EARLY DOCUMENTATION OF THE FEMALE DIVINER

by Apetebi Åsa Ifadamilola - Ile Sankofa Sweden (april 2018)

The woman as a diviner in the West African traditional religion has been documented already in the beginning of the 20th Century. The ethnographer Bernard Maupoil (1906-1944) mentions the role of the male and female Bokono in his ethnography 'La géomancie a l'ancienne Côte des Esclaves'.

The term Bokono comes from a word that means 'diviner' in the Fon and Ewe languages. The term is associated with the Ifá, Fa and Afá traditions in Yorubaland, Igboland, Benin, Togo and Ghana. According to Maupoil there are many different names used for the Bokono, including what we today know as Babalawo - a male Ifá priest, and Awo – the gender neutral term for an Ifá priest. (Maupoil, p. 112).

According to Maupoil's research, although the role of the Bokono was mostly reserved to men at the time, there had been observations of women as diviners, as well. A diviner in Porto-Novo in Benin mentions female diviners living in Nigeria in Maupoil's research. The informant had met all but one of the women in person. Maupoil also mentions female diviners in the 18th and 19th Centuries in Dahomey, in today's Benin. (Maupoil, p. 153-154).

A photograph of a divining woman exists from the early 20th Century in Jakob Spieth's (1856-1914) ethnography ”Die Ewe-Stämme”. The photograph depics a woman handling an opele, the divining chain only used by Ifá priests and priestesses. An iroke, a divination pointer or bell, can be seen on the ground on her side. The caption in German says ”Eine Frau bei Ausübung der Wahrsagerei” - translated to 'A woman practicing fortune-telling'. (Spieth, p. 78).

Works cited:

Maupoil, B. (1943). ”La géomancie à l'ancienne Côte des Esclaves”.

Spieth, Jakob (1906). ”Die Ewe-Stämme: Material zur Kunde des Ewe-Volkes in Deutsch-Togo”.

Written Originally by Ile Sankofa