Puerto Rico, and the United States; Voudun in
Haiti; Shango in Cuba; and Candomblé in Brazil.
Ifa also retains its name and orthodox form in
Nigeria and has begun to grow in the United
States in orthodox and modified forms. Thus, the
Odu Ifaremains the spiritual and ethical source
for practicing an ancient living tradition for com-
munities around the world. Moreover,Odu Ifais
one of the great sacred texts of the world and a
classic of African and world literature. Like all
great sacred texts, it includes a wide range of lit-
erary forms and subjects ranging from divination,
art,literature,andmedicinetohistory,spirituality,
and moral instructions for daily life.
The wordOduis open to various interpreta-
tions, but in the Kawaida tradition,Oduis trans-
lated as “Baskets of Sacred Wisdom.” Thus, the
nameOdu Ifacan be translated as “Baskets of
Sacred Wisdom of Ifa.” This name evolves from
the Ifa creation narrative in which Olodumare,
God,givesorisha(divinespiritswhoaidGod)and
humans baskets of sacred wisdom to make the
worldgood.Thereare256odu(baskets,chapters)
and innumerable verses calledese. Each chapter
or odu is a container of sacred wisdom for use by
humans to make the world and life in it good.
The name Ifa has three interrelated meanings:
It is at once the name of a corpus of moral and
spiritual wisdom, an intricate system of divination
thatiscontainedinthatbodyofknowledge,andan
alternate name of Orunmila, the sage, master
teacher, and “divine witness to creation” who
taught this sacred wisdom. Abimbola describes the
structure of each ese Ifa or verse of Ifa as having a
maximumofeightparts.Theseinclude
- names of priests involved in past divinations,
- clients named for whom the divination is
performed, - reasons for the divination,
- instructions from the divinations to priest and
client, - compliance or noncompliance by the client,
- consequences to the client based on compliance
or noncompliance, - reactions of joy or sorrow by the client, and
- a moral lesson drawn from the narrative.
Ethics of the Odu
Traditionally, divination and sacrifice are key
pillars in the practice of Ifa, and these remain the
bedrockofthisfaithtradition.However,thereisa
growing discourse on the ethics of the Odu that
gained initiative and impetus from the work of
Maulana Karenga, professor of Africana Studies
at California State University, Long Beach
(CSULB). In 1999, he called an International
Conference on Yoruba Culture and Ethics held at
CSULB; University of California, Los Angeles;
and the Kawaida Institute of Pan-African Studies
to introduce and create discourse and exchange
around his textOdu Ifa:The Ethical Teachings.
In his introduction, Karenga claims that his
work is part of a larger corpus of modern transla-
tions of ancient texts accompanied with com-
mentary to provide both interpretation and
transmissionoftheIfátraditionoftheYoruba.His
aimwastoshiftthefocustoethicsandawayfrom
onlydivination.Toachievethis,Karengamovedto
discover and extract explicit and implicit moral
teachingsgivingduereferencetobalancingancient
meanings with modern moral interpretations and
concerns. Also, given the central role of the con-
cept and practice of sacrifice in the Ifa tradition,
Karenga sought to expand the understanding of
sacrifice, definingsacrificeas both “ritual perfor-
mance and moral practice.” He definedritual per-
formanceas essentially “object-giving” andmoral
practiceas “self-giving,” allowing that one could
do both simultaneously or separately. Finally, he
retranslatedthephrasea dífá fún,whichisusually
translated as “divination was performed for,” to
expand its meaning to also “the teachings of
Ifa were interpreted for” or “this is the teachings
of Ifa for.” This allowed for the texts to be
approached as moral instructions concerned with
the problematic and promise of the central Ifa
moral imperative to bring good into the world.Ifa Teachings
Withinthisframework,severalmajorthemesform
the bedrock of ethical Ifa teachings in theOdu
Ifa. The first is the goodness of the world. The
Odu 10:2 relates that, at the time of creation,
Olodumare, God, sent orisha into the world to
make the world good and that he gave them the476 Odu Ifa