Awonifa
Study the Teaching of Ifa and the Orisha's
Ogbe Ate verse
Ogbe Ate:Ogbe, come and be initiated in order to be comfortable
To take a hand of Ifa and then be fully initiated is the pride one has in Ifa
These were the declarations of Ifa for Orunmila
When he planned to initiate his child
Orunmila was advised to offer sacrifice
He complied
When I received a hand of Ifa
My father then performed Itelodu for me
Lack of wisdom
Lack of deep thought
These are what compel people to be initiated repeatedly on three occasions
After being initiated
The issue of Esu Odara needs to be taken seriously
Why must Esu Odara be given extra considerations?
After being initiated
We must not use a worn out twisted rope to climb a palm tree
We must not jump in the river without knowing how to swim
We must not take undue risk which may cost life
We must not snatch the wife of Awo
We must not snatch the wife of medicine man
We must not have ilicit carnal knowledge of a ritualists wife
We must not plan evil against our friends with his wife
We must not lie to our Oluwo
Any matter that had been exhaustively addresses, we must not raise it again
Orunmila was the person who initiated Akoda
He also initiated Aseda
He equally initiated Araba
Only Orunmila Agboniregun
Was the person we do not know who initiated
Now, after I have been initiated
I will complement it with self initiation
All those things that are my taboos
I will surely avoid them
I have been initiated
I will re-initiate myself, by myself...
Yoruba
Ogbe waa te k'ara o ro wa
Mo gba mo te ni iregun Ifa
Dia fun Orunmila
Baba yoo te omo re n'ifa
on ni ko sakaake, ebo ni sise
O gbe'bo, O rubo
Nigbati mo gba
Baba a mi si te mi
Ailogbon ninu
Amiero nikun
Nii mu'nii wo igbdu leemeta
Bi a ba te Ifa tan
Eese ti oro Esu Odara fi ku, Ifa?
Bi a ba te Ifa tan
A kii fi ajaku igba a gu ope
A kii be ludo lai mo we
A kii ri iku nile ka tori boo
A kii fe obinrin Awo
A kii gba aya isegun
A o gbodo mu obinrin abore wole kelekele loo fe
A o gbodo ba obinrin imule eni seke
Oluwo eni kii bi ni loro ka se
Koiko ti erin gberi mo
Orunmila lo te Akoda
O te Aseda
O te Araba
Orunmila Agbonniregun Olojo ibon
Oun nikan soso la o mo eni to tee
Nje bi a ba te mi tan
Maa tun'ra mi te
Eewo ti a ba ka fun mi
Maa gbo
Tite la te mi
Maa tun'ra mi teo
Yoruba Fokelore
Razor Cuts
A CERTAIN King named Shango sent two slaves to a distant country on an important mission.In due course they returned, and he found that one slave had achieved successfully what he had been sent to do, while the other had accomplished nothing. The King therefore rewarded the first with high honours, and commanded the second to receive a hundred and twenty-two razor cuts all over his body.
This was a severe punishment, but when the scars healed, they gave to the slave a very remarkable appearance, which greatly took the fancy of the Kings wives.
Shango therefore decided that cuts should in future be given, not as punishment, but as a sign of royalty, and he placed himself at once in the hands of the markers. However, he could only bear two cuts, and so from that day two cuts on the arm have been the sign of royalty, and various other cuts came to be the marks of different tribes.
Ifa Related
Adechina brings Ifa to Cuba
Adechina Remigio Herrera (Obara Meji)
Adechina (“Crown of Fire”) is credited as being one of the most important founding fathers of Ifa in Cuba. A Yoruba born in Africa and initiated as a babalawo there, he was enslaved and taken to Cuba as a young man in the late 1820s. Legend has it that he swallowed his sacred ikin ifa used in divination in order to take them with him across the ocean. An intelligent and gifted man, He worked at a sugar mill until his freedom was paid for in 1827. He later became a powerful property owner in the Havana suburb of Regla. In addition to his large African and Creole religious family he had many influential godchildren from Havana’s Spanish, white elite and had important high society connections. He set up a famous religious institution, the Cabildo of the Virgin of Regla (the Cabildo Yemaya) in around 1860, which became a powerful center of Ifa and Orisha worship. Along with his daughter, the famous Ocha priestess Echu Bi, he organized the annual street procession on the feast day of the Virgin of Regla, every September 7th. Each year seminal Afrocuban drummers like Pablo Roche Okilakpa would sound the mighty Ilú batá in honor of Yemaya as they processed around the town. Incredibly, Adechina is also reputed to have returned to Africa, the land of his birth, in order to acquire the sacred materials needed to initiate babalawos. He returned again to Cuba with these sacred items in order to build Ifa there.
All the mojubas (prayers and recitals of lineage to honor the ancestors) of babalawos in Cuba include Adechina.
A great man who helped carry African profound spiritual knowledge to the Americas.
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