An Epistemic Critique of Ifa as a Revelatory Source of Knowledge

Yunusa Kehinde Salami

The paper examines the position of repute that Orunmila and Ifa occupy in Yoruba cosmology on the question of ultimate meaning and knowledge of the world and of the human beings, with the specific purpose of ascertaining the adequacy or otherwise of ifa as a revelatory source of knowledge. The paper observes that in spite of the metaphysical and epistemological appeal of ifa as a revelatory source of knowledge, it does not provide an intersubjectively verifiable sort of knowledge that meets the scientific needs of the modern African society. The paper concludes that the possibility of developing the ifa divinatory process of knowledge production, though farfetched, should not be foreclosed.

Introduction Yoruba cosmology gives a position of repute to Orunmila and Ifa on the question of ultimate meaning and knowledge of the world and of the individual human beings. This paper intends to examine the epistemic role assigned Ifa divination in Yoruba epistemic system in order to ascertain the level of certainty and fallibility of Ifa as a source of revelatory knowledge. Ifa as a Religion and a Source of Revelatory Knowledge.
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Ifa has been variously regarded as a religion and a repository of knowledge. In Yoruba culture both at home in Nigeria and in Diaspora, Ifa, as represented by Orunmila, has been treated as a religion with its great number of worshippers and followership. Those involved in Ifa religious worship lay a lot of emphases on the prowess of Orunmila as one of the deities of Olodumare, the supreme deity in Yoruba Cosmology and Spiritualism. Ifa involves a form of worship by the devotees. This worship includes a compendium of performances and praise singing by the babalawo. Wande Abimbola sees Ifa as a special divinity among the Yoruba. For him, the Yoruba believe that it was Olodumare who sent Ifa forth from the heavens and who charged him to use his wisdom to repair the world. The wisdom, knowledge, and luminosity with which Olodumare endowed Ifa account for Ifas pre-eminence among divinities in Yoruba land.1 On the other hand, another Ifa scholar, William Bascom, sees Ifa as a system of divination based on sixteen basic and 256 derivative figures (odu) obtained either by the manipulation of sixteen palm nuts (ikin) or by the toss of a chain (opele) of eight half seed shells.2

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Given Kola Abimbolas submission, it is possible to conceive Ifa in different mutually inclusive ways. For Kola Abimbola: Ifa (also known as Orunmila or Orunla) is the name of the god of knowledge and wisdom; Ifa is used to refer to the divination process related to the god of knowledge and wisdom; there is a body of knowledge also called Ifa (Ifa Literary Corpus). This body of knowledge is the Sacred Text of Yoruba Religion and all its denominatio ns in Africa and the DiasporaThere are some special Ifa poems that function as incantations or powerful words. When uttered, believers think that the words can reveal truth in the sense that whatever they state will happen. These Ifa incantations are used mainly for medicinal purposes3 In the same respect, Wande Abimbola is of the view that; the Yoruba people themselves regard Ifa as the great authority on their mythology, history and philosophy4 From the reading thus far, Ifa can be identified as one of the most important of the gods who was sent by Olodumare, the supreme God, from on high, charged with the responsibility of using his God-given incomparable wisdom and capacity for omniscience to order the world aright, and to ensure that both it and its inhabitants do not spin out of their proper orbit. Hence, Ifas nickname, A-kere-finusogbon, which is an allusion to the fact that Ifa is reputed to be among the youngest gods, yet Ifa is endowed with unsurpassable knowledge.5 This is gradually shifting us towards the revelatory capacity of Ifa as a means of divination. An ascription of the power of a
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godgodliness to Ifa and treating it as a divinity gives some credence to Ifa as a source of divination for the knowledge beyond immediate cognition. Makinde, in agreement with Wande Abimbola and some others, identifies Ifa with Orunmila, the owner or possessor of wisdom and knowledge.6 Makinde goes further to assert that Orunmila, through Ifa, brought to the world such knowledge that consists of such branches as science of nature (physics), animals (biology), plants(botany), medicinal plants(herbalism), oral

incantations(ofo), and all the sciences associated with healing diseases(medicine)7 Attempts are severally made to ascribe to Ifa the status of the unsurpassable repository of knowledge and wisdom. 8 Ifa is seen to be omniscient. It is regarded as a deity, which transcends the limits of human cognitive capacities, has the capacity to know from several perspectives at the same time, and is not bound by the time-space constraints of human knowing.9 A critical look at the kinds of epistemological assistance that people seek from Ifa reveals that they are such that require knowing about a future that is beyond the ambience of the present scope of our senses. They include such request about what the future holds for individuals or groups. For
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instance, when a new child is born, there is the need to know what path the child will pass through in life. This in some places may be called the akosejaye (the planned passage) or the ayanmo, ipin, or akunleyan(the destiny), that the child brought to the worlds of the living. In this respect, when a child is born, the elders around, especially those with filial relationship, would wish to know the dos and donts for the newborn child. This, as one can rightly perceive, may be to prevent the child from groping unnecessarily in the world before finding the right step to take. This will put the human person on the right path concerning what to do and what not to do with respect to the trade to learn, which space to occupy within a

particular point in time, which wife or husband to marry and from where to marry. In another very similar sense, when all precautions are taken and life is still not going things still are not going well, individuals or groups of people may wish to seek the assistance of Ifa in knowing what the causes are. Ifa may also be contacted for explanation in cases when what is considered a favourable way of existence is up turned. The nexus between the kind of knowledge sought from Ifa and the ones through other mystical explanation for
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human beings and human existence is that they are usually such that are beyond the reach of the ordinary human capacities. Those mundane things of every day experiences are usually not thought to form part of the knowledge that deserves being taken to Ifa for divination or consultation. It is just those kinds of knowledge that human beings consider themselves incapable of penetrating. As observed earlier, this is relevant mostly because of the belief that the destiny of individuals or groups consists of many things about the success and failure, joy and sadness, health and ill health that such individuals may go through in life. As this discussion suggests, Ifa seems to be more of a process of pursuit of knowledge about destiny, i.e. about the course of life. It is a quest for greater and greater individual and social selfunderstanding, especially in order to determine the right course of action for life...10 This is necessary to enable a human being realise the fullness and reality of self. The question of human destiny is one of the prominent areas in which Ifas epistemic prowess is mostly accorded recognition in Yoruba thought. Yoruba Account of Predestination
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In the Yoruba conception of human person11, a human person is made of ara, emi and ori. Ara is body, emi is soul while ori is the inner head. Ori (the inner head) is regarded as the bearer of destiny. This account of human person emphasizes the importance of ori and by implication, makes destiny or predestination a necessary component of a human person. With this introduction of ori, the third component, there is a challenge to the Cartesian dualist account of human person. This gives a tripartite conception of human person as against the dualist account of Descartes. The Yoruba generally refer to ori as the unconscious self, as inner head, as ones guardian spirit, and as the bearer of destiny. According to Gbadegesin, it is the ori that selects the destiny of the person before Olodumare (the Supreme deity) who normally endorses such a choice12. Another account of Yoruba concept of ori is given by Idowu, who claims that Yoruba regard ori as the personality Spirit. For Idowu, ori is the very essence of personalityit is this ori that rules, controls, and guides the life and activities of the person13. Going by Idowu and other available

materials on ori and destiny, a persons destiny can be known as ipinori or shortened to be iponri. This can be translated as the oris
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portion or lot. Ipin means portion, and ori means the inner head. So, iponri means oris portion or lot. The question, however, is about the status of ori vis--vis other causal agents. Can we regard ori as the antecedent cause of all other possible causes? In other words, do we see other causes as mere causal manifestations of one underlying cause - ori? If the answer is yes, then we can correctly argue that there is a connection between the concept of ori and destiny. This takes us to the other related notions of ipin (that which is allocated to someone), ayanmo (that which is affixed to someone), and akunleyan (that which is chosen kneeling). All these concepts convey the idea of destiny, which, if critically examined, could be seen to convey some important differences in the meanings of destiny in Yoruba. For Idowu, we have a trimophous conception of destiny.14 Going by these related terms, a little clarification may be warranted. For instance, ayanmo and ipin imply something imposed on human persons, without any enquiry on whether they wanted it or not. Ayanmo and ipin are predominantly suggestive of the influence of an external factor against which we are powerless. Consequently, one
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may argue that what becomes ones destiny is not within ones ability to choose. Given this account, the action one finds oneself performing here on earth, is independent of ones choice or wishes in this world. The account renders human beings as mere toys in the hands of the gods. On the other hand, akunleyan is suggestive of ones conscious choicewithout any external compulsion. In spite of these differences in Yoruba conceptions of predestination, a person comes into the world with his destiny already packaged and whatever a person does achieve, or whatever happens to him, is a precise working out of his destiny. 15 The upshot of this is that in Yoruba universe, each human being is predestined to lead a kind of life and not others. That is, each human being while in isalu orun (heavenly abode), chose or found affixed on him or her, a particular kind of destiny which he or she is expected to actualise, unravel, or manifest in this isalu aye(earthly world). On this account, destiny represents the kind of choice or affixation in isalu orun, which will invariably determine the earthly success or failure. It is believed that the choice or affixation of a good ori ensures that the individual concerned would lead a successful and

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prosperous life on earth, while the choice or affixation of a bad ori condemns the individual concerned to a life of failure. Ifa and the Knowledge of Human Destiny Going by the discussion thus far about the epistemic status of Ifa in relation to the question of ultimate reality of persons and communities, the point is highly emphasised with respect to the question of destiny. There is the assumption that while the lifeless bodies (ara) were picking their ori, the marker of destiny, in isalu orun, from Ajalas house, Orunmila was there watching the kind of ori that individuals were picking. On the point of this, he is regarded, in Yoruba cosmology, as the eleri ipin, the one who was present when individuals were picking their ori or destiny in isalu orun, heaven, and so he is regarded as the one who can enter the witness box between the ori, destiny, and the actual possessors of destiny. The concept of Ori and destiny is well discussed in some chapters and verses of Ifa. The most aptly relevant verses can be found in Ogunda Meji and Ogbegunda or Ogbeyonu16. Relevant verses of Ifa give the idea that^ individual went as a whole person with a whole body and soul to pick ori. The verses tell of three
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friends, Oriseeku(the son of Ogun), Orileemere(the son of Ija) and Afuwape(the son of Orunmila) who were going from heaven to earth to settle down. The account involved sacrifices by Afuwape (the son of Orunmila) before going to pick his ori. As this account goes, this sacrifice aided Afuwapes choice of a good and durable Ori which withstood the hazards of the journey to earth and upon which Afuwape became a successful man on earth. The initial problem is that it is already contained in the Yoruba account of predestination that the chooser of destiny in isalu orun (heaven) would have passed through or would have crossed the river of forgetfulness while coming to ode- isalaye (the human world) and so cannot remember or have a reflective memory of having ever picked an Ori. The question from this is how to link a destiny to a man who never remembered anything or have been made to forget everything in connection with the destiny or the fact of picking it. If the destiny and its choice are to be of principal relevance to the life of a person, that person must be able to link himself or his life to the destiny and its choice.
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It is generally assumed that the problem generated by the river of forgetfulness can be adequately taken care of by the Yoruba account according to which Ifa was present at the time when individuals were picking their individual Ori. Based on the supposed presence of Ifa oracle, it is believed that Ifa divination can help to reveal the sort of Ori which was chosen and, perhaps, what sacrifice or propitiation can be done to change a bad Ori to a good one. f. The position assumes the authenticity of Ifa as a plausible means to the knowledge of the transcendent. If this is granted, then, we shall also grant the possibility of linking a person to his destiny through the revelatory knowledge of Ifa oracle. Given this account, it is assumed that anyone who wishes to have his destiny revealed to him would simply seek the assistance of Ifa oracle and its priest. This informs the practice in which the Yoruba consult Ifa at the birth of a new child to know the akosejaye; what the future has in stock for the child. In spite of this reassuring support from the revelatory prowess of Ifa oracle, its capacity to give an adequate knowledge of what the future holds for individuals and groups can be challenged. For
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instance, the question of inter-subjective verifiability can be raised. A critic may object that the modus operandi of Ifa as a source of knowledge is not open toempirical verification. It does not allow crosschecking of facts. In fact, two Ifa priests may differ or disagree on what Ifa says about the destiny of a particular individual. The critic may claim further that there is little likelihood, if any, for Ifa to provide the supposed missing link in the memory-phases of a person P1 at t1 who picked an ori, and by extension, destiny, and, the person P2 at t2 who unravels the destiny as encapsulated by the ori. This critique of Ifa may be too hasty. The critic may not have sufficiently explored the potentialities or efficacy of Ifa as a means of knowing. The method of Ifa divination should be sufficiently explored. The possible variations that may occur about what Ifa reveals may be due to the variations in the levels of proficiency of different Ifa priests and not necessarily a product of the limitation of ifa oracle. Again, this introduces the problem of epistemic relativism. Relativism will amount to the position that what is true or amounts to knowledge for me is true or amount to knowledge for me and what is so for you or any other person is also knowledge or true as such. In this case, knowledge becomes a mere conjecture.
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If relativism is true, then, conflicting theories or modes of thought can be held together. This, according to the critics, is selfrefuting, and so, relativism is self-stultifying. This possibility for different verdicts from different Ifa priests on the same puzzle makes Ifa divination not to offer an acceptable warrant for any judgment and so, acceptance of one verdict from one Ifa priest rather than another is arbitrary. On this ground, appeals to evidence as a way of settling disputes will not work because any evidence can be interpreted in ways which are so different as to be incommensurable. This can be likened to Quines thesis of indeterminacy of translation according to which the same data may yield different interpretations given different manuals of translation. 17 This lack of intersubjective verifiability may also lead to the problem of authoritarianism. The fact that the result of Ifa divination, through different Ifa priests, concerning what the future holds in stock for an individual or groups of individuals cannot be interpersonally tested raises the question of subjectivity. I In spite of some of these possible objections against the revelatory source of knowledge through Ifa divination, Philip Peek
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claims that divination sessions are not instances of arb itrary, idiosyncratic behaviour by diviners.18 Rather than being arbitrary or subjective, Eze sees Ifa divination as a system or rather a way of interpretation and understanding inscribed in the religioushermeneutic tradition of the Yoruba as well as many other African peoples.19 Eze conceives Ifa as a practice of deep understanding, which is of philosophic nature because it is a reflective process of seeking knowledge about human life and action- by way of established discernment and epistemological processes. However, no matter what we may say, knowledge derived from Ifa divination remains a kind of knowledge which more often derives its source from other persons. We can always raise the problem of the moral character (iwa) of the mediator between Ifa and the inquirer. In other words, their honesty, their reliability as sources of information becomes a fundamental criterion to evaluating the reliability of second-hand information obtained from them. 20 This raises our attention to the possibility of mischief, fraud, and sheer incompetence on the part of Ifa priests. After all, there have been cases when clients were asked to carry out some sacrifices to actualise some desired effects in their lives and nothing actually is effected in turn. In
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addition to these, there may be the epistemological problem of how chance and probability, on the one hand, and any supposed extraempirical cognitive mechanisms, on the other, play out in the manipulation of the divination instruments.21 Nevertheless, these objections may not necessarily prove the inefficacy of Ifa as a source of reliable knowledge. It may simply mean that further critical studies of Ifa as a source of knowledge should be made to discover reasons for the present fallibility state in Ifa divination to pave way for better and more epistemological understanding and manipulation of Ifa divination to achieve more reliable epistemic results.

Conclusion In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine the position of Ifa in Yoruba religious and epistemological worldview. The paper examines the status of ifa as a deity, which attracts a lot of followership and worship among the Yoruba of Nigeria and the diaspora. As a deity, ifa is seen, among the Yoruba, as the commissioner, from Olodumare, in charge of knowledge and wisdom.
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This belief accords Ifa the status of special knowledge of the destiny of individual human beings as well as that of the society. The paper identifies some epistemological limitations to the power of Ifa to give a kind of knowledge that may be infallible and indubitable. However, the paper observes that further critical studies of Ifa, as a source of knowledge, may pave way for better and more epistemological understanding and manipulation of Ifa divination to achieve more reliable epistemic results. References 1. Wande Abimbola , Ijinle Ohun Enu Ifa, Apa Kinni 2nd ed. (Oyo: AIM Press, 1983) p6 2. William Bascom , Ifa Divination:Communication Between Gods and Men in West Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991)p3 3. Kola Abimbola , Yoruba Culture: A Philosophical Account (Birmingham: Iroko Academic Publishers,2005)p47 4. Wande Abimbola , Sixteen Great Poems of Ifa (Niamey: UNESCO, 1975)piii

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5. Olufemi Taiwo , Ifa: An Account of a Divination System a nd Some Concluding Epistemological Questions in Wiredu Kwasi(ed) A Companion to African Philosophy(Oxford: Blackwell, 2004)p305 6. Moses A. Makinde, African Philosophy: The Demise of a Controversy(Ile-Ife: Obafemi Awolowo University Press, 2007)p69 7. Ibid p69 8. See Wande Abimbola , Ijinle Ohun Ifa, Wande Abimbola, Sixteen Great Poems of Ifa, and Taiwo Olufemi, Ifa: An Account of a Divination System and Some Concluding Epistemological Questions 9. Olufemi Taiwo , p305 10. Emmanuel C. Eze , The Problem of Knowledge in Divination: The Example of Ifa in Eze E.C.,(ed) African Philosophy:An Anthology(Oxford: Blackwell, 1988)p174 11. See Wande Abimbola, La notion de personne en Afrique Noire Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, No. 544(1971): 73-89, Barry Hallen , Eniyan:A Critical Analysis of the Yoruba Concepts of Person in C.S. Momoh (ed), The
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Substance of African Philosophy(Auchi: African Philosophy Projects,1989)pp328-54, Yunusa K. Salami , Human Personality Cosmology, and Immortality Africana in Traditional Yoruba ,

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No.1(1981)pp4-13, Yunusa K. Salami , Predestinacao e a metafisica da identidade: um estudo de caso ioruba, in AfroAsia No. 35 (2007):263-280, among others. 12. Olusegun Gbadegesin , Destiny, Personality, and the Ultimate Reality of Human existence: A Yoruba perspective, Ultimate reality and Meaning, Vol.7, No.3 (1984):175 13. Bolaji Idowu , Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief (London: Longman, 1962)pp170-180 14. See Bolaji Idowu , p194, and Salami Yunusa Kehinde, Predestination, Freedom, and Responsibility: A Case in Yoruba Moral Philosophy, in Research in Yoruba Language and Literatures, No.7 (1996)p6 15. See Olufemi Morakinyo , The Ayanmo Myth and Mental Health Care in West Africa, in Journal of Culture and Ideas No.1(1983):68-73, and Idowu Bolaji, p183

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16. Wande Abimbola , Ifa: An Exposition of Ifa literary Corpus pp116-149, and Idowu Bolaji pp179-200 17. William V.O. Quine , From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964) 18. Philip M. Peek ., Divination: A Way of Knowing? in Emmanuel C. Eze , (ed)African Philosophy: An Anthology (Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998)p172 19. Emmanuel C. Eze , The Problem of Knowledge in Divination: The Example of Ifa in Emmanuel C. Eze ,(ed)African Philosophy: An Anthology,p173 20. Barry Hallen , Yoruba Moral Epistemology in Kwasi Wiredu(ed) A Companion To African Philosophy(Oxford: Blackwell, 2004)p301 21. Olufemi Taiwo , Ifa: An Account of a Divination System and Some Concluding Epistemological Questions in Kwasi Wiredu (ed) A Companion To African Philosophy, p311.

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