Where I got it all

I'm fairly often asked where the texts and other stuff on my site comes from - like Ode Remo material given to me by my godfather Awo Fa'Lokun Fatunmbi, or through studying with other people, or whatever? Actually it's a bit of all, including "whatever". My "stuff", which mainly consists of a fairly large collection of Ese Ifa en some historical/theological facts, (possibly) fictions and (definitely - grin!) opinions, was collected from lots of different sources. Oddly enough I've never been to Nigeria but I had a look around in South Africa and Senegal (actually before I encountered Ifa as a way of life), and was confronted there with divination systems from what one might describe as the "Ifa cluster". Didn't dig much into it though... just enough to keep it hanging around in my mind until 1982 when I began to "get into" Ifa-Orisha.

So much is documented!

During the 1980's I began to collect every Ifa text and such that I could lay my hands on. Most people don't have the faintest idea how much has been recorded in mainly the 19th and 20th century, although there's also material from way before. Among the institutions that were of great value to me was the (library of) the Africa Institute of the Leiden University here in Holland. Counted all together I must have spent months and months and months there, browsing and copying my way through old books, mimeographs, ancient magazines, unique typescipts and even unique manuscripts. Indeed, over the years I must have spent much of my life digging deep sown into that library...

Much of the stuff I found was in English, with German as a good follower-up. There's an enormous lot of Ifa stuff/texts in German... if one only takes the trouble of investing the time to find it! There's not much in Dutch, but since neither English nor German are a problem for me, I kept collecting and collecting! Most of the available texts, including the old mimeographs and unique typescripts, also had the original Yoruba texts (especially the Germans were very meticulous doing this), which enabled me here and there to improve the quality of my translations from the German (and also some French) by looking at the Yoruba versions and avoid some mistakes... while probably introducing some of my own (silly grin)!

Of course much of "my" stuff was delivered and taught to me by Awo Fa'Lokun Fatunmbi, who initiated me into the mysteries of Oshoosi in 1994, throwing in "omolawo" of Ifa to boot. However, my quite extensive DIY produced lots and lots more, because there really is a lot of Ese Ifa available, to be seen by all, but noticed by very few. It just takes time, dedication and energy to find it... which is exactly what I have been investing since the eighties: energy, dedication and time! I also was much helped by the Nigerian Yoruba colony that lived in London in the 1990's and, after my initiation in 1994, came over to Amsterdam to stay with me quite often. Among them was a blood cousin of the Araba Adesanya Awoyade (the Araba who initiated Awo Falokun), and what he told me back then about the Araba being very well aware and actually approving of Falokun's activities and even of my own initation, suggests to me that the 2011/2012 hullabaloo about Falokun is simply a "religious palace coup d'etat" in Ode Remo... having nothing to do with Falokun not being trained or not being allowed to initiate and teach. But that was a side track... I was talking about my collection of stuff. The Yoruba brothers I mentioned above gave me some stuff from their own Ifa families that was never published before, and never could I be happier than when some "new" Ifa text became added to "my" Corpus! The fact that others don't have something similar to my collection, is not that it isn't available, but that they're too lazy (or too set in the limiting ways of their House!) to go get it.

During the 1990's I also did some research together with a Leiden University professor, who also happened to be an initiated Botswana "Hakata" or "Four Tablets" diviner with an enormous knowledge and background of the Ifa system(s)! He, and others whom I was in contact with when I still lived in Amsterdam, were able to introduce me to the often overlooked NON-Orunmila forms of Ifa divination, and I was offered some insights into their own knowledge and research... which confirmed what I already knew: the Youruba "Orunmila system" simply got the best press and has the best spin doctors... but it's a relatively minor branch within the whole Ifa divination complex.

The problem is that the whole crowd, especially in the Diaspora, has been kind of brainwashed into believing that the Orunmila system is the Ifa system... not understanding or realizing (sometimes not even allowed to think of!) the fact that it is a relative newcomer on the scene. What always drives them crazy and fills them with the urge to kill me (wide girn!) is when I state that initiation into Ifa/Orunmila is not necesessary at all for becoming/being an Ifa diviner. As far as I know, the Yoruba Orunmila system is the only branch of the Ifa divination complex where such initiation has become mandatory!!! I've seen Africans from all over the continent divine with all kinds of things, including Opele, without ever having been initiated into something called "Orunmila". The vast majority of African Ifa diviners never even heard of the man...

When it comes to learning, the attitude in large parts of the diaspora tends to be kind of uptight. Independent study and research is not commonly encouraged, and only a decade ago the reading of books was even actually discouraged! Believe me, guys: what I write, translate, post and publish is neither new nor secret/exclusive... on the contrary... it's always been there for everyone to see. But hardly anybody looked because... they weren't allowed to! And often they're still not allowed... Ain't life a pisser (wide and wicked grin)?!