Onboarding: Section Index
Guide to the eight files in the onboarding section, what each covers, and which to read first depending on what brought you here.
This section is the plain-language entry to the corpus. Four explainers give an accurate working picture of Ifá, the òrìṣà, Yorùbá history and Yorùbá thought in about an hour of reading each. A glossary covers every Yorùbá term used anywhere in the corpus. A pronunciation guide makes the diacritics readable. Learning paths give four ordered routes with time estimates. A FAQ answers the questions people actually ask, including the uncomfortable ones.
Nothing here requires anything else first. The pronunciation guide is worth doing before the rest, because it is fifteen minutes and it makes every Yorùbá word in the corpus readable.
The files
01. Ifá in Fifteen Minutes. The whole divination system: what Ọ̀rúnmìlà, Èṣù, the babaláwo, the Odù, the ẹsẹ, the ọ̀pẹ̀lẹ̀, the ikin and the ọpọ́n are; how a consultation actually runs, including the fact that the client does not state the problem; the exact mechanics of both casting methods; and the binary structure done properly, separating what is genuinely there from the claim that Ifá is the origin of computing, which it is not.
02. The Òrìṣà in Fifteen Minutes. What an òrìṣà is and the two kinds of origin the tradition gives; the major figures, Ọbàtálá, Ọ̀rúnmìlà, Èṣù, Ògún, Ṣàngó, Ọya, Ọ̀ṣun, Yemọja and others; how devotion actually works, shrine, offering, praise, drumming, possession and festival; and what the pantheon is not.
03. Yorùbá History in Fifteen Minutes. Four thousand years in one pass with dating confidence marked throughout: origins at the Niger-Benue confluence, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and the classical period, Ọ̀yọ́ and its constitutional structure, the nineteenth-century wars and the Atlantic trade including Yorùbá participation in it, mission and conquest, the making of "Yorùbá" as a single identity, and the twentieth century to now.
04. Yorùbá Thought in Fifteen Minutes. Orí and the inner head; àyànmọ́ and why the destiny system is not fatalism, including Àjàlá the potter and the three ways destiny is obtained; ìwà and why the Ifá corpus holds character above sacrifice and above destiny; ọmọlúàbí and the named virtues; àṣẹ; and the Yorùbá analysis of what a person is.
05. Glossary. Over three hundred Yorùbá terms used across the corpus, alphabetised, each with full diacritics, a literal gloss where the etymology is documented, a plain definition and a pointer to the section that treats it fully. Etymologies that are widely repeated but not established are marked contested rather than presented as fact.
06. Learning Paths. Four ordered routes with time estimates: the curious newcomer, the diaspora Yorùbá reconnecting with heritage, the reader who came specifically for Ifá as an information system, and the parent who wants to teach children, the last with an age-by-age sequence and two cautions.
07. FAQ. The real questions, answered directly with sources, including whether there was human sacrifice, Yorùbá participation in the slave trade, whether this is a religion or a culture, whether you can practise without initiation, whether it is appropriative for a non-Yorùbá person to engage, whether women can be initiated into Ifá, and whether you have to choose between this and your faith.
08. Pronunciation Guide. What the diacritics do: subdots as separate letters, tone marks as pitch, the two together, the consonants that are not what they look like, nasal vowels, syllable shape, ten words worth getting right, and links to free audio resources.
Where to start
If you want one hour: the explainer that matches what brought you here, then the conceptual map in the foundations section.
If you want a route: file 06, learning paths, which has four of them.
If you came for the binary structure of Ifá: file 01, and read all of it rather than skipping to the binary section, because the mechanics are what make the binary section mean anything.
If you were taught this heritage was demonic: start in the foundations section with the file on the demonization, then come back here.
Keep open in another tab regardless: the glossary and the pronunciation guide.