Ọ̀rúnmìlà

The Witness Behind Ifá

Earliest record: the 1650sthe ọpọ́n Ifá in the Weickmann collection at Museum Ulm — in a German cabinet of curiosities by the 1650s, dated to about 1650 by Ezio Bassani, and the oldest known to survive: evidence of the practice Ọ̀rúnmìlà stands behind rather than of the name itself. Ifá's own verses, as recorded by Bascom (1969) and Abimbola (1976), place him among the primordial irúnmọlẹ̀ at Ilé-Ifẹ̀ before human beings were made — a claim to priority over history rather than a date within it, which is why no claimed year is set against it.

The oldest surviving Ifá tray was in Germany before 1659, in Christoph Weickmann's Ulm collection; Museum Ulm calls it sub-Saharan Africa's oldest known carved wooden artwork.

Museum Ulm, object record AB 1486, 'Ifa-Brett' (museum-digital: baden-württemberg); Ezio Bassani, 'The Ulm Opon Ifa (ca. 1650): A Model for Later Iconography', in The Yoruba Artist (1994)

Yoruba òrìṣà of wisdom and divination, witness of each person's destiny.

More context

Ọ̀rúnmìlà is an òrìṣà, not the supreme being. Olódùmarè stands above him. On E. Bọlaji Idowu's 1962 reading, the praise name ìbìkejì Olódùmarè marks a rank next below him, not an equivalence. Elérìí Ìpín, witness to destiny, names his office: he was present in òrun when each person chose an orí, and it is that choice a babaláwo is consulted to recover. The oldest surviving ọpọ́n Ifá was in Christoph Weickmann's Ulm cabinet of curiosities by the 1650s. The Ìjẹ̀ṣà-born babaláwo Remigio Herrera was sold into slavery and shipped to Cuba in the 1830s, and died there in 1905. He founded one of the lineages that know Ọ̀rúnmìlà as Orula. UNESCO proclaimed Ifá a Masterpiece in November 2005. Ifá is that system and its 256 odù; Ọ̀rúnmìlà is the òrìṣà the verses quote, and Èṣù, not he, carries the ẹbọ they prescribe.

Light

Wande Abimbola's 1975 essay on ìwà pẹ̀lẹ́ makes gentle character the basis of the conduct the Ifá verses teach.

Shadow

A destiny witnessed before birth can read as fixed fate; Segun Gbadegesin (1991) asks whether orí leaves room for agency.

Sources12 sources

Primary source

UNESCO, Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, 2005, Ifa Divination System, Nigeria; proclaimed 25 November 2005, inscribed on the Representative List in 2008The international designation of the Ifa divination system (proclaimed 2005, inscribed 2008), which names the deity 'Ifa or Orunmila' and describes the corpus of 256 odu and their ese chanted by the babalawo.
The word Ifa refers to the mystical figure Ifa or Orunmila, regarded by the Yoruba as the deity of wisdom and intellectual development.
Museum Ulm, Ifa-Brett (object record AB 1486), museum-digital: baden-württemberg, object 2776; dated 'Vor 1659'; Sammlung Christoph Weickmann (1617-1681)The Ulm Ifá divination tray, from the collection of the merchant Christoph Weickmann and dated before 1659, which the museum calls the oldest known artistically carved wooden object from sub-Saharan Africa.
das älteste bekannte, künstlerisch gestaltete Holzobjekt Schwarzafrikas

Scholarship

E. Bọlaji Idowu, Olódùmarè: God in Yoruba Belief, 1962, LongmansIdowu's account of Olódùmarè as the supreme being, distinct from and above the òrìṣà, with Ọ̀rúnmìlà placed among the divinities — the reading on which ìbìkejì Olódùmarè names a rank next below Olódùmarè rather than equivalence to him. Idowu's systematisation has itself been contested since the 1970s as Christian monotheism read backwards.
William Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa, 1969, Indiana University PressThe mechanics of the practice: sixteen ikin or the ọ̀pẹ̀lẹ̀ chain, the sixteen principal odù combining into 256 figures, and the babaláwo as a reciter of memorised verse rather than a seer with powers of his own.
Wande Abimbola, Ifá: An Exposition of Ifá Literary Corpus, 1976, Oxford University Press, IbadanIfá is a literary corpus of 256 odù, each holding many ẹsẹ transmitted orally; the corpus is what a babaláwo consults, and Ọ̀rúnmìlà is the òrìṣà whose word it carries.
Segun Gbadegesin, African Philosophy: Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities, 1991, Peter LangThe philosophical problem inside orí and àyànmọ́ — whether a destiny chosen and witnessed before birth leaves room for agency — debated within Yoruba thought rather than imposed on it.
Ezio Bassani, The Ulm Opon Ifa (ca. 1650): A Model for Later Iconography, 1994, in Rowland Abiodun, Henry J. Drewal and John Pemberton III (eds.), The Yoruba Artist, Smithsonian Institution PressThe divination tray in the seventeenth-century Ulm collection of the German merchant Christoph Weickmann is dated to about 1650 and is the earliest documented ọpọ́n Ifá.
David H. Brown, Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion, 2003, University of Chicago PressThe nineteenth-century founding lineages of Cuban Ifá and Ocha, including the Ìjẹ̀ṣà-born babaláwo Remigio Herrera, known as Adéṣínà, sold into slavery and shipped to Cuba in the 1830s, freed by mid-century and dead in 1905.
Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mapping Yorùbá Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities, 2004, Duke University PressThe transnational circuits along which Ifá initiation, titles, fees and travelling practitioners move between Nigeria and African American communities in the United States, and the contest over who may confer authority along them.
Marloes Janson, Crossing Religious Boundaries: Islam, Christianity, and 'Yoruba Religion' in Lagos, Nigeria, 2021, Cambridge University Press, International African Library; chapter 5, 'Reviving Yoruba Religion'Ìjọ Ọ̀rúnmìlà Ato, a congregational Ọ̀rúnmìlà body founded in Lagos in 1920 by a Yoruba Anglican after a vision, worships with hymns, prayers and sermons modelled on mission-church and later Pentecostal forms.

The tradition itself

The odù of Ifá, oral corpusỌ̀rúnmìlà is Elérìí Ìpín, witness to destiny, present in òrun when each person chose an orí; the verses are recited as his testimony to that choice.