Yoruba Theology and Tradition - The Worship by Salami Ayo

Author:Salami, Ayo [Salami, Ayo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ifarcity
Published: 2014-11-07T16:00:00+00:00

hapter 6a

The verses of Ifá

After the initial manipulation of the Ìbò, the Babaláwo has concluded his initial investigation and would begin to chant his poems. As a preamble, let us examine these verses so as to know their characteristics, genesis and usage.

The verses of Ifá talk about everything - that is in Heaven, in the life of all, visible, and invisible; alive or dead. No exception. From the simplicity of the water and food we eat to the complexity of the atmosphere; from the heartwarming christening of children to the dark and obscure life after death. The events that had happened, the ones happening now and the ones that would happen when our generation ceases to exist, all are contained in Ifá. The verses of Ifá are not limited by time, space or energy.

In a letter written to Geomantia Nova around 1119-1157 AD 105 , one of the major problems the African literature (the verses of Ifá) has in its primitive presentation is lack of documentation. Ifá verses existed long before man since it is the word of Olódùmarè; but because there were no methods to document such a large volume of instructions, it has suffered and become relegated to the background

Hugh refers to both the symbols of the 16 Tetragrams of IFÁ and the 28 Lunar Mansions of Chinese Astronomy. In Europe IFÁ became confused with Western Astrology so that much of the meaning of IFÁ was lost or distorted in European Geomancy of 16 Tetragrams. When the I Ching was introduced into Europe, it was treated as a separate system based on 8 Trigrams, rather than a subsystem of the the 16 Tetragrams. Since the Europeans had access to a lot of written Chinese material about the I Ching, and since IFÁ has been primarily an oral/intuitive tradition , and since the Europeans relied heavily on written transmission of knowledge, in Europe the 8 Trigrams of I Ching (a part of IFÁ) retained more of its original meaning than the 16 Tetragrams. – Hugh of Santalla (N/W Spain)

105 Terrestrial Astrology, Divination by Geomancy, by Stephen Skinner (Routledge and Kegan Paul 1980);

The tetragrams are some sort of graphical representation which we would see later in the course of this book as one of the explanations of the relationship existing between Ifá and other forms of divination in our world today. According to Tony Smith:

The Global Early Religion of the Global Early Civilization was probably similar to IFÁ , the indigenous religion of Africa, the place of origin of Humanity. Most likely, ALL Human Religions evolved from IFÁ, sometimes introducing special characteristics based on Local/Regional cultures after the breakup of the Global Early Civilization .

Thus the First civilization in Mexico called the ‘Olmec’, (which later gave birth to the Maya) was a product of the African heritage and a meticulous search of the words of Ifá would reveal such, as nothing that happened in the life of the man is out of the context of the words of Olódùmarè.

Revelation of

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