Odduns
In a land called Nilé, when anyone died they had to go to a special priest called a Borokaton, who was more of a witch than a priest and was dedicated to trafficking with the dead and acting like a fortuneteller. The Borokaton used a tall clay pot that he claimed contained the secret of heaven within it.
When a person died, their family would take two hens and go to this Borokaton, who would then go to work. Before long they would hear the voice of the dead person coming from the jar. Also, any time a child was born they would use the jar to learn which spirit was the child’s protector.
But there was a man named Gogo who went to the obá of this land, informing his liege of a man named Mokobí Awó who knew a system called Ifá, which he used to divine everything people needed to know about the past, present, and future. One year there came a huge drought, and it was a disaster. They went to every Borokaton in the land, but none of them knew how to make the rain come. Then the obá remembered what he had heard about this man named Mokobí Awó and called for him.
When Mokobí Awó arrived, he saw the obá with Ifá and marked the ebbó needed to make the rain fall anew and, in the process, prove Ifá was a True Seer.
Later the babalawo was called before the Royal Court to explain Ifá. Mokobí explained that Ifá consisted of sixteen Meyis or Olodus. And when Olodumare wanted to create something, he would use these sixteen Olodus, who each in turn had sixteen omolus, each of whom brought something different, and each Ifá was the owner of its own language.
He continued, telling them that all newborns had to be presented to a babalawo within the first three months of birth for divination to learn the child’s destiny and which oricha they should worship.
Ifá knows the history of everything in the universe, both in this world and in Orun, the other world. He has command over the sacrifices that would make things right and to open the doors of the Other World to reveal the truth. And that each thing must be made happy first in Orun in order to be happy in this world thanks to Elegguá and Ifá.
“The odduns of Ifá are stronger than any sorcery.”
Ifá is a spiritual matrix containing everything in existence and every possible human experience. This matrix is made up of a grid composed of 256 odduns, cosmic archetypes representing the organization of aché in nature as well as the human situations that we may encounter in life. They are the living repositories containing the totality of the knowledge and information making up the world around us. And as we have seen, in Ifá the entire universe is regarded as being made up of knowledge and information and the world consists of information in conjunction with the consciousness apprehending that information. It is through knowledge, understanding, and consciousness of that information that change occurs in our universe. This is why Orula’s role as Elerí Iküín is such a profound one. Not only was he the sole witness to the original creation of the universe but he is also the indispensable witness as the universe is constantly created all around us. He is also the only oricha that knows the destinies of everything in the universe including the orichas and human beings.
One oddun in Ifá says children of a particular sign are connected to a special spirit which makes it possible for them to get anything they ask for, good or bad, by performing a simple ritual along with a prayer. But what the beginning babalawo doesn’t know is when you translate the accompanying prayer for the ritual, it is simply asking the spirit to “enlighten me”!
Ifá’s joke here reminds me of a story from Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism about Chao-chou’s famous stone bridge. It was said that the bridge would impart enlightenment to anyone who crossed it. Monks would go on pilgrimages to see the bridge, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles on foot. When they finally arrived, however, they found the famous stone bridge was merely a bunch of logs over a stream, but just as with Ifá’s trick, upon seeing this “famous stone bridge” some would indeed attain sudden enlightenment.
But the real punch line lies in the fact that knowledge or information apprehended in the right way really can make anything happen, good or bad. The babalawo is given another clue in a refrán from the same oddun. “Wisdom, understanding, and thought are the forces that move the world.” This is the ultimate secret of the universe.
What Is an Oddun?
Named after their mother Odun, the word itself can be translated to chief or head, it also implies something big and bulky. They make up the core of Ifá. Everything in existence comes into being in these odduns and in them you can find the histories of each of the orichas as well as all of our religion’s customs, ceremonies, and rituals. In fact, our entire oral tradition can be found within the odduns of Ifá. Therefore, the babalawo is trained not only to be a diviner and a healer but also to be the caretaker of our oral traditions. Orunmila and Odun gave birth to the original odduns, which are organized into sixteen Olodduns (kings of the odduns or meyis) that consist of the same pattern on each side. These sixteen eventually gave birth to the omolus (children of the kings, or combination odduns), which make up the remainder of the 256 odduns.
Although the omolus often share characteristics of their parent odduns they are considered individuals, and are much more than merely the combination of the meyis that gave birth to them. This is one of the characteristics of Ifá that separate it from the traditional diloggún divination used by iworos to divine the will of the orichas.1
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A Meyi (in this case Obara Meyi)
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An Omoluo (Ogundá Fun)
These odduns are like a huge database containing a massive amount of information or knowledge within them. Each oddun has its own plants, ceremonies, ritual recipes, offerings, things born in the particular oddun, patakís, refránes, and advice called dice Ifá (Ifá says) to orient and guide the person being seen by the babalawo. Each oddun even has its own path of Echu containing secrets and keys to working with the oddun to be shared only among babalawos. Odduns also have their own orikis and suyeres (chants) that accompany them. One class of orikis, called llamadas, are used to call the odduns and set them into action. These llamadas are ultimately the keys to unlocking the powers of everything in the universe. They are often short in length because their only purpose is to set the oddun into action. Others are longer and more involved because they are the specific incantations used to bring about a specific effect. The power that makes these llamadas work comes from the goddess Odun who is the ultimate source of the odduns and who rules over them. This is why she must be present during the initiation of every babalawo and why those who have received her are considered the highest rank within the babalawo hierarchy.
Every oddun contains a myriad of ancient parables called patakís graphically illustrating how that oddun works in your life, how you got there and where that path is headed. The use of stories to describe the how each of the odduns works in day-to-day life is genius itself.
Odduns also include refránes, which are proverbs describing the nature of the oddun condensed into one or two sentences. The patakís and refránes are poetic, profound, and multi-layered like an onion—you gain deeper insights as you peel off each layer. As mentioned in the introduction there is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t re-visit a refrán or patakí and find new depth and meaning to it that I never saw before. I live for these moments of eureka! Although only a babalawo is consecrated to interpret the patakís and refránes, you don’t have to be a babalawo to learn from them.
The Birth of the Patakí
The patakí is a Lucumí adaptation of the Yoruba ese Ifá, which are essentially the same parables in the form of verses or poems, a brilliant mnemonic device allowing the student to learn the parables much quicker and easier. In fact, Western medical students often learn anatomy using similar methods. In practice Yoruba babalawos recite the ese Ifá verses for the client’s oddun until the client hears one that applies to the situation that led them to come to Ifá and this stops the babalawo’s recitation.
These verses not only contained the stories and possible ebbós associated with the oddun. They often contained proverbs usually in the form of the names of mythical babalawos who consulted Ifá in the poem. For example, the babalawos’ names in one of the patakís in Chapter Six were If You Teach Someone to Be Intelligent, They Will Become Truly Intelligent and If You Teach Someone To Be Stupid, They Will Become Truly Stupid. This was a clever means of imbedding the proverbs into the verse itself.
To practice Ifá in the traditional Yoruba way you must be completely fluent in the Yoruba language, which makes it difficult for a non-Yoruba to learn, and in Cuba few people spoke Yoruba fluently. Then there was the issue of different dialects that might be spoken by the few people who were still Yoruba speakers. Therefore the ese Ifá, as useful as it had been in Yorubaland, became impractical on the island. So the early babalawos expanded on the Yoruba Eyo Ifá to transform the ese verses into stories, calling them patakís or important things. The word patakí reveals the thinking of the old babalawos because the stories, proverbs, and depth of advice they give are indeed the important things within the ese Ifá. Thus, the early babalawos were able to construct an equivalent to the ese Ifá that could be used successfully in Cuba.
Spiritual Database
The odduns put together form an immense spiritual database. Along with the advice given by an oddun there are a myriad of sacrifices and offerings or cleansings called ebbós intrinsic to that oddun. These ebbós allow the babalawo to provide a solution that is particularly suited to that oddun and its path. While some of these ebbós can be used for more than one oddun many are specific to only that Ifá sign and could be ineffective if a person does not have that sign come up during divination. Some odduns require the babalawo perform a ritual whenever it appears during a consultation. For instance, when a certain oddun shows up the babalawo would immediately put epó (palm oil) to the mouth of everyone in the room. There are also various iches and recipes that help achieve certain results spoken about in the oddun, such as winning a court case, healing a disease, or achieving financial success. Sometimes though a person will be told not to chase after money as their hunger for wealth will destroy them. In fact, in Ifá money is considered cursed by its very nature and when we see the destruction caused by the corrupting effects money has had in the world we see the wisdom of Ifá.
In January 2008, hundreds of babalawos gathered in Havana for the Letter of the Year ceremony to learn what the new year would bring. A patakí from the oddun of that year, Iwori Rote, spoke of a young man surrounded by businessmen who fawned over him due to his money and possessions. They turned from being brown-nosing sycophants into his worst enemies overnight, leaving him without a home or his life savings. Of course this is exactly what happened to thousands, perhaps millions of people that year and the world economy was very nearly destroyed in the process.
Each oddun also has numerous plants associated with it, and their powers are invoked through prayers and songs from their respective odduns when we use the plants. For example, we sing “Osain ewe bana oyu awa, ewe bana o forire” to unlock the powers of the ewe bana (soapberry) plant that comes from the oddun Ogbe Sa. This song can be translated to “Osain, soapberry plant which is under your watchful eye, O soapberry plant bring us your blessings.” Osain is the oricha of the herbs and the wilderness.
Most of our customs and rituals are re-enactments from our ancient past and originate in our odduns. Our entire oral tradition is recorded in the odduns so they also serve as divine precedents. Disagreements are often resolved by drawing on the wisdom coming from them and sometimes you will see one elder challenge another by demanding what oddun a ritual or custom originated. A younger priest must be very careful about questioning an elder in this manner, however, because most often they will not be answered for the young priest will be considered too big for their britches and unworthy of being taught. In our religion knowledge is slowly accumulated over many years and is much too precious to be given away simply because a young and inexperienced priest demands it. “The ears do not pass over the head” is the proverb most often used by elders to tell young priests that they need to learn at the pace and in the manner set by their elders.
Our mythic histories, like those of many indigenous peoples, are very different from Western histories because they serve very different purposes. The early Lucumís are likely to have found the history favored by Western historians and many ethnologists with their obsession with statistics and often meaningless details to be uninteresting and serving little purpose. Instead, our histories are meant to ensure the survival of our culture, knowledge, ethics, and worldview. We tell our history and perform the rituals from our past to continue our culture and knowledge in the present to ensure them for the future.
Every oddun has long lists of the things born and ruled over by it. These include anything found in nature and every possible human experience. The information and advice in an oddun can be extremely detailed, even down to what foods you should or should not eat. Each oddun has its own nature and personality that is inherited by everything and everyone, human or oricha, born under the auspices of that oddun. By knowing and using the right keys to unlock the power of that oddun a babalawo can affect any of the things ruled by the oddun.
Just like people each oricha came to this world accompanied by an oddun. This oddun is called their oddun isalayé, and their life stories can be found within this oddun isalayé and other odduns. Sometimes when a babalawo is faced with having to make a sacrifice to one of the orichas and doesn’t have that oricha on hand, there is a ceremony where the babalawo can use the oddun combined with certain prayers and rituals to make the sacrifice. Of course, besides an oricha’s oddun isalayé, there are a number of odduns where the oricha speaks and the oricha figures prominently.
As each oddun is a living being and a power unto itself each oddun has one or more paths of Echu associated with it to act as its messenger and empower it. People often find it is necessary to receive an Echu belonging to their oddun in kofá or abo faca. Each of these paths of Echu is made differently, some having twenty or more ingredients besides the standard ingredients that can be found in all Echus. Even modern inventions and events such as nuclear bombs, space travel, and biological warfare can be found in the patakís accompanying the odduns. In one patakí scabs taken from smallpox victims were used by priests of Babalú Ayé, the oricha of diseases, to infect enemy nations with the dreaded disease. This history illustrates a detailed understanding how diseases were spread that predates Pasteur by hundreds, if not thousands, of years not to mention the actual concept of biological warfare.
Odduns in Practice
Every oddun has specific powers that can be drawn upon to resolve any situation we might be faced with, and babalawos always eager to expand their arsenals spend lifetimes collecting secret recipes and incantations associated with them. I am constantly amazed at what a simple afoché (powder) made by marking the right odduns on the Table of Ifá can accomplish.
When I was a relatively new babalawo I had a young mother come to me in desperation. She and her only son were facing a court case and were looking at deportation. I knew we had a monumental task in front of us and frankly I held out little hope as I had seen immigration courts in action and seen judges summarily deporting everyone who came before them. But Ifá assured us that everything would be resolved by making an afoché powder using the Table of Ifá, which she was to blow onto the four corners of the courthouse before the hearing took place. When I didn’t hear a word from her for months I assumed they had been deported. As I was such a new babalawo perhaps I had left an important step out, but about four months later I got a call from her asking for help with another issue. Of course I asked about what had happened at the deportation.
“Oh, that,” she said as if it were nothing. “The judge said we could stay in the country. Now about this new problem …”
Such is the life of a babalawo.
During the ceremony known as the Ebbó Katero sometimes as many as forty or more odduns are used, making it one of the most potent weapons in the babalawo’s arsenal. Every time I go to Havana Padrino Miguelito gives me more odduns to add to my ebbó making it longer and longer. But when he tells me what the new odduns are used for and how they will make my ebbó more powerful I go about memorizing the new prayers. And sometimes all you need is the correct prayers from an oddun or two to solve your problems.
One day Padrino Miguelito and I were making the long drive through the Cuban countryside on our way to a ceremony in the midst of a huge storm. By the time we reached the halfway point, the storm had become so powerful that we were endangered by it, with water pouring down in buckets and lightning striking all around us. Padrino Miguelito began to recite special prayers from two odduns that had the power to stop the rain and wind. Within minutes not only had the storm subsided but the sun was shining as if the downpour had never existed. As luck would have it, less than a week later I would have the need to use those newly learned prayers myself when a severe rain threatened to ground all the planes at the airport. Again, within minutes the downpour subsided and the sun reappeared to take the place of the tempest.
Everything in existence originates in the odduns, and with enough knowledge of them anything can be accomplished.