Women and Feminine Power in Ifá
When Olófin created the world, the sixteen Meyis and Oché Turá were sent down to earth to put the world in order. As they all prepared to leave, they were told that although Oché Turá was below the Mejis, they must rely on her help in everything they did and declared her to be the Owner of Aché.
When the Mejis arrived on earth, they simply didn’t see why they needed to count on her help. After all, she wasn’t a Meji, and she was just a woman.
But the Mejis soon found that everything they attempted ended in failure. Nothing worked. Rain did not fall, plants did not grow, animals only lived for a short time before dying, and illness and famine covered the world. In short, all their great plans came to nothing, and everything they attempted was quickly spoiled.
But that was not the worst of it. Upon learning of the Mejis arrogance and lack of respect, Olófin sent Changó down to punish the sixteen Mejis’ while they were holding a meeting. Changó hurled a huge lightning bolt down, burning the sign Oché Turá into the Table of Ifá and setting fire to the house.
Suddenly Olófin appeared and decreed, “From this day forward, every babalawo must write Oché Tura on the right and at the top of the Table of Ifá every time they perform ebbó. To iban Echu.”
From that day on, we mark Oché Turá first whenever we make any kind of ebbó on the Table of Ifá—otherwise the ebbó will not be effective.
“Before a king can become sacred, a woman must give birth to him.”
The role of women and feminine power is crucial to Ifá. Odun/Olófin, the manifestation of the Supreme Being from whose womb all creation sprang forth, is the highest power that can be received in Ifá and is the true source of Ifá’s power. Without her presence there cannot be an initiation of an Ifá priest, and without the intervention of the apetebí there can be no Ifá initiation. Without women and feminine power there is no Ifá and no babalawos.
Virtually everything in Ifá and Santería revolves around a balance of shared power between the male and female. At the very top the manifestations of the Supreme Being Olodumare and Odun/Olófin are conceived as two parts of a closed calabash, containing this universe and all the others, where the two aspects of the Supreme Being become one. Odun/Olófin is the source of all creation and power in our universe and is the manifestation that is most accessible to us human beings as she took an interest in our particular universe while Olodumare went on to create other universes. As we said before, all powers and matter of the universe are contained in Odun/Olófin, sometimes known as Igba Odun Iwá or Odun, the Calabash of All Existence. Everything we see around us was born in one or another of her children, the odduns, which she gave birth to and is named after her. In turn half of the odduns are considered females with the other half being males, and each oddun also has a female and male side.
The concept of a closed calabash with two halves touches upon almost everything in our tradition. Ifá and Ocha are considered two parts of the calabash of one single religion, each with a different role and with both parts depending on one another. Within both Ifá and Ocha you see both male and female aspects. In the Lucumí religion, women have traditionally played a powerful role, and almost every rama of the religion has a woman as its root. The balance of power between women and men is reflected in the cabildos where La Regla Ocha was formed. The vast majority of the cabildos were jointly headed by a babalawo and a powerful santera. Of all the cabildos, the Cabildo Africano Lucumí was probably the most influential of all and is considered to have been the epicenter of Lucumí culture. It was headed by the seminal babalawo Adechina along with the female cofounder Ña Caridad Argudín (Aigoró), who was likely to have been the ultimate root of the largest branch of the religion, the Pimienta. Within the rolls of that one cabildo you can find the roots for most of the ramas that exist today.
Many ilés reflect the balance of power of the old cabildos. They are jointly headed by a babalawo and an apetebí who is also a santera, with the babalawo in charge of the Ifá ceremonies and the apetebí in charge of Ocha ceremonies and initiations. The apetebí is the babalawo’s most valuable assistant and is the joint administrator of the ilé. That way the ilé oricha becomes a closed calabash with Ifá and Ocha, male and female being properly represented.
Besides having the gift of the ability to produce a life many women have another gift babalawos will never experience. Women have the ability of having an oricha come from the Other World and inhabit their body physically for a time. The majority of horses, or someone who is ridden or possessed by an oricha, are women. Something Orula does not permit his priests to experience. In Ifá virtually everything that surrounds Orula is female. In the oddun Irete Meyi we find the traditional salute to Ifá and his priests: “Iború, Iboya, Ibocheché.” This is translated to “sacrifice offered, sacrifice accepted, sacrifice is blessed,” which was originally the names of the three women who saved Orunmila after falling into a pit, while the apere (receptacle) in which Orula lives is considered female as well.
In Lucumí Ifá the apetebí is considered to be the babalawo’s right hand, and she has access to places and ceremonies closed to all except for babalawos. They are also in charge of much of what goes on during the ceremonies. The apetebí is also considered senior to any of the men who have received abo faca by virtue of having gone through certain ceremonies, which the men do not. During any Ifá ceremony, the apetebí is in charge of everything outside of the room where the babalawos are working, and her word is law. In fact, the apetebí is the only non-babalawo who is directly saluted by babalawos by saying, “Apetebí iború, apetebí iboya, apetebí ibocheché.”1
In Afro-Cuban Ifá, the apetebí is absolutely necessary for the initiation of a new babalawo. There are ceremonies that must be performed by the apetebí, including one so crucial that without it the initiation is not complete, and the would-be initiate cannot become a babalawo. There is also an added benefit. In gratitude for her indispensable help Orunmila adds ten years to the life of the apetebí who performs this ceremony.
The woman who performs these ceremonies, traditionally the initiate’s wife, also becomes part owner of the new initiate’s Ifá. This means that she can never be refused access to that Ifá under any circumstances, as well as other things. This fact has led some babalawos to have their mothers perform these ceremonies out of fear of a break up. If there is a divorce the former wife can walk right up and complain about the spouses to their own Ifá and there’s nothing that can be done.
One Ekin or Sixteen?
In a number of traditional African lines women receive sixteen ekin nuts in their kofá as opposed to traditional Lucumí Ifá where the woman receives one or two ekin nuts depending on her sign. Some neo-traditionalists feel this is an expression of Cuban machismo and misogyny, but the practice of giving women a single ekin called Ekó Ifá (often shortened to Ekofá or Kofá) was prevalent in Africa as late as 1899, as described by the Yoruba author James Johnson. Therefore, there is no question that our practice of giving one ekin has a history in Africa. The fact of the matter is, Ifá is Ifá, whether you have one ekin or a hundred. The important thing is that Ifá will hear.
On the other hand, there is a little-known ceremony where an apetebí receives a full hand of sixteen ekins, and it is one of the most beautiful ceremonies in Ifá. Called Adele Wa Ni Ifá Tolú, the ceremony elevates the apetebí to the status of apetebí ayafá (wife of Ifá), which is the highest level a woman can reach in Ifá. During this initiation she receives all sixteen ekin nuts and a new oddun defining her life destiny, which supersedes the oddun from her kofá.2 At this point she can and should learn more about Ifá’s odduns. Many ayafás exhibit an impressive amount of knowledge about the odduns, although she still cannot divine with the ekines or ecuele. In fact, the apetebí ayafa can even use the ecuele if her husband or child is ill. Only an apetebí who has performed the ceremonies to complete a new babalawo’s initiation is eligible to have this ceremony performed. It is a truly beautiful ceremony that I am not allowed to discuss with anyone except babalawos or apetebí ayafás.
In the United States, there are people who have come to the mistaken conclusion that apetebís are servants to the babalawos. There is one website claiming the word ayafá means slave of Ifá. Apparently this website has their own dialect of Lucumí or Yoruba, as Ayá means wife in both languages, and as many of the most famous and powerful olorichas in the history of the religion were also apetebís, this is a conclusion that defies belief. For instance, indisputably the two most powerful santeras in Havana, Latuán, and Efunché were both married to babalawos and were their apetebí Ayafas. Latuán was married to the great babalawo Bernabé Menocal (Baba Eyiogbe), and Efunché was married to the babalawo Jacinto Fernandez (Kaindé). Efunché and Latuán were so powerful nobody worked in the religion without their approval. The idea that these two olorichas, who utterly dominated Havana, would be subservient to anyone is laughable at best. Aurora Lamar (Obatolá), who is the root of what is by far the largest rama of the Lucumí religion, was married to a babalawo as well.3 What’s worse, to imply these santeras were subservient slaves to their babalawo husbands is extremely demeaning toward these women. In fact, the babalawos’ tendency to marry powerful women rather than fear them might point to a healthy attitude toward women that was probably rare in the late 1800s.
The apetebí ayafá, carrying Orunmila, leads the babalawos into the Ifá ceremonial room on the day of the Itá. During the Itá she carries the ekines to the babalawo who is seated in preparation to divine with them. At the end of the ceremony she dances the ekines out of the room carrying them on her head at the head of the procession.
Despite all of this the role of women is also one of the most misunderstood subjects in Afro-Cuban Ifá with accusations of misogyny and sexism laid at the feet not only of babalawos but of Ifá itself. While unfortunately sexist babalawos exist Ifá itself is anything but sexist in nature. Where does this perception come from and how much truth is there to the charges leveled against Ifá? Much of the confusion surrounding the perceived sexism of Afro-Cuban Ifá has been caused by the aftermath of the apparently modern practice of initiating women as iyanifás in some parts of Yorubaland. The prohibition against this practice is often held up as evidence of an inherent sexism in Afro-Cuban Ifá, particularly by practitioners of present-day African traditions in the United States, with some even claiming the prohibition is a purely Cuban invention. Is this true? First let’s look at why we have this prohibition in the first place.
In the oddun Oché Yekún, Orula states unequivocally that Odun must be present for a person to be initiated as a babalawo and that without her presence Ifá will not recognize them as a babalawo and the person will have accomplished nothing. Below is an excerpt from the African version:
If one wishes to become a babalawo,
He must enter Odun’s grove.
But if he does not first propitiate Odun in her Apere (receptacle)
He will accomplish nothing.
Ifá will not know that the person has come to be initiated as a babalawo.
Orunmila will not recognize his child.4
This is why traditional Lucumí babalawos do not recognize anyone who has not been initiated in Odun’s presence as an Ifá priest. Therefore, women cannot be initiated as Ifá priests because Odun prohibits women from being in her presence. This is due to the cruel treatment she received from the first women she encountered when she came to this world. Following is another excerpt from the African version of this patakí:
Because Odun is the babalawo’s power.
Ifá says, if the babalawo possesses Ifá, he must have come before Odun.
The power that Odun gives him says that.
No woman must look upon her form.
From this day no babalawo is complete without Odun.
Anyone initiated without propitiating Odun
in Igbodún will not be able to consult Ifá.
As you can see, the babalawo is nothing without the primordial feminine power Odun/Olófin as she is the ultimate source of all of the babalawos’ power. Lucumí babalawos will not consider violating Odun’s prohibitions for she is not only powerful but also extremely dangerous when offended. The absolute necessity for her presence at the consecration of an Ifá priest led Cuba’s first babalawo, Adechina, to risk life and limb to travel back to Africa and return to Cuba so he could bring her back to the island as we discussed earlier. For Lucumí babalawos the initiation of anyone as an Ifá priest without Odun being present is considered an offense to Odun and to the immense sacrifices made by our ancestors as well.
What does history say about the initiation of iyanifá in Africa? There are claims that iyanifás have been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. If that’s the case we should have little trouble finding records of their existence among the numerous sources who have documented Ifá in Yorubaland over the last two hundred years. As it turns out just the opposite is true.
Dr. William Bascom, universally recognized as the foremost academic authority on Ifá in the twentieth century, also stated that only men can become babalawo. During his extensive field studies in twelve different cities he never encountered or heard of a single female Ifá priest acting as a diviner. Numerous sources from Yorubaland going back to the early to mid-nineteenth century clearly state that only men could become Ifá diviners, and none mention women Ifá diviners. In fact, there is no source mentioning the existence of Iyanifás in Yorubaland before the 1970s.
In 1992, the king of the South Carolinian Oyotunji African Village, Adefunmi, was pressured by the women of Oyotunji to be initiated as Ifá priests in Dahomey, in spite of the fact that Adefunmi’s credentials as Obá came from the Yoruba spiritual capital of Ifé. This was because the babalawos in Ifé still refused to initiate women at the time.5 Since then, Ifé appears to have begun initiating women as Ifá priests.
Over the years I have come to the conclusion that the iyanifá likely came into existence due to the extremely destructive effects colonialism had upon the traditional religions in Yorubaland. For more than a hundred years Christians or Muslims, who will not allow traditional practitioners to attend, have run most of the schools in Yorubaland. For generations children have been taught that the rich culture and spirituality of the traditional religions are merely bush religions consisting of nothing more than a jumbled mass of ignorant superstitions. This led to a steep decline in the traditional religions in Yorubaland, and along with that came the fear that the knowledge and traditions of Ifá would be completely lost. This may very well have led babalawos who, lacking any male children willing to spend the years of training necessary to become babalawos, began to look to training their female children in desperation.
The view that if a woman can’t be a babalawo then she must be accepting a subservient role propounded by these neo-traditionalists has led to a lot of the misunderstandings and accusations of misogyny we see today. Another source of these issues is simply jealousy. An apetebí is often shown more respect, and has more power and knowledge than many of her non-apetebí elders even though she may have less seniority than them. Anyone who looks around them can see that the natural order of things is a balance of power between male and female, with neither one being superior. From the closed calabash that contains the universe itself, to the closed calabash of the ilé oricha jointly administered by the babalawo and the oloricha apetebí.
Apetebí iború, Apetebí iboya, Apetebí ibocheché.