One day Elegguá went to a land where he saw some olorichas (santeros) divining with shells to find out people’s guardian angel Orichas, disobeying Olofin’s (God’s) mandate that only babalawos were allowed to do so. As Elegguá himself is a babalawo, he promptly went to tell Olofin to complain about what these olorichas were doing against Olofin’s own orders.
Upon hearing this, Olofin called for Oggun and gave very specific orders so the punishment would fit the crime: as the olorichas had been willing to risk marking people’s heads with the wrong Oricha by disobeying Olofin’s mandate that had been made at the Orichas request, the fierce Oggun was to go down to these people and cut off all of their heads and switch them and each body was to have somebody else’s head placed on their necks.
Oggun grabbed his machete and came upon these omo Orishas who were in the midst of the ceremony of consecrating a new iyawo (new initiate).
Meanwhile, while Oggun was wreaking his havoc, Orunmila was seeing himself with Ifá. The oddun or sign that came out (Oyekun Verdura) told him that heads were being changed. Seeing this, Orunmila immediately set out to where the ceremony was being held.
By the time Orunmila arrived, Ogun had almost completed his ravages and it was a truly gruesome sight. Blood was everywhere and each oloricha’s body had another oloricha’s head unceremoniously slapped onto it in a macabre parady of life. Only one person was still alive: the iyawo.
As Oggun went to chop off the iyawo’s head, Orunmila stepped into Oggun’s path and stopped him from cutting off his head, asking the warrior Oricha to permit him to make the head change using the Table of Ifá so Oggun would not have disobeyed Olofin’s mandate. Finally, after much persuading, Oggun agreed to spare the iyawo’s life.
All three went before Olofin. She demanded to know why the iyawó was still alive and why he still remained with his own head.
Orunmila stepped forward and answered: “You yourself gave me the ache (power) and the mandate to put the affairs of the world in order. This iyawo was himself a victim, not a perpetrator, of these olorishas actions. And you yourself have given me the power even to change a person’s head (destiny).
Olofin, convinced of the truth of Orunmila’s words, responded: “Orunmila, you are indeed the one I commissioned to put the affairs of the world in order and to mend the world when it is broken. If it is your wish to save this iyawo, I will approve it. To iban Echu.”
So ended the first “cambio de la cabeza”…
Tag Archives: Ifa
Apprenticeship in Santeria
When I first got involved in Santeria, I first had to learn how to learn in the religion. Teaching, like most things, is done in the traditional way, because… well… it works. But it took some getting used to…
When I had just been initiated as a santero, I called my Oyugbona in Abofaca, Julito Collazo, to give him the news.
“I know you’re hungry, so I’m going to give you something to learn.” He then gave me a series of prayers. Continue reading Apprenticeship in Santeria
Ifá, Divination and the Power Behind SanterÃa
Adapted from my book, “Babalawo: SanterÃa’s High Priests” published by LLewellyn Worldwide:
SanterÃa, 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 SanterÃa. 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.
 +
IÂ I
IÂ I
IÂ 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 Apetebà 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
Changing Horizons
In Itás*, sometimes we are told to change our rooms, to change our furniture, to change our lives. Why are we told this? I’m not so sure. Some say to thwart Egguns and spirits that want to do harm. Other times perhaps it is because we need to breathe new life, new air. We all can get complacent in our lives. It is comforting to know where your next meal will come from and where you will lay your head at night. Or perhaps the Orichas are saying you have not reached your destiny you need to keep going.
I had just received Itá and my padrino Ogbeate asked “you have any questionsâ€. As I sat dumbfounded all I could ask “What do you mean I have to change my entire lifeâ€. “Asi es, poco a poco pero todo tiene que cambiar†(As it is so, little by little but everything must change).
Growing up brown and poor in the ghettos of Los Angeles, I thought I had cracked the ‘glass ceiling’ (concrete more like) by being the only one in my extended family to go to college, get a master’s and work in my profession. And here the Itá was saying something was amiss in my life, that I needed an entire transformation.
Okay, I gulped… much to think about…
As our twins were very young, they needed lots of attention, care and nurture. During this trip to Cuba I received Odudua, Olokun and my yeye Obba. This trip was to fortify me with the strength I needed and continued to need with what lay ahead. What lay ahead was a series of challenges related to the life or death threat to my husband Frank’s health. Changing one’s life is not at the forefront of your existence when you’re just trying to survive an onslaught of hardships and just trying to breathe, hoping that our family will somehow come out together at the end of the tunnel. It is interesting that life has a way of testing you through adversity, just to see what you are made of. Will you blow away at the first strong wind or will you grow your roots a little deeper?
Years later, with our family intact we headed to Huautla de Jimenez, Oaxaca. We decided to go to Huautla after a series of disappointments of not selling our house, though we knew that we needed to leave our old life and start anew. I had suspected that something was amiss, that we were missing a piece of the puzzle but what could it be?
What transpired in Huautla, forever changed our perspective. We both now looked at the world from a very different perspective. We could no longer keep doing what we were doing in the same trajectory. A shift- change had occurred unsuspectingly to us. Going to the city was our first realization that something profound had occurred. No longer were we looking at the world through a capitalist imposed lens of the rat race. But from the perspective of the Earth itself, from the earthen floor, from the greenery of living plants, from the dew of the morning, from the rising of the Sun. Our whole perspective changed and life was no longer taken for granted.
I didn’t realize how much my life had changed until my Horizons changed. As our family traveled through the U.S. The horizons of the sun rising on the East and setting on the West is a constant. I have seared images of the sun setting on the Pacific Ocean where you can see the settling sun inch by inch in the vast sea. But arriving at the Atlantic Ocean I could barely make out the sun setting on the west.
And it wasn’t until arriving on the East coast that I realized a total transformation had taken root. Down to the core where I struggle to find which horizon to look for that I realize my life has changed completely…
…poco a poco.
*The Itá is the deep divination performed as part of major initiations. During this divination, the Oricha received gives predictions and advice which apply to your whole life.