Ifangelism: The challenge of a resurgent cosmology

The endorsement by the Oyo State government of the Ifa divination choice of Prince Abimbola Owoade as the Alaafin of Oyo is undoubtedly an official confirmation of the continuing relevance of an old-time practice in the present tense.

Even as Ifa is a documentation of Yoruba thought and philosophy, it is conveyed in poetry, prose, chant, litany and song. A compendium of aphorisms, proverbs and mythologies, Ifa is the major source of information on the life and views of Orunmila – the avatar of Yoruba thought system and of religious divination.

It is difficult to identify discrepancies in the details of the life and thought of Orunmila as the authors of the canon of the oral literature on him have been identified as his associates or ardent students who knew him in person.

From the beginning, the tradition was established for the mandatory committal to memory by the student, of a substantial number of the more than 4000 major Ifa texts as precondition for becoming a professional. The more adept a professional is in memorising a large corpus of the Ifa text, the more competent he is deemed. Fidelity to Ifa text is sacrosanct.

It is refreshing to note that Ifa is not just about divination as is popularly conjectured. A foremost contemporary Ifa priest or Babalawo says “Ifa deals with all subjects … history, geography, religion, music, philosophy …There is certainly no limit to the subject matter which Ese-Ifa may deal with” (Wande Abimbola, 1976). Emanuel corroborates Abimbola:  “Subject matters treated by Ifa include mythology, cosmology, religion, theology, nature, medicine, sociology, ethics, psychology and philosophy” (Emanuel, 2000).

It is to the eternal credit of the resourcefulness of the ancients respecting an unrelenting search for knowledge, a commitment to its unfettered promotion and an unwavering devotion to its established ethos that we are blessed today with easily the world’s greatest knowledge Bank or repository, Ifa.

Today, a considerable number of Ifa texts has been transcribed into writing. This is a great landmark effort regarding the elimination of difficulties each time we strive to compare ideas in our oral tradition with those of others in written form. There used to occur, the danger of literal, facile translation as metaphorical translation was largely unattainable.

Even as there are no revealed religions in Africa, Ifa is the incomparable exemplar of the practice of a people who undisguisedly present their religion as a human institution which precepts were formulated by Olodumare-inspired persons – not by way of tablets scripted by God and delivered to a patriarch or Messenger for onward transmission to a flustered, distraught people – a people who have been waiting but are forever unprepared.

We should be able to refer a work of art to the values of its own time and of the periods subsequent to its own. There is today a danger that is doing harm secretly or unobtrusively. It is a creeping relativism to the effect that values respecting Ifa orthodoxy, for example, are not absolute. There is a disturbingly observable anarchy of errors.

The unscholarly attitude to want to exclude serious study or of paying little attention to Ifa literature is the consequence of what we experienced in the back and forth disputation that tended to diminish the role of the ardent or living Ifa master. Professor Wande Abimbola has been accepted into good and regular standing as a conventional Ifa literary historian and diviner. It has become fashionable to refer to him as today’s avatar of the mores and traditions of the Ifa epistemology.

The application of modern sensibilities to our understanding of the pristine nuances of the rich antedeluvian lyric of Ifa is sure to give a misleading and detrimental perspective to our Ifa heritage. It ought to be avoided. This, of course, is not a plea for arbitrary subjective misreading or interpretation. We are however not entitled to judge the pedagogy of Ifa solely from the point of view of our time even as we are encouraged to re-evaluate the past in terms of the needs of a present-day or of contemporaneous development.

It is to the glory of the enduring, timeless nature or chemistry of Ifa that it has been able to endure till today the onslaught of foreign or imported religions. It has wrestled valiantly with Western and Arabic anthropology under which moral laws were presumed promulgated by the gods of their fathers or patriarchs. The a priori or deductive conceptual formulation approach of Ifa which though shared by Christianity and Islam, is laughably used against Ifa as being subjective in content and intent.

The use of Ifa divination in the selection process of an oba is, in some sectarian quarters, ignorantly derided as unscientific. The allegation of corruption or of corruptive influences in the appointment of an oba even though undermines the integrity of the selection process, if proven, does not exhaust or is not equivalent to the pristine intention of the process. No social history or of the appointment of persons into offices has ever been possible without the application of the principles of selection and of some attempt at evaluation. That is one of the pivotal purposes of Ifa, properly so stated.

In a situation of competitive bidding for social positions or assignments, Ifa’s clarity of mind and its disinterested historicity are summoned to resolve the befuddling issues. Shorn of human political interference, Ifa’s verdict has always been just, fair and all-time correct.

The culture, religion and language of the Yoruba, encapsulated in the Ifa corpus, are today threatened with extinction as the people accord scant regard to this rare gift of God and as they embrace the mores and gods of other people. The whole world is pitifully at the brink of losing “a compendium of the experience of the Yoruba people throughout the ages; experience about animals, trees and various mountains, about forests, about fish, about seas, about …humans. It is a whole library.” What monumental loss will it be!

We close with a frightful conclusion: “If Ifa becomes extinct, it is [we], the Yoruba, that go extinct.” Professor Wande Abimbola,  undeniably the greatest Ifangelist of our time, has gloomily warned.

Ifangelism as a counterpoise to Evangelism is the sharing of the good news or gospel of Ifa in order to convince someone to join or accept Ifa epistemology or worldview.

It is a curious imitative coinage of my friend, Kunle Agboluaje, who is richly endowed with quick reflexes, swift repartee and a refreshing wit.

May he continue to enrich our vocabulary.

Rotimi-John,  a Lawyer and commentator on public affairs, is the Deputy Secretary-General of Afenifere.
He can be reached via:[email protected]