While I learn the different messages of Ifa from the Araba I like to imagine situations in which they are applicable and it’s absurdly easy for some of them. For some like in Oturupon Meji, where Ifa warns against the treachery of a hunchbacked friend or Irete Agbe where Ifa says a person should make a sacrifice with a friend who possesses the same red piece of headgear as the client, very little imagination is required. But my favorite this week was in Irosun-Agbe. Since elections are looming here, I thought this one was incredibly pertinent. It tells the story of two birds who are brothers and goes like this:
Their father went to a Babalawo to cast divination to see the future of his sons. The Babalawo told him that they would become important and successful provided they made a sacrifice he prescribed and were never greedy. The elder brother was a little cocky and full of himself and didn’t bother to make it. The younger brother, however, was a very meek person and made the sacrifice right away.
A short time later their father died and the king announced that a title had become vacant. This title was hereditary and had to be occupied by someone in that family. Usually there are power struggles for a title or chieftaincy, but the younger sibling knew how much his brother would want it and also that he must not be greedy, so he didn’t even offer his name for consideration. So the elder became the new chief and thoroughly enjoyed himself there.
One day there was a huge festival in the town, and the townspeople made lots of food. The elder brother had a great time sitting on his throne, eating all of the wonderful food prepared for him, but out of the corner of his eye he noticed a butterfly getting caught by thorns in the bush not too far away. Now it just so happened that butterfly was this bird’s favorite food, so he naturally exclaimed that he was going to go eat it. All of his attendants begged him to stay put, after all it was a festival and there was no shortage of delicious food. No matter how much the people begged, the elder brother wouldn’t listen and flew out to eat the butterfly. Unfortunately for him he too got caught in the bush while he was trying to get to the butterfly and died there. Since his office was now vacant, the younger brother became the new chief, fulfilling what the Babalawo had said at the very beginning.
Lots of the politicians here employ Babalawo to help them gain power, so I hope some of them will cast Irosun-Agbe for them and they listen. Especially some of our friends from a certain political party that has recently had lots of “birds” who have been caught by “thorns” while trying to catch “butterflies” when they already had plenty of food. Oju kokoro...
Politics aside, I think I am starting to really get a grasp on Ifa. I’ve seen the Araba cast Ifa for clients tons of times, and he always seems to have a grasp on the situation even though he hasn’t been told... The most fun part for me is that several times this week when certain signs have come up, I have recognized them and known exactly what the Araba was going to say about them. He even had me cast the Opele for his daughter a few days ago. I didn’t really have much to do with the whole process, I just dropped the Opele, and he interpreted everything, but it is pretty cool to be able to look at a chain and have so much information pop up. I’m only about 3/16ths of the way through the whole corpus and I already have so much of it in my head sometimes when I think about it, it feels like my head is going to explode...
I also thought I noticed that a lot of the messages were the same (I can’t even remember how many of them say for example that this person is having trouble having children for example), but when I went back and started studying my notes some more, I realized that they are almost all at least slightly different. While the description of the problems are almost identical (the problems are usually, enemies, death or sickness, lack of children, lack of money or respect or some variation thereof) but the solutions to these problems are usually different. Sometimes a sacrifice needs to be made with special objects (like the red hat I mentioned earlier or another in which two statues need to be carved and buried in front of the front and back door so death will try to take them instead of the inhabitants of that house), sometimes the sacrifice needs to be made to different deities, and sometimes it is attributed to the work of enemies. When I realized that I was really fascinated, especially in the case of the ones that had herbal remedies attributed to them, and I wished western medicine were a bit more like that. We tend to try to come up with a one-size-fits-all prescription drug for every disease when every person needs something a bit different and reacts to treatment differently.
The dry season has officially hit, even though it’s very late this year. It has stopped raining every day, and it’s gotten a bit too hot for my liking, especially since NEPA (Nigerian Electrical-Power Association or Nigerian Electrical Paralysis Organization depending on whom you ask) went on strike and we were without power for about two and a half days. It also means that everyone is going to be trying to have parties and celebrations. The reason I knew was because there was little chance of it literally raining on someone’s party, but the Araba told me that people with farms will also start having more money for their crops now so they will want to spend it. The Araba has gotten invited to too many parties already and he’s pretty sick of it already. On Friday he wanted to run away to his unfinished house to avoid everyone but there was too much work to do. I’m pretty glad I don’t have to show up to too many.
Well that’s all for now. I think I am going to go out and buy some red hats for all of my friends, just in case a Babalawo every casts Irete-Agbe for me (just kidding).
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