rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

2007 ODU: CUBAN COUNCIL OF ELDER PRIESTS OF IFA

hello world
and all its generations

this ODU (reading/divination/propehcy) by the cuban council of elder priests of ifa
is important to me on a lot of fronts,

1, this is a model of what i need to do for my
yearly griotic report

amazing how the universe will give you what you need when you need it

cause 2, as you know dear surfer ive been trying to develop a hoodoo diination system
because i am so envious of this one, the ifa system, and i want to do divination
on a level beyond what i do now but hoodoo aint got no divination system and

ifa they wont teach you unless you deep in the tradition but i cant initiate cause
the conqueror dont bow  -  thats why ima hoodooman in the 1st place

and then there those cultural moments when you realize ifa was designed for another culture
i want something rooted deep in afroam culture history and destiny - thats why ima hoodooman in the 1st place

but i want that divinatory power in hoodoo, i want that prophetic power
so i almost got to  develop a divination system based in hoodoo and afroam culture history and destiny

doing it in conjunction with an attempt to develop a hoodoo holybook
a blackworld holybook based on a sacred history of the black world

the hoodoo book of flowers: the great black book of generations
interesting that i tried all these other formats before settling on an ifa divination model

i tried a biblic format, a koranic format, a iching format - none of them worked
much less achieved numinousity

so now im trying a divination format, an ifa/iching format because i want/need to
incorporate a prophetic element in the hoodoo tradition,

i feel this odu
the conqueror talking to me

problem with me building a afroam hoodoo divination system riffing off ifa
is that as a self taught diviner i know so little, in fact i know nothing, im flying blind
(get it, the blind diviner, ahem)

but im not willing to go through iniitation in another system
just to learn the tricks of the divination trade, i am constitutionally incapable

i will have to speak to the conqueror and patchwork one together
so what else is new in the hoodoo way (and afroam culture)

i envy hoodoos who practice hoodoo in conjunction
with practice in the various african traditional systems

at least they know one system well

i see stuff like this and i wonder how the hoodoo way
will ever reach the kind of divinatory legitimacy ifa has

i want to position the hoodoo way at the crossroads

between systems, in it but not of it, not subject to other folk theological rules and regulations
dont nobody encompass the conqueror - the conqueror do not bow

trying to flip hoodoos outsider status into the power point, the prophetic point
but that mean i need to know all the systems

what you dont know in any one system cause folk
deep in that system to lose respect for you

but when you aspire to be a generalist and know them all
its always something you dont know in any one given system

i keep finding out theres stuff i dont know in my own system

specially when i want to position the hoodoo way as the prophetic voice
in the african traditional family

i see stuff like this and i wonder how the hoodoo way
will ever reach the kind of divinatory legitimacy ifa has

this would be so much easier if i was able to study practice and master ifa
then use that to riff the hoodoo way, but i guess then i wouldnt be driven to do
a hoodoo system would i - gon have to improvise, thats what we do best

anymethod anytime

i would love to study all these systems as an insider instead of a clueless outsider
but the conqueror dont bow - its hoodoo do or die

i myself use my head rather than my hands

but this divinatory/prophetic thread is very much
what i want to incorporate into the hoodoo tradition

this odu spoke to that interest on a lot of levels
this odu answered questions i hadnt even asked

i would be interested in any insight into this process and product

my understanding is in many of the prophetic traditions of east africa the difference
between the basic diviner and the divinerprophet is that the prophet
assumes responsibility for the community and not just the client

the powers are the same, just one works for self and client
the other god and community

the diviners readings are private, the prophets divinations
public and communal

far as i can see the only thing that really distinqiushes those of us
who claim a cultural role for hoodoo is the sense of responsiblity
for the welfare of the community

help the tribe survive another winter, everything i do is about
the survival and the prosperity, the illumination of our generations

this is what the folk who just passing thru would strip from hoodoo

this reading, this process, this power
strikes me as a potential instrument of manifesting that responsibility

be well
rickydoc trickmaster

--------------------------------------------------

Odu:  OKANA JUANI

Prophecy:  Ire Arikú Oyale, (A well-being of health thanks to
Orunmila) an Adimú offering should be given to Orunmila of obi, omi
tuto (water, and coconut). This offering should given as soon as
possible.

Governing Orisha:  Ochanlá (Female Obatala)
Accompanying Orisha:  Ogun
Banner:  White with purple borders

EBO:  1 rooster, 1 hen with 5 toes, used clothes, a trap, arrows,
dirt from the house, earth from the river, a knife, machete,
surgical instruments, a toy gun, measurements of the person, and
the intestines of the ebo animals. Opolopo owo.   (Lots of money).

Herbs of this Odu:  Chamomile, Cundeamor, Hierba de la Sangre,
Bledo
Blanca and Purple Basil.  (Consult your elders before using.)

REFRANES OF THE ODU:

Dress me slowly because I am in a hurry.
Where the truth is uncovered, the lie is discovered.
In war, he who sleeps loses.
That which has a principle has an objective.
The machete comes and cuts off the head of the corn that challenged it.
The clay doll never falls without ceasing to exist.

OFFERINGS OF THE ODU:  Bananas for Shango.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Ifa Says:  In this Odu there exist affectations to people's health,
with regard to the nervous and gastrointestinal systems, the mouth,
and sexually transmitted diseases.  It is recommended that everyone
attend to his or her oral hygiene, not overeat, especially at
night.  It is advised that people not eat food that is hot, overly
spicy or containing excessive condiments or oil.  Food should eaten
fresh and not leftover for many days.  The general level of
nutrition should be improved for everyone wherever possible
especially for the children.

Ifa Says:  Men should be careful with their sexual relationships, so
as to not develop sexual dysfunction.

Ifa Says:  Men should avoid conflicts between themselves caused by women.

Ifa Says:  This Odu speaks of legal problems and their
repercussions, which could have the consequence of incrementing
corruption and crime at different social and familial levels. 
(This Odu proscribes that all illegal activities be punished with
justice).

Ifa Says:  It is recommended that all property have legal title and
that any issues regarding inheritance be resolved with family
understanding.

Ifa Says:  Avoid any type of family violence.  This Odu prohibits
the mistreatment of women.

Ifa Says: We should care for and preserve our biological and
spiritual families.  The religious community should unite in order
to avoid fraud produced on the part of unscrupulous people; we
should struggle against the commercialization of the religion.

Ifa Says:  This Odu proscribes that Babalawos be humble and an
example for our communities.  He who does not embody these ethical
norms is not a deserving member of our religion.

Ifa Says:  This Odu recommends good relations between neighboring
countries.

Ifa Says:  We should not meddle in other people's business and
maintain good convivial relationships with our neighbors.  (One
cannot be nosey).

Ifa Says:  This Odu warns against family crises due to disrespect
and a lack of understanding of each member's role in the family;
every family should strive to resolve these issues – this includes
our spiritual families.

Ifa Says: In the upcoming year we have to feed Elegua.

Ifa Says:  We should attend to the Orisha The Ibeji (los jimaguas)
and receive them if we do not yet have them.

Ifa Says:  Wear the Achaba (chain) of Ogun.

Ifa Says:  This Odu warns that we should have a religious vigilance
to guard against dirty fighting, sorcery and the sending of spirits
that is present at this time.

Ifa Says:  Pregnant women should take special care with their
pregnancies this year as this Odu warns against congenital birth
defects.  Taboos against sexual relations between family members
should be strictly adhered to.

Ifa Says:  This year, we must pay special attention to our young
people to be sure they are on the right path, as a departure from
the norm could cause mental disorders to develop in their mothers.

Ifa Says:  We should be especially careful driving all types of
vehicles and avoid excessive speeds and driving while under the
influence.

Ifa Says:  We should adhere to our religious instructions in order
to avoid difficulties and problems in our daily lives.

Ifa Says:  The priests of Ifa, the Obases, the Babalochas and
Iyalochas should be careful and prudent while interpreting the
different Oracles.

For general knowledge 

On the first of December of 2006, the members of the Cuban Council
of Elder Priests of Ifa in the presence of a significant number of
Cuban Babalawos, and those of other countries, held ceremonies
corresponding to the preamble of the 2007 Odu of the Year which
were carried out at the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba. 
>   
The recommendations of Ifa were the following: 

What was requested by the 25 prime positions was complied with, and
in all cases, the response of the deities was satisfactory. 

On December 30, 2006, the corresponding sacrifices, which were
determined in the preamble, were made to the proper deities, which
concluded with the realization of the Odu of the Year in the small
hours of 1 January of 2007.

THESE CEREMONIES TOOK PLACE AT THE "YORUBA CULTURAL ASSOCIATION OF
CUBA."

feeding my obsessions and ifa chosen by unesco heritage list: wish i had known, i would have submitted hoodoo

hello world

this was sent on a listserve w/o a link
tried to confirm this and could not
did find out that the new additions to unesco
list were just announced so i assume its true
and of interest even if not

at least to folk like myself
interested in divination

wish i had known they were doing this
i would have submitted hoodoo

ohwell, moving right along . . .

i scheduled 2 days for my breakdown of rest
it took about 7, god aint it always like that

it was a very humbling experience
noting all the problems to be fixed

and im still coming up with ideas
which is really bad, new ideas means raw manuscript
and some would say dont do it arthur, just go with what you got

but whats happening is that now that i have the storyline down
the magic is staring to come thru and i want this to be a magical text

for instance:

one of my folkloric neighborhood characters is staggerlee
a gangsta rapper who after katrina becomes political

there is this rumor in the neighborhood that the crossroads
where you sell your soul to legba to become a great bluesman
is where the person ave crosses the expressway into the park
highjohn and most of the neighborhood consider it a local urban legend

until staggerlee decides to cut the deal and when he gets the the midnight crossroads
he is surprised to find highjohn waiting for him and this is a surprise to highjohn too
that he the one folk been calling legba at the crossroads
so he cuts the deal in legba or rather highjohn the conquerors name

dont know how i will work this out
maybe he takes walks in the woods/park when hes feeling fey, day and night
and realizes that people have seen him walking the woods at night
and thats where the legba at the crossroads rumors have come from

i dont know, got a lot to work out to make this work
and more like it that have been percolating in me

got to just do up the raw manuscript and then start fixing it
i might do that one crossroads one today just to get it started

new ideas like this you have to just do the raw manuscript immediately
then you know eventually you will fix it, but if you dont do the raw manuscript
immediately you might not ever do it, so ima start that today
(after i do the days longhand, finishing draft is still priority)

while i was breaking my draft down i had many such 'what ifs' present themselves
i wont followthru on all of them cause i want to be through more than anybody

but some like this one i cannot resist, i wont even try
when i thought of this one i got that little oh yeah feeling that no writer ignores

messed around and started making some ideological moves too
seems im coming out of the woodshed and did some institutionalization maintenance
on the hoodoo way list, my secretsocieties initiative and newren workshop

and i put my music collection on my ipod (some 7,000 songs now, that was a lot of work)

i had to upgrade recently from a 20 to a 60 meg ipod because of all the goodies
i found at the public library and then i figured what the heck, the best collection in
the world is right here on my shelf

and instead of my absolute favorites which is what i had in the 20, (about 3000 songs)
i put everything that i might want in my digital collection on it  (7000 and counting)

got obsessed with it like i do and bonnie will tell you thats the reason
it took 7 days to do what should have taken 2 but what can i say, music is
an integral part of my artistic being - i work to the beat

finished that project this morning reeling w/fatigue,
now i got to get down with some serious longhand
im behind schedule

and i got to bring my ideological projects back online
i just cannot stand to see them languish any longer

its like im in kind of a half woodshed

but they still my projects instead of the schoolhouse grind
im still good to go - i love feeding my obsessions

i have over the years come to trust my obsessions
i remember when i took up the bluesharp and spent hours and hours
and wondering if i was not being serious about my writing time
w/all this bluesharping

but i was obsessed with it and could not fight the power
samesame kalimba

now the bluesharp and kalimba are integral parts of my literary identity
of my griotic skils as a black writer in the oral tradition and i see
where the gods of literature were looking out for me when they gave
me that obsession

samesame when jeff parker turned me onto hypertext and
online competency, what i cursed as a distractive obsession
turns out to have been a critical skill in my evolution as a
21st century literary man

i have come to trust my obsessions

so i got to maintain my production schedule
and feed my obsessions when they come

thats why im always looking for more gears
(being ever more disciplined and systematic about my productiohn)

im outta here
got to get crunching on my longhand
got to get busy got to get busy

instruggle
rickydoc flowers

------------------------------

Nigeria's Ifa corpus enters UNESCO heritage list
By Kabir Alabi Garba
 
ORUNMILA, the Patron Saint of Ifa practitioners which other praise name is "Okunrin Kikuru Oke Igeti" (the small statured one resident in Igeti Hill), must have beamed a smile at the weekend.
 
The country, in far away Paris, booked another place on the UNESCO cultural heritage map as Ifa, the country's submission to the Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity secured the approval of the international body.
 
The occasion was the Third Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage and Nigeria was among 75 member states whose 65 cultural masterpieces were reviewed by an international jury composed of 18 members.
 
The five-day conference, which ended last Friday in Paris, France, had in attendance two representatives from Nigeria. They were Professors Wande Abimbola, Special Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Culture and Traditional Matters and Akinwumi Ishola.
 
Nigeria's ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, Professor Michael Omolewa described the development as outstanding.
 
"It is with great pleasure that I am announcing to you that our entry of Ifa into the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is successful. The decision was taken last night by the International Jury and it was announced today (Friday) at the award ceremony held at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris,'' according to a press statement by Omolewa.
 
He said: "This achievement belongs to the Almighty God alone, He is the one that gave us the very professional expertise of Professor Wande Abimbola and Professor Akinwumi Ishola, both of whom prepared the very rich candidature file of Nigeria.''
 
The diplomat premised the importance of the proclamation on the competitiveness of the award. "Now, the world can appreciate the quality of the wisdom and understanding of the African race before the intrusion of colonial rule, we therefore expect that the award will lead to an enhanced status for tourism promotion and capacity-building in Nigeria,'' remarked Omolewa.
 
Since 2001 when the proclamation was instituted, it has remained an international forum to reward popular and traditional forms of heritage such as oral expressions, music, rituals, social practices, traditional craftmanship or knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe.
 
The brief on Ifa submitted by the two renowned scholars, said the masterpiece is presented as a West African geomantic system popular among several West African groups like the Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Bete, Bariba, Eve, Fon, Ebira, Jukun among others.
 
It is stated that "among some of these groups like the Eve of Togo and Ghana, the Fon of Benin Republic, the Bete of Cross River State and others, Ifa has been playing an important role in their social, political, and cultural lives. Perhaps the most important thing to note is the fact that in all these West African cultures, Ifa has been preserved as an oral tradition passed on from one generation to the other by word of mouth, yet it is carefully preserved and disseminated.
 
"Among the Yoruba, the training of an Ifa priest so that he/she can chant or recite the elaborate corpus of the sacred literature in the course of rituals, healing and divination, takes more than 20 years. It is a rigorous and time-consuming exercise in which only the very best can excel.
 
"Everywhere the Ifa divination is practised, the language of ese Ifa is Yoruba, and that is why the first three parts of ese Ifa are chanted in pure Yoruba. However, among non-Yoruba communities, other parts of the ese Ifa are chanted in their local languages or dialects. For example, in Cuba, the first three parts of ese Ifa are chanted in Yoruba while the other parts are chanted in Spanish.
 
"In other words, the contents of the story remains the same but explanation in prose by the babalawo to the client are rendered in local languages or dialects and based on their experiences. However, Ifa literature is not fully developed among the non-Yoruba speaking communities because of lack of competence in the Yoruba language.

 
"Each Ifa poem also has its own adornment of stylistic features. Two of the most important and characteristic features of Ifa style are repetition and word-play. Both of these stylistic features often occur in combination. It will be sufficient to mention that the richness of style and language of Ifa poems is very greatly valued and appreciated by the highly poetically-conscious Yoruba traditional society.
 
"The ordinary Yoruba person patronises the Ifa priests not only because of their belief in the predictions and pronouncements of Ifa but also because of the aesthetic enjoyment which they derive from listening to the chanting of a form of poetry which is exceedingly rich in style and language.
 
"Since traditional Yoruba society was non-literate, going to Ifa priests for divination therefore represented an important medium of contact with such a highly developed form of poetry. The contact which the traditionally minded Yoruba makes constantly with the Ifa literary corpus therefore enriches his aesthetic values and satisfies his imaginative instincts in the same way as modern novels, poems and films educate, satisfy and enrich the city dwellers.
 
"Studies have shown that the oral texts of Ifa divination contain valuable hints on Yoruba history including the history of the Yoruba language. In addition to their roles as experts of Yoruba mythology, divination and sacrifice, Ifa priests also play the role of historians, counselors, and physicians up till today in the communities where they still exist.
 
"Studies have also revealed that Ifa textual materials contain deep philosophical themes which can be regarded as West Africa's contributions to philosophical ideas. The Ifa literary corpus is the storehouse of Yoruba culture, inside which the experiences of the Yoruba people and some of their neighbours have been preserved throughout the ages. This demonstrates that non-literate people can preserve, maintain, transmit and disseminate important ingredients of their own culture without knowing how to read or write. As a profound West African body of knowledge, and West Africa's contribution to intellectual ideas, Ifa deserves to be preserved and made available to a wider audience in the modern world.''