Part F: The Practice and the Cost

21. Ten practical principles

There is no such list in the tradition. Synthesis. Marking: [corpus] from the body of Ifá and the proverbial tradition, [ethnography], [diaspora], [contemporary].

1. Feed your head [corpus]

The act of bọrí says something unusual: you make offering to your own self — to the part that knows what you agreed to. To care for your own direction is not selfishness; it is obligation.

2. Character overrides destiny [corpus]

Ìwà l’ẹwà. Good destiny with bad character collapses; poor destiny with good character is corrected. And the reason is mechanical, not moral: force passes through people, and bad character cuts the conduits.

3. Destiny needs feet [corpus]

Ẹsẹ̀. Whatever you chose, it does not come to you. Three variables, and only two — character and effort — are in your hands. They are enough.

4. The word acts — so it costs [corpus]

Àṣẹ is not fluid but force of the word. You do not curse jokingly, you do not promise lightly, and you do not tell anyone what they are. Whatever is said with force, is installed.

5. Ask — and do not say what you are asking [corpus]

The Ifá protocol is designed so that the advisor cannot steer you. When you ask for an opinion on something serious, not loading the other person with your version is technique, not courtesy.

6. Your problem has a precedent [corpus]

The system does not predict; it recalls cases. “Someone was here, did this, this happened.” The useful question is not “what will happen?” but “what does this structurally resemble, and what worked then?”

Èṣù takes first, always. A system that does not provide a place for error, misunderstanding and chance is not stable — it is brittle. And the two-sided hat is a reminder that your certainty is partial.

8. Medicine wants substance and word [ethnography]

A leaf cut in silence is considered inert. Whatever one thinks of the mechanism, the principle is serious: an act without intention and naming is not the same act.

9. Offering redirects — and usually distributes [corpus]

Ẹbọ does not placate; it deflects. And in practice it very often means: give to specific people. The ritual form covers social repair.

10. The body can be held by another — so it needs a frame [diaspora]

The most serious principle in the document. Possession is not treated as freedom but as a state that requires a supervisor: someone who calls in order, who protects the body, and who closes at the end. Every practice that hands over control to something else — whatever it is — needs the same three: order, guardian, and explicit end.

The essential about the essentials

They are not ten. They are one, seen from ten angles:

You are not the victim of a destiny imposed on you. You are the holder of an agreement you forgot — and whatever you can do about it, you do it with your character, your feet, and what you say.

22. The hard parts

Animal sacrifice

It is real and it is central. A large portion of Ifá prescriptions involve animals.

And it is not destruction. It is ritual slaughter, followed by cooking and consumption: the meat is distributed and eaten by the community. The form is, broadly, comparable with other religious traditions of ritual slaughter.

The legal status:

In the United States, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favour of Santería practitioners in 1993, striking down local ordinances that targeted the practice specifically. It is a significant religious-freedom case
In Brazil, analogous challenges reached the Supreme Court, which also ruled in favour of the practice

And the ethical disagreement is real and open. There are serious arguments on both sides, and it is not the job of this text to close it. I record as is, without apology and without denunciation.

Human sacrifice, historically

It existed. The kingdom of Dahomey conducted annual ceremonies that included executions of war captives; analogous practices existed in other states of the region. They ended in the 19th century.

And the European descriptions inflated them — precisely because they served as justification for conquest.

Both hold, and the choice to remember only one always serves someone.

Àjẹ́

Translated “witch”, and the translation is inadequate.

The àjẹ́ refers to a powerful spiritual force, typically female. It can destroy. It can also protect.

And the evidence is institutional: there is a whole ritual tradition, the Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́ — masquerades with artefacts of great artistic value — that exists to honour and placate these powers, which are called “our mothers”.

You do not hunt someone you call “mother”. The system negotiates; it does not exterminate.

And now the serious contemporary problem

Witchcraft accusations against children are a real and devastating crisis in parts of Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo: children are accused, abandoned, tortured, in some cases killed.

And the attribution of responsibility must be correct.

The main contemporary driver of the phenomenon is not the traditional religion. It is neo-Pentecostal “deliverance” churches and preachers who identify “child witches” and charge for their exorcism. The phenomenon has been documented by international organisations and Nigerian NGOs.

The traditional Yoruba approach to àjẹ́ is entirely different: negotiation, honour, masquerade, offering — not identification and destruction.

Nigeria has legislated against child-witchcraft accusations, both federally and at state level.

Confusing the two is common, and attributes responsibility in the wrong direction.

23. Power, money, authenticity

The cost

Initiations have real and often high cost: materials, animals, hospitality, fees, sometimes travel to Nigeria or Cuba.

This creates all the predicted problems: exclusion, incentive for commercialisation, and people who pay a lot for initiations of dubious validity.

The authority wars

And they are intense:

Who can initiate? The diasporic lines have over one hundred and fifty years of continuity — but some Nigerian authorities consider them deficient. And conversely: Cuban and Brazilian lines consider that they preserved things lost in Nigeria.

Can a woman be ìyánífá? In Nigeria, significant institutional bodies of Ifá say no. In the diaspora — and from some reformers within Nigeria — the answer is yes, and there are initiated women who practise. The disagreement is active and sharp.

Is it legitimate to initiate foreigners? There are Nigerian bàbáláwo who quickly initiate Americans and Europeans for fees, and there is serious internal criticism of this.

Pressure from another direction

In Nigeria itself, òrìṣà devotees face significant social pressure from Pentecostal Christianity: stigmatisation, destruction of shrines, characterisation of the tradition as demonic.

The irony is complete: the tradition is often protected better in Brazil and Cuba — where it was once illegal — than in its place of origin.

And a complex case

The sacred grove of Ọ̀ṣun at Ọ̀ṣogbo, today a World Heritage Site, was largely restored thanks to the work of an Austrian artist who settled there in the 1950s, was initiated, became a priestess, and dedicated her life to its protection.

She was fully accepted locally. And simultaneously, a foreigner shaped the material form of a national shrine.

Keeping only one reading would be easy and wrong.