Odù Ifá (educational)
An educational introduction to the sixteen principal Odù of Ifá, the Yoruba wisdom tradition: see one Odù’s name, figure and rank of seniority. Not real divination.
How Odù Ifá (educational) works
Ifá is the philosophical and divinatory system of the Yoruba people of West Africa, preserved in Nigeria and Benin and carried to the Americas, where it remains alive in Cuba and Brazil, among other places. Its knowledge is organised into Odù, which hold verses (ese Ifá) passed down orally. The sixteen principal Odù, the Méjì, are the foundation of the system. This page is only an educational illustration: it shows the name, figure and seniority position of one of the sixteen principal Odù.
A real Ifá consultation is conducted by an initiated priest, the babaláwo (or iyanifa), with consecrated instruments such as the opele chain or the sacred palm nuts, and it is not reproduced here. The tool simply adds all the digits of the birth date (DDMMYYYY) and takes the remainder of dividing by 16. A remainder of 0 selects the first Odù in the seniority order (Ogbè), 1 the second (Òyèkú), and so on up to remainder 15 (Òfún). The figure is drawn with four rows of one or two marks. This arithmetic is only a teaching device and has no role in real Ifá.
Example: 15 January 1990 gives a sum of 26; 26 divided by 16 leaves a remainder of 10, and the page shows the eleventh Odù, Ìká Méjì. The verses and meaning of this Odù belong to the oral tradition and can only be interpreted by an initiated babaláwo. This content is cultural and educational: it is not real divination, nor a substitute for consulting a practitioner of the tradition or for professional advice.