with Bascom beside am.
William Bascom
American anthropologist wey do fieldwork from di 1930s to di 1960s. E no be practitioner and e write as outsider, with di strength and blind spots wey follow dat kind position.
Ifa Divination: Communication Between Gods and Men in West Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969), 575 pp. Di standard scholarly monograph and di most thorough treatment of di system structure wey dey. Part one cover di apparatus, di figures, sacrifices and medicines, predictions and professional ethics, di diviners, and di belief system; part two print verses inside Yorùbá and English wey dem arrange by figure. E dey available complete for Internet Archive .
Read dis book for: di mathematics of di figures wey dem do properly, di survey of 86 lists wey show how variation plenty reach across different lineage, di comparative chapter wey place Ifá among African and world divination systems, and di correction of inflated Odù counts. Chapter IV, "The Figures of Ifa," na di single chapter wey get value pass for di whole literature for reader wey want understand di binary structure.
Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination from Africa to the New World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980; paperback 1993), ISBN 0253208475. Di standard work on top Ẹẹ́rìndínlógún and di necessary companion to understand di divination family. E dey available for Internet Archive .
Di caution. Bascom write with di ethnographic register of im time, and on top gender matter e talk straight say "only men can practice Ifa," position wey Ogunnaike later work show say e complex pass wetin Bascom know . Im fieldwork still lean well-well towards Ifẹ̀, na why e follow di Ifẹ̀ ranking instead of di one wey people know pass. E dey honest to talk am clearly.
Di other essential books
Kọ́lá Abímbọ́lá, Yorùbá Culture: A Philosophical Account (Birmingham: Iroko Academic Publishers, 2006), ISBN 1905388004. Philosophical treatment of Yorùbá thought with Ifá for centre, by philosopher of science and legal evidence wey still be consecrated babaláwo. Na di book to read for epistemology and reasoning structures instead of ethnography.
Jacob K. Olupona and Rowland O. Abiodun, eds., Ifá Divination, Knowledge, Power, and Performance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016), xvi + 371 pp., ISBN 9780253018908 (paperback), 9780253018823 (hardback). Di major modern edited volume and di best single guide to di current state of di field. Four sections: Ifá orature with im interpretation and translation; Ifá as knowledge, plus theoretical questions; Ifá for Afro-Atlantic; and sacred art inside Ifá. Di people wey contribute include Rowland Abiodun, Barry Hallen, Andrew Apter, Henry John Drewal, Kamari Clarke, Stefania Capone, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Wyatt MacGaffey, Philip Peek and M. Ajísẹbọ McElwaine Abimbola, wey im chapter on women inside Ifá priesthood relate directly to file 06 .
Bernard Maupoil, La Géomancie à l'ancienne Côte des Esclaves, Mémoires de l'Institut d'Ethnologie XLII (Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie, 1943), xxvii + 686 pp.; reissued 1981. Na di standard study of Fa among di Fọ̀n, from fieldwork for Lower Dahomey between 1933 and 1936. Dem never translate am go English, wey be real gap: na di most complete study of any West African geomantic system inside any language, and scholars wey dey write English dey mostly rely on second-hand information about am.
Pierre Fatumbi Verger, Ewé: The Use of Plants in Yoruba Society (Rio de Janeiro / São Paulo: Odebrecht, 1995), 744 pp., ISBN 8571645141. 2,216 plant preparations with dia incantations and how dem connect to Ifá signs, from forty years of fieldwork by scholar wey dem initiate as babaláwo for Kétu for 1953. Na work wey person must read on di pharmacological side. E dey Internet Archive .
Ron Eglash, African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999). Read am for di mathematics of African design systems, wey really get value, and read am carefully when e reach divination. Im recursion analysis na about Bamana sand divination no be Ifá, and im argument about transmission between binary and Leibniz na speculation and, as people dey repeat am around, e dey wrong. File 07 explain why.
Omotade Adegbindin, Ifá in Yorùbá Thought System (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2014). Na philosophical study wey critically engage wetin Wande Abimbola write. E useful to correct things and to show say people inside di field dey argue among diemselves.
Journal articles wey make sense to read directly
Ayodeji Ogunnaike, "Mamalawo? The Controversy Over Women Practicing Ifa Divination," Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and its Diaspora 4.1 (December 2018), pp. 15-34. Open access . Na di best work on di question of gender, e balance well-well, and na di main article wey dis section rely on pass.
Ayodeji Ogunnaike, "The Dynamic Spread of Geomancy in Africa." Na di most careful recent work on di relationship between Ifá and Islamic geomancy, wey argue say di transmission no just go one direction straight .
Wetin dey available online properly
Dem don confirm say e dey accessible for Internet Archive, wey dey lend scanned copies under controlled digital lending:
- Abimbola, Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá, full text
- Bascom, Ifa Divination, full text
- Bascom, Sixteen Cowries
- Verger, Ewé
Open access for web:
- Ogunnaike "Mamalawo?" article, from di journal own site
- UNESCO element page for Ifá, wey short and make sense to read completely
Note on di PDF sites. Copies of Bascom and Abimbola dey waka around document-sharing sites. Dia optical character recognition dey poor, especially for Yorùbá diacritics, wey dem dey frequently drop or corrupt. Any Yorùbá text wey person take from dis copies need checking with printed edition, and dis corpus dey mark where e don restore diacritics from bad scans.
How to read dem in order
Start here. Abimbola, Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá, introduction only, pages 1 to 32. About one hour. E cover di training, di instruments, di divination process, sacrifice, di 256 Odù and di structure of di verses, from scholar-practitioner, and na di best and fastest orientation wey dey available.
Next. Bascom, Ifa Divination, Chapter IV, "The Figures of Ifa." Na here dem do di binary structure well-well with details, including di tables of figures, di two competing seniority orders, and di correction of di inflated Odù counts. If na di information-system question interest you, na dis chapter you dey go and plenty things for file 02 and file 03 come from am.
Next. Di poems inside Sixteen Great Poems, dey read di Yorùbá and di English together even without Yorùbá, and then di appendix, wey give di priests own interpretations. Na here you go stop to dey treat di corpus like abstract thing.
Next, depending on wetin interest you.
For di place of di system among other divination systems: Bascom, Ifa Divination, di introduction, pages 3 to 12, wey contain di three-principle analysis and di comparative survey. Then Sixteen Cowries.
For gender and di contemporary community: read Ogunnaike "Mamalawo?" in full.
For philosophy and epistemology: Kọ́lá Abímbọ́lá, Yorùbá Culture, then Adegbindin.
For di current field: di Olupona and Abiodun volume, chapter by chapter as di topics dey interest you.
For di mathematics: Eglash, African Fractals, read am while file 07 dey open.
For pharmacology: Verger, Ewé, make you use am as reference instead of to read everything straight.
Read dis ones last, if you go read dem at all. Popular books wey dey promise di meanings of all di 256 Odù, and websites wey dey offer di same thing. By dis time, you go fit see wetin dey wrong with dem.
How to judge any source wey you see
Six practical tests, wey come from di errors wey dis section don document.
Shey e give number wey no be 256? Claims of 4,096 or 65,536 Odù come from error wey Bascom correct for 1969 . Source wey dey repeat dem never read di standard literature.
Shey e present one ranking of di sixteen Odù say na di only correct one? Bascom see 21 different rankings across 86 lists . Source wey no know say lineages dey differ dey carry one lineage make am look like universal thing.
Shey e talk say Leibniz get binary from Ifá? Na lie, and file 07 give di dates. Dis single test go wipe out plenty of di popular material.
Shey e talk say fractals or recursion dey inside Ifá and cite Eglash? Na wrong attribution: Eglash recursion analysis na about Bamana sand divination .
Shey e dey give confident meanings for all di 256 Odù? No published scholarship provide dis one. Kind lists like dat dey come from practitioner and commercial sites, dey mix Nigerian with Cuban with things dem invent, and person no fit trace where dem come from.
Shey e separate wetin tradition talk from wetin scholars document from wetin missionaries claim? Source wey mix di three together, person no fit rely on am for any of dem.
Wetin no dey inside di literature
E dey good make person know dis ones before dem start dey look for am.
Di whole corpus. Di collection dem wey don publish na only few hundred verses dem get, compared to di estimated hundred thousand or pass like dat wey dey. Complete edition no dey, and e no likely say e go ever dey.
Mata wey dey only for initiates. Higher initiation procedure and mata wey concern òrìṣà Odù no dey published, and scholars wey touch dem talk say na only part of am dem dey describe .
One final Odù list. No be say scholars fail to arrange one, but na because different lineage genuinely get different arrangement .
Maupoil for English. Still never dey.
Systematic study on digital and online Ifá. E just dey start, and e still small.
Small note on reading as Yorùbá person
For reader wey be Yorùbá and wey dem teach say na darkness, one practical observation dey.
Di academic work na mostly Yorùbá scholars write am. Wande Abimbola, Kọ́lá Abímbọ́lá, Jacob Olupona, Rowland Abiodun, Ayodeji Ogunnaike, Omotade Adegbindin, Oyeronke Olajubu. To read dis literature no mean say you dey read wetin outsiders write about your heritage. Na your own people academic work you dey read, wey plenty of dem come from Nigerian and American universities over di last fifty years, and wey plenty of dem do through discussion with di practitioners wey hold di knowledge.
Di exception, wey big well well, na say di earliest descriptions come from missionaries and colonial people. Bascom assessment on dat ones, say e show di lack of understanding, prejudices and superstitions of di observers wey record dem, na professional judgment of anthropologist wey read all of dem . Na dat literature bring di demonisation, and now e don turn historical artifact instead of proper source.