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THE TRAINING OF IFÁ PRIESTS

The training of Ifá priests is a supreme example of sacrifice in human endeavor. It demonstrates that human memory can be stretched to an almost limitless extent for the retention of knowledge.

The aim of the training is to give the would-be priests a disciplined attitude to many problems in life. In ancient times, Ifá priests were the guardians, counsellors, philosophers and physicians of their various communities.

It was therefore, the primary aim of the training to prepare the would-be priests adequately to meet the grave responsibilities of important positions in the community. Most people start their training as Ifá priests between the ages of seven and twelve. If the training goes well without a hitch, and if the trainee has a retentive memory, the training lasts not more than ten to twelve years.

There are usually many dropouts during the training with only a small percentage of those who start the training completing it successfully. This is due to several factors of which the most important are firstly the mental rigour and secondly the extremely hard conditions of living involved in the training.

Throughout the period of training, the master-priest and his trainees live together as brothers. Age and seniority are respected and given priority among trainees in certain matters.

The trainees do household work for the master-priest. This is especially the case with master-priests who have no wives. Such people depend on their trainees for carrying out all the menial jobs of their households.

It is also not uncommon for the master-priest to have a small farm near the town or village in which he lives. In such a case, a number of his trainees are sent to the farm regularly to do all the necessary work ranging from weed clearing and planting to the harvesting of the crops.

The master-priest only goes to the farm once in a while to supervise the activities of the trainees.

The training starts by teaching the would-be priest how to use the paraphernalia of the divination system. This includes learning how to use the divining chain and the sacred palm nuts of divination to find out the appropriate Odù and ÷s÷ relating to particular clients.

This part of the training is known as dIdá-æwô (learning how to use the divining chain for divination) and ètìtë-alë (learning how to use the sacred palm nuts for divination).

The divining chain is one of the first instruments in the paraphernalia of Ifá to be introduced to the would-be priest. He is taught how to recognize the various combinations of the half-nuts of the divining chain that make up each Odù. The trainee learns one Odù every other day, or in the case of very dull boys, one Odù every week.

Each trainee's progress depends entirely on his own memory and intelligence.
This part of the training of the would-be priest does not end until the trainee is able to use the divining chain to recognize the respective signatures of the two hundred and fifty-six odù in the Ifá divination corpus.

After the student Ifá priest has mastered the use of the divining chain, he is introduced to the sacred palm-nuts, that is, ikin. This part of the training is known as ètìtë-alë, and it consists of teaching the would-be priest to be able to use the sacred palm-nuts to find out the appropriate odù by making marks on the yellow powder of divination.

As the sacred palm nuts are used less frequently by the Ifá priest than the divining chain, less time is devoted to this part of the training.

By far the most important part of the work of the student if a priests is learning by heart of a number of ÷s÷ from each of the two hundred and fifty-six Odù. Particular attention is paid to the principal sixteen odù, which are also the first sixteen Odù in the corpus.

There seems to be no fixed number of ÷s÷ which each trainee must learn before he qualifies for initiation, but most of my informants confirm that in ancient times, nobody would be respected as a good Ifá priest unless he has learnt by heart at least sixteen ÷s÷ in each of the two hundred and fifty-six Odù.

Nowadays, however, it seems that most Ira priests know less than sixteen ÷s÷ in each Odù. The ÷s÷ are memorized at the steady rate of one per day. In the case of very long ones, the master-priest could divide the ÷s÷ into two or three parts and devote one day's tuition to each part.

It is a common sight to see many trainees queuing up to take their turns while learning their ÷s÷. Each ÷s÷ is learnt in the form of recitation in the first instance.
The master-priest says one complete sentence at a time and the trainee parrots the words after him several times until he is able to retain the whole sentence in his memory.

This is done for each sentence until the whole ÷s÷ has been covered. Thereafter, the onus is on the student to find time to repeat the whole ÷s÷ to himself several times. This process is termed rírán Ifá (reiteration of Ifá verse).

According to many of my informants, after a trainee has properly memorized the first sixteen ÷s÷, the task of learning Ifá verse by heart becomes relatively easy for him.

It is widely believed that many of the trainees are greatly aided by a medicinal preparation known as ìsöyè (memory-aid), which they take with their food three times a day.

This medicine is supposed to make it impossible for any Ifá priest to forget any ÷s÷ which he has already painstakingly learnt by heart.

Learning how to chant the ÷s÷ is reserved for a much later part of the training. A clever trainee, however, acquires the art of chanting Ifá verse by imitating his master when chanting ÷s÷ Ifá everyday during the process of performing Ifá divination.

A trainee could also learn the art of chanting Ifá verse by attending the regular assemblies of Ifá priests. Ifá priests could, however, specialize in chanting as part of their post initiation training.

The ÷s÷ is memorized with such a great reverence that not a single word is missed. It is considered extremely sacrilegious for anybody to add or subtract anything from the corpus.

The ÷s÷ must always be learnt in the very form in which it has been preserved and disseminated from ancient times. It is believed that in this way the texts in the Ifá literary corpus have been kept free from errors. The corpus, therefore, remains till today one of the most reliable genres of Yoruba oral literature.

Another important part of the trainee's work is the learning of the appropriate sacrifices that a client must be asked to offer if a particular ÷s÷ Ifá turns out as the solution to his problem. The name given to the section of the corpus in which detailed instructions are provided about various sacrifices is Ökarara-÷bæ.

It is a very difficult and confusing part of the corpus since every ÷s÷ Ifá has its own appropriate sacrifice. The would-be priest therefore has to learn a number of items required for sacrifice among which usually occur clothes, money, cooked food, fresh fruit and drinks.

In addition, he has to learn the proper process of using these things for sacrifice. For example, one ÷s÷ Ifá may stipulate that a piece of cloth used for sacrifice should be burnt while another stipulates that it should be cut into pieces.

Another ÷s÷ Ifá may name six things to be offered as sacrifice and furthermore prescribe that the various items should be arranged in a particular order and deposited in the bush or placed on the shrine of a particular god.

In addition to learning by heart the things required for sacrifice and learning how to use them for sacrifice, the would-be priest has to learn certain poems that are meant to be chanted whenever certain sacrifices are being performed. These chants are not actually in the main stream of the literary corpus known as ÷s÷. They are special chants meant only for sacrifice.