CREATING ESE IFA USING CLASSICAL MODELS: CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS OF AN ANCIENT LITERARY TRADITION
toyin adepoju
CREATING ESE IFA USING CLASSICAL MODELS
CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS OF AN ANCIENT LITERARY TRADITION
Toyin Adepoju
Ese Ifa is the literature of Ifa,a system of knowledge described as created by Orunmila or Setilu among the Yoruba of Nigeria.
According to David Wilson,Awo Falokun Fatunmbi: "There is no literal translation for the word Ifa. It refers to a religious tradition, an understanding of ethics, a process of spiritual transformation and a set of scriptures that are the basis for a complex system of divination "
(“Obatala: Ifa and the Chief of the Spirit of the White Cloth”, http://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=3562.0;wap2)
Ifa's ideas are communicated largely through the literary forms of the poem and the prose narrative.
The first two poems here are my own efforts at creating ese ifa.The third poem is a translation of a classical form of ese ifa that influenced my own effort,along with the Yoruba version and my commentary on the poem.
The two poems I composed are satires written in the course of a debate.This satirical intention informs the play on words in Yoruba in the second example,where I ridicule my opponents in the debate by pairing their names with insulting Yoruba expressions.
The Babalawo (Ifa priest) of the Heart
consulted Ifa on behalf of Okere(the squirrel).
The Odu(divinatory pattern) that emerged was Ose'Tura
(which may be understood as the Odu of Esu,embodiment of the X factor,the unanticipated,among other qualities)
"Okere",said the babalawo
"You shall be going on a journey soon.
On this journey,
When you want to fetch a nut for food,be careful which nuts you choose.
Choose only nuts that you can carry home easily.
Dont take any nut too heavy for you.
If you see that any particular nut is too heavy, drop it,so you can get home.
Give to Ifa a sacrifice of a kola nut, representing the wisdom to know when to change your actions,sprinkled with palm oil to smoothen the workings of your mind so you are not held down by stubborn pride".
Okere thanked the babalawo and went home.
When he told his wife about what the babalawo told him
His wife pooh poohed the babalawo's warning.
"Are you not General Okere,of the fecund and uncluttered mind?
Who has ever known you to bite off more than you chew?
Are you not Jaguna,whose name is spoken of in whispers among the rugged hill climbers in Abeokuta,the Place Below the Rock?"
So Okere did not sacrifice and he allowed the breeze of time to wash away from his mind the warnings of the babalawo.
One day,Okere went on a journey, as the babalawo had predicted.
On his way back,Okere decided to carry some nuts home to his wife.
He found one,found,two,found three.
He carried them all.
He found the fourth one but he had problems carrying all four beceause the fourth one was too big.
He struggled to accomodate the fourth nut and kept struggling till night fell.
The next morning found him still struggling with the nut.
Night met him there in the same predicament.
He could not bring himself to abandon the fourth nut beceause he found it so attractive.
His pride refused to let him release the nut.
Okere might still be back there struggling with the fourth nut.
THE SQUIRREL WHO TALKED TOO MUCH
Collected and translated by Wande Abimbola
Commentary by Toyin Adepoju
OUTLINE
1. First English translation of the poem
2. Second English translation-extracts.
3. Yoruba original of the poem-without diacritics.
4. Critical response to the English translation
5.Critical response to the first stanza of the Yoruba version
6. Conclusion:
A.On silence and speech,self knowledge and knowledge of others,from the Golden Dawn.
B. Wande Abimbola on discourse on the human world in ese ifa through stories about animals.
1. First English translation of the poem
The slippery mouth;
The mouth that cannot keep secrets;
The trap set by mouth never fails to catch victims;
It is the mouth of the talkative which kills the talkative;
It is the mouth of he who talks at large which kills he who talks
at large;
It is talking too much which kills the eavesdropper.
Ifa divination was performed for the Squirrel
Who built a nest near the road.
The Squirrel was warned to be very careful
Because he could not keep secrets.
They warned him not to tell everything that he saw
To other people.
But the Squirrel did not heed the advice.
It then happened
That the Squirrel's wife had two children at the same time.
When he became very happy,
On a certain day,
He said, "The Squirrel had two children,
The house is full of children.
All travellers going on the road,
Come and see."
When human beings saw this,
They stepped into the bush,
Got hold of the Squirrel's nest,
And examined it.
When they looked inside,
They found the two young ones,
And took them home.
When they got home,
They put the children of the Squirrel on top of pounded yam,
And they disappeared with soup.
Wande Abimbola Ifa Divination Poetry (Otua Meji a)
Paragraphing by myself
2. Second English translation by Abimbola -extracts.
Restless mouth,
Slippery mouth.
The evil planned by the mouth never fails.
It is the mouth of the babbler which kills the babbler.
It is the mouth of he who talks at large which kills he
who talks at large.
It is the restless mouth which kills the talkative.
...................................................................
When they got home,
They put Squirrel's children on top of pounded yam,
And they travelled down (the gullet) with the soup.
Wande Abimbola,An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus.Chapter 8: Appreciation of Nature in Ese Ifa:Animals:The Squirrel
3. Yoruba original of the poem
(Sorry,without diacritics, which indicate tone, and which I understand is central to meaning in Yoruba)
Ayooro enu,
Ayooro enu,
Ebiti enu tase;
Enu oforo nii poforo,
Enu oforo nii poforo,
Enu foroforo nii poforo.
A dia fun okere
Ti yoo mule lebaa ona.
Won ni ki okere o sora
Nitori pe enuu re ko bo.
Won ni ko mo moo fi gbogbo ohun ti o ba ri
So fun eeyan mo.
Okere o gbo.
Igba ti o ya,
Iyawo okere bimo meji leekanaa,
Igba ti inu okere dun tan,
To di ojo kan,
O ni Okere bimo meji,
Ile kun teteete,
Gbogbo ero ona,
E ya waa wo o.
Igba ti awon aye gbo,
Won ya bo sinu igbe,
Won nawo gan ile okere,
Won ba omo meji ti o bi naa.
Ni won ba mu won lo sile.
Igba ti awon omo aye dele,
Won fi awon omo okere leri iyan,
Won si ba obe lo.
4. Critical response to the English translation
This ese ifa creates a delightful narrative through making the squirrel seem human,thereby playing on the chattering sound it makes with its teeth as well as its fate as a human dietary delicacy. By highlighting the squirrel as a family man,which it actually is,the poem could provoke in the audience an identification with the animal as a creature who shares human qualities,facilitating perception from within the squirrel's vision of itself,however limited,possibly evoking a reconsideration of the act of feeding on animals as well as projecting a quality that is widespread in human life-the danger of lack of discipline in speech.
The fact that dialogue between diviners and squirrels is not a conventional part of human reality,if at all,makes this A personification of the squirrel,making it a figure that can talk and be spoken to, a literary device and the poem where this appears a literary form.. The squirrel forgets the warning of Ifa and announces to passing humans that he has just had children. The humans go to see the children and the poem concludes on a sadly delightful note.In Yoruba it reads
Won fi awon omo okere leri iyan
Won si ba obe lo
which Abimbola translates as
They put the children of the Squirrel on top of pounded yam
And they disappeared with soup
but,the second part of which,perhaps, can also read "they escorted soup away" as one sees off or escorts a friend some distance from one's house,thereby creating an ironic description of the plight of the baby squirrels who have become part of soup.
A richer reading could emerge from analyzing the original Yoruba,on account of expressions that might not have been translated,such as
Igba ti awon omo aye dele,
Won fi awon omo okere leri iyan
Won si ba obe lo
The first line of which identifies humans as children (omo) of the world (aye),in this case a generic term for human beings but which also has connotations in colloquial Yoruba speech that suggest negative elements in life generally,as evoked here by the misfortune suffered by the squirrel.In characterizing humans as children of the world,"omo aye" who feed on "omo okere", the squirrel's children,it suggests a contrast between the children of the world with the animal children they feed on,thereby evoking a juxtaposition of two forms of being,human and animal,a juxtaposition that suggests its own range of ideas relating to Ifa as mediating between forms of being,metaphorically speaking, in integrating observations about nature in its characterizations of reality, mediating literally in using natural forms in its spiritual technologies,and mediating literally between humans and spirits.
All these interpretive possibilities emerging from the personification of the squirrel are introduced by the striking opening lines,which through rhythmic patterning of lines,repetition of a central idea in each line, with a new expansion of the idea in each succeeding line-the talkative mouth: it cannot keep secrets;its is a trap that never fails to catch victims;it kills the talkative;it kills he who talks at large;it kills the eavesdropper. The mouth is described as if it is an independent agent,as if it is the entire human being, thereby suggesting the compulsive character of being talkative-one's mouth seems to control one-one's brain seems to be in one's mouth. The parallelism of using similar sentence structures in each line,varying them by repeating the basic idea, using a similar or identical word-talking-talkative-adding new elaborations of the idea in each line,adds to the force of the basic idea which is,being talkative can kill,illustrated in subsequent lines by the tragic story of the squirrel.
5. Critical response to the first stanza of the Yoruba version
The interpretations of Yoruba are speculative because of my limited Yoruba.
Ayooro enu,
Ayooro enu,
Ebiti enu tase;
Enu oforo nii poforo,
Enu oforo nii poforo,
Enu foroforo nii poforo.
The repetition of identical consonantal sounds in these lines is an element of verbal beauty that accentuates the meaning of the lines.The aesthetic power of these repetitions is particularly striking in the last three lines of the stanza,in which the similarities and differences between oforo and poforo,earlier introduced in previous lines, are played upon in a rhythmic musicality which climaxes in the last line in which the sound qualities of poforo and oforo are combined in foroforo and highlighted in the full tonal sequence of the lines: Enu foroforo nii poforo.
I think Ayooro means slippery and Ayooro enu,the slippery mouth. The glide of the motion between the consonants that begin and punctuate the word,in harmony with the vowels that are in its centre and conclusion,accentuates the lexical-dictionary meaning- of the word,beceause the gliding motion evoked by the pronunciation of the word suggests the idea of slipperiness the word indicates. Meaning is suggested by sound pattern in harmony with lexical value.
Oforo,which I expect, means talkative,particularly since oro,with particular diacritic marks means talk or discourse,with a different set of diacritics it means something else,a particular spiritual group or society.Poforo might mean the trouble that comes from indiscriminate speech.Both oforo and and poforo might be described as composed of two major units or syllables or morphemes,these being the smallest unit in speech and writing,in which the last morpheme or syllable,oro is combined with a prefix,a morpheme or syllable that comes before the last one,to create a variation in meaning,both variations being a variant on the various possibilities of issues relating to oro,since the whole poem is a discourse on forms of oro,both disciplined,discreet and indiscreet.
The oro that passes from the babalawo to the okete,squirrel,is wise while the oro that passes from the okete to omo aye,children of the word or humans is not wise.The entire poem is an example of oro that narrates the vicissitudes of a creature that was led into terrible circumstances by not heeding the oro from the babalawo,allowing his tendency to act in terms of foroforo,talkativeness,through a slippery mouth ayooro enu,leading him to into poforo,the problems that come from being talkative.
6. Conclusion:
A. On silence and speech,self knowledge and knowledge of others,from the Golden Dawn.
One may sum up these ideas with a quote from text from another culture:
In moments of silence,we should reflect on our tools and consider words as one of them.
[The aspirant to initiation is required to ] reflect on words,and the power of words.He will catch himself weaving them-twisting their meaning-deceiving himself and others with them.He will catch himself under obsession to them-he will see how they fix and make possible the recall of events and emotions,and with this knowledge he will become aware of how his words affect other people.
As he begins to realise the tremendous miracle of words,the magic both good and evil of communication by words,he will begin to grasp why the Order reiterates the importance of silence.The true Magician must understand his tools and,in periods of silence,he must contemplate words as one of them.
........
[The aspirant to initiation] is led to see himself as not only self conscious-as one who receives impressions-one who criticises and watches-one whose will is interfered with-one who is misunderstood-one to whom others are 'persona' or masks (from Latin Persona,a mask)-but,standing outside himself,he now becomes one who endeavours to sense how his mask appears to others-sees himself as part of the consciousness of others,as one who impresses,one who is criticised and watched,one who interferes with the will of others,one who misunderstands.
He may recall periods in his life when his convictions were sure,his judgements harsh and unjust,his actions shameful,and view himself in that picture dispassionately as an entity operative in the give and take of life,something growing and as outside the category of blame as is the bitterness of unripe fruit.
As the knowledge of his place and relative importance in the Universe matures,he will attain the strength to be honest with himself-shamed of nothing he finds in his mind-one watching the antics of his personality with tolerant amusement-yet always learning.
Fifth Knowledge Lecture.The Golden Dawn.As revealed by Israel Regardie.St.Paul:Llewellyn,1989.93.
B. Describing the human world through the animal world in ese ifa
[Many ese Ifa deal with the world evident in the landscape of the Yoruba people]Thus,we have meticulous observations in ese Ifa about objects and creatures of nature [found in those landscapes].
...each object or creature mentioned in ese Ifa is personified in order to allow the Ifa priest to deal with it [within the standard framework of ese Ifa]. Each personified object or creature is made to be symbolic of [a] good or evil attribute which the Ifa priest wants to eulogise or condemn.In this way,the Ifa priest builds up a powerful satire on human society by telling stories of non-humans.
Wande Abimbola,Ifa Divination Poetry.Lagos: Nok,1977.35-36.
toyin adepoju
From: augustine togonu-bickersteth <august...@yahoo.com>
Date: 4 October 2010 11:52
Subject: [WoleSoyinkaSociety] Soyinka and World Space week
To: WoleSoyin...@yahoogroups.com
"
Soyinkas Childhood friend and Co founder ofthe Pyrate Confranternity Muyiwa Awe is an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Ibadan where there is a |Claim that the Scientists were the first to recieve the signals of the first artificial satellite.They Claimed they passed these over to the Ameicans who claimed credit for it.I refer to an Article in the newspaper by Professor Kayode Adesogan of the Faculty of Science and Another Campused based Publication
The Nigerian co ordinator for the World spaceweek is J Akinyede akin...@nasrda.net the email bounced back. He is based at the African regional centre for Space Sciene and Technology , Obafemi Awolowo University,Ile Ife,Osun State, Nigeria
|
Phone: +1 866.440.7137 Fax: +1 713.481.8846 Management: Officers and Volunteers |
||||||||
|
World Space Week Contact: Dr. Mazlan Othman | ||||||||
To: WoleSoyin...@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sun, 3 October, 2010 15:54:51
Subject: Re: [WoleSoyinkaSociety] Fafunwa, Outerspace and Foreign Policy [1 Attachment]
I get the impression that classical Ifa does not go that way.
IFA FUNWA or FAFUNWA?
I have read Sixteen Great Poems of Ife translated by Wande Abimbola0UNESCO) and there is the talk of beings climbing down from a chain from the sky. I think there is a portion where somebeings fromthe sky came to mop up water that had covered the earth, Some Science writer after reading Ifa Poems thinks thst these peole who had come to mop up were actually HYDROLOGISTS.
Actually I think that Break Dance/Bata Dance is a product of an electronic civilisation.
How do Ifa priests relate to beings from Outerspace. If IFA there is specific reference to Beings from Outerspace
To: WoleSoyin...@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sun, 3 October, 2010 11:41:55
Subject: Re: [WoleSoyinkaSociety] Fafunwa, Outerspace and Foreign Policy
please educate me on the outer space stuff in ifa
toyin
On 3 October 2010 11:31, augustine togonu-bickersteth <august...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Toyin In Ifa we have the talk of beings from Outerspace
Fafunwa, outer space and foreign policy
SIR: The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, which has a Nigerian, Adigun Abiodun, as head of applications section is about to appoint a Malaysian Astrophysicist, Mazian Othman, as its head and would soon be designated with communicating with extraterrestrials (beings from outer space),"Who either arrive here from another world or more likely communicate with us" This raises so many questions about a nation’s foreign policy.
A couple of years back, the noted educationist and former Minister of Education, Professor Babatunde Fafunwa, had an article in The Guardian on the need for Nigeria to adopt a concentric circles approach to her foreign policy.
I wrote back to Professor Fafunwa, not through The Guardian but by post and surprisingly, he replied me. I had stated in my letter that perhaps what Nigeria should adopt is a spiral and not concentric circles. Professor Fafunwa, like the dutiful teacher that he is, pointed out that if I looked at a spiral, I would realise that it ends at infinity and he counselled that I would not want Nigeria’s foreign policy to end at infinity.
But I would like to ask Professor Fafunwa what happens if we got in contact with beings from outer space? Those beings could be regarded as being located at infinity and therefore our foreign policy at infinity.
This is the season of presidential candidates. We need to ask them questions as they pertain to foreign affairs and outer space. We are for now too pre occupied with matters of the stomach, Ijaws, Hausas, Yorubas and Igbos. Nigerians are not all Ijaws, Hausas, Igbos or Yorubas, some of them are first and foremost, Mathematicians, Engineers and Scientists.
In his first coming as presidential candidate, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, in a television interview, quite rhetorically was to ask: " What are we going to do on the Moon?" and in answering his question he opined" The Americans can go there, if they bring back rocks we can buy from them" He eventually made a brilliant move by appointing the aforementioned Adigun Abiodun, a seasoned space technocrat, as his Senior Special Assistant on Space Science and Technology with the result that Nigeria is now Africa’s leading space faring nation.
Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth,
From: toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com>
To: WoleSoyinkaSociety <WoleSoyin...@yahoogroups.com>; ifaor...@yahoogroups.com; ifa_div...@yahoogroups.com; ifaelerii-ipin <ifaeler...@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat, 2 October, 2010 16:24:05
Subject: [WoleSoyinkaSociety] CREATING ESE IFA USING CLASSICAL MODELS: CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS OF AN ANCIENT LITERARY TRADITION