The Healing Power of Sacrifice

The chief purposes of this book are three: first, to give a lucid account of the typical day-to-day activities of Ifá priests with a view to highlighting their preoccupations, personalities and perspectives as custodial of Yorùbá religion, culture and philosophy. Second, to illuminate our understanding on the nature and structure of the Yorùbá general beliefs. And the third is to contribute to the plethora of studies already undertaken on Ifá by scholars. This new addition to the existing literatures marks yet another horizon in the ever growing studies of Ifá. The key datum for this study is Odù Ifá which is drawn from our vast field experience and tenacious research into Ifá corpus for a fat number of years. Suffice it to say that this is still an on-going encounter. Ifá is highly placed and referred to among the major divinities not only within the Yorùbá native land but also in the disapora. Spates of modernity not-withstanding, Ifá continues to flourish and to remain the supreme authority on Yorùbá culture, socio-ethics, arts and religion. It encompasses the Yorùbá World-views, cosmology, faiths and values. Succinctly put, Ifá is very deep and broad knowledge about the religious and mundane life of the Yorùbá both in the past and in the present. It also forecasts the future.