Babalawo
In a land called Sukanilé, which was part of the Iyesa nation, there was an obá who was a true seeker of the mysteries of life as well as a great thinker. At one point, he brought together the wisest people in his kingdom and asked them to show him the true nature of the world. They held a number of great councils where they finally came to the agreement that reality simply could not be defined, then went before the obá to tell him their conclusion. This only made the king all the more determined to find out the truth, and he began to travel throughout his kingdom in hopes of finding someone who could enlighten him about the true nature of the world.
Meanwhile, along the borderlands of Iyesaland there lived a babalawo named Ifá Kandashé. He was well known in his area for his outstanding interpretations of Ifá’s odduns, but because he lived out in the boondocks, he was forced to live off of decorating statues, vases, and pots.
He was getting bored with it, and as he never received visits from any of the great people he would hear about, he set about making ebbó with a pot, the paints, and the tools of his trade. While he was asleep, a drunken Changó came by and painted lightning bolts. Elegguá, who had just finished eating a young rooster, came by next and put his bloody hands all over the cazuela. Finally, the great artist Ere Oyola, the Rainbow Serpent who represented Olodumare, took his turn and defecated into the vase. By the time the orichas were through, the pot was truly a mess.
All this time, Ifá Kandashé managed to sleep through the entire thing. When he woke up and saw the mess painted in his pot, he exclaimed, “Orunmila be praised! But what—what is this thing?”
At the same moment, a grand procession appeared at his home, and royal messengers knock on his door. When he bid them to enter, he suddenly realized it was the obá himself. The king of the entire nation was in his house, along with an entourage of wise men from throughout the land! Shocked, the babalawo Kandashé asked them what they wished.
The obá responded, “You are Ifá Kandashé, as famous in my land as you are in your own for interpreting Ifá odduns better than anyone else. I wish to know something that all my wise advisors haven’t been able to show me.”
“What is that?” asked the perplexed babalawo.
“That you show me the true nature of the world,” the obá responded.
Ifá Kandashé, after analyzing everything the king had told him, finally said, “Look inside this pot and you will see the world as it really is!”
The obá eagerly grabbed the pot and looked inside … and looked … and looked. Finally, the king broke into paroxysms of laughter and exclaimed, “You are so right! You are truly, truly wise! In reality, the world is nothing but randomness and shit! From this day forward, you shall be my head diviner and the counselor of my court, and you shall always be showered with treasures and honors!”
“To study Ifá without thinking about it is in vain;
to think about Ifá without studying it is dangerous.”
“Wisdom is the most refined beauty a babalawo can possess.”
“Ifá can save you,” said the babalawo who was to become my oyugbona (assistant padrino) for the initiation.
“What the hell do you mean by that?” my padrino in Ifá, Pete, shot back in his inimitable direct manner.
“He has to make his Ifá to become a babalawo.”
These were the opening words of the itá for my abo faca initiation, the divination telling me my itá in life. I was to be initiated into the priesthood of Ifá, the oricha of wisdom and diviner for humanity, the orichas, and Olodumare (God) himself. Specializing in divination, the rituals and offerings associated with it, the babalawo is also the caretaker of the oral traditions of the religion, the secrets of the oricha, the secrets of life … and the universe. My childhood wish was being answered.
Babalawo
In her impressive work The Anagó Language of Cuba, obá oriaté and scholar Maria Concordia (Oggún Gbemi) defines the babalawo as “an eternal student of Ifá and representation of its earthly manifestation, who must know everything regarding the rituals and ceremonies, divinatory advices, prayers, chants, and sacrifices related to the philosophy and theology of Lucumí religion.” 1
Besides being the living repositories of the sum total of our oral traditions and ritual knowledge, the babalawos act as the exclusive interpreters of Ifá’s divine messages for the community as well as for individuals. Therefore, as the refrán above tells us, babalawos must dedicate themselves to the constant expansion and deepening of their knowledge, and Orula enjoins us to study and contemplate Ifá so babalawos may know and understand Ifá.
A babalawo is expected to follow a strict code of conduct. He should be honest, simple, and of unassailable character, serving as an inspiration to those around him. He should constantly maintain only the highest ethical standards and must endlessly strive to be worthy of only the greatest respect. As my oyugbona Julito said so many years ago, “You don’t make Ifá for power or for money. You make Ifá so Orula can save you.”
The babalawo always has the history of Obí’s vanity to remind him of the price to be paid for becoming too proud and arrogant.
Obí Agbón (coconut) was very humble and honest, so Olófin dressed him in white inside and out, and placed him in a very high position as one of Olófin’s principal diviners.
But over time, Obí became arrogant and overly proud of his position.
One day he threw a party in his palace and invited all the crème de la crème of society and Elegguá. Having noticed the changes in Obí’s character, Elegguá brought all the homeless and the beggars he could find from the marketplace.
Obí took Elegguá aside, telling him, “I invited you, but not all of these people.”
Elegguá looked Obí in the eye and replied, “If they go, I go,” and stomped out.
A few weeks later Olófin asked Elegguá to deliver a message to Obí, but Elegguá said, “You know I would do anything for you, but please send someone else to go to Obí’s palace.”
“Why don’t you want to go?” asked Olófin.
With this, Elegguá told Olófin about what had occurred at Obí’s party. What Elegguá didn’t know is that he was merely confirming what Olófin already knew.
So Olófin dressed like the filthiest of the homeless and went to Obí’s palace. When Obí saw the beggar at his door, he slammed the door right in his face!
Suddenly, the walls shook as Olófin’s voice thundered, “Obí ti o fe ni (don’t you recognize who I am)?”
With that, Obí prostrated himself before Olófin and begged forgiveness. But Olófin cursed him to always be dark on the outside and white only on the inside to show the world the price of arrogance. He would fall from the trees to always remind him of his fall from great heights due to his pride. People would slap him and kick him once he was on the ground. And to remind the world of his duplicity, he would always have two faces, one light and one dark. And lastly, he would still divine; however, he would never have a voice of his own but could only speak for others.
Not everyone is born to be a babalawo or an obá oriaté or a santera or santero, for that matter. Traditionally in Cuba, it wasn’t commonplace for a person to become an iworo, and it was downright rare to become a babalawo. It meant years of work and then more years of saving up the money for the initiation. It was always meant to be a sacrifice—not a commodity to be bought by spiritual tourists collecting initiations—if you were chosen to become a priest by the orichas in the first place. If a person is meant to become a babalawo, it will usually come up while they are being seen with Ifá and must be confirmed when they receive their abo faca. For me, finding out that Ifá had chosen me to be one of his priests came the very first time I was seen with Ifá, but the prognostication had to be confirmed when I received my abo faca.
One of the babalawos working in that abo faca ceremony was to become my assistant padrino for this initiation. His name was Julito Collazo (Iwori Kosó ibae), whom I would later learn was not only a famous babalawo but a famous drummer as well. Julito Collazo and Francisco Aguabella were the first and best religious drummers in the country and were, along with the babalawo Pancho Mora, among the first practicing priests in the United States. Padrino Julito was also a famous secular drummer, often playing with other greats such as Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, and Mongo Santamaria. During a break in the ceremonies, Julito came over and began casually talking about Ifá and the religion in general. Suddenly he became very serious and looked me directly in the eyes.
“I’m going to tell you something very important. You don’t make Ifá for power. You don’t make Ifá for money. You make Ifá so Orula can save you.” With those words, he turned and strode back into the igbodún to continue the work of consecrating the first kofás and abo facas to be received in San Francisco.
On the third day, the day of the itá, where Ifá reveals our destinies through deep divination using the Table of Ifá, I went into the initiation room to learn my path in life. After they had gotten my oddun in abo faca and its orientation, it was time to speak about my sign and what it meant.
“Ifá can save you.” With those few words, padrino Julito had informed that it was indeed my destiny to become a babalawo.
But having the odduns to make Ifá (become initiated as a babalawo) is just the beginning. There are a number of prohibitions that can prevent a person from being initiated as an Ifá priest. If a person has ever been ridden (possessed) by an oricha or an eggun (the dead), they are not allowed to go on to Ifá. The vast majority of babalawos are oluwos, babalawos who have been initiated as an iworo before going on to become an Ifá priest. But if they initiate another person, they are discouraged from becoming a babalawo, as they would not be able to fulfill many of their responsibilities to the orichas and to their godchildren. And if they are an initiated santero, they must first receive permission from their oricha before they can become a babalawo. My own padrino, as an oricha priest, Guillermo Diago Obá Bí, was denied initiation as a priest of Ifá in this way. He had the odduns to make Ifá, but Changó would not allow him to become a babalawo. His destiny was to become a truly great obá oriaté, and he was a real treasure in his own right.
Because I made Obatalá (was initiated as a priest of Obatalá) before making Ifá, I still needed the obá oriaté to ask Obatalá for his permission and blessing before I could pass to Ifá. Not only did I get his permission, but also five years later when I made Ifá, Obatalá spoke up, giving me his iré, Maferefún Obatalá, which means we always give thanks to Obatalá.
I have my Padrino Pete Rivera to thank for making sure no phases were skipped and everything was well done every step of the way. Padrino Pete has always been like a second father to me, and I am forever in his debt. He has always led me in the right direction and has been a model godparent to me.
Many of these prohibitions are in place because Orula demands that his priests devote themselves exclusively to Ifá, one cannot be a part-time babalawo. In fact, this demand for complete devotion to Ifá is dramatically and sometimes painfully illustrated during the ceremony called the iyoyé, as we shall see.
This brings us to the most controversial prohibition in Ifá, which is the prohibition against initiating women as Ifá priests. For the initiation of a babalawo to be valid, the presence of Igba Odun (the calabash of Odun) in the igbodún or Ifá initiation shrine is absolutely necessary. Odun is the ultimate source of Ifá’s power and those who have received her make up the highest rank among the babalawos. And because Olófin/Odun is the source of all odduns giving us the power to know their secrets and to work with them, to be initiated without her doesn’t make any sense. That is why the oddun Oché Yekú states directly that a person initiated as an Ifá priest without Odun has accomplished nothing and will not be recognized by Ifá.
As we will see in the next chapter, Odun, also known as Olófin, is so crucial to the initiation of an Ifá priest that in the late 1800s, a babalawo named Adechina risked his life to go back to Africa and bring Olófin/Odun back to the island so babalawos could be initiated in Cuba. Olófin’s presence was crucial enough for our greatest ancestor to risk life and limb to bring Olófin back to Cuba; and instead of staying in Africa, he left his home a second time so Ifá could survive there. After the immense sacrifices made on the part of Lucumí Ifá’s greatest ancestor, the idea of initiating an Ifá priest without Olófin is unconceivable for us. These are the Lucumí babalawo’s roots and we simply won’t betray them for anyone, no matter what the prevailing attitudes may be at the time. Our traditions did not survive the ordeals of slavery only to die in a hot tub in Esalen. Olófin/Odun does not permit women to be in her presence, which will be discussed later, and that is why babalawos are not allowed to initiate women as Ifá priests.
There is the elegán initiation for men seen in some parts of Africa, but we don’t recognize that initiation because Odun is not present during their initiation. In fact, in many of the areas of Yorubaland that has the elegán initiation, the elegán is only allowed to divine for himself and his immediate family using the ecuele, and is not allowed to divine using the ekin nuts or initiate others into Ifá, because they are not considered full-fledged Ifá priests.
Initiation
The Afro-Cuban babalawos must be fully initiated as Ifá priests in the ceremony called atefá before they can begin to learn the secrets of the odduns, which may or may not be the case in different parts of Yorubaland.2 The initiation of a babalawo lasts seven days, during which the new initiate is secluded in the igbodún, which means “Odun’s Forest.” The room gets this name, because although the person becomes a priest of Orula, it is Orula’s wife Odun’s presence that ultimately gives the new initiate the aché to interpret and work with the odduns of Ifá.
Early during the initiation, the new initiate divines with Ifá for his first time and the oddun that appears is their sign for life. A babalawo’s entire life from birth to death is contained in that oddun. From then on, other Ifá priests know a babalawo by this oddun, and babalawos usually refer to each other by their oddun. For instance, my sign is Baba Eyiogbe, so I’m known as Frank Baba Eyiogbe, Baba Eyiogbe, or Eyiogbe. Babalawos know a great deal about each other as soon as they are introduced.
The Iyoyé
“The roots of Ifá are bitter, but the fruits are sweet.”
The air of anticipation is palpable among the small crowd of onlookers waiting for the new initiate to appear in the doorway to the igbodún. It has been a week since he was sequestered into the room for continuous ceremonies, sacrifices, cleansings, and intensive learning and is now making his first re-appearance into the world. What is about to take place is the most dramatic of the closing ceremonies and the only ceremony non-initiates are allowed to witness.
The new initiate steps out into the morning. He is shirtless and barefoot, his pants rolled up above his knees. Over his shoulder he carries a hoe and a machete as he makes his way toward a small makeshift farm laid out on the patio. The farm is tiny, only needing to be large enough to relive the history from unspeakably ancient times in the life of the ancient initiate Akalá, imbuing the ritual with the power of those primordial events. On either side of his path to the farm stands a row of his babalawo brethren armed with cujes, long, thin branches that seem designed to cut through skin as sharply as they cut through the air. Cut from a special bush known for its healing qualities called rasca barriga (belly scraper), the cujes are used to ensure the future health of the new babalawo. You can hear the whistle of the sticks as the babalawos make practice strikes to test the strength of their weapons and the nerve of the new babalawo. The awó (anyone initiated as an Ifá priest) is now led out of the igbodún by his oyugbona, armed with a cuje of his own to defend his apprentice from the worst of the blows to come, and they walk toward the farm to plant the first seedlings.
“Akalá omo oricha, Akalá omo oricha, Orunmila mabinu, Akalá omo oricha,” the Orbá Oriaté or Master of Ceremonies, intones “Akalá child of the oricha, Akalá child of the oricha, Orunmila, please don’t be angry, Akalá child of the oricha.” All the babalawos repeat back the song in the call and response, hinting at the meaning of the ceremony.
On the way back toward the room from planting his crops, the sticks come whistling down, raining sharp wooden pain onto the back and legs of the new babalawo. As much as his oyugbona tries to block the sticks, the blows are fast and coming from too many directions. Many find their mark slicing through air and skin with equal agility. The oyugbona and the determined young farmer then make their way back to the Ifá room. Once at the igbodún, they get a brief moment of reprieve from the onslaught as they prepare to head back out to the farm and the gauntlet of waiting babalawos and their cujes.
They must pass through the gauntlet seven times in each direction and the burning pain becomes stronger and more cutting, the new babalawo’s back now crisscrossed with stripes left by the cujes. Finally he is allowed to return to the initiation room to kneel before his Oluwo Siwayú, who is the babalawo who initiated him to Ifá, and gives him his blessing and soothes him by applying a liquid to his stinging back. The pain will pass within a few weeks, but the initiate is now a Father of the Secrets for life. The babalawos who just moments before were giving the new initiate the beating of his life now file into the room to congratulate the newest member of their ranks, who, in the realm of spiritual warriors, has just become the spiritual equivalent of a Navy SEAL. With that, the new babalawo goes on to enjoy his first ceremonial dinner with his fellow babalawos and to start the truly hard work that is ahead of him. Within hours, this room—that had been magically transformed for a week into the primordial grove where babalawos have been initiated since time immemorial—will be closed, sealed, and become just an ordinary room again.
Although at first blush it might seem this is little more than a testosterone-fueled hazing with a spiritual justification, that is the furthest thing from the truth. The iyoyé is actually the re-enactment of an event from ancient times when a babalawo was initiated to Ifá. During his initiation, he was warned that he must work Ifá exclusively, but he decided that being a farmer would be easier and more profitable. Because he was denying his true destiny, it was not long before his suffering began, which is represented by being beaten with the cujes. Finally, the babalawo returned to Ifá, where his pain and suffering ceased and he began to prosper spiritually and materially.
The babalawos are the only priests within the Lucumí religion who are made to swear before Orunmila and Olófin/Odun to help humanity during their initiation. The Ifá priests are not only expected to help all people who come to them for help without judging them, but they are expected to work for the good of the entire world. Every babalawo is made to swear to protect the secrets of Ifá as well. There is a case that is famous among Havana babalawos where a babalawo decided to renounce the religion and, in the process, revealed some of Ifá’s secrets to an ethnologist. Afterward, when the babalawo became extremely ill, he went to a babalawo, where it came up that he had to go through the iyoyé ceremony all over again to save his life. To show the world what happens to people who reveal Ifa’s secrets, the babalawos videotaped the ceremony, which, due to the man’s offense, was extremely severe. But Orula cured the babalawo of his illness, and he returned to Ifá and never revealed any secrets again.
Training
Being initiated as an Ifá priest is just the beginning, and it is only after being initiated that the training begins in earnest. The teaching of a competent babalawo typically takes three to five years.
The preparation of a babalawo begins during the initiation week, and my initiation in Havana, Cuba, was no exception. In my case, the teaching during my week on the throne was intense, to put it mildly. Every morning around three o’clock, my oyugbona would shove me with his foot so we could begin my training for the day. He would shake me awake, ecuele in hand, which he would arrange to produce different odduns that I would groggily attempt to identify in the semi-dark.
Like every Afro-Cuban babalawo, on the first day as an Ifá priest I learned to say, “awo chudú; awo didé,” (which means “a babalawo falls; another babalawo lifts them up”) any time I dropped an ekin during divination with the Table of Ifá. To dramatize this, the babalawo is taught to pick up the fallen ekin while holding another ekin in their hand. With this act, the Ifá priest is given a lesson on how a babalawo should always give aid to another member of their fraternity in need. And this lesson is pounded in every single time a babalawo divines with their ekin because no divination session with the ekines finishes without some of the ekines falling. And the great babalawos who became legends, such as Adechina and Tata Gaitán, took that lesson further, extending those lessons and the attitude to all of humanity and the world.
One afternoon during my week in seclusion, Padrino Miguelito came into the room with an entourage of about six or seven elder babalawos and handed me a two-page-long moyuba, which is a lengthy prayer used at the beginning of virtually every ritual. He recited it to me slowly and clearly so I could hear the correct pronunciation of the words, and then informed me I would be tested on it the next morning. With that, they all shuffled out of the room. The next morning, sure enough, all the babalawos returned, and I was asked to recite the moyuba. Although I was extremely nervous trying to recite the prayer in front of so many elders, I managed to focus and get through the whole prayer. As I neared the end of the prayer, Padrino Miguelito began to chuckle, sharing a knowing look with the other babalawos, who were also amused for some reason. At the end, Padrino Miguelito merely shrugged and said, “Asi es Baba Eyiogbe,” meaning “That’s Baba Eyiogbe.” At that, all the babalawos broke into laughter. Only then did I realize that not every new babalawo was expected to memorize the whole prayer in one evening. I had been up all night, pacing and reciting the passages, gradually adding to them little by little until I finally had the whole prayer memorized. When they all shuffled out, laughing and joking amongst themselves, I was exhausted but happy that I had passed the test. I also found out that day although a lot is expected of every new babalawo, even more is expected if you are the child of certain signs.
I knew then I had a lot of hard work ahead of me. There are 256 odduns, each one having its own secrets, prayers, histories, proverbs, ebbós, plants, iches (works), and even its own path of Echu. When I reached the end of the information I was given on the odduns, I had to laugh at Ifá’s humor. The very last oddun started off by saying that a babalawo cannot know everything, and only Orula and Olófin will ever know it all. Like most babalawos, I was taught to see myself with Ifá every morning. Not only is that a good way to know what to expect that day, but it is also a marvelous opportunity to learn a new oddun every day in greater depth.
Ifá is an oral tradition passed down from padrino to ahijado (godchild) and from listening carefully to elders. There are also a number of books and papers on Ifá that have become available since the 1940s, a few of them are good but most of them are poor. Many are filled with what my padrino Miguelito in Cuba calls inventos de papeles (fraudulent inventions coming from papers), and particularly bad ones are crammed with sancochos (pig slop). Sometimes I even have to wonder if some of these books and papers are intentionally incomplete and filled with errors to fool non-babalawos and those babalawos who haven’t bothered to learn from their godparents. The books in English are often even worse, sometimes to the point of being unintentionally funny. For instance, there was one book, an English translation of Spanish texts selling for more than $700, which had mistaken the word anguila (eel) for aguila (eagle), going on to advise the reader to put this eagle into a container of water until it dies. Not even talking about the ethical and legal issues surrounding the killing of an endangered species, one can imagine the kinds of wounds the unhappy babalawo would suffer while trying to drown an eagle in a bucket of water!
That’s not to say there aren’t any good books on Ifá out there. For instance, there is Iwe ni Iyewó ni Ifá Orunmila, published in the 1940s. Although Pedro Arango was listed as the author, he is more likely to be the compiler rather than the actual author3 Pedro Arango turns out to be quite a mystery, a kind of Lucumí version of B. Traven. First, Arango was a child of Oggún and would have been prohibited from being initiated as a babalawo. Since he was not a babalawo, how did he come to know so much about Ifá’s odduns? As Emma Teran (Ochún Yemí) had initiated him to Oggún in the 1950s, Arango apparently wasn’t even an oloricha when he wrote the book. Further, Emma Teran asserted that Pedro Arango did not know how to read or write and was thus incapable of having written any books, much less a detailed book on Ifá odduns. It is thought that the extremely knowledgeable and powerful babalawo Miguel Febles (Odí Ka) was among the babalawos who were the actual sources of the book, and Tata Gaitán has also been mentioned as a possible source.
These books were extremely restricted and were manually typed out one by one, as copy machines did not exist. In a preface to the second edition of Iwe ni Iyewó ni Ifá Orunmila, Arango complains that three copies of the first edition fell into the hands of a woman, presumably an oloricha, and two oriatés. Needless to say, the babalawos were outraged that these books, which were intended for the exclusive use of Ifá priests, had fallen into the hands of a few unscrupulous santeros. To ensure no more copies of the book would fall into the hands of non-babalawos, Arango further claimed to have taken new measures. To identify anyone who attempted to share the book with non-babalawos, not only did he record the address of each person buying the book, but each copy also had a secret mark to identify the individual copy. Arango then added that anyone caught sharing the book with non-babalawos would be denounced publicly to their elders.4, 5
At one juncture, Ramon Febles (Ogbe Tuanilara), Bernardo Rojas (Irete Untedí), and Pablo “El Periquito” Pérez (Ogbe Yono), after realizing the necessity of preserving the knowledge of the surviving African-born elders such as Ño José Akonkón (Oyekun Meyi) and Adechina (Obara Meyi), took an unprecedented course of action. To ensure the knowledge of these elders would not be lost, they began to record their teachings. Apparently all the elders they approached were agreeable to this, except for Ño Akonkón. While he was more than willing to teach, he would not allow anyone to take notes, believing that everything should be learned by memorization alone. Ramon Febles, who housed, clothed, and fed Ño Akonkón, in the tradition of washing the feet of elders, arranged for the three of them to visit the elder babalawo. While two of them would get Ño Akonkón to talk about Ifá and the odduns, the third would hide outside an open window frantically scribbling down everything he said.
Evidently these notes were eventually published in Havana under the title Tratado de Odduns de Ifá (Treatise on the Ifá’s Odduns), and it is likely the oldest Ifá document in existence. Put together so babalawos would have access to a massive amount of knowledge of Ifá in one place, it is obvious that this book was taken from notes, and some who are not grounded in knowledge of the odduns may find it difficult to understand.6 Since the books presumed the babalawo would know certain aspects of the rituals, some steps are often not included. These omissions also made it difficult for the uninitiated to put together and perform these rituals correctly. Since the publishing of this original tome, there have been a number of books by this name released. Some of these books were copies of the original with numerous typographical errors and additions mixed in, and others bore no resemblance to the original whatsoever. Needless to say, this has created a lot of confusion.
There is a third book I received through my padrino that I found extremely useful, but being that it is a copy of a copy, I have no idea if it was once published or simply an extremely detailed libreta (notebook) containing information on all the odduns.
History
Ogbe Di Kaka Ogbe Di Lele: The Learning Never Stops
In the oddun Ogbe Di there is a parable that tells us how Orunmila traveled all over the world seeking knowledge. This patakí speaks directly to babalawos, informing us that the knowledge of Ifá is not all in one place and never can be. Knowledge of Ifá is to be shared among babalawos wherever they might be:
Orula, the wisest person on earth, had been placed in charge of doling out his wisdom to the world. While on earth he taught the art and science of Ifá, but he held back some of his knowledge because he feared some of the babalawos might prove to be unworthy.
Olófin decided Orula had been on earth long enough to complete his mission, but soon found out that he had held back some of his wisdom and had not taught everything.
Olófin was not satisfied and sent Orula back to earth to finish his mission, accompanied by Echu Elegguá who convened an Ifá assembly with all the babalawos on earth. As each babalawo talked about an oddun, Ogbe Di would add to their knowledge until all of his knowledge had been shared with the world. No one knows for sure whether it was Echu’s idea or Orula’s, but there was just one catch: no one babalawo received all the knowledge. Instead, each babalawo received a piece of it.
When Orula had finished teaching, Elegguá told him, “There is only one piece of knowledge you lack. Your time has come to leave this world.”
And with that, Ogbe Di was taken to the Other World to be with Olófin. And all the knowledge is indeed on earth, but each babalawo only has a piece of it. And that way babalawos must seek each other out, wherever they may be. In this manner, the fraternity of babalawos is strengthened as well as the wisdom and knowledge of Ifá in general.
Just as Orula himself traveled the ends of the earth seeking knowledge, the babalawo must seek knowledge of Ifá wherever it may be found, whether it is Cuba or Africa. This oddun explains the natural tendency among babalawos to eagerly seek out knowledge from one another, deepening and strengthening their own knowledge and the wisdom of Ifá in general. Oshitola, an African babalawo from Ibadan in Yorubaland, exemplifies this trait when he informs us that if a Cuban babalawo came to him with advice about his oddun, he would need to follow the words of wisdom.
In my own oddun, Baba Eyiogbe, there is a short but profound parable that comes from Africa and is often told by babalawos from there:
Orunmila was initiated, but instead of resting on his laurels he plunged himself right back into the forest where he had been initiated in order to re-initiate himself anew.
The parable ends with the refrán, “If you reach the top of the palm tree, you should not let go.” In other words, even if you somehow manage to become the greatest babalawo in the world, you would still need to keep striving to keep from falling from your lofty position. No matter how much we know, we must keep learning as a perpetual beginner, always striving to learn and to know more. These parables illustrate how a babalawo’s training and learning never stops, and I often joke about how people will know for sure when I have stopped learning—they will see me being lowered into a six-by-six foot hole.
Although they are indeed initiated, tradition dictates that babalawos are not permitted to practice Ifá until they have accumulated enough knowledge and experience to receive formal permission from their Oluwo Siguayú (padrino) to begin working as a babalawo. Flying down to Cuba or Nigeria and paying a few thousand dollars to get initiated does not make you a babalawo. In my case, I received this licencia (formal permission) twice. Once from my Padrino Pete, and again later from Padrino Miguelito, who had directed my initiation into Ifá and was my padrino for the initiations I received after Padrino Pete became too ill to work Ifá. I still remember the day my padrino finally told me “Ya estas listo (you are ready).” and gave me his formal permission to work as a babalawo.