Book overview
One system. Four names. One ancient source.
Across West Africa, millions of people have practiced a form of sacred divination based on the same sixteen foundational signs - the same binary mathematical structure, the same palm nuts and chain, the same cosmological framework. The Yoruba call it Ifa. The Fon call it Afa. The Ewe call it Fa. The Edo call it Iha. They share the same root and trace back to the same spiritual intelligence: the sacred knowledge transmitted through Orunmila, the Witness of Destiny.
This book is the first practitioner-authored comparative study of these four related systems - their common origins, their distinct regional developments, how they diverged across centuries and geography, and what unites them beneath the surface differences.
Babalawo Olodu Ifadahunsi Egundiran Obafemi Alladahanou, Akoda Awo of UNIOV, brings both initiatory knowledge and years of research to this study. This is not an academic survey. It is the account of a practicing Babalawo who has studied the tradition from the inside and traced its roots through the Odu corpus, oral histories, and comparative ritual practice.
What this book examines:
The mythological origins of Ifa divination in the Yoruba corpus - Orunmila's role, the Ikin palm nuts, and the transmission of the 256 Odu.
How Ifa became Afa among the Fon of Dahomey and Benin - the vocabulary that shifted, the signs that were renamed, the religious figures that changed form.
The Fa tradition of the Ewe people - its relationship to both Ifa and Afa, and its unique ceremonial development.
Iha among the Edo people of what is now Edo State, Nigeria - its relationship to Ifa proper and its distinctive priestly structure.
The sixteen primary signs common to all four systems - their names in each tradition, their assigned meanings, and the theological logic that unifies them.
What the survival of these four related systems across separate peoples and centuries tells us about the depth, sophistication, and resilience of African sacred knowledge.
For anyone who practices any of these systems - or who wants to understand the full picture of West African sacred science - this is essential reading.
Nubala Ifa Library. Published by Nubala Publishing.
