In search of direction and purpose in life, African Americans, Latinos, Jamaicans, Cubans and Brazilians in America become Ifa worshippers and consult priests
By ABDULRAFIU LAWAL / Boston, Massachusetts
The grey staircase banister leading to the five-bedroom house smells
of fresh paint. As he opens the kitchen door while reciting some
Ifa
poems in Yoruba language laced with American accent, the neatness of
the kitchen and fragrance of rose air freshener become convivial.
The kitchen area reveals a dining table with four chairs, a
refrigerator and gas cooker on the far left. Moving through the passage
to the divination room, one needs to take off shoes before proceeding
further. On the right is a black wooden shelf containing books on
Ifa authored by scholars from all over the world. Atop the shelf rests a black gong, pictures and
Ifa divination chain,
opele.
Unlike the room of an average
Ifa priest in Nigeria, this room has no strange wall hangings
. In the middle of the room there is a rug, two small chairs facing each other, a small table between and some
Ifa paraphernalia. On this table, you have a divination tray carved from wood known as
Opon Ifa containing
Iyerosun (divination powder), carved ivory object used to invoke
Ifa during divination (
Iroke) and cowrie shells (
Eerindinlogun). Welcome to the home of Tony Vandermeer, an African American
Ifa priest, known as
Babalawo, located in the Dorchester area of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, US.
Vandermeer, an enigmatic character in many ways, hails from Harlem,
a part of New York, which is a predominantly black settlement. Harlem
is famous in America for producing a generation of black intellectuals.
He comes from a family of seven. Coincidentally, he also has seven
children, five boys and two girls. This is unusual in America where
most families do not have more than three children. It is however not
the only unusual thing about Vandermeer. Equally unusual is the fact
that he does not celebrate Christmas, Easter or any of the Christian
holidays in the US, which is predominantly Christian.
Rather, he observes the
Ifa new year (
odun Ifa) and other celebrations recognised by his religion. As an
Ifa
worshipper, Vandermeer is known for his practice throughout New England
and beyond by his students and clients. New England is a region in the
northeastern corner of the US consisting of six states namely Maine,
Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
So why would someone in America, the land of opportunities, need the services of an
Ifa priest?
One of his clients, Yvette Modestin, a social worker and coordinator
for Network for Afro Latin American and Afro Caribbean Women, says
divination allows her to understand the sequence of events unfolding in
her life. According to her, “I have been in the position where
Ifa
divination has spoken directly to a situation that I was in. I actually
find it hard to explain because it is an internal thing that happens,
that validates the next step you are about to make.”
Modestin, founder of Encuentro Diaspora Afro who through her association with Vandermeer also embraced
Ifa religion, says it has cleared confusion and pains from her life. “
Ifa
has become my voice and whisper because I felt like my ancestors were
speaking to me. I had tapped into something that was deeper than me.
This is what has been calling me and what I need in my life,” she said.
For Askia Toure, a 73-year-old writer, poet and political activist who says he comes for divination when his mind is troubled,
Ifa is a direction giver. “
Ifa
is a blessing for me because I get the right answers. I grew up in the
African American church, my father was a deacon. Then, I had influence
of Sunni Islam. My whole life has been a search for how best to
communicate with my creator. After a very traumatic experience in my
life, I met Wande Abimbola,” Toure said.
Similar to what obtains in Nigeria, African Americans, Latinos, Jamaicans, Cubans or Brazilians in America who are
Ifa
worshippers consult priests when searching for jobs, setting up a new
business, contracting marriages and facing other challenges of life.
Bridgit Brown, an African American blogger and writer in Boston, says she had an
Ifa
divination when she was going to work in West Africa for the first time
few years ago. She wanted to know how the journey would turn out and
the divination revealed that it would be a major success. “And it was.
It also told me to be mindful of the importance of ordinary things, and
to not just see wealth in terms of money, but in terms of having those
things which are of basic needs: food, shelter, love, and so on, which
is very contrary to the American way that I grew up knowing,” she said.
The method of divination for Vandermeer’s clients is also similar to that of Nigerian
Ifa priests. All a client needs is to give a small consultation fee, whisper his intentions on it and Vandemeer consults
Ifa for answers. For him,
Ifa
divination is a vehicle to help the society rather than an avenue for
material gains. “This is why I have no fixed price for divination. I
have students who come with coins or a dollar from their pockets. I
tell people who come to see me that if they are doing well, I am happy
to be part of it.”
He says some of the qualities he has learnt from
Ifa in dealing with clients are honesty and patience. “No divination can bless one unless one’s
Ori (inner self) accepts it. It is a two-prong process involving divination and sacrifice (
ebo).
So, if you are not gonna go through the process, don’t even bother.
This is because the idea of sacrifice concretises what is it you came
for,” he said.
Vandermeer recalls his first contact with traditional African
religion in 1978, when he was about graduating from the university.
“Things were kind of rough, I was having problems with the mother of my
daughter. I went to an
Obatala priest for divination which enabled me to get through these problems but things got worse in 1983.” This
Obatala
priest was of Jamaican ancestry who got initiated through the Cuban
system and was part of the African Americans who set up Oyotunji
village in North Carolina.
In 1983, sensing that his life had not really changed for the
better, this father of seven met some Cubans who introduced him to
their own form of
Ifa practice. He was given a cauldron, beads of various deities (
awon orisa) like
Esu and
Osanyin.
Still not fulfilled, Vandermeer left the Cuban house in 1994 when he
met a Nigerian, Afolabi Epega, whose father had written a book on
Ifa in the early 1900. However, his romance with
Ifa took a turning point when he met Abimbola, who is spokesperson for
Babalawos worldwide (
Awise Awo Ni Agbaye).
Vandermeer ended up studying with Abimbola for 12 years. “If people
come for divination, I would help on any kind of spiritual work like
ebo (sacrifice). At this point, he (Abimbola) had set up the
Ifa
Institute in Atlanta where people were coming to see him.” The
interaction culminated in Vandermeer’s initiation in Oyo State in 1999,
adding that when he got involved, his mission was to use
Ifa “to get the kind of spiritual balance and guide that I need to navigate the challenges of life.”
But as fate would have it, his destiny decided otherwise. He soon became a full scale
Ifa diviner, though with a difference. One unique difference between
Ifa
diviners in the US like Vandermeer and Nigeria is that they have paid
jobs through which they fend for their families. In addition to being
an
Ifa priest, Vandermeer is a senior lecturer in the
Department of African American Studies at the University of
Massachusetts, Boston, and he is currently working towards his
doctorate degree.
Like adherents of Islam and Christianity who observe their morning
prayers before leaving the house, Vandermeer begins his day chanting
Ifa verses,
odus and ancestral chants for
Egungun and throwing kolanuts before
Esu.
The essence is for him to have an idea how the day would be and
determine what his schedule should look like. “If it is caution and I
don’t have to go out, I will stay indoors. If I have to, I will be
cautious,” Vandermeer said.
So why would an educated, widely travelled African American chose to become an
Ifa priest? Vandermeer says before embracing
Ifa
religion, he had developed a sense of himself as a descendant of
Africa. “So it made sense to me that my spiritual system should be one
that related to Africa.”
Ifa divination system and religion associated with Yoruba
history is common in most cultures in West Africa and later Cuba,
Brazil, Haiti, Jamaica, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela due to the
trans-Atlantic slave trade. The divination system uses an extensive
corpus of texts and mathematical formula interpreted by the diviner. The
Ifa literary
corpus, known as
Odu, is made up of 256 parts subdivided into verses called
Ese.
In the US, Abimbola, a professor of Yoruba language and literature, has
given it so much prominence through his works, especially in the last
two decades. Its philosophy centres around belief in
Olodumare, the Yoruba high God, humility and honesty. Statistics from the Council for Parliament of the World Religions estimate that
Ifa religion has over 70 million followers in Africa and the Americas.
According to Yoruba myth,
Ifa is one of the 401 divinities sent to the cradle of Yoruba civilisation in Ile Ife, Osun State, by
Olodumare to carry out specific tasks on earth. Some of the other divinities are
Ogun who is in charge of hunting, war and iron implements;
Esu, the universal policeman and keeper of
Ase;
and
Ifa who is in charge of divination because of its mental capacity. This role earned
Ifa the nickname
Akerefinusogbon (the young one whose mind is full of wisdom).
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