:: Ile Ifa Jalumi : Reading ::

Abstract

This paper explores the formation and teaching of Egbe Egungun and the importance it has in the community of Africans of North America. It takes the position that, having been dislodged from the specific memory of personal ancestry and ethnic history; Africans of America usually do better in other priestly pursuits if they are first grounded in Egungun tradition before pursuing Orisha or Ifa initiation.

Babalawo Songodina Ifatunji was first initiated in Oyotunji African Village in August of 1983, by H.R.H. Oba E.O. Adefunmi, I; H.L. Iyalosha Ayobunmi Songode and other members of the Egbe Songo at Oyotunji. This initiation to Songo preceded his later entrance into Egbe Egungun in the same system a few years later. In 1990, he traveled to Ode Remo, Nigeria to be initiated to Ifa by Oluwo Adesanya Awoyade. He became Olodu in Oyo, Nigeria as a guest of Awise Agbaye Wande Abimbola during the summer of 1999.

In the same year of his first initiation to Songo, he assisted, Iyamogba Adekola Adedapo in the incorporation of the Songo Temple of Chicago. In years to follow he became Alagba of Egbe Egungun Jalumi at Chicago and presided over the Songo Temple's name change to Ile Ifa Jalumi.

He is a practicing Babalawo with numerous students and godchildren, a playwright with published plays for children based on Ifa stories, and a Professor of Theatre and Affiliate Professor of African American Studies at Chicago State University.
_____________

"Don't hurry back from anything that requires patience", resounds repeatedly through the ese Ifa from Eji Ogbe, recited by Salako for William Bascom. The story goes on to explain how, with patience and endurance; one can have a wealth of knowledge, understanding and wisdom.

Dr. Wande Abimbola published a story from the ese Ifa of the odu Oturupon Meji. In this story the figure Oyepolu was identified as being one who was separated at an early age from his mother and father and, as a result, knew very little about the rites and rituals of his family's culture. Oyepolu's life was not going well. This story has, for me, long epitomized the condition of the African of America. The advice to Oyepolu was that he should return to the graves of his forefathers. He did so and his life became sweet.

For more than forty years now, since Oba Osejeman Adefunmi I began to specifically stress to Africans of North America that a mastery of Yoruba culture was accessible, we have been in a mad rush to return to the graves of our ancestors, reclaim this specific culture, and by doing so, make our lives sweet. In 1970 he sounded Ifa, and Ifa called for Egungun to come to Africans of North America. As far as we know, in 1971, when Oyotunji brought out Egungun, it was the first time ever in the United States of America. This was the beginning of our Egungun tradition.

During, and even prior to these years, we had experienced denunciation from some in the Lucumi community for "changing things". Our response was only that we were trying to restore things to something closer to their original, pre-Colonial form and purpose. Some Condomble said we "wasted" our culture. Of course we know it was beaten out of us. Some Africans of Nigeria claimed we didn't have "the real thing". If we ask ourselves if Egungun really came out in the deep woods of Oyotunji in 1971, we can only respond in a cultural style typical of Africans of North America. "Is fat meat greasy? Does a bear shit in the wood?" Or perhaps we could wax more philosophically and pass on a little Geechee wisdom picked up by Oyotunji citizens as they were founding the village in Beaufort County. "Come here don't know like been here."

Many people from abroad have given us help. Some have even moved to the States, set up shop and made efforts to teach Africans of North America. This teaching has, unfortunately, often occurred in an environment ignorant of the last several hundred years of our people's history in America. Many of the teachers and their students are unfamiliar with that history and are not consciously aware of the culture it produced. This makes it difficult for them to understand how and why fufu and bar-b-que go well together.

Persuant to Oba Adefunmi's early work, continental Africans and some Lucumi began to open the doors of their secret societies to Africans of North America. Comdomble priests have since claimed that they can teach us what we have lost. Accepting these invitations has often fulfilled us intellectuals, while leaving us spiritually and culturally wanting.

As Africans of North America continue to move toward the restoration of Yoruba culture in our lives, a couple of proverbial jewels from the Merindilogun divination corpus still haunt us. Osa Irosun warns us to "Look ahead and look behind you". It also suggests that we "be careful where we walk". As we look behind us we must be careful not to miss any of the last four hundred years.

Also, Osa advises us that "One king governs the town. One is king in his own house." As we consider what is before us and with a little cultural imagination one might expand upon that wisdom from our forefathers, and suggest that one king rules the world, one is king in his own country. It is with this notion in mind, and thinking of Oyepolu in his effort to return to the graves of his forefathers, that we say -- the track record of genius in the community of Africans of North America, what that genius has contributed to overcoming our condition, and what it has done to restore roots by initiating the movement to reclaim Yoruba culture; authorizes the following point of view on the significance of Egungun in our community at this time.

Chief Adenibi Ajamu, Oluwo of Oyotunji African Village, has often in his teaching questioned us on our process for reeducating ourselves. "Can a person get into college before he goes to kindergarten?" The answer to this rhetorical question is obviously, "No", ninety-nine point nine per cent of the time. You might be able to finagle a mail order degree, but most of us start our education by learning colors and shapes in our mother's arms, in pre-kindergarten or in kindergarten.

With that in mind it is easy for us to have the patience to return to some basics. Oba Adefunmi has told us that the soul (i.e. this thing we call back into the world during Egungun ceremonies) has nine levels or areas. The universal soul, human soul (the soul of our species), gender soul, racial soul, ethnic soul, historical soul, ancestral soul, astral soul, and finally the personal soul, are all aspects of our relationship to the "oversoul" which must be negotiated by everyone. There is no lack of recognition for any aspect of the human experience in Oba Adefunmi's teaching. It clearly acknowledges the universal, species (or human) and gender issues with which each soul contends.

Different people in different stages of life may have a tendency to give heavy emphasis to one aspect of the soul or another. If an elder has been successful in overcoming the challenges through all the earlier stages of his life, he may be concerned about broad, worldly and universal matters. He will try to co-op the world in his work. If a person has been given privileges in a racist society and thereby alluded many of the oppressive challenges of that society, they may focus on their human soul and mute the humming of issues presented to them by their racial soul. If a woman feels she has not been treated fairly in the early stages of her life, she may obsess with the complaints issuing from her gender soul.

As it is with individuals, so it is with cultural groupings. Africans of North America have cultural egun who must be addressed before we will be able to freely focus on other aspects of our soul. If we skip over these egun, the infrastructure of our soul will not be secure. At some point the weight of our future will make the weakness evident. We have to know how to make bar-b-que before we can make fufu and start sopping up the sauce. Chief Adenibi Ajamu has warned us that we've been "Tryin' to get the Recipe, and Don't Know how to Cook".

It was no accident that a Black Nationalist was responsible for turning the tide and making Yoruba culture accessible to Africans of North America. It's because a Black Nationalist would know the next most logical step to take to help with the advancement of our cultural group. Black Nationalists prepared themselves by studying our racial, ethnic and historical soul. Can we say now, "Well, that's been done, it's old, we don't have to do that anymore?" Can we skip that step now? No. If we skip it, we will be sorry when the infrastructure caves in. So, Africans of North America who have a sound preparation in the study of their culture over the last four or five hundred years, some of whom even have degrees in that field, seem to have a stronger background for priesthood. Others are often coming to culture for personal reasons. They won't necessarily make good service priests in a community; however, through devotion to their ancestors and initiation to priestly societies, they can solve many of their own personal problems.

In the odu Orangun Meji we are told that the family was the first secret society. This is why we say that a long and thorough preparation for ancestor reverence is so important. Without that sound understanding of the family circle's primacy, other circles we may form will be weakened. We have learned from Oyotunji that for most Africans of North America, ancestor reverence and Egungun is likely to be the best place to begin the restoration of culture in our lives. We've learned to get grounded with a reverence of family ancestors, and to, then, elevate the family line by bringing out Egungun before we eventually learn to celebrate our ethnic soul. After having completed this first leg of the journey, if a person is headed for service priesthood, he or she will likely be initiated to Egbe Egungun first. As Egungun priests we are taught to serve others by introducing them to the rituals of ancestral reverence.

At our Egungun Ceremonies you will hear music and see dances that many Africans of Nigeria, Africans of Brazil and Africans of Cuba have never really heard or seen. If they have seen them and felt them it will not have been with the same passion as we Africans of North America have experienced them. Our spiritual, blues and jazz bleed through our ritual music. To evoke the genius Africans of America we must play our songs and dance our dances. When, then, we reach further back for the old world songs in the old continental African language, we begin singing them with a different kind of soul. Before you know it, those who have been with us for many years sound much like Africans of Nigeria.

Our agon are constructed of fabrics and adorned with images which titillate both the soul of the past four hundred years and the soul of ancient times. When they move, they send waves of light through spaces that speak to us of Juba and Bojangles. If a priest is to render service to an African of America who is struggling with personal concerns, in addition to knowing the ancient cultural significance of Etu cloth, they must be prepared to interpret the impact of plantation dance on their client's current condition.

If we return to the ese Ifa, Oturupon Meji, and deal with the condition of Oyepolu we have an excellent example of this. Oba Adefunmi always said that Oturupon Meji concerns itself with the subject of inheritance. Oyepolu had no job, no land, no wife and no children. If he were a species, he would be a prime candidate for the endangered species list. The story sites as the reason for this condition, his separation from his parents at an early age. He, therefore, could not inherit their knowledge, their understanding or their wisdom of how to survive, to succeed or to flourish in life. He could not inherit the accumulated wealth of the previous generations. He was told by his priest to return to the grave of his father.

One of the economic issues of Africans of North America today is the inability to pass on wealth to the next generation. Economic studies have revealed that this condition is a major contributor to the growing gap in economic status between white and black America. Africans of North America have been kept out of the job market. For years, even when we were able to find employment, there was no parity in wages. Poverty contributed to the dissolution of the natal family. The broken family, added to that poverty, diminished the capacity to pass on wealth. If we go back even further in history, scholars would agree that the forced separation of family members during the slave trade in North America had a disabling effect on our ability to maintain the natal family after the institution of slavery was outlawed.
Now comes Jefferson Davis Washington to the divination table, full of the despair of defeat. No job, no home ownership, separated from his wife and children. After a query we discover that this has happened repeatedly in his family history. He doesn't know his father. His mother struggled to rear him on a subsistence income and High John the Conqueror tactics. He wonders what he's doing wrong. Why can't he get ahead? Has Oturupon Meji been the prevailing condition over that family history, that ethnic and racial history or is it prevailing over his species? Obviously, all humanity is not suffering from this specific condition.

The expectation of service priests is that we are able to help more than just ourselves. If we are not aware of the past four hundred years of Jefferson Davis Washington's social, political, economic and cultural background, we could misdiagnose his problem. Egungun priesthood for Africans of North American endeavors to prepare its initiates for an accurate and useful diagnosis of our kin people.

After being sensitized in this way to the immediate past, the door begins to open to the ancient past. Oba Adefunmi's study of that ancient past opened the way for the creation of a new use of Ifa divination. Commonly called the "roots reading" or "D'afa Oro Edile" he taught several of his students this technique. Why did D'afa Oro Edile develop? Perhaps it was because there was a need for Africans of North America to restore our knowledge of and regard for our distant family heritage. Ifa filled the need.

The deeper the roots, the taller the tree. We've already mentioned the fact that American slave traders had no regard for family structure when trading. For us, also, continuation of our methods of preserving this personal family history was prohibited during the slave trade. On top that, recordkeeping was not a high priority for the traders. As a result of Oba Adefunmi's work, Africans of North America can now fill this gap by coming to some of our priests to get a better understand their genetic propensities. They may learn either good things or not so good things. In Egungun ceremony it is the good things that are remembered most. An example of what might be discovered in a roots reading is as follows:

Here is an extremely energetic clan. This is not necessarily a highly integrated clan. This is a clan that is inclined to stay more to itself. This is a clan of extremely temperamental people.
This was a family of immense spiritual insight, profundity, belief and occult knowledge and power. They were dedicated to the religion and very powerful or very conservative priests. It is the priesthood or the desire to preserve priesthood or to follow ancient tradition, or preserve ancient tradition which was the saving grace of this family. Despite the shortcomings of individuals, as a whole this family had an unusually graceful dispensation from the gods, because so many of them were very profound and conservative priestly types.

A person with this kind of family history might be a candidate for Orisa priesthood or Ifa priesthood. "Know thyself" was inscribed on the outside of Egyptian temples. It was put there for neophytes to read as they entered. We Africans of North America have a great deal to learn about ourselves. Those around the globe who endeavor to teach us, also have a great deal to learn about us. The more we learn, the better prepared those of us destined to be service priests will be. So many of us are in a hurry to learn. Many also are in a hurry to be teachers. Don't forget the warning in Ogbe Meji, "Don't hurry back from anything that requires patience."

Finally, Africans of parts of the world outside of the United State have criticized us for our oath not to pass our cultural understanding on to those who are not of African decent. To them we would say remember the stories found in Ofun Ogunda and Otura Obara which respectively tell the story of a talking skull and a sheep who unveils the consequences met by those with a "bigmouth" trait. Africans of North America have a favorite character named John, or High John from whom we've learned a lot during our experience in this land. John's experience reflected our own in the telling of the same basic story found in ese Ifa. To paraphrase Bascom's version of the story:

John was out fishing at the pond one day and he got so relaxed that he fell asleep. Suddenly he woke up when he heard his name being called. When he looked to see who it was he saw a black snake. The snake tried to strike up a conversation saying that he was just trying to be sociable. After all they were both black the snake said. "Shucks, you might as well say we're kin".
John jumped up and cut out running to tell the boss man about the talking snake. Well, of course the boss man didn't believe him so he told John to take him so he could see for himself. John took him down to the pond, but when they got there the snake wouldn't talk. The boss man was mad at John, called him a liar and stomped off.

When John asked the snake why he had made him out to be a liar the snake told him. "I choose to talk to only you, and you ran off and told a white man. You let me down, John."

Simply put, in our history as Africans of North America we have gained relatively little from running to tell the boss man. If you just look at the aspect of our culture that is blues, jazz and now hip hop music you will see how they are aspects of our culture now largely controlled by people who are not of African decent. A few may have benefited, but the large majority has not. Also, those who run and tell the boss man are seldom trusted after doing so. As we continue to build our secret societies, such as Egbe Egungun and service priests who are Africans of North America, we must keep this in mind.

We know that Fufu is a big part of the staple nourishment of African people. Introducing that nourishment to Africans of North America may be difficult if a more familiar cuisine does not make the introduction. Bar-b-que is known to most of us. An order of Bar-b-que with Fufu on the side will probably catch on quicker in the dinning room.



		Abstract This paper explores the formation and teaching of Egbe Egungun and the importance it has in the community of Africans of North America. It takes the position that, having been dislodged from the specific memory of personal ancestry and ethnic history; Africans of America usually do better in other priestly pursuits if they are first grounded in Egungun tradition before pursuing Orisha or Ifa initiation. Babalawo Songodina Ifatunji was first initiated in Oyotunji African Village in August of 1983, by H.R.H. Oba E.O. Adefunmi, I; H.L. Iyalosha Ayobunmi Songode and other members of the Egbe Songo at Oyotunji. This initiation to Songo preceded his later entrance into Egbe Egungun in the same system a few years later. In 1990, he traveled to Ode Remo, Nigeria to be initiated to Ifa by Oluwo Adesanya Awoyade. He became Olodu in Oyo, Nigeria as a guest of Awise Agbaye Wande Abimbola during the summer of 1999. In the same year of his first initiation to Songo, he assisted, Iyamogba Adekola Adedapo in the incorporation of the Songo Temple of Chicago. In years to follow he became Alagba of Egbe Egungun Jalumi at Chicago and presided over the Songo Temple's name change to Ile Ifa Jalumi. He is a practicing Babalawo with numerous students and godchildren, a playwright with published plays for children based on Ifa stories, and a Professor of Theatre and Affiliate Professor of African American Studies at Chicago State University. _____________ "Don't hurry back from anything that requires patience", resounds repeatedly through the ese Ifa from Eji Ogbe, recited by Salako for William Bascom. The story goes on to explain how, with patience and endurance; one can have a wealth of knowledge, understanding and wisdom. Dr. Wande Abimbola published a story from the ese Ifa of the odu Oturupon Meji. In this story the figure Oyepolu was identified as being one who was separated at an early age from his mother and father and, as a result, knew very little about the rites and rituals of his family's culture. Oyepolu's life was not going well. This story has, for me, long epitomized the condition of the African of America. The advice to Oyepolu was that he should return to the graves of his forefathers. He did so and his life became sweet. For more than forty years now, since Oba Osejeman Adefunmi I began to specifically stress to Africans of North America that a mastery of Yoruba culture was accessible, we have been in a mad rush to return to the graves of our ancestors, reclaim this specific culture, and by doing so, make our lives sweet. In 1970 he sounded Ifa, and Ifa called for Egungun to come to Africans of North America. As far as we know, in 1971, when Oyotunji brought out Egungun, it was the first time ever in the United States of America. This was the beginning of our Egungun tradition. During, and even prior to these years, we had experienced denunciation from some in the Lucumi community for "changing things". Our response was only that we were trying to restore things to something closer to their original, pre-Colonial form and purpose. Some Condomble said we "wasted" our culture. Of course we know it was beaten out of us. Some Africans of Nigeria claimed we didn't have "the real thing". If we ask ourselves if Egungun really came out in the deep woods of Oyotunji in 1971, we can only respond in a cultural style typical of Africans of North America. "Is fat meat greasy? Does a bear shit in the wood?" Or perhaps we could wax more philosophically and pass on a little Geechee wisdom picked up by Oyotunji citizens as they were founding the village in Beaufort County. "Come here don't know like been here." Many people from abroad have given us help. Some have even moved to the States, set up shop and made efforts to teach Africans of North America. This teaching has, unfortunately, often occurred in an environment ignorant of the last several hundred years of our people's history in America. Many of the teachers and their students are unfamiliar with that history and are not consciously aware of the culture it produced. This makes it difficult for them to understand how and why fufu and bar-b-que go well together. Persuant to Oba Adefunmi's early work, continental Africans and some Lucumi began to open the doors of their secret societies to Africans of North America. Comdomble priests have since claimed that they can teach us what we have lost. Accepting these invitations has often fulfilled us intellectuals, while leaving us spiritually and culturally wanting. As Africans of North America continue to move toward the restoration of Yoruba culture in our lives, a couple of proverbial jewels from the Merindilogun divination corpus still haunt us. Osa Irosun warns us to "Look ahead and look behind you". It also suggests that we "be careful where we walk". As we look behind us we must be careful not to miss any of the last four hundred years. Also, Osa advises us that "One king governs the town. One is king in his own house." As we consider what is before us and with a little cultural imagination one might expand upon that wisdom from our forefathers, and suggest that one king rules the world, one is king in his own country. It is with this notion in mind, and thinking of Oyepolu in his effort to return to the graves of his forefathers, that we say -- the track record of genius in the community of Africans of North America, what that genius has contributed to overcoming our condition, and what it has done to restore roots by initiating the movement to reclaim Yoruba culture; authorizes the following point of view on the significance of Egungun in our community at this time. Chief Adenibi Ajamu, Oluwo of Oyotunji African Village, has often in his teaching questioned us on our process for reeducating ourselves. "Can a person get into college before he goes to kindergarten?" The answer to this rhetorical question is obviously, "No", ninety-nine point nine per cent of the time. You might be able to finagle a mail order degree, but most of us start our education by learning colors and shapes in our mother's arms, in pre-kindergarten or in kindergarten. With that in mind it is easy for us to have the patience to return to some basics. Oba Adefunmi has told us that the soul (i.e. this thing we call back into the world during Egungun ceremonies) has nine levels or areas. The universal soul, human soul (the soul of our species), gender soul, racial soul, ethnic soul, historical soul, ancestral soul, astral soul, and finally the personal soul, are all aspects of our relationship to the "oversoul" which must be negotiated by everyone. There is no lack of recognition for any aspect of the human experience in Oba Adefunmi's teaching. It clearly acknowledges the universal, species (or human) and gender issues with which each soul contends. Different people in different stages of life may have a tendency to give heavy emphasis to one aspect of the soul or another. If an elder has been successful in overcoming the challenges through all the earlier stages of his life, he may be concerned about broad, worldly and universal matters. He will try to co-op the world in his work. If a person has been given privileges in a racist society and thereby alluded many of the oppressive challenges of that society, they may focus on their human soul and mute the humming of issues presented to them by their racial soul. If a woman feels she has not been treated fairly in the early stages of her life, she may obsess with the complaints issuing from her gender soul. As it is with individuals, so it is with cultural groupings. Africans of North America have cultural egun who must be addressed before we will be able to freely focus on other aspects of our soul. If we skip over these egun, the infrastructure of our soul will not be secure. At some point the weight of our future will make the weakness evident. We have to know how to make bar-b-que before we can make fufu and start sopping up the sauce. Chief Adenibi Ajamu has warned us that we've been "Tryin' to get the Recipe, and Don't Know how to Cook". It was no accident that a Black Nationalist was responsible for turning the tide and making Yoruba culture accessible to Africans of North America. It's because a Black Nationalist would know the next most logical step to take to help with the advancement of our cultural group. Black Nationalists prepared themselves by studying our racial, ethnic and historical soul. Can we say now, "Well, that's been done, it's old, we don't have to do that anymore?" Can we skip that step now? No. If we skip it, we will be sorry when the infrastructure caves in. So, Africans of North America who have a sound preparation in the study of their culture over the last four or five hundred years, some of whom even have degrees in that field, seem to have a stronger background for priesthood. Others are often coming to culture for personal reasons. They won't necessarily make good service priests in a community; however, through devotion to their ancestors and initiation to priestly societies, they can solve many of their own personal problems. In the odu Orangun Meji we are told that the family was the first secret society. This is why we say that a long and thorough preparation for ancestor reverence is so important. Without that sound understanding of the family circle's primacy, other circles we may form will be weakened. We have learned from Oyotunji that for most Africans of North America, ancestor reverence and Egungun is likely to be the best place to begin the restoration of culture in our lives. We've learned to get grounded with a reverence of family ancestors, and to, then, elevate the family line by bringing out Egungun before we eventually learn to celebrate our ethnic soul. After having completed this first leg of the journey, if a person is headed for service priesthood, he or she will likely be initiated to Egbe Egungun first. As Egungun priests we are taught to serve others by introducing them to the rituals of ancestral reverence. At our Egungun Ceremonies you will hear music and see dances that many Africans of Nigeria, Africans of Brazil and Africans of Cuba have never really heard or seen. If they have seen them and felt them it will not have been with the same passion as we Africans of North America have experienced them. Our spiritual, blues and jazz bleed through our ritual music. To evoke the genius Africans of America we must play our songs and dance our dances. When, then, we reach further back for the old world songs in the old continental African language, we begin singing them with a different kind of soul. Before you know it, those who have been with us for many years sound much like Africans of Nigeria. Our agon are constructed of fabrics and adorned with images which titillate both the soul of the past four hundred years and the soul of ancient times. When they move, they send waves of light through spaces that speak to us of Juba and Bojangles. If a priest is to render service to an African of America who is struggling with personal concerns, in addition to knowing the ancient cultural significance of Etu cloth, they must be prepared to interpret the impact of plantation dance on their client's current condition. If we return to the ese Ifa, Oturupon Meji, and deal with the condition of Oyepolu we have an excellent example of this. Oba Adefunmi always said that Oturupon Meji concerns itself with the subject of inheritance. Oyepolu had no job, no land, no wife and no children. If he were a species, he would be a prime candidate for the endangered species list. The story sites as the reason for this condition, his separation from his parents at an early age. He, therefore, could not inherit their knowledge, their understanding or their wisdom of how to survive, to succeed or to flourish in life. He could not inherit the accumulated wealth of the previous generations. He was told by his priest to return to the grave of his father. One of the economic issues of Africans of North America today is the inability to pass on wealth to the next generation. Economic studies have revealed that this condition is a major contributor to the growing gap in economic status between white and black America. Africans of North America have been kept out of the job market. For years, even when we were able to find employment, there was no parity in wages. Poverty contributed to the dissolution of the natal family. The broken family, added to that poverty, diminished the capacity to pass on wealth. If we go back even further in history, scholars would agree that the forced separation of family members during the slave trade in North America had a disabling effect on our ability to maintain the natal family after the institution of slavery was outlawed. Now comes Jefferson Davis Washington to the divination table, full of the despair of defeat. No job, no home ownership, separated from his wife and children. After a query we discover that this has happened repeatedly in his family history. He doesn't know his father. His mother struggled to rear him on a subsistence income and High John the Conqueror tactics. He wonders what he's doing wrong. Why can't he get ahead? Has Oturupon Meji been the prevailing condition over that family history, that ethnic and racial history or is it prevailing over his species? Obviously, all humanity is not suffering from this specific condition. The expectation of service priests is that we are able to help more than just ourselves. If we are not aware of the past four hundred years of Jefferson Davis Washington's social, political, economic and cultural background, we could misdiagnose his problem. Egungun priesthood for Africans of North American endeavors to prepare its initiates for an accurate and useful diagnosis of our kin people. After being sensitized in this way to the immediate past, the door begins to open to the ancient past. Oba Adefunmi's study of that ancient past opened the way for the creation of a new use of Ifa divination. Commonly called the "roots reading" or "D'afa Oro Edile" he taught several of his students this technique. Why did D'afa Oro Edile develop? Perhaps it was because there was a need for Africans of North America to restore our knowledge of and regard for our distant family heritage. Ifa filled the need. The deeper the roots, the taller the tree. We've already mentioned the fact that American slave traders had no regard for family structure when trading. For us, also, continuation of our methods of preserving this personal family history was prohibited during the slave trade. On top that, recordkeeping was not a high priority for the traders. As a result of Oba Adefunmi's work, Africans of North America can now fill this gap by coming to some of our priests to get a better understand their genetic propensities. They may learn either good things or not so good things. In Egungun ceremony it is the good things that are remembered most. An example of what might be discovered in a roots reading is as follows: Here is an extremely energetic clan. This is not necessarily a highly integrated clan. This is a clan that is inclined to stay more to itself. This is a clan of extremely temperamental people. This was a family of immense spiritual insight, profundity, belief and occult knowledge and power. They were dedicated to the religion and very powerful or very conservative priests. It is the priesthood or the desire to preserve priesthood or to follow ancient tradition, or preserve ancient tradition which was the saving grace of this family. Despite the shortcomings of individuals, as a whole this family had an unusually graceful dispensation from the gods, because so many of them were very profound and conservative priestly types. A person with this kind of family history might be a candidate for Orisa priesthood or Ifa priesthood. "Know thyself" was inscribed on the outside of Egyptian temples. It was put there for neophytes to read as they entered. We Africans of North America have a great deal to learn about ourselves. Those around the globe who endeavor to teach us, also have a great deal to learn about us. The more we learn, the better prepared those of us destined to be service priests will be. So many of us are in a hurry to learn. Many also are in a hurry to be teachers. Don't forget the warning in Ogbe Meji, "Don't hurry back from anything that requires patience." Finally, Africans of parts of the world outside of the United State have criticized us for our oath not to pass our cultural understanding on to those who are not of African decent. To them we would say remember the stories found in Ofun Ogunda and Otura Obara which respectively tell the story of a talking skull and a sheep who unveils the consequences met by those with a "bigmouth" trait. Africans of North America have a favorite character named John, or High John from whom we've learned a lot during our experience in this land. John's experience reflected our own in the telling of the same basic story found in ese Ifa. To paraphrase Bascom's version of the story: John was out fishing at the pond one day and he got so relaxed that he fell asleep. Suddenly he woke up when he heard his name being called. When he looked to see who it was he saw a black snake. The snake tried to strike up a conversation saying that he was just trying to be sociable. After all they were both black the snake said. "Shucks, you might as well say we're kin". John jumped up and cut out running to tell the boss man about the talking snake. Well, of course the boss man didn't believe him so he told John to take him so he could see for himself. John took him down to the pond, but when they got there the snake wouldn't talk. The boss man was mad at John, called him a liar and stomped off. When John asked the snake why he had made him out to be a liar the snake told him. "I choose to talk to only you, and you ran off and told a white man. You let me down, John." Simply put, in our history as Africans of North America we have gained relatively little from running to tell the boss man. If you just look at the aspect of our culture that is blues, jazz and now hip hop music you will see how they are aspects of our culture now largely controlled by people who are not of African decent. A few may have benefited, but the large majority has not. Also, those who run and tell the boss man are seldom trusted after doing so. As we continue to build our secret societies, such as Egbe Egungun and service priests who are Africans of North America, we must keep this in mind. We know that Fufu is a big part of the staple nourishment of African people. Introducing that nourishment to Africans of North America may be difficult if a more familiar cuisine does not make the introduction. Bar-b-que is known to most of us. An order of Bar-b-que with Fufu on the side will probably catch on quicker in the dinning room.




				Orumila Iboru Iboye Ibosise http://www.jalumi.com