₦airaland Forum

Finished your day's work, now you go home to drink beer and eat jollof while listening to 9Ice..... chai...

0temSapien:
LWKMD

What does this mean?

vaxx:
educate us a little on what you read there

Well, it's by a woman named Deidre Prescod. She's from Trinidad, and she got initiated into the Ifa religion in Tobago I believe. The book basically describes this, as well as her time spent in Nigeria climbing the Ifa chain, if you will... she's now an iyanifa and reads odu.. the book details a whole bunch of odu and the proper ebo for them, it also details the Yoruba belief system and what everything means, it really doesn't say much about ebo in general like what you explained, as Orisa don't eat the ebo or do anything with them... it didn't mention that. It talked about manifestations of Orisa, like one woman could take on the personality of Olokun and another could take on the personality of Sango.

Y'all, check this book out:
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Nigeria-Reflections-Ifa-Initiate/dp/152131652X
Has anyone read this before? If not I recommend CuteMadridista check it out. To me it's very informative....

CuteMadridista:
Let's be charitable with each other please, each person should state his answer and we move to the next one

ATR doesn't have a Holy spirit that Christians communicates to every Christian so its okay if there are differences, even contradictions as no man is an island in this kind of thing

You said it! It's not all the same, which is what makes it so interesting.

Isn't that a little insulting to call someone a genius when you don't know them?

LOL! All of this arguing is pointless and stupid. Since I really don't know much about Ifa, I can't attest to Vaxx or Folykaze's posts as truth or not. But as CuteMadridista has said, let's not fight! Please.... ejo, Jẹ kiLẹ gbogbo wa ni ifẹ.

FOLYKAZE:
A spiritual athiest with a passion for Isese. Not an Olorisha but an adherent

Ok.. so yes and no? You don't really believe in God but you enjoy the Yoruba spiritual system, am I correct?

FOLYKAZE:
Yes, it has capacity to be evil because he control the Ajoguns; and can be the best thing.

Ok. So Esu is sort of both good and bad? Hmm.

Folykaze, are you an Ifa believer? Shadyyinka, are you a Christian? CuteMadridista, what are you? I'm not asking this out of malace, just wanting to know beliefs so that I can get a better perspective here on where everyone is coming from.

@Vaxx, interesting response.

This is an interesting thread. Usually, I try to accept or tollerate everyone's beliefs so long as they are not harming others or themselves because of what they believe in. I hate how so many religious idiots always have that "mine is good, yours is evil" mentality. It makes my stomach turn inside out.

vaxx:
let me put some enlightenment here, in the domain of ajala mopin , some irreversible decision were made which are both physical and spiritual , the physical decision include your gender, race, color DNA, blood group and some other element you have no control over, while the spiritual side are made in two area which are Apari-inu represents character; Ori-Apere represents destiny.

Destiny itself is also divided into three areas: Akunleyan, Akunlegba, and Ayanmo. Akunleyan is the request you make at Ajale's domain- what you would like in specifics during this lifetimes. The number of years you wish to live, the kinds of success you hope to achieve, the relationships you desire, the wisdom you seek to accumulate. Akunlegba are those things given to you to help you achieve these things. Both Akunleyan and Akunlegba can be modified or enhanced by symbolical sacrifice and ritual throughout our lives. Ayanmo is that part of our destiny which cannot be changed: our gender, race, sexuality etc. APARI INU , your character can never be changed unless bad habit is doped in favor of good habit.... therefore the ajogun and his symbolic war lords are necessary to appreciate and understand the concept of benevolent universe, instantiation of evil are the handwork of natural being.... imagine if there is no death, how will you appreciate birth, if there illness how will you appreciate good health, if there is no poverty, how will you appreciate wealth......it is all for the purpose of a balance society..... as good as rain might be, imagine a 365 days of a year non stopping rain without a stop, will farmers still called it good? All these opposite effect of mankind are necessary for a balance society are they are not necessarily anti olodumare.... as you put it... nothing like demons in Yoruba cosmology , it is fabrication to suit biblical or Islamic concept.

Wow, interesting! So ajogun are more like man-made creations as a result of their bad behavior and the genral opposits of life? If so this is pretty interesting and revealing....

FOLYKAZE:
Firstly, a deistism is a philosophical position that holds that God (in this case here Eledumare) does not interfare with the world. Thia posit that God is the source of everything and in a perfect condition but there is absenss of divine intervention. This is a fact because no one has ever engage Olódùmarè directly. There is no dedicated shrine or prophet that speaks with him.

Ori is the spark of consciousness and it is integral part of all the entities that exist in the physical world. Ori is not peculiar to only human and that mean that we are not the only conscious entity out there. Maybe what you mean by consciousness is sentience. But the Yoruba people hold that emi (life) and ori (consciousness) is present in every entity that exist. Emi in this case is not biological life but energy. Have you ever wondered there are aboku soro in Yoruba community? Do dead talks? This implies that what we assume dead is only biologically dead but still very much alive as a form of energy.

All the animals you can think about has their owm special Ashe. And this includes the trees and inanimate objects. Therefore, one cannot say that Eledumare is anthropocentric.

Ajoguns who are malevolent agents of Esu can cause one or whole community calamity. This is why Yoruba people appease Esu not to unleash his agent on them with this saying, Èṣù máse mi, ọmọ èlò mi ni ki o se

I agree that everything has its own ase, or energy, similar to the concept of "chi" in Chinese spirituality. However, are you proposing that Esu is in fact, or at least has the capacity to be evil? Why is this?

vaxx:
According to Yoruba cultural myth, we also believe they are some unseen natural element that dwells in the tree , rocks and some other mystical dwelling places, they are called EBORA, IWIN, egbere.... there is a myth that if you can collect egbere mat, you will suddenly become rich, this egbere cries without pause. that is just is nature

Hmmmm, interesting... so not really creatures like trolls or gnomes or whatever, more like different energies?

I absolutely agree with you Pagan9ja....... so much beautiful flora and fauna is being nonchalantly stripped away from the land in which it has always existed for centuries, without so much as a "goodbye" from its killers. And this isn't just happening in Nigeria... it's happening everywhere in Africa, in South America, in the Caribbean... anywhere and everywhere where there's such an abundance of unique, exotic and precious animals and plants people want to take all of them for their own greedy, selfish, heinous benefit!!!!!

Please look up Jane Goodall, a lovely lady with a lovely message about this whole phenomenon... I think you'll really like what she has to say.....

Ok, so of course I had to jump on this thread as I'm very curious about the Yoruba Ifa religion.... Vaxx or anyone else who may be able to answer, are there any other kind of spirits in the Yoruba religion/mythology, not talking about Orisa here, but just any other sort of beings/creatures that the Yoruba believe in? For example the British/Irish believe in fairies and the Icelandic believe in elves....

Ask someone who is smarter than I am?

Does this matter?

Well being a woman myself this conversation makes me very happy! I've always adored that basic and pure feminine power that we all have.... it's lovely and sacred.....

aremuforlife:
The Yoruba calendar (Kojoda)

Yoruba also measure time in 7days a week & 4weeks a month. The traditional Yoruba week has 4days, the 4days calendar was dedicated to the Orisas and the 7day calendar is for doing business.

It go as follow:

Day 1 is dedicated to Obatala (Sopanna, Iyaami, and the Egungun)
Day 2 is dedicated to Orunmila (Esu and Osun) *
Day 3 is dedicated to Ogun (Osoosi)
Day 4 is dedicated to Sango (Oya)

The seven days are:

Ojo-Aiku (Sunday),

Oko-Aje (Monday),

Ojo-Ishegun (Tuesday),

Ojo-Riru (Wednesday),

Ojo-Bo/Alamisi (Thursday),

Ojo-Eti (Friday)

and

Ojo-Abameta (Saturday).

Time is measured in

isheju (minutes),
wakati (hours),
ojo (days),
ose (weeks),
oshu (months) and odun (years).

There are

60 (ogota) isheju in 1 (okan) wakati;
24 (merinlelogun) wakati in 1 ojo;
7 (meje) ojo in 1 ose;
4 (merin) ose in 1 oshu and
52 (ejileladota)ose in 1 (okan) odun.

There are 12 (mejila) oshu in 1 (okan) odun.

#YorubaChannel

Wow, this is awesome, thanks for sharing!

Though I don't want to derail the thread, I actually came up with my own Yoruba writing system yesterday along with a friend of mine! I'll explain more later as I don't want this post to be too long.....

vaxx:
mother, woman, they naturally owned the womb where every child is concived, never underestimate their feminine powers, they are the root every child followed to this world,the way to success lies beneath their feet likewise distruction. The phrase "hell has no fury like a woman scorned" are part of the implication of a negative AJE. every woman who master her feminine power is ''AJE''

Ah, nice! Well I think you're right about all that (LOL)!

vaxx:
present sir, the word Aje has nothing to do with the Eurocentric concept of witches. The word "Ajé" is related to the word "asé" which means "the power of the lifeforce."

Aje represents the particular asé of women which can be positive or negative. It must be clear though that simply being a woman does not make one an Aje, to be an Aje, a woman must master her feminine powers. While asé is in many ways a gender neutral concept, its unique expression in women can be found in the power of a woman's love, sisterhood, motherhood, and the phenomena of childbirth. In these regards, an Aje is understood as a woman who cultivates these powerful feminine powers.authough this female power can be misused but that will be a story for another day.

Oh, ok, that's very cool! Thank you so much for explaining!

However I read somewhere that the Yoruba believe that the aje rule/control the world, is this correct?

Cc: Folykaze, Vaxx

LOL! Simi's so cute.

thunder74:
I got one on play store. There are many Yorùbá keyboard there.

Oh, cool! Well I've got an iPhone, so I'll look on the App Store for one.

Bamz:
Somehow native speakers can read without the accent marks. No doubt that it can become confusing sometimes.

Hmmm, I've heard that. I wonder why? Perhaps because they are just that, fluent speakers? I'm not sure....

Thewesterner:
I agree 100%

Thanks, glad you agree!

thunder74:
Where can we get Yoruba keyboard?

I've been asking that same question myself. Lets' hope Microsoft or Apple will come out with one someday... or let's start a change.org petition...... anything is possible!

Hello!

I just wanted to express my thoughts on how people write Yorùbá words, and why they never use the correct accent marks or special characters when doing so.

Although I'm not a native of Nigeria, nor am I a Yorùbá speaker, I do adore language and, when learning a new one, I always make sure that I'm writing and reading it correctly. Unfortunately, when trying to learn and read Yorùbá, it becomes increasingly difficult to do so since, at least online, the language is not written properly at all by most people, without any accent marks to deduce tones, or any special characters, such as the ẹ, or "eh", the ọ, or "aw", or the Ṣ, or "shi". Without these characters or accent marks to identify tones of words and how they should be correctly pronounced, Yorùbá is impossible to read or comprehend!

What do you all think of this? Do you agree?

The language of the Yorùbá people of Nigeria, West Africa is a very beautiful language for having accent marks that determine or show how a word should be correctly pronounced. For a person who knows how to correctly pronounce the letters, sounds, and words in the Yorùbá language, such a person will need one more skill: the ability to read accent marks as this helps to know the correct pronunciations of words.

One reason why the accent marks are crucial is because in the Yorùbá language one word can have more than three different pronunciations and without the accent marks to different them, reading and comprehension become really difficult. The word "iya" has more than one pronunciation. One pronunciation with its correct accent mark is "ìyá"(this version of the word means "mother". Another version of the same word, with its correct accent marks, which means "suffering" is "ìyà".

These accent marks make the Yorùbá language easy to read just as it makes it beautiful.

Now my question is: do the other Nigerian languages have a similar thing?

Hi,

I'm not sure if other Nigerian languages have similar rules or not as I've only really studied Yoruba, but I completely agree that writing accent marks, as well as writing the correct special characters such as the "eh", "aw", or "shi" characters is, as you said, crucial for learning, reading, and writing it. I get so angry when people do not write the language correctly!

Yes I do, how does this relate?

Transformer like Optimus Prime.