This is going to be a long one, it's really difficult keeping these stories brief but I will try to make it interesting so you can read it, for it carries a very important message.
There is another thing I learnt from Ilé-Ifè and which I am about to speak to today.
On Saturday 3rd Jun 2023, while I was inside the IFÁ Temple [ I wondered and asked why it had to be written in English ] in Ilé-Ifè on the occasion of the ODÚN IFÁ [ It is actually an Harvest more or less ] and having observed things and proceedings which i never expected I did a post to express my displeasure in what immediately seemed to me an eagerness by the IFÁ adherents to align their ways of worship with "Modern realities" by conducting their service like that of the Christians.
See attached link below to the post:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10223834339313974&id=1459844571&mibextid=Nif5oz
I wasn't at all pleased by that sight and I believe IyaOgbe OmoEdu Osuntinuwemi Oyewole was obviously not pleased with what may have appeared as my sharp criticism of IFÁ worship from my post, something she tagged as a ridicule of IFÁ worship be me.
I was approached at the same venue by Dr. Fayemi Fatunde Fakayode a man of immense intellectual proves on academic and IFÁ matters and deep Yoruba stories.
I have since been very widely enlightened and educated by him about so many issues around the subject.
Although I wasn't quite happy still, I was made to understand wherefrom the situation came and the long history behind it.
It is a very depressing story for me and it took my mind straight away to the parable of our elders.
Our Elders talk about the story of IGBÁ AND ÈKÚFÓ.
IGBÁ is some form of calabash. It comes in different sizes and for different uses. It can be used for storing things, as a bowl for holding and transferring water, a dish for serving food and also used for other purposes.
ÈKÚFÓ is an IGBÁ which has seen better days. It is broken and often discarded and available for use as thrash by anyone.
A woman has an IGBÁ which is slightly broken but quite useful nonetheless but she attends to it and treats it with a nonchalance. Some other persons picks this very IGBÁ up on the floor, as it appears to be useless to the owner, and turns it into a thrash packer.
The owner of the IGBÁ sees that action and gets angry at the person who has devalued her property and began to raise a quarrel.
Our Elders say: it is the way you name [ treat/present ] your IGBÁ that outsiders will also attend to it and encourage the use to which they put it.
This is the origin of the saying of our ancestors that " Oni gba lo pe gba ni Èkúfó to Omo adamo fi n'o idoti".
"It is the owner of the calabash who called it useless and that's why people used it as a packer ".
It is the parable which describes and summarizes the stories and experience I gathered from Ilé-Ifè. It tells of our most irresponsible, nonchalant and recklessly complacent attitude by which we have showcased the ancient wisdom and heritage of our ancestors which caused the ridicule to which all manner of people have now treated our customs and traditions accordingly as we have treated it.
Didn't our Elders also say: The man who CHEAPLY [ Being careless] trades away his kinsman [ Heritage, Values, Customs, Culture etc ] he will soon find out that buying back [ Retrieving the lost glory ] that same kinsmen may be a very tall order which will come at VERY GREAT COST!
Something VERY SINISTER happened in Yoruba land, very long ago and it is still going on.
Some people are bent on destroying Yorùbá history, heritage and spirituality and they are getting the KNOWING ASSISTANCE or UNKNOWNING ACQUIESCENCE of somany of our own people.
Men like Bishop Ajayi-Crowther, Rev Josiah Kuti , Bishop Alaba Job started to RUIN YORUBA LAND.
Men like today's Pastor Adeboye, David Oyedepo, WF Kumuyi etc, though they may not know or realize it yet, are just perfecting and cementing the RUINATION OF YORUBA LAND.
OBAS like the Oonirisa, Oluwo, Osile Oke-Ona Egba, Awùjalè Ogbagba II and hundreds of them like that are consciously or unconsciously supplying all the cement they need to RUIN YORUBA LAND.
Our Political leaders are a walk over for these people who scheme these things. Our political leaders are all about selfish lust for money and power and such people are easily caged.
Those are the people who have reduced the prestige of our IGBÁ, called it ÈKÚFÓ and placed it ridiculously in the hands of those who pack dirt with it.
And the YORÙBÁ MASSES on whose heads the resultant troubles will eventually land and who who undoubtedly take the worst beatings, are lying quiet, confused and totally paralysed.
Things have sure changed but certainly not by our own initiatives but by external influences which came not to help but to destroy us.
In those days that our elders call Ìwásè when majority of Yoruba people were living their culture peacefully, still very much in tune with their Omolúàbí ethos, before the European wanderers came, WE HAD OUR VERY ORGANIZED SOCIAL ORDER!
WE WERE AN ORGANIZED AND ORDERLY PEOPLE.
1. There were Kingdoms with very clear systems of GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION.
Our ancestors built MASSIVE KINGDOMS OF WALLED CITIES
There was the Executive arm which was the Oba and his Council-of-Chiefs.
The legislative arm are the BABALÁWOS who were the IFÁ Priests. They made laws and were the mediators between mortal men and Olódùmarè, the Imolès and Òrìsàs.
The OGBONIS are a body of highly respected Elders who formed the Judiciary and who were empowered to checkmate the Kabiyesis.
And it worked.
2. We had our own BELIEF SYSTEM which is centered around IFÁ DIVINITY.
IFÁ IS SCRIPTURE WHICH WAS REVEALED TO ÒRÚNMÌLÀ.
Each man had his IFÁ, HIS PERSONAL GUIDE which stayed with him in his house and also went about with him. That IFÁ is specifically dedicated to him like we configure some gadgets these days.
Many of the ancestors of today's Black people of Brazil and the Caribbeans went with their IFÁ into slavery, many of them reportedly swallowed it in the course of the journey.
The IFÁ is about him and all those that surrounded him. When his children were old enough they will have their own IFÁ too.
Each town/city had its own IFÁ which a Priest , called Babalawo was assigned by the city/town to charge and attend to the Communal IFÁ on behalf of the community. Such a Priest/Babalawo is the Àbàrà [ translated as COVER ] of the town/city and responsible for monitoring all affiars concerning the CITY/TOWN as a whole.
Òrúnmìlà himself was an IMOLÈ, he wasn't known to have been born by anybody.
IFÁ is coded within 256 chapters and verses called Odus or Corpus, each Odu representing messges and revelations processed in parables and stories. NOTHING on the face of the earth that is not revealed in the 430,080 messages of IFÁ.
There are other IMOLÈS and ÒRÌSÀS like Obàtálá, Sàngó, Òsun, Èsù etc.
3. Our ancestors were predominantly farmers and traders.
The YORUBAS, like most African cultures had a FOUR-DAY WEEK
The FIFTH DAY is the day of REST for everyone.
On that day, everyone will be in their best, cook special meals according to their means in their different homes, go before OLÓDÙMARÈ TO WORSHIP THROUGH IFÁ.
They will SANG and brought DRUMS to dance.
The Priest will consult IFÁ to ask about what the coming NEW WEEK held for their town.
That 5th day, the day of REST is called OROORÚN in Yorùbá.
That is the origin of the saying " Beeni ti rí òla ò ri bè, ni mu babaláwo dífá OROORÚN!
Our ancestors WORSHIPPED OLÓDÙMARÈ TOGETHER through the communal IFÁ every fifth day but everyone had his PERSONAL IFÁ in his house which he worshipped.
4. SONGS AND SINGING were two crucial elements of worship in the Yoruba belief system. Many of these songs are highly spiritual.
5. Our ancestors had in those what can be likened to night vigil today.
They went for those worhip in the believe that the Imolès and Òrìsàs listened to pleas more at night than during the day.
6..In the Yoruba system of beliefs, there are doctrinal practices, very strict instructions, which guide ALL ASPECTS of our lives.
There is an oder of service for CHILD NAMING, MARRIAGES, PLANTING , HARVESTING ,FESTIVAL etc.
There is a procedure to attend to BURIALS.
In the days of our ancestors the children and family of the deceased will carry a fowl in hand, singing, drumming and dancing round the community to celebrate the departed.
It is the belief, and indeed it is true, that people didn't die but only transformed into other realms and will surely return back to them. They believe that even while the burial was ongoing, the spirit of the deceased was right there with them and it was incumbent on them to be happy especially when it was an old person who left.
These and many more were the social order in place which ran the society in the days of our ancestors.
It is rather intriguing that THIS VERY ORDER is what you would have found amongst the BLACK PEOPLE in Igbo, Igala, Edo, Numan lands of Nigwria and Gambia, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, South-Africa etc.
THE SOCIAL ORDER AND INSTRUCTIONS WERE NEVER WRITTEN DOWN ANYWHERE IN ANY SCRIPT FOR ALL THOSE PEOPLE OF THE DISTANT CLANS OF BLACK AFRICA YET THEY LIVED ACCORDING TO THOSE INSTRUCTIONS.
It could only mean ONE THING.
The BLACK AFRICANS GOT THEIR ORAL INSTRUCTIONS FROM SAME SOURCE AND AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME.
There is something about this in the old testament book of Moses. He told the children of Israel NOT TO WRITE DOWN BUT COMMIT SO MANY THINGS OF INSTRUCTIONS TO MEMORY.
I have since gotten round the notion that the people described as "Israelites" in the bible, even by their description in the bible, COULD NEVER have been the ancestors of the Jews of today's Israel.
The Israelites described in the bible and Jesus himself were certainly BLACK PEOPLE.
But men like Bishop Ajayi Crowther and his ilks couldn't have been informed of this knowledge.
Ajayi Crowther was kidnapped by Fulani slave raiders and transported into slavery. He was rescued by another set of people who were infact bigger MEN-CATCHER. He was given "education" and brought back to his people to help the BIGGER MEN-CATCHER do their job.
Ajayi began to ridicule our traditions, beliefs and customs.
Òrúnmìlà was Oba n'la and Arúgbó Ojó and Èsù was a reverred IMOLÈ, but Ajayi Crowther turned everything upside down.
He interpreted Bible into Yoruba to enhance the quick transmission of the OPIUM MESSAGE of the BIGGER MEN-CATCHERS.
Our people didn't respond quickly to their messages. They didn't come with drums and songs.
Rev. Josiah Kuti picked ALL the songs from the traditional people and turned them to "Gospel songs".
Our ancestors gave serious REVERENCE to the Feminine and to the TWIN BIRTH but Ajayi had to demonize everything.
Everything Ajayi-Crowther and his masters demonized is what they do their churches.
We saw it at the King Charles coronation recently.
How a Birtish Monarchy of less than 2,000years could have been considered by our people to be more civilized, knowledgeable MD deeper than an African society like Ilé-Ifè which has been there since.over 10,000years.
The European were cunning, they would normally pick on the vulnerable outcast members of the target society who will eagerly help them do their job.
It is what we face today, we have only gone full cycle and nothing is different.
Every single practice of our tradition, the mode of worship, the song, the drums, even the spirituality trance and authority were stolen from our ancestors, repacked and made to look and accepted as new.
They do these things because they know our people won't bother to find out and the people with knowledge who knows these things won't say anything.
So things continue to get RUINED because the people who STOLE or otherwise came to BORROW from YOU are going about telling your children that your things are from the devil.
They demonize you, your culture, your ancestors, your history and everything about you.
They know you can't even talk to them because they have TONNES OF MONEY which they were given to entice, mesmerize and win your children over to themselves.
The plan is that in another 50years, as today's elders would have all departed and leaving behind just a handful of knowledgeable people who will be miserably negligible minority, we will be totally emasculated and probably annihilated out of existence.
It is a possibility you must fix in one corner of your mind.
The summary and moral of the story is that #WeMustBringOurCultureBack
© Adedamola Adetayo 07 Jun 2023
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