All posts by Frank Baba Eyiogbe

Frank Baba Eyiogbe, author of the upcoming Llewellyn Worldwide book "Babalawo, Santería's High Priests" due out in February, has been practicing Santeria for over twenty-five years: twenty-three years as a santero (Orisha priest) and eighteen years as a babalawo (initiated in Havana, Cuba). Frank has achieved the highest level of babalawo, "Olofista." He created the premier Santeria website www.orishanet.org, and has been a guest on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Global Guru and was interviewed for LIFE magazine. He has guest lectured at the University of Washington as well as UC Berkeley.

Ifá, Divination and the Power Behind Santería

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Adapted from my book, “Babalawo: Santería’s High Priests” published by LLewellyn Worldwide:

Santería, its priests the santeros and its high priests the babalawos are justly famous for their power. Divination is at the core of Santeria and almost everything we do literally begins and ends with it. Besides telling us our past, present, and future with astonishing detail and accuracy, it is through divination that the Orichas communicate their wants and needs, and are able to deliver warnings, encouragement, and advice.

When a person is seen with Ifá, the client is advised on the best course of action to take, which rituals or offerings are required, and which Orichas to go to for aid. In this manner a person can achieve and maintain proper alignment and balance, both within themselves as well as with the forces that surround us.

Babalawos initiated into the service of Orula, the Oricha or deity of wisdom and knowledge, and are the only priests who practice Ifá, the highest and most profound form of divination in Santería. Ifá is probably best known for being a sophisticated and remarkably accurate and effective form of divination, containing within it a system of remedies, a vast body of knowledge and wisdom covering everything from the human condition to the universe at large, as accumulated and distilled over hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.

You could say Ifá is the totality of knowledge. Everything that exists
in the universe and in our lives was born and is described in Ifá’s odduns (signs), and babalawos have been accessing and manipulating the vast program called our universe since time immemorial. And they have been effectively hacking the universe ever since.
Ifá is the handwriting of Olodumare (God), and it is simplicity itself.
At its core it consists of just two numbers. One and zero.

 +
I  I
I  I
I  I
I  I     (Baba Eyiogbe, my oddun in Ifá)

I still find this short definition of Ifá, to be very handy when I’m asked to explain just what Ifá is and what I do as a babalawo…

Iboru, Iboya, Ibocheché

Frank Baba Eyiogbe

Ifa 1, Meteorologists 0

The other day, as I was performing my morning Ifá consultation for myself, the oddun where the tempest was born appeared. The oddun predicts a major storm will occur soon and to take precautions to avoid getting rain on one’s head. When I asked my wife and Apetebí Lisa Changó about it, she said the forecast was for sun and clear skies for the next month.

I looked at a few forecasts and they all agreed with the one Lisa had seen. Knowing Oricha Standard Time can be very different from our own, I decided to file that information so I could see how long it took for the predicted storm to appear. For a long time I had joked that I was often so busy that I was having to get my weather reports from Ifá rather than by the usual means. But this was the first time Ifá was directly contradicting the weather reports by such a large measure. So this one should be interesting…

Early that afternoon, when we went out for the day, sure enough the sky was clear and sunny just as the weather reports had predicted. We brought along our umbrellas and hats just in case even though it looked like they would not be needed.

We were enjoying the sun and the perfect weather when suddenly we heard distant thunder. Before long dark clouds had come rushing in, dumping tons of rain on us. Fortunately, we were prepared and the sudden downpour had little effect on us.

When we got home, the news was all about the freak storm that had hit the area so suddenly…

So… Ifá 1, Meteorologists 0…

As they say, “Ifá’s word never falls to the floor…”

Iború, Iboya, Ibochiché

 

Huautla de Jimenez II

Nindo Tocoxo, Spiritual Center of the Mazatec world
Nindo Tocoxo, Spiritual Center of the Mazatec world

“The more you go inside the world of the Ndi Xti Santo (Little Saint Children), the more things are seen. And you also see our past and our future, which are there together as a single thing already achieved, already happened… I saw stolen horses and buried cities, the existence of which was unknown, and they are going to be brought to light. Millions of things I saw and knew. I knew and saw God: an immense clock that ticks, the spheres that go slowly around and inside the stars, the earth, the entire universe, the day and the night, the cry and the smile, the happiness and the pain. He who knows to the end the secret of the Ndi Xi Santo can even see that infinite clockwork.”
– Maria Sabina, Mazatec Chota Chjine (Woman of Knowledge)

Shortly before making our trip to Huautla, consulting Ifá about the trip had yielded the oddun Ojuani Boka. In this path of Ifá, Orunmila had divined for humanity using grains of corn. What I found particularly amazing was that shamans among the Mazatec Indians often divine with corn kernels. In fact, I was first drawn to La Santería because while planning a trip to Huautla years before I went to be seen in hopes of gaining insight into the Mazatec corn kernel divination through experiencing what I hoped to be a similar form of divination in Santería! The Mazatec Indians had led me to Ifá and now Ifá was pointing me back to the Mazatecs.
How the events unfolded was equally amazing. As I mentioned in the last blog entry, soon after we arrived we had made contact with a woman who had agreed to perform a velada ceremony with the Little Saint Children with us… Until she learned we had come from Los Angeles. She had been told by the Little Saint Children during a prior ceremony that people would be arriving from Los Angeles and that she could not do the ceremony for us, but instead must take us to an elder Woman or Man of Knowledge.
The Chota Chjine carefully made three piles of the Ndi Xti Santo (Little Saint Children). When I first saw the huge mound of the Saint Children she intended for me, I was taken aback for an instant. I had read from a number of sources that the Mazatecs never gave outsiders more than a one or two pairs and here there were probably a good twenty pairs – a massive amount even for a Mazateco. But it quickly occurred to me that she too had obviously had been told of our coming by the Saints and had been told what to do, so without question I ate the entire amount given to me in exactly the manner she described.
She began her prayers and songs and in less than an hour I felt I was sinking into the depths and knew I was to have little control over what would follow.
When the Ndi Xti Santo first took me to “the place where everything is known,” they explained that they were offering me a rare gift: but I couldn’t withstand the journey as I was: if I wanted to go I must allow them to kill me and have every particle of my being torn apart, but promised me they would ‘rebuild me’ into something greater than I was before. I agreed and after my constituent elements were torn apart, they led me to “the place where everything is known” where I saw the entirety of the past, the future and the present, from the birth to the end of the universe itself, happening all at once. The immenseness of time and space could be found in a single conscious moment. The universe itself was not only alive but conscious, from the littlest particle to the universe as a whole. And all the wisdom and knowledge of the whole universe was laid bare in front of me. This was the place where the odduns of Ifá lived! I was experiencing the immensity that is Ifá!
Everything occurring in front of me was also being explained by the Little Saint Children. I knew at that moment why it had been necessary for me to have become initiated as a babalawo and to have received Olofin and Orí before going to this place.
The Chota Chjine knew what had occurred of course and the Little Saint Children began teaching me some of the Mazatec healing practices what I needed to do to help the Chota Chjine as even the healer needs to be healed.
She began to cry as we saw how the traditions taught to the Mazatecos by the Ndi Xti Santo – that had been kept alive for hundreds if not thousands of years – were being lost due to the lack of people willing to devote their lives to learning them. I assured her, and the Little Saint Children, that the traditions are not dead if there is even one person on earth who keeps them.
At this point the Chota Chjine told Lisa Chango and myself that we had a lot of work in front of us and that since we had been given a priceless gift: knowledge, we must follow the prohibitions including refraining from sexual activity, not for the usual four or five days, but for fifty two days, the same number as the number of years in a century according to the sacred mesoamerican calendar.
I found Santería and Ifá while searching for insight into the Mazatecs, and in turn the Mazatecs gave me a much deeper understanding and appreciation of the knowledge and wisdom that is Ifá. And I am just beginning to fathom just how much the two ways of knowledge complement each other to make a complete whole.

Iború, Iboya, Ibocheché
Kuanda

Huautla de Jiménez

The corpse is wearing the hat used by the Huehuenton when they represent the Dead during the Day(s) of the Dead
In Huautla’s Central Plaza a corpse is wearing the special type of hat used by the Huehuenton when they represent the Dead during the Day(s) of the Dead

Looking out the window of our bus as it crawled along the narrow winding roads towards the small city of Huautla de Jimenez, I pondered on my own long, winding road that was finally taking me to this remote town after more than thirty years. Needless to say, I had big hopes, but what would occur there would sail beyond my wildest dreams.
Nestled in the Sierra Mazateca mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, Huautla is the spiritual capital of the Mazatec Indians or, as they call themselves, the Ha Xuta Enima (Humble People Who Speak The Language).
When an attempt to sell our home had fallen through we had decided to go to Mexico for the Day of the Dead, a lifelong dream for my wife and Apetebí, Lisa Changó. She then suggested we might go to Huautla and fulfill both our dreams at the same time. And during my daily consultations, Ifá had told us repeatedly that a trip was going to bring us a great good fortune and that there was still something we needed to accomplish in order to move forward and to achieve our destiny. We naturally thought it likely that Ifá was telling us we needed a little time away in order to give us a fresh outlook and provide us with the answer.
We got in to Huautla on Oct. 30th and the Days of the Dead, which last ten days there, were already in full swing. Josefina, the owner of the hotel we stayed at, was extremely generous and not only said she would help us find an able Chota Chjine (Woman or Man of Knowledge) but introduced us to one of the local Huehuenton groups who represent the dead, going from house to house, singing, dancing, playing music (and exquisite pranks). With Josefina’s gracious help we were get glimpses outsiders rarely get to encounter. It was an incredible experience and I found found myself very glad that I had taken the trouble to learn a little of the Mazatec language as even that small gesture of respect made them more open to us.

Huehuenton (Chota Xo'o in Mazatec) going from house to house in Huautla
Huehuenton (Chota Xo’o in Mazatec) going from house to house in Huautla

After the ceremonies for the dead were complete, Josefina put us into contact with a woman who said could act as our ‘guide’ in a shamanic ceremony. But when we told her we had come from Los Angeles, she informed us she could not help us. It turned out the Ndi Xti Santo (Little Saint Children) had told her that some people were going to come from Los Angeles. She was not to perform the ceremony herself, but was to turn us over to her elders. The Little Saint Children had known we were coming and had plans for us…
Our Guide offered to refer us to the person she learned from, but that too fell through. But again Josefina came to our rescue and generously offered to seek out a true Chota Chjine or Woman of Knowledge, an old Mazatec woman who lived outside of town in a tiny village in the the woods.

Nindo Tocoxo, Spiritual Center of the Mazatec world
Nindo Tocoxo, Spiritual Center of the Mazatec world

To our great good fortune, the Chota Chjine agreed to perform the ceremony for us. Josefina warned us that she spoke only a little Spanish but was confident the Santitos would make sure we understood despite any language barriers.
That evening we set out over miles of dirt road, winding through the forest past waterfalls and through woods filled with clouds. When we finally arrived and met the old woman and her family, we knew immediately that we found the right woman. They lived in an old structure, much as the Mazatecs had lived for hundreds, if not thousands of years with but a few concessions to the modern world. Though conditions were ‘primitive’ the place felt more like ‘home’ than any place I had ever been. We had never really experienced anyone who lived so connected with the nature around them.
To make a long story short, or at least a little less long, as the night wore on, it became obvious to the Chota Chjine and myself that the Little Saints had chosen Lisa and I. The Little Saints told us we had a lot of work to do and the night was largely dedicated to teaching us what we needed to know to start us on our way to become chota chjines ourselves. Towards the end of the ceremony, the Chota Chjine began to sob: both she and the Little Saint Children were terribly sad as the old traditions were being lost. I pointed out that as long as one person kept the traditions, they would survive. At that point I promised myself as well as her and the Little Saint Children I would do everything in my power to learn the traditions and keep them well and intact. It was the least I could do to show my gratefulness for the immense spiritual treasures and riches they were offering us.
“Gracias, Gracias Frain (Frank), Gracias Lizabét (Elizabeth)”
She then informed us the session was a ceremony of conocimiento (knowledge) and not just a regular ceremony, and the ‘diet’ (restrictions prohibiting the giving or accepting of gifts and sexual relations) would not last the usual 4 days, but was now extended to 53 days.
Needless to say, we have a lot of work in front of us and I now must learn much more of the ‘maternal language’ (Mazteco) as well in order to honor the faith put in us by the Ndi Xti Santo (The Little Saint Children) and the chota chjine, our new teachers…
That evening we felt truly connected to nature for the first time in our lives.
But as we headed towards the city of Oaxaca we had little idea the effects that evening would have on us, or how quickly we would find out just how profoundly we had already been changed…

Ifa On Wheels

dart
When the world was still very young, Orula was sent to earth in search of a mythic land called Ilé Ifé, the spiritual capital of the world, where he was to teach Ifá and the proper way to live to the people who lived there. When Orula came to the world with his Ifá, he arrived at a place called Onika, which was on the shores of the sea. Leading out from Onika were sixteen roads, and Orula patiently began taking each road to its end one at a time. Each road was more difficult than the last, and on his travels he encountered all the peoples of the world, but none of the roads led to Ilé Ifé. There was finally only one road left, a desolate path leading straight into the shifting sands of the desert. Orula followed this last road until he was stumbling blind through the sand, his clothes in tatters, and with no food or water. As he was about to give up out of despair, through clouded eyes he thought he spied a tiny oasis with a small pool of water and somehow managed to crawl his way over to it.
When he arrived at the oasis, he found three sacred trees. An iroko, an araba, and a palm tree were growing next to the spring. Orula was delirious as he cried out to Olófin that he had failed his quest to find the sacred city of Ilé Ifé and that he was tired of the endless traveling and hardship.
Suddenly Orula heard a thunderous voice saying, “The more you look, the less you see. You do not even see what is right in front of your own nose.”
The voice then ordered Orula to take his Ifá in his hands, submerge the ekin nuts in the spring, and throw the water into his eyes and over his back. As he did so, he heard singing. “Alagba nfo gede … oju, alagba nfo gede … ofo.”
When he looked up his eyes were clear, and just in front of him was the entrance to Ilé Ifé.
And from that day forward that spring with its three sacred trees became the first Igbodú for the initiation of new babalawos.

When I wrote these words in my book, “Babalawo: Santería’s High Priests” little did I know our family was soon destined to make our own peregrination like the one described in this patakín from my own oddun Babá Eyiogbe…
My wife, Lisa Changó, our twins and I recently made the journey to Huautla de Jiménez high in the mountains of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico, the spiritual capital of the Mazatec Indians. While there we were led up the long, winding trail to the top of Nindo Tocoxo, the Mount of Adoration in preparation for a ceremony we were to undertake. This mountain is the center of the Mazatec universe and power, much like the Ilé Ifé of Ifá and Santería.
During our stay, our connection to the natural world was vastly deepened, with the help of Indians who have lived in much the same same way for hundreds, if not thousands of years. For them, and now much more for us, nature is not an abstract concept, but a constant direct interaction.
But we soon found this rediscovery came at a cost…
Our reentry into the ‘civilized world’ was jarring to put it mildly. Even the relatively small city of Oaxaca seemed disorienting, frenzied and somehow senseless, much like a speeding, out of control train careening toward some unknown fate, and probably not a good one at that…
After getting a taste of what the real world really is, it was more than a little difficult going back to Los Angeles, the
place which the Mazatec chota chjine or Woman of Knowledge she had referred to as “where their bodies were aged”, a place she
simply called “North.”
At that moment we not only knew we needed to flee Los Angeles in all possible haste, which of course was confirmed by Ifá, but that our plans to move to the relatively less neurotic Tampa had to be re-examined. And instead of merely changing the background scenery while continuing our old patterns of living and working, we need to find our true home, both spiritually and physically.
So our family is going on our own migration, traveling down many paths in search of our true home and our true way of life while spreading Ifá into new lands, in our own humble imitation of Orula’s migrations in the mythic past. It promises to be a great learning adventure for all of us.
At the same time our travels give us a marvelous and rare opportunity to bring Santería to areas that might not have access to the beauty and power of our religion. A kind of Ifá on Wheels if you will…
As we go about our travels, we will be writing about our experiences on the road.
We will also be posting our future stops here, so anyone who would like to learn more about our beautiful religion, receive a consultation in person or just say “Hi.”

I also have the joy of introducing you all to Lisa Changó, Santera and Apetebí, who will be writing about our travels as well!