a few crates of chickens. Even though I'd finally supplied my own (the price deducted from the fee), Iya Orite gladly purchased what the farmer delivered. She'd have plenty of use for them.
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Background on Ifa divination from the patient explanations of Oba Oseijeman Adefumni I of Oyotunji, and Chief A. J. Ajamu of Miami, as well as to two of William L. Bascom's authoritative accounts,
Ifa Divination: Gods and Men in West Africa
, 1969, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, and
Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination, Africa to the New World
, 1980, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. I have also drawn from conversations with Dr. Afolabi A. Epega of the Bronx, and his book
Ifa: The Ancient Wisdom
, 1987, Imole Oluwa Institute, New York.
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The odu known as Irete Fu, for example, would look like this:
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| Deciphering the odu means unlocking the sequence of the casting. Though it appears complicated, the procedure is relatively simple once you grasp the basic rules. The first is to read everything backwards. To read the odu Irete Fu, start with the top figure in the
right
column, then move horizontally across the top figure in the
left
column, and so on down for each row.
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| Each of the eight marks in the columns is an indication of how many nuts were left behind, or with the opele, how many were face up or down. The methodology derives from the older ikin method. When the babalawo throws the eight nuts onto a sacred mat, he can only use his left hand to scoop them up. But he can't hold them all (or so tradition dictates) in his fist, and either one or two are left behind. Three or more disqualifies the throw.
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| After each throw, the babalawo indicates in the dirt, or these days on paper, whether one or two nuts remained. He does this eight times, marking the results in two columns of four rows each. But reversed.
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| Thus, a double mark (II) indicates a single nut, while a single mark (I) indicates two remaining nuts. That meansreading the top row, right to leftthat on his first throw, the babalawo left two nuts behind, then one on his second. And so on.
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