INITIATION AS THE FOUNDATION BABALAWO
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The word initiation means different meaning to different people. They way each religious society understand it, is not the same Each religious society has ceremonial and religious function, but they also preserve the wisdom and technology of various social function within the community. In Yorubaland, each city has a number of religious societies known as Egbe. Within the egbe there may be a large number of initiated priests; In some instance, occurs for health reasons and at times it is seen as a way to heal mental health problem. Each egbe generally has the responsibility of preserving the traditions, information and mysteries of a single Odu. When a new egbe is formed in a community, it is the Ifa priest who give birth to the society by initiating the founding elders. However, what the traditional worshipper are concerned with is that initiation is an oat of bringing and making people filled fully into the society which they belong, so that they don't fell inferior in the presence of the others. After a person has been initiated, they may want or chose to learn divination. The usual process of learning divination is a period of training with an experienced. (Awo) who presents the students with a set of opele that have been blessed and cleaned for use as tools of divination. From the beinging the students learn one verse from each of the 16 Odu. Once this has been accomplished the student will continue to learn additional verse until some verses is learned from each Odu. After this materials has been submitted to memory the student is generally ready to practice divination on their own. This dones not mean that their training has come to an end. Most learner consider study of divination to be a life long process. To the Babalawo's and the Olorisa's they attached more importance to initiation to the extend that they rendered any members that has not undergone initiation redundant and at the same time they attributed all his mis doing to lack of initiation. Initiation is of a great value of the Babalawo's as this is the basic way of moving forward as regard learning of Ifa and taken it as a real job. The Babalawo have a communal shrine called "Igbodu" each initiate has a personal shrine that in usually located at their home. The Babalawo initiation ceremony fall under this categories: a) Sefa. b) Paying homage to Odu. c) Appease to Ori (Eleda). d) Initiation proper. SEFA This method is the first step to take before going to igbodu. And it is the native custom that they sefa for the visitor. It is this method that will now prove, or show that he is ready for the initiation. It is carried out by Babalawo. It is this (sefa) that will be carried down to igbodu (place where initiation will be perform). PAYING HOMAGE TO ODU This method are carry out after someone is ready for the initiation. These Odu serve as a good creator that always give support to Orunmila. And the reason why attributed to this is to create an awareness on the in coming stranger. APPEASE TO ORI As we know that ifa linked to the concept of Ori every Ori, make an agreement with Olodumare. And it is this agreement that will shows the type of life each one of us will live. Every Ori is created by a specific odu and the quality of odu will shows the nature of the person character or what he will be in future. So, the stranger have to appease to his Ori to bring him out a good Odu on its initiation. This is where a real initiation proper will be performed. But before the real commencement of the ceremony the strangers would be ask to sit on the traditional mat called (eni Agbafi). And what he has used to appease to ori, either guinea fowl or hen would have been cooked for him then will be ask to eat every thing without remaining anything. After all the initiation process are still continue by the Babalawos.
You can forward your question or enquires to the following address: FALOLA ADESANYA Egbe Ifa Ode Remo phone no: +2348060160465 |